Looking for a short excerpt from Thinking, Fast and Slow
March 30, 2023 5:06 PM Subscribe
In his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes a training exercise used by the Israeli Army. It is something like, "A group of soldiers have to get from one side of a ten foot wooden wall to the other. Their only tool is a 12 foot log, and neither the log nor any of the soldiers are allowed to touch the wall at any time. (The hardest part is getting the last soldier across.)"
I'm hoping someone can provide the actual anecdote.
Additional descriptions of the exercise from other sources welcome. It's just stuck in my mind as being particularly impossible, but I listened to that book on tape so I've never been able to reread and find out if I remembered it correctly.
Additional descriptions of the exercise from other sources welcome. It's just stuck in my mind as being particularly impossible, but I listened to that book on tape so I've never been able to reread and find out if I remembered it correctly.
Best answer: You can search in Google Books.
One test, called the "leaderless group challenge," was conducted on an obstacle field. Eight candidates, strangers to each other, with all insignia of rank removed and only numbered tags to identify them, were instructed to lift a long log from the ground and haul it to a wall about six feet high. The entire group had to get to the other side of the wall without the log touching either the ground or the wall, and without anyone touching the wall. If any of these things happened, they had to declare it and start again.posted by zamboni at 5:20 PM on March 30, 2023 [8 favorites]
There was more than one way to solve the problem. A common solution was for the team to send several men to the other side by crawling over the pole as it was held at an angle, like a giant fishing rod, by other members of the group. Or else some soldiers would climb onto someone's shoulders and jump across. The last man would then have to jump up at the pole, held up at an angle by the rest of the group, shinny his way along its length as the others kept him and the pole suspended in the air, and leap safely to the other side. Failure was common at this point, which required them to start all over again.
Are we sure the log doesn't touch the wall?
I guess it's theoretically possible that if most of the soldiers hold the log like a ramp and then most run over it, jump down the other side, and then last one or two soldiers who are somehow both tall, light and strong, biff the entire log over the wall.
The 4 on the other side hold it like a ramp back in such an angle it overhangs the wall so that last two can boost/jump such that they grab the log, and lift themselves onto it.
I would also dig the log into ground to secure it slightly.
The last soldier has to be able to make a more than 10ft jump (more than basketball hoop height, but not by too much), and pull himself onto it.
It would be the kind of thing only ridiculously fit people could do, but I know rock climbers who might be able to pull it off, in a team of similarly freakishly fit folk??
[Wait, see post above - and actually, 12 ft vs 10 ft wall wouldn't have been enough to get the clearance over the top, probably]
posted by Elysum at 5:30 PM on March 30, 2023
I guess it's theoretically possible that if most of the soldiers hold the log like a ramp and then most run over it, jump down the other side, and then last one or two soldiers who are somehow both tall, light and strong, biff the entire log over the wall.
The 4 on the other side hold it like a ramp back in such an angle it overhangs the wall so that last two can boost/jump such that they grab the log, and lift themselves onto it.
I would also dig the log into ground to secure it slightly.
The last soldier has to be able to make a more than 10ft jump (more than basketball hoop height, but not by too much), and pull himself onto it.
It would be the kind of thing only ridiculously fit people could do, but I know rock climbers who might be able to pull it off, in a team of similarly freakishly fit folk??
[Wait, see post above - and actually, 12 ft vs 10 ft wall wouldn't have been enough to get the clearance over the top, probably]
posted by Elysum at 5:30 PM on March 30, 2023
It's on pages 209-212, and as Zamboni mentioned the log cannot touch the wall, the ground, and nor can the soldiers touch the wall.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 6:26 PM on March 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 6:26 PM on March 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Soldiers passing through Ft. Campbell have similar challenges, if you know anyone who's done that. I don't recall the exact details, but my roommate (airborne) described a challenge where his solution was to take the smallest guy in the platoon, hand him one end of a rope, and then throw him across the barrier -- but the key point is that his challenges usually involved extras that existed only to confuse. For example, he was given a length of 2x4 that he didn't use at all.
posted by aramaic at 6:56 PM on March 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by aramaic at 6:56 PM on March 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you all. It’s great to the excerpt from the book, and I appreciate the additional perspectives. Marking this resolved.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:15 AM on March 31, 2023
posted by Winnie the Proust at 6:15 AM on March 31, 2023
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 5:18 PM on March 30, 2023