[bdunbar]

Over the course of the three days, the customer made endless racial and ethnic slurs directed at B.

Customer is a 'government owned military installation'. What branch? What site?

Was the customer military or civilian contractor?

The military is [1] _death_ on racisim, sexism, favoritism. Just does not happen. When it does it gets squashed.

While the military one thing, the individual service members are another. It's a very masculine culture, not unheard of for best friends to insult each other with words, phrases, etc that would sound blisteringly insulting to an outsider. But which are understood by the participants to be 'funnin' around'.

I conjecture: could 'B' have been hooked up with a guy who was trying to bond and it mis-fired?

[1] My last direct experience was 1993, when I separated. I have several friends who are enlisted, my step-son has been in the army since 1999.

[JabavuAdams]

> The military is [1] _death_ on racisim, sexism, favoritism

Officially, yes, but that's probably BS.

This reminds me of two anecdotes about the IDF (not to make this about Israel -- it's just the data that I have):

1) One friend assured me that any soldier acting improperly would be disciplined immediately, as the IDF had very high standards, etc. etc.

2) Another friend used to tell me stories about his IDF stint and how he and his friends would get high on guard duty all the time.

So ... just because you were in a military, doesn't mean that you know what's going down with everyone.

Also, the attitude that you evidence in your post makes it less likely that you'll know the truth, because you'll be more resistant to contrary evidence.

Treat truth as stochastic/unknown. We don't know the truth. Now ask "what practices or attitudes will tend to help me discover what is true? What practices or attitudes will tend to obscure the truth?"

The attitude "nope that can't be happening because organization X is so disciplined" obscures the truth. Especially in an organization that emphasizes loyalty and duty.

[endtime]

The IDF, which has strengths and weaknesses, is not the US military. The main relevant difference here is that the IDF is composed of every 18 year old in the country (pretty much), whereas the US military is only composed of those who want to be in the military. The kind of kids who will get high on guard duty in Israel won't ever join the military in the US.

[JabavuAdams]

Interesting point, but not really relevant to my argument.

What's most interesting about these IDF anecdotes is that you have one ex-soldier completely dismissing behaviour that another ex-soldier admits to. That pattern can generalize to any org, regardless of volunteer / non-volunteer selection. I.e. they can't both be right. One of them is over-generalizing.

EDIT>

I.e. saying "No one in org X is doing Y" is much less likely (given an individual's limited personal experience) than saying "someone in org X is probably doing Y".

[endtime]

The OP said "Org X has property P." You responded with "Org Y does not have property P, and Org Y is like Org X." I claim the second half of that - that things that are true about the IDF are likely to be true about the US military - cannot be assumed. Even ignoring the significant cultural differences between the two countries, there are differences in the demographics the militaries themselves are composed of.

[JabavuAdams]

So at the risk of pedantry ...

I was making a claim about large organizations that depend on loyalty, not even specifically military organizations.

So, the specific difference between military organizations and cultures are neatly excluded.

The pattern (of which I gave a specific example) is:

Person X in large org Y claims something is true for ALL members of org Y, based on X's personal experience.

I submit that humans being what they are and organizations being what they are, it's more likely that there are bad behaviours that are tolerated in sub-organizations of Y even if they violate the officially stated rules.

TL;DR Without perfect knowledge it's better to assume that something somewhere is going wrong than to assume that nothing anywhere is going wrong.

A lot of science, engineering and process control basically boils down to this. Why do we forget it when dealing with human systems?

[endtime]

Behavior/discipline will necessarily be noisier in a conscripted organization than in a self-selected volunteer organization. I don't think you can generalize that away.

[bdunbar]

The kind of kids who will get high on guard duty in Israel won't ever join the military in the US.

I'd love to say otherwise, but it just isn't so.

[bdunbar]

You are assuming a great deal, based on one line of text.

You're convinced it's BS. Fine. My experience says that it's not. Actual expertise trumps ignorance and anecdotes, always.

it's just the data that I have

That's not data, those are stories that you were told.

[JabavuAdams]

I feel you're not speaking to my actual argument, so I want to try to clear something up:

> Actual expertise trumps ignorance and anecdotes, always.

You are not an expert in other peoples experiences, only your own. We have a case here where one guy says "this could never happen". Another guy says "I used to do that all the time". Only one of them can be right, even though we accept both of their experiences as true.

If the first guy simply said "I never saw that happen, and I never heard of it happening, and therefore I doubt that it could happen", then they could both be right, and the evidence matches both of their beliefs.

The mistake is to go from "I never saw that happen, and I never heard of it happening" to "It cannot/did not happen", especially when someone else says it did happen.

That's all I'm arguing. I am not doubting your experience.