October 28, 2023

A Pink Flamingo describes a predictable event, or series of events, ignored through the bias of leadership, trapped in their institutional thinking. 

‘); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1609268089992-0’); }); document.write(”); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function(event) { if (event.slot.getSlotElementId() == “div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3028”) { googletag.display(“div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3028”); } }); }); }

It differs from Black Swan events, which generally come out of nowhere and are statistically implausible. 

Pink Flamingos exist in a gray area where particular institutions, i.e., political, military, or economic entities, ignore intelligence, conflicting data, and ideas that directly confront established beliefs, tenets, and capabilities of their respective organization(s).

Why is this important?  Pink Flamingos happen all the time.  Is a bolt out of the blue unpredictable?   Stand under a tree five miles from a thunderstorm and tempt fate.  You may get away with such a gamble, but an actual risk of getting hit by lightning is greater if you do.

‘); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1609270365559-0’); }); document.write(”); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function(event) { if (event.slot.getSlotElementId() == “div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3035”) { googletag.display(“div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3035”); } }); }); }

COVID-19 was another example.  The mission of USARIID (U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases) is:

To provide leading edge medical capabilities to deter and defend against current and emerging biological threat agents.

Together with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), these agencies were the watchdogs that supposedly could have, should have been on top of COVID months before it arrived at our shores. 

Almost all our warning systems failed despite spending billions of dollars and having the best people and decades to prepare.  The story of how this happened remains a carefully guarded secret.

This is not just a story about COVID, though.  It is a wake-up call that institutional and bureaucratic inertia leaves us vulnerable to threats that should keep us up at night.  Understanding that is vital because it is one of the reasons why we are failing as a country.

Let’s consider institutional bias.  All kinds of public and private institutions have a huge stake in how they and their place in the palace court are perceived.  Politicians, generals, CEOs, NGOs, and academics all think they have the best worldview everyone else should adopt.  Obviously, they can’t all be right, but each continues to perpetuate their convictions.  Each has subdivisions that develop their own or counter versions of each institution’s narrative.