The Underdog

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Jordan Fermanis, Chris Wragg, and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights, and this week we're discussing the benefits of being the underdog. Chris, I think of you as an overdog rather than an underdog. Yeah, yeah, an uber-hunt.

Speaker B: 00:00:34

An uber-hunt, exactly. Go for it. Well, so this really, the genesis of this idea came from the recent sinking of the Russian flagship, the Moskva. Ah, yes, yes, yes. And the way it's played into lots of what lots of people have been saying about naval platforms for a long time, that they're basically just waiting to be sunk, you know, by something a lot cheaper than a giant bit of metal that sits on the sea. And so it got me thinking why, you know, and everybody also is really coming to focus at the moment with the Ukraine-Russia conflict that, you know, Ukraine was viewed as the underdog and yet is doing very well. Lots of previous conflicts, you know, have involved insurgencies against large, well-equipped forces, you know, from Western powers or other places. And I just started thinking why doesn't everybody become the underdog? Because it doesn't seem like being the uber-hunt is an effective strategy. So that was it really, just to try and work out, you know, what would it mean if everybody were trying to be the underdog. Gotcha. Okay.

Speaker A: 00:02:03

I feel this could be a quick one because, I mean, just straight off the bat, first of all, we should have got your Canadian mate, that military academic type guy on this. Christian. There you go, Christian. He would have been brilliant. But he's not here. He's not. You'll have to make do with the underdogs. Yeah, exactly. Second, this ties into that thing about being entrepreneurial when you work for a huge company and they say, yeah, it's really important that we support that you're entrepreneurial and think about it as your business. You can't, okay, because you can't replicate that because you can't replicate not having a safety net, essentially, in terms of entrepreneurialism. I think there's something similar going on here. If you're a big organisation, you can't mimic that. Third and final, we have this thing about underdogs. Do underdogs really do that well? Is it just every now and again they do well and it looms large in our imagination? Actually, they get flattened and torn to pieces by the Uberhund all the time. Well, I've got some data along those lines. So let's go for it. Let's have Nick and then we'll come on to yourself, Jordan, and then see where we are with that. Go for it, Nick. Yeah. I think the... So I'm interested in this. What's the popular wisdom? As you say, certainly in business, it's hard to get data in business, actually, but there's a lot of popular wisdom about small companies are going to do better and eat you up and disrupt you. As Bob Marley, or was it Lee Scratch Perry said, if you're a big tree, we are a small axe sharpened to cut you down. Wise words. Wise words, indeed. So there is some analysis that we can do here. The UCDP conflict data contains state versus non-state conflict. United? What's UCDP? Oh, Upsala something. Sorry. Okay, just... Defense Data Program. I want to say it's Upsala Conflict Data Program. It's something like that. But anyway, they've got loads of data sets describing different conflicts and outcomes. And there's one about a conflict termination for state versus non-state, so for which assume that's overdog, the underdog. Out of all of the conflicts that have a resolution in the data set, which I think goes back about 70 years. Can I take a guess? Well, hold up. Go on. So the outcomes are peace and ceasefire, boring, not interested in those. We want to look at government win versus non-state win, so that's overdog, the underdog. And then there's actually a whole bunch of them, which just peter out into what they call low activity and just disappear as a conflict. So what's the ratio between government wins and non-state wins, do you think? I'm going to say when it is resolved in that way, I would say it's 70% in favor of the state. Very good. Very close. It's about two to one, more or less, actually close to 70%. So yeah. Then there is another paper by Henderson and Bayer called Wallets, Ballots, or Bullets, looking at what you should do if you want to win wars. Should you be rich, should you be democratic, or should you spend more on your military? And they conclude that having more military, actually, none of them definitely trumps the other. But if you have a bigger military, you're more likely to win wars. Well, you know, no shit, but I mean, there you are. Democratic states do marginally better than wealthier ones. So in a sense, you can pay for war with either freedom or money. Both will give you a bit more advantage. And if you have a bigger military, your wars tend to be shorter. But the interesting thing was the, and this is looking at all conflicts, well, state versus state conflicts and comparing outcomes, that the more powerful, the more militarily powerful side wins what proportion of the time? So state, the question again? In state versus state conflicts. And then the question is? How often does the more powerful side win, the one with the bigger military? 90% of the time. Same. Two to one again, more or less. So it seems to be a kind of general rule that even if you're the big dog, you've still only got a two thirds chance, more or less, of winning. Obviously, there's lots of other drivers. It depends on the size of the small dog, the smallness of the other dog, I think. I mean, obviously, you know, there's an insurgency. Whether that dog was well fed, democratically elected, ferocious. Think of an individual terrorist as waging a war against the UK, say, or an individual burglar or something like that, then obviously, states would look like they're winning a lot. So you've got to get to a certain size before you can be a participant in a conflict with a state anyway. So I think what I was saying is whatever that size is, once you're there, you're probably already in the realm of actually being serious enough to be bothered, you know, with fighting against, if you see what I mean. So yeah. Anyway, so I think the data supports the fact that it's still better to be the overdog, but actually underdogs have a really good chance. And we probably want to talk about what some of the factors are that drive when underdogs win. Exactly. Exactly. Does one of you want to pick up on that point or go, Chris?

Speaker B: 00:07:42

Yeah. So I think there's two things that occur to me there, right? One is just the potential discrepancy between the underdogs' costs and the overdogs' costs, right? So if you look at Ukraine, the UK-based or the UK-provided anti-tank missiles, which we're sending out, they're manufactured in Belfast or whatever, they're about 20,000 pounds, say $30,000, right, a pop for those. The tanks they're blowing up are about $8 million, right, a go. So you're not talking about a two-to-one ratio there. If you look at things like the cost of the flagship that was sunk versus the cost of the missile that sunk it, an even greater sort of discrepancy. So you've got huge discrepancies between the costs in asymmetric warfare. But there's a caveat to that, which is like you don't knock up anti-ship cruise missiles or anti-tank weapons in your garage, right, unless you're Peter or somebody. So yes, Ukraine is militarily an underdog, right, but its technology, some of its technologies at least, not undermining the incredible sort of plucky reserve they've been showing. But weapons coming from the West, they might be cheap to manufacture, right, but ultimately there's this massive R&D infrastructure around that, right. These aren't insurgency weapons. So I think that's the thing to caveat about the Ukraine-Russia conflict is you've got a huge military-industrial complex supporting Ukraine's fighters. But the other thing Nick's analysis was looking at was winners and losers, right. And he sort of talked about, well, peace settlements are boring and a bunch petered out, right. But of course, if you're Ukraine, you know, a peace settlement or it petering out and eventually having some unwritten- Could be classed as a win. Would be classed as a win, exactly. So actually, your two to three ratio, so not only is it way cheaper to do it potentially, your outcomes, you know, if you're an underdog, you're not hoping to win, right, you're hoping to not lose, okay. So anything that's not you losing- Vietnam is a good example of that, maybe, right?

Speaker A: 00:10:39

A good example, yeah, exactly. And also maybe Afghanistan as well.

Speaker B: 00:10:42

And you look at those insurgent, you know, talking about cost, okay, you look at those insurgent conflicts and the sort of Blair-Bush wars, you know, are by some calculations said to have cost $8 trillion, right, you know, if you look at the broad range of costs. And if you look at things like Vietnam, you know, they were linked to subsequent economic downturns in the U.S., you know, in the sort of 70s and so on. So even if they're winning, they're losing, right? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: 00:11:16

Not to mention the ongoing culture war, which is still with us. Well, quite, yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker B: 00:11:23

But they do win in the moving front, so.

Speaker A: 00:11:26

True. I want to bring in Jordan, but before I do, just a couple of things occur to me. Democracy, I know we've talked about that, but it occurs to me that having that flexible kind of structure and openness to, and also other democracies to come and help you out. Although I guess if you're not a democracy, other totalitarianism is what I'm talking about.

Speaker B: 00:11:43

Well, Blair once made the point on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Jon Stewart, who I always liked, showed a bit of ignorance here, where Blair was saying democracy, there had never been a case where democracies have fought one another. And Jon Stewart said, what about the Falklands War, at which point anybody who knew anything about the Falklands War would have laughed at themselves, but there you go.

Speaker A: 00:12:04

And one other final thing, something just jumped into my head, which is the, I think one of the things that these bigger powers do do, the overdogs do, they do try and replicate the underdog by forming things like commando units and special forces and stuff like that. Anyway, that's quite an aside.

Speaker C: 00:12:21

Jordan. I think in each of those conflicts in Ukraine, Vietnam, the underdog effect is also a psychological one. And I think that might be one of the drivers that explains Nick's data that he found, is that when you're at a significant power disadvantage to your opponent, there's a psychological effect that takes place where your survivability becomes more important to you, more significant, perhaps, especially if you're fighting for your survival as a state. And potentially that could also help you receive aid from other countries as well, to build a sort of case for yourself on an international stage. So I think there's also, and for the fighters themselves, the people fighting the war, I think there's also an underdog effect that takes hold when you're trying to fight against a superior military power.

Speaker A: 00:13:18

I mean, it appeals to the human psyche, this sort of stuff. There's great, in the Hunger Games, where he's the bad guy, but he's like the marketing gaming guy for the bad guys says, well, the problem is, the reason why everyone loves what's her name? Katniss. Katniss. I don't know, because I'm not a young adult, so I don't know anything about the Hunger Games. But you should watch the film. It's a good film. All right. And he says, the problem is, everyone loves her because everyone loves an underdog. And then the president, played beautifully by- Is it Donald Sutherland? It is Donald Sutherland, of this ruthless president of this vast state, says, I don't. And, yes, so Jordan, develop further what you were saying.

Speaker C: 00:14:09

Well, I was looking at this underdog effect, and I think it's especially pronounced in sport and the politics domain. But from the research I could find, it said that the two sort of fundamental elements are external disadvantage, so a disadvantage that is out of the underdog's control. I suppose that would be like getting invaded, perhaps, in this example, and great exertion by the protagonist, so that you must be able to sort of overcome trials and tribulations. And that those are sort of the two elements that can make you an underdog. And then I guess the flow and effects from that could be the way that people perceive you and the support that you might receive. And then I guess you're allowed to also build a bit of an argument or case for yourself by claiming the underdog tag as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:14:59

course, the narrative in the: 1930

Speaker B: 00:18:47

Well, I was just going to sort of pick up on what Nick was saying there about what constitutes an underdog effect, because if you look at the Conquistadors, for example, you know, a small force, but an invading force, but a technologically superior force. Who is the underdog, the Aztecs or the Conquistadors? You know, so actually there's lots of things at play. But I think, you know, sort of funding is probably quite a good, quite a, you know, who's got most money is probably one of the best ways of thinking about it, I suspect, who's been spending most money on their forces. And then also to pick up on Nick's thing, you know, about sort of stories. The underdog story is just so right, you know, so rife in our culture of, you know, you look at David and Goliath and all, you know, almost all all military events in nations histories are all about the, you know, define them are all where they are the underdog. So you look at the American Revolutionary War, where, you know, they view themselves as an insurgency. You look at the Battle of Britain and the Spanish Armada. But you also look at, you know, pretty much any Agincourt, yeah, exactly. But you look at all nations and it's all about here's where we, by virtue, won against, you know, incredible force. So it may well be that the underdog effect is we're biased towards it in our minds because of this.

Speaker A: 00:20:24

And that's almost that is contained in how we frame the question, which is always, you know, we should be the underdog. How can you be the underdog? It's an assumption is already built in there to our question. But obviously, trivial is Chris was saying the point about if you've got more money, you can always spend the same amount as the underdog and have some spare change. So if it was better to be the underdog, you could just ignore the fact you had lots of money. But people don't do that. And I so and I think it's worth saying because we've talked about these situations which tend to be one side getting invaded by and large. The reason that we have a big platform centric kind of military is because you can't invade a country halfway around the world with just a load of Stinger missiles. You need a Navy and you need air platforms and you need to have power projection around. Exactly. You can't. So. So again, I mean, again, that's more of an attacker defender type advantage. This one should be, you know, if Russia is the one who needs to wants to get force moved around, they've got to use platforms.

Speaker B: 00:21:30

These big things. Yeah, yeah. So so just, you know, it's almost built in. This is quite interesting, I think that that we've you know, the reason that the the overdog underdog dynamic exists is because for somebody to think of contemplate invading someone, they're going to be bigger than than them. So that's sort of built. So any invasion is going to have an underdog overdog type thing. The two in order to invade someone, you need big stuff that, you know, is a bit clunky and to get all your force there. Yeah, you need to move. You need to decide that you need to you need to move. And by its very nature, the people being invaded are going to be smaller. They're going to know the local terrain better. And so they're going to use different kinds of tactics. They're not going to be able to put as many big things up against you. So it's it's almost in any time there's an invasion. There's always going to be an underdog and an overdog, and it's going to be the invader that's the overdog.

Speaker A: 00:22:32

, the Battle of Ose-Hazama in: 1560

Speaker B: 00:24:23

And they were having a drunken party at the time, I think, weren't they?

Speaker A: 00:24:27

of the Battle of Longewala in: 1971

Speaker B: 00:25:43

It's interesting, though, isn't it? How warfare can be and sport, right, can be more dynamic than the world of commerce, because by and large, yes, companies can collapse, you know, and go bankrupt and small companies can grow rapidly. But it's not it's not like, you know, wars, they kind of produce results in a really short, short period of time. And it takes it takes a very long time or, you know, a relatively long time for a company to, you know, and there are lots of inherent advantages about being big to do with economies of scale and market reach and brand recognition and all that sort of stuff that don't seem to apply in conflict.

Speaker A: 00:26:29

When was the last time you got a new country? Who were the big powers in the 19th century? Britain, the US, Russia, France, Germany. It's not like you haven't heard of any of those countries. They're still a big deal. I mean, you know, it's very rare that a country will go out of business. And it's also very rare that a new country will appear. The US obviously is an exception, but will appear and suddenly be big, you know, within a within a short space of time. Yeah, we talked about this in another podcast anyway, about being isn't it being a small, nimble business or something? We talked about this. We've done anyway. The point is, the evidence is mixed, as far as I can see. It's like it's not necessarily better to be small. And it might be that actually firms are investing more now in the kinds of things that make small companies successful. So big firms are becoming more kind of innovative and spending a lot more on R&D and stuff than they used to. Sure. Yeah, I'm desperate to ask a question. Go on. To finish us off. Favourite underdog. Now, take that in whatever, happy with that. Yeah. Take that in whatever context you want. Right. Could be, of course, from conflict. It could be from art, literature, business, sport, whatever you want. OK, who is who or what is or was your favourite underdog? If anyone's got anything, go for it.

Speaker B: 00:27:59

up was when Leicester in the: 2015

Speaker A: 00:29:26

It means that kind of thing. If they'd have played the league, you know, since the building of the pyramids to now, in theory, that should only ever have happened once. I remember. Chinny reckon. Yeah, I remember I should listen to Nick more as well as he's always telling me. But I remember once in a podcast episode, you said to me, to all of us, if you ever see odds like that, just just take those odds. Doesn't matter what it is. Just take those odds because they're always going to be well off, well out. But as an aside, so why is it? I mean, if we investigate, you know, why an underdog wins sometimes, what do you think it was?

Speaker B: 00:30:01

Well, I think that season it was, you know, it is rare, right? It's one out of twenty nine and it might not happen for another twenty nine seasons or whatever. But and sorry to interrupt as having you ask the question.

Speaker A: 00:30:13

I think one of the great things about football is no matter what resources you've got, they can only feed into 11 people on each side. There's a limiting there. But and they are only people, right?

Speaker B: 00:30:22

You know, you can't enhance them with a new engine or something. Right. But I cut you off. Yeah, no, I was just going to say, I think it was it was a set of rare things slotting into place like the other teams that normally win the league didn't do very well that year. They were all in a bit of transition and messed things up and, you know, they were all a bit rubbish. So it wasn't a super high number of points that won won the league that year. And yeah, they obviously got momentum. And there was this period, I remember, where suddenly people were like, they might actually win the league. And then they're like, sure. No, they might actually win the league. And then they, you know, it's like what Jordan was saying about the underdog effect and morale. The whole world kind of got behind this team and they started believing they could do it. And yeah, it happens.

Speaker C: 00:31:11

Yeah. No, nice. Jordan? It's not. Yeah, again, it's not my favourite underdog. But I think when I think of underdogs, I think of the Rocky films. Mm hmm. I'm not even sure if Rocky is the underdog. Maybe it's Apollo Creed in one of them.

Speaker B: 00:31:26

Well, he's certainly the underdog at the start.

Speaker C: 00:31:29

Well, he doesn't. He loses.

Speaker A: 00:31:30

Well, he draws. They draw.

Speaker B: 00:31:32

That's the whole. Yeah, they it's a split decision or something.

Speaker A: 00:31:36

And but certainly by the third film, the story is about him, how he's not the underdog anymore. And he should be. He needs to adopt that mentality.

Speaker C: 00:31:43

But I think that's a really good like cinematic portrayal of the whole effect and how it plays on our psychology.

Speaker A: 00:31:50

It's a good point. And the fact that by the by film four, they've got to keep making him the underdog. And the only way they can do that is by creating bigger and bigger overdogs each time. Ivan Drago being obviously the best of all of them. Yeah. Is it East versus West or man against man? OK, cool. Nick? Well, I found out about this yesterday. I was doing the research, but I really like it. And also, it's not very often the Germans are portrayed as the underdog in World War Two. But I was intrigued to discover that a man called Fritz Klingenberg defeated several thousands strong Yugoslav army with a force of six men. And apparently they he was conducting some reconnaissance into Belgrade at night, snuck in through enemy lines with six people, got to the center and captured some Yugoslav troops, rocked up to the mayor and said, oh, we've just captured Belgrade. The mayor then surrendered. They then put up some flags, making it look like there'd been a general surrender. And then 15 more Germans arrived in a truck, I think, and managed the surrender of the whole of the local Yugoslav army. And yeah. And so basically, this one guy with a few of his mates took over Yugoslavia. Very good. He was banked. Heartwarming. Yeah, that's right. Nick's favorite underdogs, the Nazis.

Speaker B: 00:33:19

Right. But but yeah, he was obviously he was obviously banking on quite a lot of potential capital there, wasn't he, of it? Well, if it had just been him and his 15 mates and not the entire Wehrmacht that could potentially turn up to his aid, I suspect they'd have shown him where to go.

Speaker A: 00:33:39

Yeah, I mean, if the but if the Germans had won the war and I'm not saying that should have happened, but if they had, it would be stories like that which would be, you know, we'd be using to celebrate their plucky underdog status and how they defeated the entire world by themselves, despite being just one one country. Yeah, nice. Yeah, my one, as you know, I like I like a bit of boxing and my sort of favorite underdog is typically not seen as an underdog. But Muhammad Ali, I must admit, this is fresh in my memory because although I've read autobiography, sorry, although I've read biographies on him just recently, there is the new Ken Burns documentary that's being shown on BBC, which, by the way, is very old fashioned, the way it's shot and especially interviewed. He keeps using that Ken Burns effect. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's real cliche. Yeah. The funny thing is the Ken Burns thing still looks fine. That looks fine. It's just the interviews are just so strangely lit and the way it's the way it's narrated. Anyway, anyway, Muhammad Ali, I mean, I think especially thinking to the rumble in the jungle against George Foreman, where there's just no way that anyone thought he could he could win. And the way he fought that, I've not actually got onto that bit in the documentary, but anyone who's not seen it, I recommend what's the film called? When We Were Kings. When We Were Kings. I mean, a phenomenal, phenomenal man who flawed but deserves his accolades. I don't know how much more I can talk about. I'm not really expressing just yeah, Muhammad Ali, a wonderful underdog. But did he invent a grill which gets rid of the fat? George Foreman, yeah, yeah. Muhammad Ali didn't. No, he didn't. So who's got the greater legacy? Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. And weirdly, George Foreman now is sort of viewed as this lovely big cuddly uncle, you know, but you look back and you know, that was certainly not his. What's the word? Persona. That was not his persona when he was a prize fighter. OK. All right. I think we've done it. Yeah. All right. Anything to add? Not really. Good stuff. All right. We'll stop there. Thank you, as always, for listening to the Cognitive Engineering podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. I've been here with Jordan Fermanis, Chris Wragg and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. Until next time. Goodbye.