No Way Out

Send us a textDive deep into the intersections of John Boyd's OODA loop, emergence, and the nature of reality in this mind-expanding episode of No Way Out. Hosts Ponch and Moose (Mark) welcome patent attorney and author Luiz von Paumgartten, whose book The Abstractionist's Papers (freely available at WelcomeToTheBlueSpace.com) reveals profound connections between Boyd's work and concepts like meaning vs. happening, red space (the mind's interpretive world) and blue space (raw reality), orthogonality, paradoxes, and flow states.Your mind’s map isn’t the world—it’s a living system that generates meaning from signals crossing a boundary we often miss: light, where inputs transform along neural pathways into interpretations. Luiz shares his journey from personal disruption to creating practical maps for navigating uncertainty, drawing parallels to OODA's Orientation—not a step, but the engine shaping perception, prediction, and action. We explore orthogonality (inside and outside on different planes), how paradoxes are gaps between interpretations and expectations (closed by reinterpreting, updating, or revising rules), and why novelty emerges when the cost of carrying mismatches exceeds reconfiguring orientation. Ties to Boyd’s Destruction and Creation, the free energy principle’s drive to minimize surprise, Eastern philosophy (like the Tao), quantum paradoxes, allostasis, and stability as an average of continuous reorientation amplify these insights.Discover how information is variation until a mind assigns meaning, why we never exchange meaning directly, and how viewing OODA as linear misses the spiral of learning. If you're into Boyd, active inference, or unlocking hidden dimensions of thought, this John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: “There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…” March 25, 2025 Flow Learning Lab Find us on X. @NoWayOutcast Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation Want to develop your organization’s capacity for free and independent action (Organic Success)? Learn more and follow us at:https://www.aglx.com/https://www.youtube.com/@AGLXConsultinghttps://www.linkedin.com/company/aglx-consulting-llc/https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandriverahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/markjmcgrath1https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemccroneStay in the Loop. Don't have time to listen to the podcast? Want to make some snowmobiles? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive deeper insights on current and past episodes.Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch: The No Bell Podcast Episode 24...

Send us a textMost investors want comfort. We make the case for discomfort. This conversation dives into trend following as a rule-based way to survive chaotic markets, mapped directly to John Boyd’s OODA Loop and the culture that made the Turtle Traders relentless. Instead of worshiping smooth curves and tidy narratives, we focus on process: cut losses fast, let winners run, and treat volatility as information rather than injury.With Jerry Parker and Mike Melissinos, we unpack what makes trend following so hard and so effective. Jerry traces the original Turtle training, where doing the right thing while losing in the short term was rewarded—a culture almost no client environment tolerates. Mike explains why “volatility management” often disguises feelings management, and how redefining risk as the chance of permanent loss changes everything from position sizing to patience. Together, we explore orientation—how beliefs shape what you see—and why a 40 percent win rate can still compound if your payoff distribution catches outliers.Jerry Parker on X: @rjpjr12Jerry Parker on Linkedin Mike Melissinos on LinkedIn: Melissinos Trading Michael Melissinos's Blog: Michael Melissinos on X: @mmelissinosJohn R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: “There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…” March 25, 2025 Flow Learning Lab Find us on X. @NoWayOutcast Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation Want to develop your organization’s capacity for free and independent action (Organic Success)? Learn more and follow us at:https://www.aglx.com/https://www.youtube.com/@AGLXConsultinghttps://www.linkedin.com/company/aglx-consulting-llc/https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandriverahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/markjmcgrath1https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemccroneStay in the Loop. Don't have time to listen to the podcast? Want to make some snowmobiles? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive deeper insights on current and past episodes.Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch: The No Bell Podcast Episode 24...

Send us a textIn this profound episode of No Way Out, hosts Moose and Ponch sit down with Dr. Mihaela Ulieru – robotics pioneer, AI ethics advisor, and governance expert – for a mind-expanding conversation that bridges military strategy, morality, technology, and consciousness.Drawing from her Romanian roots and personal experiences during the 1989 Revolution, Dr. Mihaela explores how the OODA loop can either trap us in dependency or propel us toward true human flourishing. The discussion dives deep into the moral stack (morality, ethics, justice) needed to prevent system capture by "takers," the isolating effects of modern media and AI on human connectivity, and why society often rewards extractive behaviors over creative "makers."They unpack historical lessons from Vietnam and Romania, the cypherpunk dream of digital freedom, epigenetics, plant-based medicine for expanding consciousness, and the potential of collective intent, telepathy, and universal patterns in shaping reality.Mindplex PodcastSingularityNETJohn R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: “There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…” March 25, 2025 Flow Learning Lab Find us on X. @NoWayOutcast Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation Want to develop your organization’s capacity for free and independent action (Organic Success)? Learn more and follow us at:https://www.aglx.com/https://www.youtube.com/@AGLXConsultinghttps://www.linkedin.com/company/aglx-consulting-llc/https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandriverahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/markjmcgrath1https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemccroneStay in the Loop. Don't have time to listen to the podcast? Want to make some snowmobiles? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive deeper insights on current and past episodes.Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch: The No Bell Podcast Episode 24...

Send us a textExplore the authentic OODA loop with Jon Becker on No Way Out Podcast – John Boyd's strategies for tactical leadership and decision makingFresh off Mark “Moose” McGrath’s viral appearance on The Debrief (where the internet lost its mind over authentic OODA), we flip the script: Jon Becker — CEO of Aardvark Tactical and host of the top-rated tactical podcast The Debrief — comes to No Way Out for the highly requested return match.Together with co-hosts Mark McGrath and Brian “Ponch” Rivera, Jon pulls back the curtain on what really happened when Moose flew to California and spent two days dismantling the “linear OODA loop” myth in front of Jon and a room full of California’s top tactical leaders.In this episode you’ll discover:Why orientation — not speed — is what actually wins (and kills)How Jon’s entire worldview on Boyd shifted overnightThe moment a room of alpha SWAT commanders realized they’d been teaching OODA wrong for decadesDestruction & Creation explained simply (and why almost nobody talking about OODA has actually read it)Real-world examples: Blockbuster vs Netflix, Toyota Kaizen, AI thought bubbles, and why your team’s implicit biases are quietly sabotaging every decisionThe Socratic “no-slide-deck” method that turned skeptics into believers in under five hoursIf you thought the Moose-on-The-Debrief episode was fire, this is the sequel you didn’t know you needed.Jon Becker on LinkedinJohn R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: “There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…” March 25, 2025 Flow Learning Lab Find us on X. @NoWayOutcast Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation Want to develop your organization’s capacity for free and independent action (Organic Success)? Learn more and follow us at:https://www.aglx.com/https://www.youtube.com/@AGLXConsultinghttps://www.linkedin.com/company/aglx-consulting-llc/https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandriverahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/markjmcgrath1https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemccroneStay in the Loop. Don't have time to listen to the podcast? Want to make some snowmobiles? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive deeper insights on current and past episodes.Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch: The No Bell Podcast Episode 24...

Send us a textWhat if the maps we’re all using are lying to us?In this episode we yank the curtain back and connect the dots most shows leave scattered: The “devouring mother” vs. “tyrannical father” archetypes now fighting for control of America’s soul How printed money and $38 trillion in debt quietly tax you every single day Why a household “poverty line” just hit $140k in parts of the country — and why almost nobody wants to admit it Healthcare’s textbook death spiral: community rating, third-party payer distortion, Medicare price floors, and the cartel that profits from it China’s century-of-humiliation memory, Belt & Road resource grabs, fentanyl pipelines, and why their planners think in 50-year chunks while we argue in 24-hour cycles The OODA loop as the antidote to mass psychology, narrative warfare, and orientation collapseThree Gen Xers — Mark, Ponch, and Max Borders (Underthrow) — refuse to treat these as separate stories. Instead we stitch them into one coherent picture of unrestricted decline and show you exactly where the leverage points still exist.If you’ve ever felt the system is rigged but couldn’t quite name how, this conversation hands you the mental models to see it clearly — and the agency to do something about it.Watch or listen now. Then send it to the one friend who still thinks inflation is “transitory.”Max Borders on LinkedInUnderthrow (Substack): John R. Boyd's Conceptual Spiral was originally titled No Way Out. In his own words: “There is no way out unless we can eliminate the features just cited. Since we don’t know how to do this, we must continue the whirl of reorientation…” March 25, 2025 Flow Learning Lab Find us on X. @NoWayOutcast Substack: The Whirl of ReOrientation Want to develop your organization’s capacity for free and independent action (Organic Success)? Learn more and follow us at:https://www.aglx.com/https://www.youtube.com/@AGLXConsultinghttps://www.linkedin.com/company/aglx-consulting-llc/https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandriverahttps://www.linkedin.com/in/markjmcgrath1https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemccroneStay in the Loop. Don't have time to listen to the podcast? Want to make some snowmobiles? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to receive deeper insights on current and past episodes.Recent podcasts where you’ll also find Mark and Ponch: The No Bell Podcast Episode 24...