LessWrong Context:

I didn’t want to write this.

Not for lack of courage, I’d meme-storm Putin’s Instagram if given half a chance. But why?

Too personal.
My stories are tropical chaos: I survived the Brazilian BOPE (think Marine Corps training, but post-COVID).
I’m dyslexic, writing in English (a crime against Grice).
This is LessWrong, not some Deep Web Reddit thread.

Okay, maybe a little lack of courage.

And yet, something can be extracted from all this madness, right?

Then comes someone named Gwern. He completely ignores my thesis and simply asks:
"Tell military firefighter stories."

My first instinct was to dismiss him as an oddball, until a friend told me I was dealing with a legend of rationality. I have to admit: I nearly shit myself. His comment got more likes than the post I’d spent years working on.

Someone with, what, a 152 IQ wanted my accounts of surviving bureaucratic military hell? And I’m the same guy who applies scientific rigor to Pokémon analysis?

I didn’t want to expose my ass in LessWrong, but here we are. So, I decided to grant his request with a story that blends military rigidity with... well, whatever it is I do.

Firefighter Context:

Brazilian military firefighters are first and foremost soldiers. Their training is built on four pillars: first aid, rescue, firefighting, and aquatic survival.

We were in the jungle, undergoing a rescue training exercise with no food, alongside the BOPE, Brazil’s elite force, notorious for their grueling training and for carrying a skull-and-dagger emblem. Wherever they go, they shout their motto:
“Knife in the skull!”

Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais - Wikipedia

The Knife:

After a week without food, they released animals into the jungle. The female recruits had to hunt, and they managed to kill a rabbit with a single clubbing blow, its eye popped out. Then they turned to me:

“Brito! Are you ‘knife in the skull?’”
“I’m knife in the hose, sir!”
“But… doesn’t a knife in the hose puncture the hose?”
“And doesn’t a knife in the skull doen`t puncture the skull?”
(Some laughter)
“Then prove you’re ‘knife’ and eat this rabbit’s eye raw!”

So, channeling the most primal, savage creature I knew, I swallowed the eye and croaked out: “My preciousssss!” ,Smigle from The Lord of the Rings.

Later, during formation, another superior addressed my squad:
“We need more firefighters like this, who throw their whole bodies into following orders and still manage to have fun.”
Then he turned to...

typical oddball

typical oddball

typical oddball

typical oddball

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typical oddball