Social Learning: The Art of War (And Leadership)

By: Patrick Yambrick

Published: Friday, Mar 13, 2026

Last Edit: Friday, Mar 13, 2026

III. Attack by Stratagem - The Art of War

Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.

The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets, movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over against the walls will take three months more.

The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege.

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What Is Social Learning?

Before we move too far ahead, let me explain why it is that I choose to employ the style that I employ in my posts.

According to This Article, social learning is the process of learning through observation, imitation, and modeling.

At the risk of sounding base, this is like "Monkey see, monkey do."

Scientifically: think about mirror neurons. We all have them. When we see someone doing something which we perceive as strong, noble, or admirable, we all feel the pull to mimic some piece of that, through our own lens.

When those we are trained to admire are behaving their best, this is good for us all. When they are being chaotic or violent, this pulls us apart at our very seams.

Ever played with a Chinese Finger Trap? It's a little like that.

Back to the point:

Developed by a psychologist called Albert Bandura, Social Learning Theory forms the bedrock for what is now called Social Cognitive Theory.

Whatever it is called, the principles remain similar enough that, unless you are really curious, or looking to become an expert, this overview should suffice. If you'd like to learn more, feel free to dig into the links provided here to read from more authoritative voices on the subject.

In this theory, Bandura posits - accurately, from my perspective - that the more authoritative a model or a voice is, the more inclined the student is to listen.

Knowing this, I choose to eschew the authoritative stance strategically in spots in favor of a peerlike tone - I know many unconventional learners who have felt so burned by trusted authorities that they revile at the hint of authority. My website traffic demonstrates this to me effectively. I will explore how that is in a later post.

I compose my content in this way because of the implications of articles Like This, on the impact social media algorithms have on our perceptions.

A Tl;Dr on that goes something like: as an algorithm filters content, it receives feedback about your preferences, and the cycle continues and recursively filters the already filtered content based once again on your reactions, and then feeds you back more and more heavily filtered content.

That becomes a rabbit hole - for better or for worse - really quickly.

Since this is happening to you (and to me), it is safe to assume that it is happening to those around us, as well, especially if we are sharing the content we find at the bottoms of those rabbit holes without warning our friends that we have been guided there by the power of the algorithm - remember those mirror neurons.

Through the shared experience of being heavily filtered and mirrored back to, we wind up teaching ourselves untruths about the level of hate or whatever other negativity that is present in the world around us.

Make no mistake: those things are present. They haven't disappeared. They are real.

But the divide is not as wide as many of us have led ourselves to believe.

I - Local Scare Doesn't Go There

I am not going to use this post to report on the West Bloomfield Miracle. Many who are better equipped for the task have beaten me to that. As with all forms of prejudicial hate, antisemitism is abhorrent and has no place in our country.

As disruptive and frightening as that attack was for its survivors, it strikes me as a near miracle in today's world of mass shootings and racial and religious violence that only the assailant was killed. If you haven't already, go look up how prepared and how brave they and those first responders all were.

That's why you don't mess with Michigan.

Fire from the Tongue of Israel

I understand that Matisyahu, the notorious Jewish reggae rapper, has been canceled by many for his stances on the Israel-Palestine Conflict, and I also understand that he puts in some serious work toward the cultural appropriation of reggae with his musical style.

I would love to put forth a solve to that conflict, but alas: I am not a Palestinian genius. I am some privileged white kid who doesn't know his place. And it seems to an outsider like me that every time someone approaches a solution to the conflict, someone *coughs* starts a proxy war with someone else's army in the name of power retention and a human and understandable quest for vengeance, which - no matter how understandable - should not dictate that the world be at war on his behalf.

I am choosing to share this song because of its lyrics - which carried me through a dark time before I understood what cultural appropriation was. Forgive me, and skip clicking the video if you don't support the artist.

Did you know that the modern, secular nation of Israel - which only really relates to the Land of Israelin its occupation of that space - sits in a land that was once called Canaan, long before Judah or the nation of Israel sprang forth from the froth? Canaan had such potential: home to the shared ancestry of all modern Israelis, Lebanese, Palestinians, Jordanians, and Syrians - who would also mix lineages with Iranian settlers and others - the kingdom could have come, if only its kings had prayed for unity. Instead, they prayed for victory over each other.

And so it goes: divided they fell, and gave way, over time, to the modern nation of Israel and its other counterparts.

Again, I would love to tell the specific story of Palestine right here, but I am not qualified for that one - though I know its history to be rich and full with kingdoms come and kingdoms gone. If any of my audience happens, by circumstance, to be a Palestinian genius hoping to shine like a bright light throught he dark, this would be his time to start dropping essays. If only we were so lucky.

Anyway, many in Israel carry some lineage which springs forth from Canaan and the Levant. That is: many in Israel are cousins to those being killed in Palestine, and Lebanon, and probably even some in Iran. A guy like Matisyahu likely knows all that better than I do. He wouldn't have written songs like the one I shared above if he did not.

Being a man of clear Abrahamic (through Judaism) faith, it is natural for a man like Matisyahu to hold a strong stance about Israel. For the duration of his life, that has been his home. It is duty to the poets of Abraham to use their right hand in the name of writing truth. As long as they do, all is not lost. Unity can come. Just Ask Matisyahu. The guy is like the roaring lion of Judah, embodied.

Sure enough, as we see even today, there is good reason for people of Jewish lineage to hope and to pray for a homeland where they may be safe. Protectors like Matisyahu are not wrong for roaring.

If that is true - and it is - then what of those of Levantine descent?

Canaan Continues

Wouldn't it be a great and terrible work to bomb the Levant in the name of Jesus, and ham-handedly, accidentally destroy the last of any hoped-for lineage of, uhh... Jesus, or Moses, or any of the other old prophets?

Since time immemorial, Canaan has been at war with itself: brothers killing brothers.

Sometimes, they even forget the divinity of the spirit that fills them so fully that they kill their little sisters:

This is K'naan - one of those violent Somali immigrants who is ruining American cities.

If you don't know the story of this song, Let Him Tell It.

Can you believe it?

True to the name and the spirit, even if not the literal history and lineage, K'naan represents one of the many possible faces of the Kingdom that could have come.

But didn't.

Why?

Constant infighting and destruction of the neighbor made them easy to conquer.

Sound familiar?

A United Kingdom

I shared K'naan and Matisyahu here because when I was young - in my late teens and early twenties - and something of a dusty foot philosopher, myself, I gave each of them thousands of plays. I was so taken by both of their perspectives, which seemed to me to flow from the same source, that I could not bring myself to divide them, one from the other - one a sheep and one a goat.

That is what leads me to wonder why they have done so.

Which one is which?

II - Video Games and Leadership Brains

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend - who has requested to be identified through the quote:

"I was chosen by this random assortment of physical strangers whom deemed my noble actions worthy to raise the crown!"

- which touched on the topic of leadership lessons learned through video games.

This quote was spoken by a character and guildmaster from fiction called Thalisse, the Lightbringer. I cannot find a source when I search her. If you can find a source for me to reference, let me know. Regardless, the weight of the quote remains.

It is rarely through individual pride or ego that we receive the power of leadership.

The most powerful form of leadership is always arrived at through collective belief - itself arrived at through demonstrated competency and concern for one's community members and - in the case of the elect - one's constituents.

When we squander this belief, we squander the power with which it supplied us.

Video Game Leadership Isn't Real Leadership

That's where you're wrong.

According to Forbes, modern leadership is increasingly leveraging training derived from video games. This is not to say that all games are created equal. Many of them constitute empty time.

Not all.

I have gleaned a number of lessons from video game experiences. I gamed compulsively during my early twenties. I was in financial exile as a result of the actions taken on my life by a trusted authority figure. I needed an escape from all of the technical skill-building I was doing while unable to earn consistently.

What I found instead was a set of leadership sandboxes.

Across several games - each facilitating different forms of real-life-relevant thought - I found myself in leadership positions, and advisorial positions of power. Many of the communities which I led during this time were comprised of surprisingly elite individuals: multinational engineers, local leader types, and even a foreign real estate magnate or two.

But that is a story for a different time.

Here, I will relate to you what my friend told to me, about those leadership learnings he explains having arrived at through the video game, World of Warcraft.

Many around him consider him to be an up and coming leader.

Under One's Wing

It is late at night.

The fog of war encroaches - you can hardly see 30 feet in front of you.

Try as you might, you keep getting turned around - finding yourself back in the same spot, skirmishing endlessly with opponents who remain unseen until they are ready to strike by surprise.

Someone grabs you firmly by the shoulder from behind. You spin around, weapon drawn, and he catches you by the wrist, forcing you to halt your attack.

You're done for.

Or so you think.

He doesn't stab you, nor does he rob you.

Instead, he pulls you down off the side of the road on which you stood, hiding you safe just in time.

You can't quite make out whether they are hoofbeats, drumbeats, or both, over the sound of your own beating heart's ba-BOOMP ba-BOOMP ba-BOOMP.

"Who are you? And thank y-"

"Silence. You are the one the prophecies have foretold. Come."

Not my video:

"So you see," the strange man explains, after showing you his own gameplay recording, "I have come to guide you."

Then he thrusts the keys to the kingdom into your hands.

"You are the man of the house now. I can't do this anymore. Bye."

Confused, you accept. In a flash, the man is gone.

At first, those around you are skeptical - hey, so are you. You just watched one of your leaders Leeroy the raid, then pass the buck to a younger, less experienced guy. You are skeptical about the people around you and their intent. Valid. What just happened was wild. It didn't make any sense.

As you carry on, you find yourself emobdying the role more and more naturally.

You arrive at this through consistency, discipline, a fair ear, and a steady hand. Out of care for the community you have been left steward of, you do this even when you are uncertain.

Through all this, you have come to a realization: as long as you don't Leeroy the raid, things tend to work out in your favor.

Closing the Ark

An oddly-shaped man of dwarflike stature, with great, big arms which are far too long for his body is running, naked, and unarmed, except for his trusty slingshot - a formidable weapon in the right hands. Not my video:

Hungry and alone in the jungles of the Ark, Go-Rilla traverses the local swamp - which he knows intimately, from when his tribe initially conquered and established order on Server 518.

Since his abdication, much of the path he and his friends cut has regrown.

He knew that his return would go something like this, though he could not have foreseen its extent.

After successfully and stealthily dinking several unsuspecting patrolmen, Go-Rilla arrived at the site of his former seat of power, now completely erased, save for a few forgotten fence foundations which still bore his name: Tribe of Go-Rilla.

The Department of Defense had taken his homeland over in his absence.

Led by a scheming player called Metzler the Rich - whose unearned adjacency to power Go-Rilla, always one to give a guy a second chance, had tolerated during his days leading the server's coalition of Wardens - the DoD took the first opportunity it could to oust Go-Rilla, decimate everything he had stood for, and use that as the wedge through which they would take over the server, and push the entire union out.

Prior to his burnout and subsequent abdication, Go-Rilla and the union had defended against many invasions together - from organized Chinese Megatribes to random coalitions formed after their exile from our server.

It didn't matter where you came from: you had to ask Go-Rilla permission to be there. He would then convene The Council - the Wardens from those tribes he had inspected, established trade with, and been permitted to grow for their loyalty to the union. If you didn't, you might get a probationary period - or you might get wiped. It depended on which zone - and thus, which Warden's jurisdiction - in which you sought to build.

If, at any point, you threatened the holdings of the union, you were swiftly and decisively repelled. Your leader was tranqed (probably humiliatingly, with a slingshot), put into a cage, and kangaroo bounced on for hours (there was a glitch that made this unbearable to anybody wearing gaming headphones, so they would log off), or tranq-stimmed, which was something of a Secret Art in terms of in-game message sending to would-be invaders.

At the end, it wasn't a foreign invader who took our server over. The union never had to go siege a walled city, nor did it invade other servers.

Our union let them approach the walls of our stronghold, and then swatted them back with the unified might of a community of peace-loving neighbors.

As he stood there, examining his old home, now in ruins, Go-Rilla was killed from behind - by Metzler the Rich - the little drunk guy who Go-Rilla let lead the DoD.

He was now the unquestioned King of a former stronghold of democracy.

And boy, did seeing Go-Rilla emerge from the jungle scare that little man.

They say that "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." Lessons learned.

Go-Rilla learned that lesson the hard way - the destruction of everything he had built was his tuition.

III - How to Strike Gently

And lessons taught.

I transitioned from my friend's story in the way that I did in the last section because in many ways, he and Go-Rilla represent complementary sides of a coin.

He had been handed the reigns of a community by an abdicant king, and - although I do not finish his story in that section - the result was that he, a decent man of strong morals and benevolent principles, came to be the chosen leader of his crew. When his abdicant king return to vy for the throne, its subjects chose to side with my friend, the unsuspecting steward.

Go-Rilla left the keys to his castle in the hands of a group of young men who could not handle the burden of centering the union without him.

In his absence, his tribe were overrun and overwhelmed - following their collapse, the rest of the union fell like dominoes. And thus, our server fell to the greedy.

We learned from Go-Rilla that, although our followers may forgive us, when we abdicate, the power we held quickly decays.

Go-Rilla was a complicated young man with a complicated life. You got the sense that there was something going on with which he refused to burden those around him. Being the de facto president of a coalition of tribes had added stress to an already heavy life - rather than being the escape he had hoped for.

When he led the server, Go-Rilla did so with a gentle fist, like this:

It wasn't always popular.

However, since Go-Rilla had maintained his standing and credibility with the allies contained within that great union, he was able to leverage that credibility to great protective effect. He did this through calm restraint and eloquence from a seat of real power - envision a man who could unleash an avalanche onto your head, yet chooses to hear you out, and then speak to you with dignity as he tells you that you can do whatever you'd like, as long as you play by his rules.

Now envision a grown man, stomping and screaming and whining until those around him acquiesce - temporarily.

When an outsider launched a surprise attack, they were easily repelled, and our warriors - of whom Go-Rilla frequently proved to be amongst the most capable, even when armed only with a slingshot to the other man's pistol - got to satisfy their desire for combat.

When the leader of an invasive tribe landed, saw us as unified, and then spoke to Go-Rilla and realized that he was outwitted as well, he would leave. He knew better than to embarrass himself in front of his devoted tribe.

It was a lot like turning his chakra off.

How to Apply These Lessons

Silly as it may sound, I like to think that, whatever else is going on in the world, a guy like Go-Rilla is out there, quietly watching over the people who embody those ideals which his tribe upheld so fervently - even when cutting through a jungle which sometimes feels more like a labyrinth.

If you sit in a position of power, you do not need me telling you that you carry nearly as much responsibility as Go-Rilla once did.

You already feel the weight of that.

Everyone around you can see you carrying it.

Instead of dictating to them, as you maybe could, try speaking with them, and letting them feel the truth: that their vision can exist within the grand tapestry which houses us all, so long as it respects and honors the core democratic values we all hold so dearly, which are: life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happyness.

If you feel ready to lead like Go-Rilla: drop one piece - a pebble - of your peaceful project this week, and watch the water ripple. Go-Rilla, Matisyahu, and K'naan all three believe in you, and pray for your success - at least that is what I choose to believe.

Thanks for Reading

Thank you for reading 'Social Learning: The Art of War (And Leadership)'! Want to share your story or have your words heard? Reach out to me and let's discuss the possibilities.