# The Semi-Rational Militar Firefighter

**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?

1.  Too personal.
2.  My stories are tropical chaos: I survived the Brazilian BOPE (think Marine Corps training, but post-COVID).
3.  I’m dyslexic, writing in English (a crime against Grice).
4.  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."**](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TRcNafiSYdsYQYxnN/could-my-work-beyond-haha-benefit-the-lesswrong-community?commentId=yd2HPdhN6MvTasGdx)

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](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Bras%C3%A3o_do_Batalh%C3%A3o_de_Opera%C3%A7%C3%B5es_Pol%C3%ADcias_Especiais_-_BOPE_-_PMERJ.png/250px-Bras%C3%A3o_do_Batalh%C3%A3o_de_Opera%C3%A7%C3%B5es_Pol%C3%ADcias_Especiais_-_BOPE_-_PMERJ.png)

* * *

**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 me:  
**“Brito, what did the rabbit’s eye taste like?”**  
**“I don’t think the rabbit was very happy, sir. It tasted like tears.”**

### **Simultaneously, I:**

a) Completed the tribal ritual  
b) Avoided malnutrition

* * *

**So**
======

After taking plenty of hits from the military and with the help of two friends, I shifted back toward the rational side. Nowadays, solving complex problems through mathematics feels wilder to me than anything I ever faced was a military.

Well, this was one of my middle-ground stories, not the most logical, not the most brutal.  
Should I continue with something heavier on *pathos* or *logos*? 

[next history here](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LSohexzfnPGLJCbuG/field-tests-of-semi-rationality-in-brazilian-military)