This was my commencement address! My best friend and I sat there pretty stunned at how good it was. I've shown this to a lot of friends and family and everyone considers it one of the better commencement addresses out there.

And this has been an inspiration ever since.

So if you want to change the world, blindly accept orders from authority figures, no matter how inane? Sure...

If you want to be a SEAL, blindly (trustingly) accept orders from authority figures who are doing things specifically designed to produce the best SEALs that they know how to produce. If you don't want to be a SEAL, don't.

In fairness, given that he cites George Washington, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela as inspiring examples, I don't think that's the intended message here.

Definitely the cutting edge of Government thinking. Seriously. The message is "you can change nothing".

I don't think everyone's opinion on whether it is inane or not makes their reasoning equally valid. "Use your head" only makes sense when the head in question is capable of independent critical thought, and the ability to distinguish fact from fantasy.

Sounds like the sugar cookie test is a way of filtering out people who won't blindly accept arbitrary rules from authority.

I think it's more than that. It's a way of filtering people who can't handle the frustration of repeated failure and failing in spite of doing everything right. For elite soldiers like the SEALs, I can see how this would be valuable. There is a high risk of failure on their missions, as well as a high risk of capture, since they often operate behind enemy lines. The ability to handle persistent hardship without giving up could mean the difference between life and death.

I think the point was, that: Life is hard and often unfair. Get over it and keep working otherwise you will definetly fail.

>Sounds like the sugar cookie test is a way of filtering out people who won't blindly accept arbitrary rules from authority.

Quite a non sequitur there.

As mentioned during the speech, Adm. McRaven was describing his own SEAL training. Since SEALs are an elite branch of the US Navy, individuals have to explicitly volunteer to enter SEAL training, are screened to a very high standard, and are warned well in advance that the training is extremely taxing, both physically and mentally.

>of the US Navy, individuals have to explicitly volunteer to enter SEAL training, are screened to a very high standard, and are warned well in advance that the training is extremely taxing, both physically and mentally.

They are also conditioned not to question the training, or the missions, or anything much, for that matter.

To put it politely, if you think that, you don't know enough about the military or its training to have a meaningful opinion.

To put it politely, that wasn't an opinion, that was a statement of fact valid for every military in the world. Solders are there to obey commands, not to question them. And I've been through service.