Social Engineering - There Is No Defence
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A couple of years ago, YouGov (nothing to do with the UK Government, despite the name), carried out a survey in which less than 2% of the British population stated that they were of below average intelligence. Given that an equally small number can be said to be highly intelligent, that means the rest of us are, well, a bit dim.
We cannot be that clever because overestimating one's intelligence is a sign of someone of low intelligence, or a staggering arrogance if you are a politician, which is pretty much the same thing. There are however sufficient numbers of clever sticks in society to have cottoned on to the concept of Social Engineering. Here is how it works.
Pick a subject, speak out loudly on the subject, turn the population against anyone who disagrees. As a bit of a sideline, make some money out of it if possible. In other words, hack into the basic human trait of trust in authority and bingo, the world can be changed.
Take congestion charging as an example. First, make a noise about the pollution levels in major cities. Then point out the ills that socially conscious people are suffering, asthma attacks among cyclists, all down to the polluting exhausts from our cars and vans. Notice that the buses are not included in this vilification, a subtlety missed by many.
Now the motorist is a social pariah who is slowly but surely killing everyone in town. Never mind that the van driver needs his vehicle to carry heavy tools and equipment to do his job, or because it is loaded to the roof with parcels out for delivery fresh from an internet. What can the answer be? Well, a congestion charge.
Make the motorist pay to come into the city and if you have done the groundwork right, there will be a few objectors who can be shut down by accusing them of genocide by Nitrogen Dioxide. I am guessing that few people want to be classed as genocidal maniacs and to be placed in the group populated by Pol Pot, Hitler, Omar Al-Bashir and so on, so they keep quiet.
There follows a slight dip in the number of vehicles using city roads, a massive inrush of cash to the Local Authority and all is forgotten. You can even encourage your citizens to buy diesel cars as they are better for the environment, then reverse that advice saying that the tiny particulates they produce are worse than any of the toxic gasses. Nobody bats an eyelid, so you increase the congestion charge for diesels or charge them 50% more to park. Anyone who objects, well, I am sure you know the way it works now. Meanwhile, the bus goes past belching soot like a battle cruiser laying a smoke screen.
The great thing about social engineering is that it can be used in almost any walk of life. It is equally valid for speeding, smoking, bad parking, parenting and even policing. 'What?', I hear you say, 'policing, how can that be?' Well, even though your crime data tells you that for a given day of the week at a given time, your most likely suspect will be of a certain age, dressed in a particular way and of a specific skin type, stopping too many people who fit this profile will label you racist or something similar. Nobody wants to be called a racist, and that's reasonable, because most people aren't.
It even works in America with Presidents. If you support President Trump because you like his stance on infrastructure investment, think he will be good for business, like what he said about bringing Americans together and making them proud of their once great nation, you will be labelled a racist "like he is". That is, of course, why the polls said most people would vote against Trump, they didn't want to admit to supporting him. But it turns out that they were very in favour of him when nobody was looking!
We cannot be that clever because overestimating one's intelligence is a sign of someone of low intelligence, or a staggering arrogance if you are a politician, which is pretty much the same thing. There are however sufficient numbers of clever sticks in society to have cottoned on to the concept of Social Engineering. Here is how it works.
Pick a subject, speak out loudly on the subject, turn the population against anyone who disagrees. As a bit of a sideline, make some money out of it if possible. In other words, hack into the basic human trait of trust in authority and bingo, the world can be changed.
Take congestion charging as an example. First, make a noise about the pollution levels in major cities. Then point out the ills that socially conscious people are suffering, asthma attacks among cyclists, all down to the polluting exhausts from our cars and vans. Notice that the buses are not included in this vilification, a subtlety missed by many.
Now the motorist is a social pariah who is slowly but surely killing everyone in town. Never mind that the van driver needs his vehicle to carry heavy tools and equipment to do his job, or because it is loaded to the roof with parcels out for delivery fresh from an internet. What can the answer be? Well, a congestion charge.
Make the motorist pay to come into the city and if you have done the groundwork right, there will be a few objectors who can be shut down by accusing them of genocide by Nitrogen Dioxide. I am guessing that few people want to be classed as genocidal maniacs and to be placed in the group populated by Pol Pot, Hitler, Omar Al-Bashir and so on, so they keep quiet.
There follows a slight dip in the number of vehicles using city roads, a massive inrush of cash to the Local Authority and all is forgotten. You can even encourage your citizens to buy diesel cars as they are better for the environment, then reverse that advice saying that the tiny particulates they produce are worse than any of the toxic gasses. Nobody bats an eyelid, so you increase the congestion charge for diesels or charge them 50% more to park. Anyone who objects, well, I am sure you know the way it works now. Meanwhile, the bus goes past belching soot like a battle cruiser laying a smoke screen.
The great thing about social engineering is that it can be used in almost any walk of life. It is equally valid for speeding, smoking, bad parking, parenting and even policing. 'What?', I hear you say, 'policing, how can that be?' Well, even though your crime data tells you that for a given day of the week at a given time, your most likely suspect will be of a certain age, dressed in a particular way and of a specific skin type, stopping too many people who fit this profile will label you racist or something similar. Nobody wants to be called a racist, and that's reasonable, because most people aren't.
It even works in America with Presidents. If you support President Trump because you like his stance on infrastructure investment, think he will be good for business, like what he said about bringing Americans together and making them proud of their once great nation, you will be labelled a racist "like he is". That is, of course, why the polls said most people would vote against Trump, they didn't want to admit to supporting him. But it turns out that they were very in favour of him when nobody was looking!
