How to Manipulate a Population

wil said:
So many things work....as Seattle says...women.

Sex works.

Beer and Baseball works.

Popcorn and Circus works.

Television, movies, music.

Creating lemmings appears relatively easy utlizing Madison Avenue's techniques.

Rome used the forum....hmmm so does CR.
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Ah, politics! Gotta love 'em!

Sex may work, but how far? Certainly there were political marriages, and likely still are. The decendents of Queen Victoria fill the ranks of the houses of nobility throughout Europe. As for a little roll in the hay, as it were, I suspect that would only go just so far. Certainly concubines have been kept in certain courts for the amusement of powerful guests throughout history. But I suspect they may have only been instrumental in brokering deals, not solidifying them. As for "bread and circuses," that was Rome's method of keeping an increasingly restless crowd under control, not "subjugating" a powerful rival, or entering a strategic alliance.

Lemmings are common among the lesser educated. This is no surprise, history is full of example after example. My question had to do with compelling a political alliance with a "knowledgable" rival of equal or greater stature. How can one enter a successful alliance with such? Force isn't going to do it, marriage may, gratuitous sex is of limited value, and PR / propaganda is not relevant. Seems to me intrigue, and compulsion by extortion / blackmail; otherwise the only civil method would be to bind a negotiated agreement with something of value. Such as a monetary or commercial token between the two partners, creating a trading bloc or alliance.

Have I lost anybody yet? :D
 
In that respect I still think the ol "whats-in-it-for-me" principle applies. Call me jaded but altruistic intent doesn't seem to be the reason for anything that happens in politics.
 
juantoo3 said:
Ah, politics! Gotta love 'em!...


Lemmings are common among the lesser educated. This is no surprise, history is full of example after example. My question had to do with compelling a political alliance with a "knowledgable" rival of equal or greater stature. How can one enter a successful alliance with such?

Have I lost anybody yet? :D
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I used to work in higher administration at a very large public university. The inhabitants of our ivory tower were not the "lesser educated" and yet the "lemming" syndrome was very apparent there. Simply because it is human nature to desire to be a winner and not a loser

Of course universities are where public politics were invented in the middle ages after political techniques had been fully developed in the courts of royalty and in preistly sanctuaries over the preceeding millenia. But the university model has an advantageous system that they have used successfully for many centuries now to mediate disputing entities...committees.

Now I know that we all hate committees because they force us to come to moderated conscensus when some of us don't necessarily wish to. But that is the democratic model that most governments now follow also. The only problem is that today..as Paladin so wisely pointed out... conscensus is reached through the application of monetary rescources which tends to distort the real issues involved in a dispute. The corporate model thus prevails in our societies since large corporations control the "lion's share" of public and private monetary resources. That's why we now have in the U.S. what is considered by most to be wimpy and expedience-oriented congress and executive branches of government, and the growing tendency for the judiciary to also trend towards that .

When I get into these sorts of discussions I always suggest that we blame the Dutch since they invented corporations and credit in the middle ages. IMO that makes as much sense of the messes that we're in as anything else does.

flow....:rolleyes:
 
How to manipulate a population. Hmmm...

Well, you could hire a guy with ties to a right wing evangelical Christian reconstructionist group to direct a phony propaganda documentary about 9-11. Nah, that would be crazy.

Chris
 
Hi China Cat:

You forgot to mention that he lives on the Kona coast on the Big Island in Hawaii and is a good ole' boy buddy of the Rushman's.

Other than what you said and all this, he probably is a very objective guy ! Yeah... and those big pink things with snout-like noses flying up there are really 747's... or maybe we're really just watching a Pink Floyd concert...way cool !

flow....:rolleyes:
 
flowperson said:
When I get into these sorts of discussions I always suggest that we blame the Dutch since they invented corporations and credit in the middle ages. IMO that makes as much sense of the messes that we're in as anything else does.
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Hey! I represent that remark!
 
China Cat Sunflower said:
How to manipulate a population. Hmmm...

Well, you could hire a guy with ties to a right wing evangelical Christian reconstructionist group to direct a phony propaganda documentary about 9-11. Nah, that would be crazy.
Click to expand...
OOOH, OOOH, Mister Kot-taiiir! You mean like Michael Moore???
 
Kindest Regards!
Paladin said:
In that respect I still think the ol "whats-in-it-for-me" principle applies. Call me jaded but altruistic intent doesn't seem to be the reason for anything that happens in politics.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Yet, paradoxically, government is required by society for altrusitic purposes. Government is necessary. Politics, or perhaps more properly political game playing, is a jockeying for positions of power and influence. The shape of politics changes with different forms and styles of governance, and it is human nature to want to advance in stature and prestige and finances (read: power). And it is human nature to corrupt things that might otherwise be good for us.

The alternative, anarchy, is far worse.
 
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