A post I wanted to keep
Social Engineering is not a requirement of communism, neither is it necessary to be a communist to be a social engineer. The commonly used "ie" means one thing is the same as the other. This statement is clearly not true. Neither is it commonly used, so it is not available as a throwaway line. If not accompanied by an essay describing why communism and social engineering are identical to each other, it is a lie.
Every time a government passes a law that rewards or punishes a kind of behaviour, any kind of behaviour either by taxing it or by making it illegal, that is social engineering. Every time the Government decides to set army pay above, below, or AT the average wage, the decision is a form of social engineering.
Even without governments, every time a shop offers a loyalty card or special offers, that is social engineering. Every time an advertisement is made, it is attempting to change people's behaviour, again it's social engineering.
Of course I believe in it. I believe people should behave well to one another and that any means is legitimate in attempting to make sure this happens.
Every time a government passes a law that rewards or punishes a kind of behaviour, any kind of behaviour either by taxing it or by making it illegal, that is social engineering. Every time the Government decides to set army pay above, below, or AT the average wage, the decision is a form of social engineering.
Even without governments, every time a shop offers a loyalty card or special offers, that is social engineering. Every time an advertisement is made, it is attempting to change people's behaviour, again it's social engineering.
Of course I believe in it. I believe people should behave well to one another and that any means is legitimate in attempting to make sure this happens.
posted by ur.alcuin@googlemail.com at 11:21 AM
5 Comments:
When you say 'any means', does what the Stassi did in East Germany, for instance, be justified? Sure, they think it was, but was it right? morally, I mean.
But I agree with what you say about social engineering not just being one thing, and that it happens everywhere, all the time. Governments and organisations have always tried to get people to behave in certain ways. It is not necessarily a bad thing, though it can be abused.
Interesting you chose yetserday to post thi in ligtht of the what the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu has said about the amount of lawmaking
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2010176,00.html
Since this administration came in to power they have 700 laws have been put on the statute books, 10 times more than any other administration has ever done
"When you say 'any means', does what the Stassi did in East Germany, for instance, be justified?"
I am one hundred percent convinced that much of what the Stasi did in the German Democratic Republic was not only wrong but also UNNECESSARY.
Let's start from the emblem of the DDR, the Hammer and Dividers. A recognition by the DDR that Germany did not HAVE a peasant class like Russia and so methods aimed at dealing with the innate conservatism of the peasantry are a pointless waste of time.
The Dividers on the other hand shows Germany's real strength, the ability to have ideas, to discuss them and to progress. So no, Finn, to answer your question, I do not include many of the activities of the Stasi because they are unnecessary (for example keeping individual files on the majority of people) and counter-productive (suppressing the work of people like Rudolf Bahro).
Incidentally, Germany's problems with Communism began long before the DDR though, when Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg led the Spartakist revolt, there was a choice of way forward for German Socialism, in renaming the Spartakists "Communists", Liebknecht took the wrong choice, aligning with the Soviet Union rather than setting up as a rival communist state from the beginning.
Sorry Six, I picked the day because someone posted on a thread on the BBC saying... "Do you believe in Social Engineering, ie Communism". And I had to post a reply because I see little or no connection.
As for this government. I think there problem is, they don't actually know what they want. They pass pieces of legislation to fix tiny errors in the way systems work in society.
I think somebody there needs a course in cybernetics. The problem is, nobody has considered what change do they need to make in order to have a particular change happen in society. They consult fairly readily and on a wide scale but that consultation is useless because they're asking the wrong questions.
To be fair, we do the same things ourselves on the BBC board but then again, we're not paid as social engineers, our rulers are.
Thanks, Alcuin. Thare's much I didn't know there.
Looking back on my post, I didn't worded it very well. By that I mean, it kind of implies that I might accuse you of justifying it. That wasn't what I meant at all. I just wanted clarification on the point.
Cheers :-)
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