It seems we're surrounded by numpties. Religious extremists/fundamentalists, neo conservatives, ultra capitalists and the like.
I'm a computer programmer quite a lot of the time, and you've probably heard the term hack or hacker before but many of you probably don't really know what it means. More often than not, a Hack is an elegant solution to a problem that exploits a flaw in a system to get something done. Sometimes this is used to do unscrupulous things (Black Hat Hacking) but mainly it's used to do useful things. You just don't get to hear about it because it's not very interesting.
But today I was thinking: How can we hack the ignorant to make them do the right thing? For example, the Tea Party movement may seem quaint, but they present a very real threat to the world because they're a political movement and they're nuts. Their strength seems to come from manipulating people's malice and ignorance. So they're very homophobic for example.
Now here's the hack: If the entire Gay and Lesbian community came out in support of Sarah Palin, and without referring to any particular policy simply made blanket statements about how the Tea Party movement is good for Gay's and Lesbians, and attended their rally's on mass, then in theory, this would alienate the movements supporters. Since the Gays and Lesbians have no intention of actually voting for Sarah Palin, this would be the equivalent of a political DDoS Attack. The supporters generally don't do the research or attend meetings and simply believe what they hear or read at face value. That's the flaw in the system that is being exploited.
Does anyone have any other ideas about how we might hack people's ignorance/stupidity/prejudice etc...
I'm a computer programmer quite a lot of the time, and you've probably heard the term hack or hacker before but many of you probably don't really know what it means. More often than not, a Hack is an elegant solution to a problem that exploits a flaw in a system to get something done. Sometimes this is used to do unscrupulous things (Black Hat Hacking) but mainly it's used to do useful things. You just don't get to hear about it because it's not very interesting.
But today I was thinking: How can we hack the ignorant to make them do the right thing? For example, the Tea Party movement may seem quaint, but they present a very real threat to the world because they're a political movement and they're nuts. Their strength seems to come from manipulating people's malice and ignorance. So they're very homophobic for example.
Now here's the hack: If the entire Gay and Lesbian community came out in support of Sarah Palin, and without referring to any particular policy simply made blanket statements about how the Tea Party movement is good for Gay's and Lesbians, and attended their rally's on mass, then in theory, this would alienate the movements supporters. Since the Gays and Lesbians have no intention of actually voting for Sarah Palin, this would be the equivalent of a political DDoS Attack. The supporters generally don't do the research or attend meetings and simply believe what they hear or read at face value. That's the flaw in the system that is being exploited.
Does anyone have any other ideas about how we might hack people's ignorance/stupidity/prejudice etc...
