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Old 01-11-2019, 06:46 PM   #181
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Maybe details are missing, but obviously We Can need candidates, and Genesis has had years to prepare them.
Possibly, but running on the platform of 'I for one welcome our new Brainwashing Overlords' seems like it might make for a somewhat hard sell.

When estimating TDMs for Propaganda and Politics, it's a good thing to keep in mind that subtly emphasising one part of currently popular memeplexes over others is a lot easier than making massive changes that aren't piggybacking on trends that are occuring 'naturally'.

It's a lot harder to change something as fundamental as the nature of nation-states and their sovereignity over their territory than it is to win an election with substantially the same platform as the other party, consisting mostly of memes that are mostly already accepted, with arguments being mostly over priorities.

It's like fighting a couple of guys with swords, but instead of trying to defeat them with a sword of your own, you're wielding a needle and trying to tattoo the Chinese alphabet on their bodies. You're accepting a pretty huge challenge and even if you're awesome and they are ordinary, you need to be aware that the logical ending probably has a lot more stabbing and skewering in it than you'd want.
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Old 01-11-2019, 06:49 PM   #182
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Agreed, Bill. This is why I suggested she put her mega-corp based in some small-but-rich postage stamp nation that's not part of any international IP treaties. It makes things a lot easier to believe than this manipulation of the USGov.
I remember when I ran my fencing academy campaign, and I read a dozen or so historical works and several novels, and also watched a couple of movies. And I'm sure that was barely scratching the surface of what there was to know about France in 1710.
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Old 01-11-2019, 07:03 PM   #183
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Maybe details are missing, but obviously We Can need candidates, and Genesis has had years to prepare them.
How exactly have they acquired those years?

(a) Most basically, you don't just walk in and declare yourself a candidate for national elected office (well, unless you're amazingly rich). Most candidates for the House, let alone the Senate, have a previous history of state legislative office, and often of city mayorship or council membership before that. Basically, they have been preparing for politics by DOING politics, and doing it within the system, in the established parties. And part of the reason for that is that for a politically ambitious person, joining an established party has a lot more appeal than sitting on the sidelines while a group of large corporations trains them to be, basically, political tools.

(b) The ability to fund the political megacampaign depends on the huge resources of a massive corporation. But those resources seem to exist as a result of a merger. And that merger is going to be blocked by the existing legal and governmental system. Until the new party has succeeded in gaining power, I don't think the merger can take place, and that means that the resources to fund the new party gaining power haven't been assembled. I'd also note that if the new party's overt platform is "elect us so we can allow these four incredibly rich and powerful corporations to merge," they're going to be seen as tools of special interests and set off every paranoid element in American political thought.

(c) The ability to influence people's minds seems to depend on a massive research program which I believe you said would take 30 years. But the resources to fund that program themselves come from the merger. If the merger hasn't yet taken place, it doesn't seem the research has taken place either. So the memetic campaign that sweeps the new party into total domination of the federal and state governments can't take place, because the mastery of memetics hasn't been achieved.

"If we had some eggs, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some ham."
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Old 01-11-2019, 07:23 PM   #184
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How exactly have they acquired those years?
Non-destructive uploading and virtual reality combined with bioengineering and drug regimes can work wonders.

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The ability to influence people's minds seems to depend on a massive research program which I believe you said would take 30 years. But the resources to fund that program themselves come from the merger.
Not really. The companies were there, and they were doing very fine, but they want to merge to facilitate inter-company cooperation. Basically there is a corporation dedicated to transportation, another dedicated to information technology and entertainment, a pharmaceutical company and a last one focused to health care. The four companies have collaborated closely together for a long time, and their intention is to merge. Each company alone already has a value in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
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Old 01-11-2019, 07:25 PM   #185
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You're right but the equation is perfect because you have not considered the wide range of possibilities offered by TL10/11 viral marketing.
Broadly speaking, GURPS represents improved advanced tech by allowing you to spend more money, it doesn't make things cheaper. There are exceptions, but not much reason to think they're relevant to social engineering.
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Old 01-11-2019, 07:31 PM   #186
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Broadly speaking, GURPS represents improved advanced tech by allowing you to spend more money, it doesn't make things cheaper. There are exceptions, but not much reason to think they're relevant to social engineering.
Letīs disagree and call it Memetics.
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Old 01-11-2019, 07:35 PM   #187
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Letīs disagree and call it Memetics.
As long as you mark it as TL^, sure.
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Old 01-11-2019, 07:35 PM   #188
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Not really. The companies were there, and they were doing very fine, but they want to merge to facilitate inter-company cooperation. Basically there is a corporation dedicated to transportation, another dedicated to information technology and entertainment, a pharmaceutical company and a last one focused to health care. The four companies have collaborated closely together for a long time, and their intention is to merge. Each company alone already has a value in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
It seems to me that the close cooperation you describe will already have drawn attention from regulators. I myself am not in favor of most antitrust laws, but I don't suppose the people who administer them are idiots. If there's an elephant in the room they'll see it. If there are four elephants dancing with each other. . . .

I think on one hand the technologies for mind control you describe have to exist for the company to take over the United States; but on the other hand it has to take over the United States to be allowed to develop the technologies.

And I'd also note that if mind control is as potent as you suggest, then the takeover has already reached the endgame and you have no interesting stories left to tell. Certainly all the legal maneuverings and military conquest become irrelevant.
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Old 01-11-2019, 07:36 PM   #189
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As long as you mark it as TL^, sure.
Why would I do that?
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Old 01-11-2019, 07:41 PM   #190
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And I'd also note that if mind control is as potent as you suggest, then the takeover has already reached the endgame and you have no interesting stories left to tell. Certainly all the legal maneuverings and military conquest become irrelevant.
I trust that we can make it even more interesting.
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