Social Engineering questions for Transhuman Space

[Flyndaran]

Since memetics is useful primarily for large groups, I would say propaganda. Expert skills are never to be used for direct game mechanical advantage like that.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Since memetics is useful primarily for large groups, I would say propaganda. Expert skills are never to be used for direct game mechanical advantage like that.

It sort of gets complicated, since Expert Skill (Memetics) already does some useful stuff. And IIRC Expert Skills do work in Complimentary rolls (not sure, though). Not saying you're wrong, just some more musing.

[Anthony]

I would agree that memetic manipulations are Propaganda/TL10 -- if you look at the rules which have been published for memetic campaigns, they're indistinguishable from advertising campaigns. The study of existing memeplexes is usually Sociology (not Psychology)/TL10, though particularly theoretical study is Anthropology instead. I would delete Expert Skill (Memetics), it really doesn't do anything other than indicate what school of psychology you subscribe to.

[whswhs]

I retained Expert Skill (Memetics) in SE largely because it had been published in Changing Times, and I thought it ought to be fitted in explicitly. Changing Times uses it as a primary skill, to analyze memetic artifacts or the frequency of memes in populations. In SE, I expanded it a bit, allowing it to function as a complementary skill to rolls either to analyze memes or to design them; the idea is that it provides you with a bigger kit of tools of established utility and thus makes you a bit more effective. But I didn't discuss its use as a primary analysis skill.

Changing Times actually furnishes a plausible model for how to use it: treat it like Expert Skill (Computer Security) for rolls to hack a computer system realistically. In effect, you're treating Memetics as a knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the human mind and of exploits for taking advantage of them.

Bill Stoddard

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I retained Expert Skill (Memetics) in SE largely because it had been published in Changing Times, and I thought it ought to be fitted in explicitly. Changing Times uses it as a primary skill, to analyze memetic artifacts or the frequency of memes in populations.

That's anthropology.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's anthropology.

* I'm citing the precedent of previously published rules. It doesn't matter what you or I think is reasonable; that use of Expert Skill (Memetics) is in fact in Changing Times, which is what I'm reporting.

* I don't necessarily think it's an unreasonable choice. The list of skills that the Expert Skill can substitute for includes both Sociology and Politics, which represent the theory and the technology of dealing with public opinion in a civilized and especially an industrial society; neither one seems any less fitting than Anthropology, especially for population analysis. You can argue that this is "doing something" with the skill, but it's doing something intellectual and analytical; I would not, for example, say that someone with Expert Skill (Political Science) should be incapable of analyzing data from a public opinion survey.

* I would actually say that given the statistical and population-oriented character of memetics as described, Anthropology is a less likely choice than those other skills; anthropologists have historically been more given to participant observation and case studies than to sampling, though that has been changing in recent decades.

Bill Stoddard

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

* I would actually say that given the statistical and population-oriented character of memetics as described, Anthropology is a less likely choice than those other skills; anthropologists have historically been more given to participant observation and case studies than to sampling, though that has been changing in recent decades.

'Memetic artifacts' is Anthropology. How they're distributed is whatever skill polling uses. The purest real-world equivalent to memetics is things like n-gram analysis, which tends to fall under computational linguistics in the real world, but I think in GURPS terms it's anthropology.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's anthropology.

Originally Posted by Anthony

'Memetic artifacts' is Anthropology. How they're distributed is whatever skill polling uses. The purest real-world equivalent to memetics is things like n-gram analysis, which tends to fall under computational linguistics in the real world, but I think in GURPS terms it's anthropology.

It isn't. Artifact Analysis is Current Affairs or Connoisseur to place it in context (failing this gives -2 later), then Expert Skill (Memetics), Psychology (Applied) -1, or Propaganda -3.

Population Analysis is Expert Skill (Memetics), Sociology, Propaganda -1, or Psychology -3.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would agree that memetic manipulations are Propaganda/TL10 -- if you look at the rules which have been published for memetic campaigns, they're indistinguishable from advertising campaigns. The study of existing memeplexes is usually Sociology (not Psychology)/TL10, though particularly theoretical study is Anthropology instead. I would delete Expert Skill (Memetics), it really doesn't do anything other than indicate what school of psychology you subscribe to.

I totally agree with you on the fact that memetic campaigns fall under Propaganda.

But I'm talking about the one-on-one Influence Skill boost that knowledge of memetics provides. Back in 3e, this boost was represented by an always on bonus to Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Interrogation, Leadership, Merchant, Politics, Psychology, and Teaching. Basically, it was to social interaction what Karate was to unarmed combat (not quite the same, but the point was that scientific approach increased the 'impact'). In 4e, skills boosting skills were dropped. But! We have Complimentary Skill rolls and Manipulation mechanics. The former provides the same/lower bonus as memetics, but has an unpleasant drawback (-1 or -2) on a failure. The latter provides a bigger (typically +3, but see SE for exceptions) bonus, but has a huge drawback in the form of auto-failing the second roll if the first Quick Contest is lost (BTW, it being a contest and not a simple roll makes things even riskier).

So I'm asking whether you're sure non-campaign-scale, i.e. face-to-face-scale, uses of memetics to boost Influence should be based on Propaganda too. Both I and Clancy are quite interested in arguments both for and against.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anthony

'Memetic artifacts' is Anthropology. How they're distributed is whatever skill polling uses. The purest real-world equivalent to memetics is things like n-gram analysis, which tends to fall under computational linguistics in the real world, but I think in GURPS terms it's anthropology.

I think that's overnarrow. Artifact analysis could be done with many different disciplines. For example, artifact analysis is quintessentially one of the central tasks of Archaeology, even more than of Anthropology.

As for polling and statistics, Social Engineering addresses that at some length. The general idea is that you can analyze frequencies, transmission processes, or other patterns at the population level either with Mathematics (Statistics) or with whatever specific science addresses the populations in question: Economics, Politics, Sociology, Expert Skill (Political Science), are all examples. For that matter, Biology (Genetics) would include it; much of the pioneering work in statistics was done by people like Galton and Pearson whose main interest in applying it was to human biology (incident on their support for eugenics, but that's another issue). In principle Anthropology could be such a science, but historically its main focus has not been qualitative.

Bill Stoddard