Divide and Conquer–Recruiting the Sheeple

Never be intimated by your enemy's appearance. Instead, look at the parts that make up the whole. By separating the parts, sowing dissension and division, you can bring down even the most formidable foe. When you are facing troubles or enemies, turn a large problem into small, eminently defeatable parts

Since no creature can survive without the ability to see or sense what is going on around it, make it hard for your enemies to know what is going on around them, including what you are doing. Feed their expectations, manufacture a reality to match their desires, and they will fool themselves. Control people's perceptions of reality and you control them.

Robert Greene - The 33 Strategies of War

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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The two “men” sat in silence, both intently observing the holograms in front of them.

“I am surprised”, thought the first, “I didn’t realize that a species this advanced could be undermined so easily.  You were right after all.”

The second chuckled in his mind.  “Your mistake was that you gave them too much credit”, he thought, “Divide and conquer is the only universal means proven to submit a group that would ordinarily put forward great resistance to being conquered.”

“Possibly”, thought the first, “But the things you have come up with recently are, to be honest, brilliant.  The people of Earth have truly become blinded by their ignorance and rather than find common ground that unites them, they seem incredibly focused on everything that divides them.  As I thought earlier, brilliant.”

“Thanks”, thought the second, “But it wasn’t easy and some things have taken a lot longer to incubate than originally anticipated.  Climate change seemed to ignite significant divisiveness but that died down.  Terrorism divided countries but that seems to have become trite now, with Earth people mostly ignoring terror attacks.”

“True”, thought the first, “But the divisiveness around gender was truly brilliant.  It is setting people against each other, against their governments, against their religious institutions and even setting institution against institution.  We still haven’t see how far such divisiveness will take them.  Look at their State of New York which now has over 30 gender types available when applying for a vehicle licence.  That alone drove a lot of Earth people crazy.”

“Yes”, thought the second, “but what we are incubating right now is the best of all. “

“How so?”, thought the first.

“The election of their American President presents phenomenal opportunity for us”, thought the second, “We can use two candidates to divide people on racial lines, gender lines, wealthy versus impoverished lines and even create international incidents between their countries.  We are prepared to potentially harvest one of the greatest opportunities we have ever had.  The hatred being shared between long-time friends, family members, organizations and governments is fantastic.”

The first shivered slightly with excitement as he contemplated the potential that this event contained.

The second thought again to continue his ideas.

“Their social media as they call it has become one of the greatest antisocial tools at our disposal.  Humans who bully others do so under the guise of being a victim of bullying, misinformation amongst their species is at an all time high and people would rather respond to negative emotion and hatred than the potential to create good in their world.  As I thought to you earlier, we are exceeding our expectations with this election for their American leader.  This will likely be the last task necessary for us to move on to the next part of our strategy.”

The first reflected about this, his face incapable of showing emotion.  “Do you really think it will be this easy?”, he thought.

“There appears to be no limit to how easily they are overrun with divisiveness and negativity”, thought the second, “Despite how they cherish small acts of kindness and use it to justify their belief that love overcomes evil, the significant, damaging events are ours to control.  Earth people are blinded by their own ignorance.  Their primal need to be paranoid and fearful of everything, something that has served to protect their species for thousands of Earth years, now presents itself as potentially the greatest means of undermining them.”

The first nodded thoughtfully.

“Come forward”, thought the second as he sensed a presence, “There is no need to hide in the shadows.”

A third came forward.  He had been observing the thoughts of the first two in silence.

“What do you think of our thoughts?”, thought the first.

The third shrugged.

“I think we are encouraging a powerful species with unlimited potential for good to destroy themselves”, he thought, “A dreadful waste.”

“If they don’t think they are worthy of uniting to meet their unlimited potential to do good, why should we care?”, thought the second.

“And besides”, the second continued, “For them to unite in such a way doesn’t serve our intentions for them or their planet.”

The third shrugged again as all three watched the holograms of Earth news.

“I’ll wager a nation that your brilliance will prove to be hugely successful”, thought the first.

“A nation?”, thought the second, “I will wager an entire planet that we will be successful.”

“What do you think?”, the first thought as he looked at the third.

The third blanked his mind as he continued to observe the holograms with his large, dark, glittering eyes.

To be continued.

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© 2016 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

This blog was inspired by observing friends and colleagues, some of whom are drinking the Kool Aid of one side or the other of the political comedy / tragedy known as the US Presidential Election.  They are blinded by what they are being fed and they feed it to others without thinking.  When someone doesn’t want to partake in what they are being fed, they find themselves having the verbal diarhea shoved down their throat.

Meanwhile others are caught up in the insanity of defending famous people against bullies, not realizing that the data suggests that some of the victims are in fact bullies themselves who don’t like it when people stand up to their bullying.  When the resistance comes, the bully now victim plays the gender card, the race card or something else to show how in fact they are the real victim.  Such bullies remind me of the Emperor in Star Wars who would play the victim when confronted but once the other character let their guard down, the Emperor revealed his true intentions and attempted to kill them.

I was inspired by Alex and Vin to write this blog.

I love you both.

You are both sensitive and brilliant – don’t be played by others who seek divisiveness to drive their agenda, using you and others as their stepping stones to power.

You will be long forgotten as they reap the harvest they rely on you to sow the seeds for.

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy advisor and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” (note the quotes) and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.