Tools

 

Let us say you want to start some movement. Namely you want to form a group of like minded people, motivate and integrate them, and then move them to some action. We have seen people do this over the years, Hitler is an example. He started in a beer hall in Munich and took more than a decade assembling a group of like minded individuals into what became a global threat. Lenin did the same, Mao, and the list can go on. Even religious leaders and we can name many.

Now consider today's world. Let us assume there is some group who wants to effect some end. Do they have to go to a beer hall, hang lists on a church door, write unreadable books, assemble acolytes, all the while placing themselves out in public view. 

Not with the current tools available. There are two; social media and genomics. Social media allows for psychological profiling while genomics allows for genetic profiling. One can use them both in an iterative manner. Thus if we find the right psych profile and then examine the genomic characteristics, we can then search our massive genomic data base for similar people and then joint them in the social media platform. Psych and genomics become a tool ever so more powerful than beer or eternal damnation. In addition we never have to expose ourselves. We get to use this group or these groups to do our bidding, and the blame if things go wrong is totally on them.

Can this be done today? The answer is a resounding yes. All the tools are in the hands of the Silicon Valley folks. Add to that the media, often a rather unstable bunch, but then we can select them as well, and we have a tripartite weapon.

Now who gets to wield that weapon? In an open society like ours I will let you hypothesize. Happy 21st century. This makes Azimov and Harry Seldin look like pikers.