Thread by @swardley

X : How do you destroy a collective?
Me : Lots on ways. Are you talking about a collective you belong to?
X : Another collective
Me : Again, lots of ways. Can I ask why?
X : Climate denial.
Me : Wow, ok you're not messing. Well, I don't like them, so if you're serious then ...

Step 1. Any collective will have individuals that tend to have power. They do so for reasons of personal agency. The first thing you need to identify is the people of power.

Step 2. Any collective has accepted behaviours that support their values. People also belong to multiple collectives (i.e. they may belong to that group plus maybe a nation). You need to identify the behaviours / values of each of the collectives.

Step 3. You now need to look closely at the people of power, what you're looking for is someone who does not conform to behaviour in a significant way, something serious or something you can spin as being bad. Don't do anything with that ... yet.

Step 4. Once you found your "mark", you need to go into overdrive promoting them. You need everyone to associate them as the heart of that collective by name if possible. Promote them in the press, try to turn them into the figurehead, encourage the formation of a cult ...

.... "Dave's climate resistors" or "Bob's climate truth tellers" or ... something a bit more catchy. You want to build fever pitch around them.

Then, you want to destroy them. You use the behaviour you've identified and collected "evidence" on and you slam them hard, ongoing ...

... you don't stop until the collective has turned in on itself.

X : Does that work?
Me : It's very blunt. There are no guarantees and there are refinements that can be played. But as a basic outline it'll get you started. It does require research and deep pockets.
X : Why are you telling me this?
Me : I'm not. I'm telling everyone.

X : Explain?
Me : We all need to get a bit more savvy to some of the games and manipulations that are going on, the dark arts. We are going to get more of this.

X : Can it go wrong?
Me : Of course. You promote the wrong person and the population doesn't care about the behaviour or you've misjudged that. You're walking into dangerous territory but then you did start by saying that you wanted to "destroy". It can also "destroy" you.

X : Is there an alternative?
Me : Always. Doing good and education would be the best away. Alas we live in a world where manipulation of perception and behaviour is now so cheap that those seem to have lost favour.

X : Can we fix that?
Me : In a purely transactional world based on an ethics of choice we need to raise the cost of manipulation to the point that people stop.
X : In a purely transactional?
Me : Well, alternatively we create an ethics of care, a sense of duty and integrity.

X : What would you recommend?
Me : Doing good, education, integrity, a sense of duty and an ethics of care gets my vote but then I'm old fashioned and focus on the long term. I'm not a fan of today's world of manipulation.