Why New Zealand has a "Nudge" problem (and you don't even know it)

It's only going to get worse unless we stop it.

The traffic light system won’t help us very much because it was never designed to dampen down transmission, it was only designed to nudge people towards vaccination.

— Expert Michael Baker, epidemiologist for the accredited media in New Zealand

“Stay home, save lives”

“Be Kind”

“Team of Five Million”

“Safe and Effective”

“Two Shots for Summer”

“Build Back Better”

You’ve heard them all. You’ve seen them everywhere.

Where did these slogans come from? Why did they spring up like mushrooms after rain? Why do some of them show up in other countries?

Would you believe me if I told you there were teams of scientists out there who are paid hundreds of millions of dollars to change human behaviour at scale?

Would you believe that your emotional state is the result of an advertising campaign?

You’d best start believing:

Every first-world Western nation has a Behavioural Insights Team just like this one in the UK.

The US, the EU bloc, Australia, and, you best believe it, New Zealand.

It’s right there in plain sight on the web page for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

You wonder why every first-world country marched lockstep into the same policies, reading off the same script?

You wonder how the media became weaponized into a propaganda tool?

Here’s your answer.

These departments all talk to each other, share the same research, go to the same conferences, and hang out together.

They call it the “nudge” unit because they’re looking for ways to get you to do what they want without sending in brownshirts to make you do it. Instead of holding a gun to your head, they use data science to “adjust the environment” so that you make the right decisions.

The “right” decision being what they judge to be best for you.

Instead of pushing and shoving, they “nudge” you on the right path.

All for your own good.

New Zealand even has it’s own “COVID-19 Group”, a specialized sub-unit to handle “misinformation” (i.e., people wondering why the vaxxines aren’t working)

They aren’t ashamed of this. They even put job ads in the local classified ads:

The COVID-19 Group is responsible for integration of strategy and policy, system readiness and planning, insights and reporting, system risk and assurance, and public engagement and communications.

We are seeking to appoint at pace a fixed term Senior Analyst whose role will be to actively monitor open source social media channels, to triage across these channels and to case-manage issues. You will work as part of a small team in DPMC and connect in with a larger cross-government networks, working to respond to, and build resilience to, disinformation in New Zealand. You will be working in a fast-paced dynamic environment and have the opportunity to shape future capability development.

That’s from a job posted from back in August. Right there in plain sight. We’re hiring a a new commissar to help make sure the people aren’t thinking the wrong thoughts.

Reporting directly to the Prime Minister’s office.

Let’s be clear about what this means.

The cubicle class in charge of the government are engaged in cognitive warfare against their own people.

Thing #1 — Human beings can be manipulated at scale for “their own good”. They don’t believe you are capable of making your own decisions about what is best for you.

Thing #2 — What’s best for you is best for “all of us”. What’s best for all of us is what they decide.

These “elites” don’t see us as human beings anymore (if they ever did).

It isn’t that they think you make bad decisions. These people believe that you can’t be a rational decision maker.

You aren’t capable of deciding what’s best for you.

You’re a simple machine responding to stimulus from the environment. It’s not your fault if you’ve been put into a bad environment and don’t have the right information. After all, if you were capable of thinking clearly and making good choices, they wouldn’t have to lecture you like a five year old, would they?

You would already agree with them.

Their job as leaders is to make sure you have the right environment, with all the correct choices “built in”. Instead of using old-fashioned violence and force to coerce you (so passe), they want to lock you into a padded room where you can’t help but make “the right choice”.

This isn’t about having the facts. It’s not about “misinformation”.

What we have here is a clash of fundamental value systems.

I value personal autonomy, a free and active citizenry that also values autonomy, and a community life that encourages the thriving of its members as free citizens.

The bugman class believes that they are the enlightened ones who must rule over the peasantry for their own good.

No amount of facts or information or logical arguments will cross that divide.

We can’t agree because our most basic and most cherished ideals are out of alignment. We have two different ideas of the good life.

This is a struggle over right and wrong, and dare I say good and evil.

Whether it’s really good to let bureaucrats and experts manage the population like cattle.

Whether you can even have a good life without the freedom to judge for yourself what’s best for you.

A tiger locked in a small cage in a zoo may have the best food, the best medical care, and no risk of violent death, but you’ve completely destroyed the animal.

This is a spiritual battle.

Are we human beings or are we cogs in the machinery of the bugman hive?