Conceptions, Intuition, and Truthiness

The other day the following interesting article came to my attention. It was titled "Would You Wear a Serial Killer's Sweater?" It also asked, and I asked again on Twitter, "Would you fear the volunteer who did put on the sweater?" All sorts of factors surrounding social interactions, concepts of what is real and what isn't, intuition about what's real, among others, come into play in this discussion. This is a different tack toward the same kind of idea being explored here lately. All of them come together to build connections between the characters in a story, the plot, and both the expectations and impact upon the audience of the work. Many narratives carry one singular reality, whether or not it is an exact replication of the real world or something very fantastical and different.

How does the sweater play into this? First it does not matter that it is not actually a serial killer's sweater. The insinuation or claim that it is such is enough on its own. Likewise it does not matter that the item is laundered. It still carries the connotations as if it were still stained with the blood of the killer's victims. The idea makes people nervous and uncomfortable. Its proximity causes anger in some even before the outrageous request for someone to don it. It is a tainted item. Worse, that taint may rub off. Conceptually it is an artefact of evil. Fascination with it, shown by taking the offer to wear it, points to the evil nature of that volunteer. It is something that should be reviled and likely feared. Those not espousing such emotions are questionable. Or so the theory goes.

It is a gut instinct, an emotional response that the sweater is bad. This is the same intuitive sense people have upon learning of a person's criminal record. It is of course worse if the intuiting person is familiar with the exact crime, and hard to look past if it was violent. This all begs the question, which is more important, actual fact, or just perception of the truth of something? That word truthiness, trite as its origins are, and frightening as the concept is, seems to sum up the answer to that question as today's society would answer it. Perception is everything in a large segment of the population. This is something that can and should be capitalised on in fiction. It comes up on this blog more than once for a reason. It is depth well used for characterisation, direct plot, and secondary conflict.

Mood: airy.

Music: The Unforgiven III by Metallica and Inconclusion by Dee Snider.

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Anatomy of a Horror Setting #11: Psychics and Social Engineering

There are two types of what is called social engineering that are similar but not as much as some would apparently like. One is considered real social engineering; the other is a pale comparison, supposedly. The "real one", defined by political science, involves the influencing of popular behaviour, like using propaganda. The other is just a fact of life where security scams are involved. It appears more that the security version is just a smaller scale, where only an individual need be influenced. The one sticking point of just considering them at different scales is that the security driven social engineers are about stealing information, whereas the political science version is about making change. They give different results, but at the same time they share similar methodologies.

Either kind of social engineering is certainly an avenue for a psychic to explore for their gain, whether that gain is for evil, selfish, or good reasons. A psychic might trigger spikes of change in behaviour and opinion on a scale that is temporary, or more long lasting, differentiated only by the level of subtlety and effort put into finding and affecting the right people. A psychic who wants to make people more accepting of him as a psychic might use hypnotic suggestion or empathic transmission to force an individual to treat the psychic as if he were normal. If there were people who were involved in a law making effort to afford certain rights to psychics he might manipulate the critics of that effort to change their attitude and support the effort.

The security style of social engineering is exemplified on the Internet. Phishing in particular stands out. A message that appears to be from a bank for instance says if the account isn't updated it will be closed. A provided link leads to a fake website requiring the account number and the password. The psychic phisher need only come into contact with someone. All they need to do is scam the subject into thinking about the desired information then they take it from the surface thoughts of the person. Also a psychic might enhance a regular scam further than a normal conman. Consider the trick where someone claims the person is entitled to an inheritance but must pay a transferral fee. The psychic can be assured the bait will be taken, and that the people not feel cheated later, either.

Mood: relieved.
Music: Crazy Little Thing Called Love by Queen and Burn by Apocalyptica.

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