British Government Psy-ops to Force Citizens to Net Zero
The Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) – started by the UK government and then, in late 2021, to become owned by Nesta, which describes itself as an independent innovation-focused charity – has released a new report. While its authors present it as a useful “guidebook” toward building a “carbon-neutral society,” what critical observers of this content have concluded is that it promotes , and details, various forms of psychological manipulation of people.
The problem that the Behavioral Insights Team (aka “Nudge Unit”) has found itself solving is part of the narrative on climate change, where reaching “net zero” means eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. And they don't seem to care if the way to get there is by directly manipulating people, particularly online, through nudges to make choices that aren't really theirs but serve the agenda.
These choices concern and consume people's daily lives: what they wear, what and how much they eat, how they get to work, whether that job is "climate-friendly", how they travel in general and where they go, for example, on vacation.
These are all examples of what the report aims to influence behaviorally and, clearly, the 'solution' is to actively push citizens towards 'social transformation'.
In this sense, the report recommends inserting suggestions into apps that try to direct the user to order less take-out food through what critics could call "reality transformation" – one suggestion is to change the name of small portions in “regular portions”.
At one point, the report mentions BIT Case Study 4, which deals with “exploring” the role of social media influencers as a vehicle for promoting “green behaviors”.
The BIT 12 case study, on the other hand, concerns “assisting Solent Transport in building an effective application of 'Mobility as a Service'”. Solent Transport is a partnership with local transport authorities, whilst the main idea is to 'encourage people to leave their car' and 'push' them towards other means of transport. BIT case study 15 is about the idea of “encouraging” customers to order smaller portions on take-out platforms.
Several suggestions are provided to make “sustainable eating easy”, including that of exploiting the fact that online shopping “offers many opportunities to provide timely suggestions for replacement, or to encourage personalized goals and recommendations related to filters and the ranking of products".
The BIT says that in producing these case studies of interventions, it has collaborated with “HMG, the French Government, the UAE Crown Prince's Court, the World Wildlife Forum, Unilever, Tesco, Sky, Gumtree and Cogo”, among the others. In the end it is a question of psychological operations which force, indeed deceive, the consumer to reach his own goals, even if these are not, by their nature, in agreement.
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The article The Psy-ops of the British government to force citizens towards Net Zero comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/le-psy-op-del-governo-britannico-per-obbligare-i-cittadini-verso-il-net-zero/ on Mon, 06 Feb 2023 07:00:42 +0000.