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Discussion » Statements » Rosie's Corner » Do hostile foreign countries target highly intelligent people to become their useful idiot dupes?

Do hostile foreign countries target highly intelligent people to become their useful idiot dupes?

Or do they rather target the stupid dumb desperately frantic gullibles who  will believe anything at anytime about anyone they are instructed to?

Highly intelligent or stupid dumb? Rudy G and the dumb cluck duck? Your call.

Was Rudy G always this dumb? Apparently the dumb cluck duck was is will be. Yack yack quack quack.

Posted - October 18, 2020

Responses


  • 3684
    Beyond your country's febrile politics, it is not as simple as that. Hostile powers seek out whoever is likely to be the most useful for the particular attack.

    If they are trying to turn someone working for example in military research or a major financial institution, that individual is one with the appropriate knowledge; so will be highly intelligent and highly educated to have gained such employment in the first place. The security agency responsible will therefore look for exploitable weaknesses other than in learning or IQ, such as a sexual indiscretion, gambling debts or some grudge held. These days too, quite possibly use of unhealthy or even illegal Internet sites. 

    If though they are trying to sow fear and division generally, e.g. by false Facebook accounts, they have two choices. They know many will see through their lies, but if they win over even just 1 in a 1000, that is a lot of people nation-wide. The hostile power's account-creators are like fraud gangs in this respect. So they can aim the wilder nonsense at the less educated and more gullible the readers. Or they can be a lot more subtle, sowing doubt by statements that look credible, use improvable negatives, and the like. That can trap people who are more level-headed but might not always question the source and text of a story that looks real and appears to support their views. 

    I do not know to what extent such a power also uses personal data that are so horribly easy to give away in spades thanks to the way that Google, Facebook etc. work. At its simplest level it can use the data to aim appropriate political advertising or false messages in the same way as the retailers and their advertising-agencies. Now, an ordinary person's life is not generally important to the political or military eavesdropper, but analysis might reveal useful hints and nuggets such as profession, work location, or exploitable weaknesses. 
      October 18, 2020 4:02 PM MDT
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  • 113301
    Thank you for that new word Durdle. FEBRILE. Feverish. I have heard it before but didn't really understand what it meant. I would have guessed something else for the meaning...like fragile. Also thank you for a clearcut explanation. I appreciate. My hipshot response to such folks is that they are STUPID. But as you point out the real value in a useful idiot is the quality/quantity of the high-level information they provide. It's much more comfy for me to believe traitors are stupid than to believe they are highly intelligent and actively seek to provide "the enemy" with that intelligence. I wish there were a way to counteract that though. If a person doesn't have the decency to be faithful to his/her country then we are being harmed externally and internally. We rot away from within making us easier to defeat from without. I guess that has always been part of the human condition. I'm going ask are the intelligent people more or less apt to be moral? Happy Monday to you and yours m'dear!  FEBRILE. Good word.
      October 19, 2020 2:17 AM MDT
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  • 3684
    I don't think there is any connection between intelligence and morality.

    All that happens is that amoral people with a high IQ can do more damage or carry out more difficult crimes, than those of lower IQ. If you consider the deliberate cyber attacks by hostile nations, you realise most of that can only be carried out by people with considerable computing knowledge. The UK's security authorities have not only tracked a lot of that to the Russian military intelligence agency, but found the Russians were even making some of their attacks appear to have originated in China or North Korea!

    Similarly with fraud gangs. Bank robberies are very rare nowadays,  and the modern equivalent is all on-line, which is not only safer for the thief but is so technical it can only be carried out by highly-intelligent people.

    If traitors are stupid enough to hand over secrets, they are stupid only in not thinking through the consequences of their actions. Their "stupidity" is of morality and trust, not of IQ, education or cunning, and some do indeed actively seek to harm their own country. 
      October 19, 2020 4:26 PM MDT
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