The nudge matrix
The nudge matrix How they're playing you like an accordion laughlyn (johan eddebo) Imagine that it’s 1947, and you’re an operative of a newly formed US intelligence agency superseding the OSS. Your current assignment is to subvert the government of a small yet regionally powerful nation state to favor US business interests. Add that this state largely exists outside of the sphere of Western cultural or economic influence. To begin with, what tools do you have? In reality, they’re not that many. You don’t have a US-aligned opposition party to funnel money into, and nothing akin to an established cultural hegemony here. No strong Disney presence to utilize. And both the opposition and the nationalist elite and its political institutions are suspicious of all sorts of outside influence, jealously guarding their indepencence, so all sorts of direct institutional support and funding above the board are precarious. Neither do you own the media, which is a mix of private and public establ...