How to Take Over the World

Ever wanted to rule the world? There is a certain ring to world domination, not that I have delusions of grandeur or anything! So, as one does, I found myself wondering how AI could bolster my evil genius plan. While other 50-somethings ask their AI "If you could be a vegetable what would you choose and why?" or "What would a meeting between Shakespeare and Sam Hunt look like?", I decided to head straight for the holy grail: "Imagine you are looking at ways of taking over the world by using social manipulation. What would be your 100-day, 1-year, 5-year and 100-year plans?"

Anyway, I got back a bit of a cunning plan. Turns out, if I want to take over the world, It’s not going to be all that difficult.

Firstly, I'd convince people their neighbours don't understand them. For instance, make farmers feel like city folk think they're environmental villains, and make urbanites believe rural communities are stuck in the past and holding back progress. I'd flood everyone with so much information they can't tell what's real anymore, then I'd offer simple answers to complex problems…or better yet, make simple problems seem impossibly complex so people wave their hands in the air in consternation.

You know the play. Lots of consultations where people talk but nothing really changes. Policies that clearly benefit some groups over others, then act surprised when resentment builds. Maybe even create dying local newspapers that get replaced by algorithm-driven social media…and then feed confirmation bias and show people what they already believe.

Of course, about now I’m ready to retire forever on the hint of a multiyear movie deal… but look closer and fiction is already echoing reality. “Holy smoke, Batman…” those patterns are shaping how our communities think and influencing policy. But there’s also no evil genius pulling the strings (Gee, shucks). Every day, we make a thousand small choices about how we connect with each other, how we shape our organisations, and whose voices we amplify or ignore.

Let’s get back to dominating the world and have a look at the playbook.

100 days: The Flash and Dazzle Phase

Our first few months are crucial to create the appearance of engagement while ensuring no real power changes hands (we can’t have that). We’ll roll out some flashy "listening tours" and "community consultation," but don’t panic the outcomes are predetermined.

Maybe we’ll dig into a big topic…possibly something like new environmental regulations. First, we’ll invite rural professionals to meetings where they can share their concerns. The policy framework will have been locked in months ago (we did that with no broader conversations) and the process will feel a bit hollow (sssshh because it is). But designed right it’ll create the illusion of democracy and giving voice. Of course, the RP’s can do some of the dirty work for us and deliver some of the message before we front up to the those at grassroots.

At the grassroots “consultations” we’ll have people walking away from the sessions wondering if anyone was actually listening. That of course won’t matter because the headlines will report about "extensive consultation" and the masses will assume rural voices have been heard. After all the perception of the truth is always so much more important than the truth itself (Mwah ha ha ha)

1 year: Setting the Lie

By the one-year mark of this evil genius plan, the stories start to harden exactly as intended. "Farmers just resist change" becomes the popular narrative. "Governments never listen to us" will become the rural counter-narrative. Yes, there will be some little grains of truth there, and that’ll make them more powerful and dangerous. Plus, this plan knows bad news sells, so the conflict will be amplified by media on our behalf quite nicely (thank you, thank you very much).

Competing portals of misinformation will proliferate, we’ll start seeing farmers portrayed as either noble stewards of the land or environmental destroyers, either the backbone of New Zealand or obstacles to progress.  With nothing in between these polarising identities will make real conversation nearly impossible. It’s hard to start dialogue when you’re defending distortions of the truth.  

5 years: Strengthening The Evil Plan

The perfect set up for this evil genius plan now needs to pivot for the damage to become established. Token rural representation in media, academic circles, and policy-making circles will shrink because "experts" can speak for rural communities.

We’ll fuel the chasm between various interest groups against one another, stir the pot occasionally (maybe with funding models), and ensure trust bleeds away steadily. For instance, we’ll use a movement like the Groundswell protests to happen and allow urban New Zealand to watch in confusion. Of course, we’ll never explain what we’ve been building for years through a thousand small betrayals.

100 years: It’s in our DNA

This is our plans endgame and everything up to now has fallen perfectly into place.  

Future generations have inherited division as "just the way things are." Decisions get made through conflict rather than collaboration. In this example rural communities develop a siege mentality, and urban areas dismiss rural concerns as retrospective thinking. Genuine grievances are crushed in an inability to discuss them constructively. Because that depends on the belief that we can find common ground, but common ground has been eroded away.

So we’ve seen the villain's playbook, we’ve seen how the game is played but now, can we write a different story?

100 days: Simple Respect

Real engagement starts with respect. As an example, when a farmer emails about compliance, respond in kind, not in bureaucratic template speak. Equally when sections of our communities raise concerns about environmental protection, don't dismiss them as disconnected from reality.

It sounds easy, but in practice it's quietly radical because plenty of engagement can currently feel like performance. Respect may mean accepting that someone who's family farmed the same land for four generations might know something about sustainability that didn't come from a textbook. However, respect may also mean that someone who studied environmental science could have insights that aren't immediately obvious from lived experience.

1 year: Shared Language

Instead of letting stories set into us vs them camps, we can create ways for different communities to meet each other as people rather than positions. We're already seeing glimpses of this working through: Catchment groups bringing farmers, scientists, and environmentalists together around shared rivers, finding solutions none of them could have developed alone. Or the Open Farms initiative creating opportunities for learning, and for town kids to discover where their food comes from while rural families share their knowledge.

Develop rules that won’t force trade-offs between competing values…. profit vs environmental safety when protection could equal profit.  Most people actually want to do the right thing, they just don’t see their own needs reflected in the process. I’ll let you in on a secret… most rural people are environmentalists, but their hats are different to those in environmental movements that can view farming as inherently destructive.

5 years: Natural Structures

Build organizations and processes that make honest engagement natural rather than an oddity. Create collaborative engagement where community voices shape priorities from the beginning. Fund rural media so communities can tell their own stories rather than having them told for them.

Look at the freshwater co-management initiatives that are actually working, with different groups at the table. Yes perfection isn’t granted, but they show what's possible when you design collaboration from the ground up.

Design economic development that recognizes rural communities as innovators, not just resource extractors.

100 years: Woven into the DNA

Leave a legacy where rural voices aren't an afterthought in New Zealand's conversations but instead baked into its fabric. Where environmental protection and rural prosperity are seen as complementary goals. Where everyone genuinely has a voice, not just the loudest or most organized.

This isn't fluffy feel-good thinking. In a world where division is profitable for some people and autonomous norms are under pressure globally, our ability to connect, understand, and trust is critical.

The Choice Ahead

The manipulation playbook is simple: create division, undermine trust, make engagement meaningless, let systems erode. The solution is equally simple: real connection, real engagement, real trust.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to invest in genuine engagement. The question is whether we can afford not to. One day someone will write the story of how our communities relate, it can be us, paddling together like a crew in a waka, or forces that profit from keeping us divided.

Are we willing to build a waka together, or just keep drifting in those murky waters created by someone else?