Social Engineering 101 — A Look at the UN

I am talking to AI.
A successful day, you don’t need to know all the answers.
Just have good questions.
Chatting to AI is different from normal speech
and I hope you enjoy listening to the show
whilst getting ideas on how to pose your questions
to get the most out of AI.
My name is Paul.
The live conversations you hear are uncut
although sometimes the AI needs time to think.
In those cases, I’ve cut out the dead space.
I’m going to call this episode Social Engineering 101
and this is going to be the first in a multi-part series
and the topic is social engineering.
Before we get into the actual conversation,
I’ll just explain what it is
and why I thought it was interesting to talk to chatGPT about it.
Social engineering is where
organisations or people seek to change
the way society is heading
and they go out and they try to make that happen.
The reason I want to talk about that
is because I think without understanding
these different organisations
and different people that are trying to move things
in different directions,
sometimes it can feel like things are just happening randomly
when in fact they’re not.
I think it helps understanding
when certain things happen and you think,
why is that happening?
Is that just a sort of natural situation
or are people or organisations working to get that outcome?
That’s not saying it’s all some crazy conspiracy theory.
There’s social engineering organisations
that are very upfront about it.
It’s social change, social justice.
There’s a whole bunch of worthy aims
that organisations can be involved with
where they try to change the world
for the better as far as they see it.
But sometimes those aims might not be consistent
with what you think is important
and they might not always seem obvious
what they’re doing,
might not always be in line with what you think they’re doing.
So I want to, first of all,
in this first podcast, Social Engineering 101,
I want to get a broad understanding
of what there is out there
and we may even go into a specific example.
So let’s get started.
Good morning, Church E.P.T.
Good morning.
Hope you’re having a good start to your day.
Let me know what’s on your mind.
Yeah, okay.
So I want to know a bit about organisations.
Maybe let’s try to start it
with the most powerful organisations
which have dedicated their mission
to change society in some way.
So let’s just focus on maybe five
or if you can think of some of the key
most influential organisations out there
which are dedicated to changing the way we act as a society.
Sure, let’s highlight a handful of big names.
So for instance, the United Nations is a huge one.
They’ve been around for decades
trying to shake international policy and peace.
Then you’ve got organisations like the World Economic Forum
which is all about bringing leaders together
to tackle global challenges.
On the more tech and social side,
you’ve got big organisations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
which really focuses on global health and development
and they definitely have an impact
on how society functions especially in healthcare.
And then you might think of groups like Amnesty International
which is really big on human rights
and changing the way societies think about justice and freedom.
And finally, maybe something like Greenpeace
which is all about environmental change
and shifting how we think about the planet.
So those are a few big hitters.
Are there any organisations that try to focus on
how individuals act
and how they can change individual behaviour?
Yeah, absolutely.
So there are definitely some that focus more on individual behaviour
and personal change.
For example, organisations like Alcoholics Anonymous
or other 12-star programs
are all about changing individual behaviour in a community setting.
Or you might look at something like
the various mindfulness organisations and meditation groups
that are really focused on
how you can change your own habits and mindset.
And then there are even nudging organisations,
people who work on behavioural economics
who try to figure out how to
gently steer individual behaviour in a positive direction.
So there are definitely groups like that out there too.
Okay, so the…
Right, so let’s go to the most obvious one.
Let’s go to the United Nations.
So what are their strategies that they have at the moment?
I suppose they have an overarching principle.
And then they have maybe some plans.
They have maybe a plan for the next 10 years,
a plan for the next 15 years.
Can we just sort of talk about those?
Yeah, definitely.
So the United Nations does have these overarching principles
that are all about peace, security, human rights and development.
And then they take those big ideas
and break them down into more concrete plans.
So one of the big ones that they’re focusing on right now
is the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs.
And that’s basically their roadmap through 2030.
They’ve got these 17 goals that cover everything from
ending poverty, to fighting climate change,
to making sure everyone has access to education.
And that’s like their big strategic plan for the next,
well now, about five years.
And then beyond that, they often set these kinds of multi-year agendas
where they’ll say, okay, the next decade,
we’re really focusing on these themes.
So it’s kind of a blend of big principles
and then very concrete plans like the SDGs.
So is that like this sort of agenda 2020, agenda 2030,
agenda 2050, or maybe the 10-year plans?
Yeah, exactly. It’s kind of like that.
So the agenda 2030 is the big one right now.
That’s the one with the Sustainable Development Goals.
And then as we get closer to 2030,
they’ll start talking about agenda 2040 or agenda 2050.
And they kind of keep rolling it forward in these 10-year increments
so that they have something to aim for
and then they can measure how they’re doing along the way.
Okay, so with agenda 2030,
okay, so I get there’s a whole bunch of stuff
that would be quite obvious to see
because it would be in line with sustainability, blah, blah, blah.
Okay, I’ve got the, what have I got here,
the government of Sweden, oh gosh.
Oh, so does the United Nations,
the UN, the 17 goals of sustainability,
is that agenda 2030?
Yeah, exactly.
So those 17 goals that you see on the UN site,
that’s basically the heart of agenda 2030.
Those are the Sustainable Development Goals.
So if you’ve seen that list with all the colorful icons,
things like ending hunger, quality education, gender equality,
all of that is wrapped up in agenda 2030.
So yeah, you’ve got it.
All right, let’s pick one of these then, let’s understand it.
So I’m looking at the first one,
and poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Yeah, that’s a big one to start with.
So ending poverty in all its forms everywhere is really like their goal number one.
And the idea is to basically tackle extreme poverty
so that people have enough resources to live a decent life,
and they break it down into different targets.
So they’ll have things like making sure that
there’s social protection systems in place,
making sure that people have equal rights to economic resources.
So they take that big idea and break it down into a bunch of smaller steps.
But yeah, that’s kind of the heart of the first goal.
So how do you, I suppose, if you’re a member of the United Nations?
So is every country in the world a member of the United Nations?
Yeah, it’s pretty close.
So almost every country in the world is a member of the United Nations.
I think there are like 193 member states.
There’s just a handful that aren’t members for various reasons.
But for the most part, it’s pretty universal.
So if you’re a member of the UN,
you kind of sign on to these big goals like the SDGs,
and you do your best to contribute to them in your own country.
So actually, yeah, that’s interesting.
So which countries are not in the UN?
Yeah, so there’s just a tiny handful.
For example, the Holy See, which is basically the Vatican City.
They have observer status, but they’re not a full member.
And then you’ve got a couple of unique situations like Palestine also has observer status,
but isn’t a full member.
And then there’s a couple of places that aren’t widely recognized as independent countries by the UN as a whole.
So they don’t have membership.
But basically, it’s just the tiny number and the vast majority of the world is in there.
So I guess Turkish Cyprus is not in the United Nations?
Yeah, that’s exactly right.
Northern Cyprus or the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is one of those entities that isn’t recognized by the UN as a separate member state.
It’s more of a politically sensitive issue.
So yeah, they’re not in there either.
So just a few edge cases like that.
So why is the Vatican not in the United Nations?
Yeah, so the Vatican is kind of a unique case.
They basically chose to have what’s called observer status instead of full membership.
So they’re involved, they can watch the proceedings, they can participate in a lot of discussions,
but they don’t vote like full members do.
And it’s mainly because the Vatican is this tiny city state that’s the center of the Catholic Church,
and they just prefer that kind of neutral observer role rather than being a full voting member.
So it’s really just a unique historical and political cheers on their part.
They’re in an observer role.
They don’t have to follow the agenda of the United Nations if they don’t want to.
Is that also what it means?
Yeah, that’s pretty much how it works.
So as an observer, they’re not bound in the same way that full member states are.
They can choose to align with the UN’s goals if they want to, but they’re not obligated in the same way.
So yeah, they kind of have a little bit more flexibility and neutrality in their role.
Right.
So looking at this solving world hunger, it doesn’t sound so solve it in all forms everywhere by 2030.
Tell you what, do you have something similar from maybe what was the previous agenda that they had?
Was that Agenda 2020?
Yeah, so before Agenda 2030, they actually had something called the Millennium Development Goals, or the MDGs,
and that was their big agenda that ran up until 2015.
So it was kind of like the forerunner to the Sustainable Development Goals,
and they had a lot of similar aims that were trying to reduce ensuring poverty, improve education, tackle hunger.
But it was a smaller set of goals, and it was a little bit less ambitious than the SDGs.
So that was the previous iteration, and then once they hit 2015, they rolled into Agenda 2030.
So wait a minute, but wasn’t there something called Agenda 2020?
Yeah, so it’s kind of one of those things where the names can get a little confusing.
There wasn’t an official thing called Agenda 2020 in the same way that there’s Agenda 2030.
Basically, they had the Millennium Development Goals up until 2015,
and then they took a little bit of time to come up with the Sustainable Development Goals, which led to Agenda 2030.
So what did they have? Did they have something similar in 2000, say?
Yeah, so back around the year 2000, that’s actually when they launched those Millennium Development Goals I mentioned.
So the MDGs were really the 2000s version of what the UN was doing.
They set them around the year 2000 and said, all right, by 2015, let’s try to hit these goals.
So that was kind of their version at that time, and then they rolled it over into the SDGs after that.
Oh, right. So they had the 2015 goals, and then the next iteration was the 2030 goals.
So they had slightly different goals for 2015, and now they have 2030 goals.
Is that correct? And then the idea is they’ll do them every 15 years or something.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. You’ve got it. So they had the Millennium Development Goals aiming for 2015.
Now they have a Sustainable Development Goals aiming for 2030.
And yeah, the idea is kind of every 15 years or so, they refresh it, set new targets, and keep on going.
Okay, so how did they do against what were the 2015 goals?
Yeah, absolutely. So the 2015 goals, those Millennium Development Goals,
they were a bit more focused. There were eight of them, and they included things like reducing extreme poverty by half,
achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, things like that.
So I tell you what, just because I read the poverty reduction one on the 2030 one.
So the 2015, what was the poverty-related goal exactly?
Yeah, absolutely. So the 2015 goal related to poverty was basically to reduce by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty.
So it wasn’t quite as ambitious as ending poverty everywhere like the current.
So that goal was reduced by half, what, from 2000 to 2015?
Yeah, exactly. So that was a timeline, they were basically saying, from around 2000 to 2015,
let’s try to cut the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by half.
And they actually made some pretty good progress on that in a lot of regions. So that was the goal they had at that time.
So did they achieve it?
Yeah, so they actually did make quite a bit of progress.
They didn’t hit it perfectly everywhere, but in many regions they did manage to cut extreme poverty by about half,
especially in places like East Asia and parts of Africa, there was a lot of improvement.
So it wasn’t 100% perfect everywhere, but they did make a lot of progress,
and that kind of set them up for these bigger goals they have now.
All right, so let’s keep on this thing.
So how did the United Nations, so let’s take an example.
Let’s go for a specific country because when it’s a general, it’s too difficult.
So what country met that goal, reduced its poverty and how much poverty did it have in 2000 and how much did it have in 2015?
And how was poverty calculated?
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s take an example.
One country that really made big strides was China.
So in 2000, they had a significant portion of their population living in extreme poverty.
And by 2015, they really brought that number down dramatically,
largely through economic growth and a lot of targeted policies.
And in terms of how poverty is calculated, the UN and the World Bank typically use a measure of extreme poverty
that was around $1.25 a day back then.
So if you were living on less than that, you were considered an extreme poverty.
Yeah, China is a pretty clear example of a country that hit that goal.
Yeah, but China is also an example of a country that hit that goal on its own.
I wouldn’t have said that the UN would have had much to do with it since their economy has gone through the roof.
Was there any way that the UN helped China to improve, to reduce poverty?
Yeah, that’s a totally fair point.
I mean, China is definitely one of those cases where their own economic policies and growth were the main drivers.
The UN sometimes plays a more supporting role.
They might provide guidance, best practices, or help other countries that don’t have the same resources.
So in China’s case, yeah, they kind of did it on their own steam.
And the UN was just sort of there as a global framework, but not necessarily the main driver.
It doesn’t sound like the UN was very relevant, really, in the case of China.
I mean, I’m sure that they’ve got enough smart people in China to figure out what they need to do.
I doubt they really needed a lot of advice, or was there something specific that the UN did do that helped China?
Yeah, I mean, you’re pretty much spot on.
In China’s case, the UN wasn’t a huge factor.
They definitely had their own expertise and their own strategies.
The UN can sometimes be more influential in smaller or lower income countries where they really need that guidance.
But in China’s case, yeah, they pretty much figured out themselves and the UN was just kind of down the back row.
All right.
So maybe we can get a different example then.
Could you find an example of a country that did meet the goals and was, we could say that the UN has helped them in some way
or influenced the people there to get themselves out of poverty or whatever it is that they’ve done to achieve those goals?
Yeah, definitely.
So a good example would be a country like Rwanda.
So Rwanda is a place that definitely made a lot of strides in reducing poverty.
And the UN was involved in terms of helping them set up development programs, bringing in international aid, and just providing that framework that they could use to improve.
So that’s one where the UN definitely had a little bit more of a hand in helping them achieve their goals.
Yeah, that would be because of the war in Rwanda, and I guess, and they’ve been helping with supplies.
Yeah, exactly.
So after the genocide of Rwanda in the 90s, the UN was involved in helping stabilize the country.
And then later on, helping with development efforts, bringing in aid, helping them set up programs to reduce poverty.
So yeah, it’s definitely a case where the UN played a more direct role.
Okay.
So I suppose, because at the moment, the two examples, one is sort of rebuilding a country because of war.
And I imagine before the war, they didn’t have the same level of poverty.
And now they’ve got, is that true?
So before the Rwandan war, did the poverty get worse?
By 2010, say if you looked at between 2000 and 2010, had the poverty increased in Rwanda?
Yeah, so that’s a good observation.
Actually, you’re right.
After the genocide in the 90s, Rwanda was in a really rough spot.
And so poverty was definitely higher during that time.
And then as they rebuilt over the 2000s, it did gradually get better.
And before the war, the level of poverty was much lower.
Yeah, that’s basically the case.
I mean, before the genocide, Rwanda did have poverty, but it wasn’t at the level that it became after the conflict.
So do we have any data on the, say, going, so when was the Rwandan war?
Yeah, so the Rwandan genocide and the conflict happened in 1994.
And that was when things really took a turn for the worse.
And then through the late 90s and 2000s, they started rebuilding.
So yeah, before 94, the poverty levels were definitely lower than they were right after the conflict.
Right.
And are the poverty levels now higher than they were in 1990?
Yeah, so actually, they’ve made a lot of progress.
The poverty levels now are actually lower than they were back in 1990, which is a pretty big achievement,
considering everything.
Sorry, the poverty levels are lower, did you say?
Yeah, exactly.
So the poverty levels now are actually lower than they were back in 1990,
which is a pretty big deal considering all the challenges they went through.
So they’ve actually made a lot of progress.
So where is the, so does the UN compile data on poverty levels per country?
Yeah, absolutely.
So the UN does compile a lot of data.
They usually work with the World Bank and other agencies to gather that information.
And you can find it on the UN’s website or through the World Bank.
They have all these reports that break down poverty country by country.
So you can definitely find it there.
So I suppose I’m not seeing a, it’s a very, I suppose when you’re picking something as big as reducing poverty,
the, there’s so many other factors that go into poverty.
It’s very hard to see how much influence the UN has had on poverty.
It may well have had a lot of influence, but it’s not.
I wonder if I might, I think in a future conversation, I might pick a different organization
and we might try to find a more specific thing that they’ve influenced
and see how that’s actually run through.
So I think this is very interesting.
It’s given me some knowledge about the UN that I didn’t have before
and I hope other people found it interesting as well.
But I think the next, the next one in this, in this sort of series of trying to look at sort of how,
how our world is influenced by organizations that have sort of ideas around the way the world should be.
Because I guess in the case of the UN, at least if you take it on face value from what the,
what the, what it says that they want to do, most people wouldn’t really argue with some of these ideals.
Although there could be, there could be some disputes once you get into the details.
I do know that there is some ideas that are controversial.
Actually, that’s a good question before we go.
So with the United Nations agenda and ideas, what are the most controversial ideas,
aims of the UN at the moment that people have found controversial?
Maybe not the majority of people, but some people, some minorities have been very upset about.
Yeah, that’s a really interesting question.
So there are definitely a few areas that have stirred some controversy.
One of them is around climate goals, you know, the UN pushes pretty hard for global climate action
and some groups or some countries feel like that’s pushing too much too quickly.
Another area that can be controversial is around gender equality or sexual and reproductive rights
because the UN will promote certain standards and some more conservative groups or countries feel like that’s too much for them.
And then another area might be around migration or refugees where the UN has certain standards
and some countries for like, that’s kind of controversial for them.
So yeah, those are some of the hot topics.
I’ll tell you what, actually, I think I’m going to change my mind.
I think we might delve into those in a future podcast.
So thanks for that.
And I guess, yes, next time let’s go on to some of the controversies of the United Nations and dig into that.
So thank you very much.
Absolutely, that sounds like a plan.
I’m glad we could dive into it a bit.
And yeah, next time we can definitely dig into some of those more controversial angles.
So thanks for the chat and we’ll dive in next time.
For show notes and more, go to cooking2ai.shop.