Social Engineering

A social engineer is one who tries to influence popular attitudes, social behaviors, and
resource management on a large scale. Social engineering is the application of the
scientific method for social concern. Social engineers use the methods of science to
analyze and understand social systems, so as to arrive at appropriate decisions as
scientists, and not as politicians. In the political arena, the counterpart of social
engineering is political engineering.

Decision-making can affect the safety and survival of literally billions of people. As
expressed by German Sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies in his study The Present Problems
of Social Structure,[1] society can no longer operate successfully using outmoded
methods of social management. To achieve the best outcomes, all conclusions and
decisions must use the most advanced techniques and include reliable statistical data,
which can be applied to a social system. In other words, Social Engineering is a data-
based scientific system used to develop a sustainable design so as to achieve the
intelligent management of Earth’s resources with the highest levels of freedom,
prosperity, and happiness within a population.

For various reasons, the term has been imbued with negative connotations. However,
virtually all law and governance has the effect of seeking to change behavior and could
be considered "social engineering" to some extent. Prohibitions on murder, rape, suicide
and littering are all policies aimed at discouraging undesirable behaviors. In British and
Canadian jurisprudence, changing public attitudes about behaviour is accepted as one of
the key functions of laws prohibiting it. Governments also influence behavior more
subtly through incentives and disincentives built into economic policy and tax policy,
for instance, and have done so for centuries.

The term sociale ingenieurs was introduced in an essay by the Dutch industrialist J.C.
Van Marken in 1894. The idea was that modern employers needed the assistance of
specialists - "social engineers" - in handling the human problems of the planet, just as
they needed technical expertise (ordinary engineers) to deal with the problems of dead
matter (materials, machines, processes). The term was brought to America in 1899,
when the notion of "social engineering" was also launched as the name of the task of the
social engineer in this sense. "Social engineering" was the title of a small journal in
1899 (from 1900 named "Social Service"), and in 1909 the title of a book by its former
editor, William H. Tolman (translated in French in 1910), marking the end of the usage
of the terminology in the sense of Van Marken. With the Social Gospel sociologist
Edwin L. Earp's The Social Engineer, published during the "efficiency craze" of 1911 in
the U.S., the usage of the term was launched that has since then been standard: the one
building on a metaphor of social relations as "machineries", to be dealt with in the
manner of the technical engineer.
 Social Engineering Questions

1. Explain what a social engineer does. ______________________________

____________________________________________________________

2. What did the German Sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies in his study The Present
Problems of Social Structure say about society? ______________________
_____________________________________________________________

3. Social engineering has been imbued with negative connotations. True false

4. Law and governance has the effect of seeking to change behavior and could be
considered __________________________.

5. Modern employers need the assistance of specialists - "social engineers" - in

handling the human problems of the planet, just as they needed technical expertise
(ordinary engineers) to deal with the problems of dead matter (materials, machines,
processes). true false