There’s nothing more for Shiller to say; what else could Supre Wisdom add?
If he continues to stress the slow advancent of environntal work, he’s essentially preventing his colleagues from achieving success, forcing them to avoid taking responsibility for building the Interstellar Society. If he continues to emphasize emotional issues, he might have to invite Shiller to co over as a psychiatrist. And if he agrees, the environntal work will have to be implented regardless. Moreover, as the Councilman’s Executive Secretary, it’s up to him to carry it out. Everyone knows he represents the Three Great Empires. If he starts working on it, won’t those opportunistic people have to imrse themselves deeply in the work, relentlessly?
Essentially, Shiller has blocked all possible excuses. Whether it’s the rise of great powers or the dignity of common people; whether it’s the Interstellar Society or the interstellar council, it seems there’s no longer any excuse to prevent the implentation of environntal work.
"Alright," Supre Wisdom said, "I’ll go make arrangents."
After saying that, he left. Strange sneered dismissively: "Is that all he’s capable of?"
Then suddenly it occurred to him, the plan might just be a pitfall for him, so he pounded the table in dissatisfaction, saying, "Is that all he’s capable of?!"
"Do you think he’ll truly go obediently to work?"
"What else could he do?" Strange asked, "Although I’ve never dealt with politics, I still understand. He can use a variety of thods to persuade ; he can delay or make excuses, but he can’t truly oppose . Because to so extent, we are a community of interests. Just like he said, we are part of the sa departnt."
"The Councilman’s loss of authority doesn’t benefit the Executive Secretary at all, and if the Councilman and the Executive Secretary clash, it will significantly reduce the interstellar council’s prestige, which is not sothing the Three Great Empires want to see. So regardless, he’ll have to make a semblance of effort."
"That’s where the problem lies. How do you carry out work you don’t want to do?" Shiller asked.
Strange gave it real thought and said, "I will delay as much as possible, until I can’t delay any longer."
"But when you can’t delay anymore, won’t you still have to do it?"
"It’s work, after all," Strange said, "No matter how much I don’t want to do it, in the end, I’ll have to. Maybe by delaying until there’s not enough ti, I can just go through the motions, which could be a small bit of revenge against being forced to do this work."
"This is what most people think," Shiller nodded and said, "Many people do the sa. This is actually not bad, but there is a better way."
"Such as?"
"The more you don’t want to do sothing, the more you should go all in and do it vigorously. Start by shouting slogans loudly, until everyone is annoyed by them. This is to reduce everyone’s sensitivity."
"Sensitivity?"
"Yes. When you hear a term for the first ti, you’ll think about its aning, but if you hear it repeatedly, it turns into a symbol. Its origin and the aning it intended to convey are diluted, becoming an imagery."
"I’m a bit lost," Strange said.
"Have you used emoji packages?"
"You an pictures?" Strange thought for a mont and said, "I usually only use the yellow face emoji, but my interns especially love to send these online pictures in the group chat. Recently, a cat has beco quite famous, and when I opened the group, I thought it was a pet care chatroom."
"Do you know the cat’s na? Do you know who the owner is? Do you know why the owner took this picture?"
Strange shook his head and said, "Of course not, I don’t care about those things."
"Alright, then do you rember the cat’s pose? The general condition? Is it long-haired or short-haired? What was it doing when the picture was taken?"
"Co on, those images are all edited so much. So have that cat wearing helts, others make its eyes shoot lasers, and there are a big circle of spinning text. How could I rember what the cat actually looks like?"
"That’s what I’m saying. When sothing is repeated overwhelmingly, people’s sensory perception diminishes, creating a specific symbol. Your impression of the cat is no longer the breed, appearance, personality people are most concerned about when getting to know a cat, but ’the recent popular cat,’ isn’t it?"
"Are you suggesting Supre Wisdom will repeat the environntal work until people begin to abandon its original aning, turning it into a symbol?"
"Exactly, if possible, he will also bind environntal work to you, promoting it as a slogan spearheaded by the Councilman. So, when people ntion environntal work, they’ll only think of ’one of the three fires of the newly appointed Councilman,’ rather than why we need environntal work and how to conduct environntal work."
Strange scratched his head and said, "What should we do then?"
"Don’t rush, this is just the first step. Just shouting slogans is not enough. After all, due to the pressure from us, actual work is still needed, and the first thing to do in actual work is to drag everyone into it."
"What do you an?"
"When a matter involves more people, spans across more departnts, and the responsibilities are distributed more ambiguously, it becos even harder to implent. So if you don’t want to do this job, you must involve more people in the task, and preferably a lot of unrelated people."
"For example, if it involves budget approval, you must drag all the finance people into it, such as the treasurer, accountant, finance; and as long as money is involved, there will definitely be issues of legality and security, so you can then involve the legal departnt and the security departnt; once the funds are approved, get the bank and other companies’ financial departnt personnel involved. Just in the financial aspect alone, you can pull in at least seven or eight departnts and dozens of people."
"In this situation, even if everyone is highly dedicated and has no complaints, not afraid to take responsibility or intentionally make things difficult, flawlessly completes their work, the commotion will still make other departnts think it’s a fuss over nothing, and it might even make the leaders of other departnts think the leader who assigned this work is out of their mind."
"What if your leader cos to question you?"
"You’re just being diligent and responsible. After all, when it cos to money matters, it’s naturally important to be extra cautious."
"I see, isn’t this just over-correcting?"
"No, over-correcting emphasizes depth, whereas doing this emphasizes breadth. If it were truly over-correcting, you’d find so connections and then harass them with this work every day, forcing them to constantly deepen the task until they get annoyed and naturally go to the leader."
"Luckily we don’t have connections here," Strange said, "so what’s next?"
"Ordinary work stops here. Involving so many departnts and people, you find , I find you, no one can handle anyone, yet everyone can affect each other, and the result is a ss, a total chaos. Because of poor execution, if the leader forces it, they will lose their prestige, and most likely will halt the work."
"What if we persist and don’t stop?"
"Then you have to create so troubles. Doing this has risks, because if anything goes wrong, you may also need to take responsibility, but if the completion of this task harms them more, they’re sure to do this."
Strange actually wants Supre Wisdom to do this, as this complete set of operations can delay for a few days without issue. But now that Shiller has seen through it, he will definitely take asures and won’t let Supre Wisdom slack off, and probably won’t be delayed for long.
"What should we do then?" Strange subtly tried to ask Shiller’s counterasures, hoping it might even reveal sothing to Supre Wisdom.
"We don’t need to do anything," Shiller said.
Strange frowned but couldn’t fathom why Shiller would say that. Fortunately, Shiller quickly explained.
"To be precise, we’ve already dealt with it. Didn’t you clearly express your dissatisfaction with the Three Great Empires in the morning eting, asking people to take sides?"
"Uh, is that considered a counterasure?"
"Of course. The premise of dragging everyone down and making a matter chaotic is that nobody wants to do this thankless job. But what if there’s a ringleader among them?"
"You’re saying..."
"You’ve clearly expressed an attitude of cutting ties with the Three Great Empires, and because of your status as the Supre Magician, the cosmos’s foremost wizard, there will certainly be those who choose to stand on your side. For those on the side of the Three Great Empires and Supre Wisdom, a job they avoid like the plague is a perfect stage for those people to make achievents."
"They seek favors from you, desperately trying to show their loyalty, but lacking opportunities to display it. At this ti, Supre Wisdom, in order to prevent the job from progressing, involves everyone, even arranging work for irrelevant departnts, ensuring that no one who wants to express loyalty is left out—this is a godsend opportunity."
"So these people will work diligently?"
"Not only will they diligently complete their work, they will spontaneously form factions and confront the faction of the Three Great Empires. Once a confrontation arises, the Three Great Empires side will find it hard to slack off, as their opponents will certainly report them, seizing upon their flaws, nitpicking, and making a big deal out of small issues just to undermine their prestige."
"At this point, you can stand up and support them, because no matter what, not completing the work properly is wrong. As long as the evidence is strong enough, you can even dismiss a few, setting an example; and if you can seize upon their wrongdoing, you can take the opportunity to publicize the Dark Matter outbreak, causing public panic, and then show them the ugly faces of the Three Great Empires. After all, they consu the most cosmos resources, yet they are the least willing to do environntal work; they refuse to clean up their own ss and want the cosmos to go down with them—no matter how you look at it, this is quite shaless, isn’t it?"
Strange almost wanted to applaud Shiller. Even though he understood this series of plans might lead to his own downfall, he couldn’t help but admire this brilliant and smooth strategy.
The thod of rallying one faction and attacking another is classic, yet it remains highly effective. As a leader, you may know nothing else, but must know how to vertically divide your subordinates, ensuring there’s always a faction in your grasp, a blade in your hand to cut away unwanted parts. If you can make everyone vie to be your blade, then even if you know nothing, you’re sure to be a successful leader.
Strange pondered deeply. Truthfully, he was a bit swayed now; although letting Shiller continue might result in taking the bla, he could learn a lot from it.
Strange knew his biggest weakness was not coming from an influential family. Although climbing up from the bottom gave him a firr will and more life experience, he was inevitably lacking in high-level political insights and so strategic thods. Becoming the Councilman this ti could just help him make up for these deficiencies.
Strange raised his eyes, just eting Shiller’s grey gaze, like snow under the moonlight, carrying a non-human, cold, eerie look, as if it had already seen through everything. In them, he saw Greed, and he saw his own greed.
Strange quickly withdrew his gaze, took a deep breath, lowered his head and looked at the list Shiller had given him earlier, and said, "I need to personally contact those who have leaned towards , help inform them."
"Yes, Supre Magician."
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