TWOTS is an acronym of my own invention - The Way Of The Swindler. A Twot is also someone who uses TWOTS in order to win arguments that he should lose, confidences that he is not entitled to and positions of responsibility at which he is totaly unsuitable and incapable.

Although such a person is not a full time professional swindler, like the revisionists who try to "prove" the Holocaust didn't happen (and whose techniques are documented and fought using this list of fallacies), a Twot is still a destructive person whose personal ambition overcomes their ethics and/or blinds them to the damage they cause.

A Twot may have little or no skills of any use apart from knowing how to manipulate people. Whatever else may be making the word go round people are still in charge. If you are a master of people, you can be master of the world. Unfortunately, the world may not benefit from your mastery.

When the Challenger Space Shuttle blew up, Richard Feynman was asked to investigate how it was that a vehice whose chance of failure was so incredibly remote (according to the Twot provided figures) actually did fail. The full text of his report can be found here, but take a close look at his conclusion:

Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality in understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them. They must live in reality in comparing the costs and utility of the Shuttle to other methods of entering space. And they must be realistic in making contracts, in estimating costs, and the difficulty of the projects. Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources.

For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

I have come across a lot of twottery in my time, particularly as a consultant. TWOTS are some of the techniques these sort of people use. Over the coming weeks and months I shall try to document as many of them as I can think of.

All the best

Richard

TWOTS: next