[beat]

I remember seeing a bunch of "Elon Musk for president!" among certain social groups. And I was thinking that's like "He's my favorite musician! I want him removing my appendix!"

But that said, this is just noise anyway. It's not like these guys, however much we like them, will have any say in policy.

[lj3]

That reminds me of a Dylan Moran joke: "Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California. There's a perfectly ordinary English sentence. How did that happen!? ... He went over to the heavy thing, and lifted it, and put it back down and didn't move it anywhere. And then he did it again, hundreds of times, and he said to people who stopped to observe this aberrant behaviour, "Look how good I am at lifting the heavy thing in my underpants." Now, that may seem a little dim. But it was they who said "You're the man. You're the one we want to deal with immigration, and water rates, and taxes, and all that."

[sboselli]

This is nonsense.

Are you or anyone you know a completely one-dimensional person? Do you have the capacity to learn just one (and no more) topic?

Stop acting like people can't learn or have multiple passions/knowledge domains.

Please, there's absolutely nothing special or unattainable about politicians. If anything, they are the people who are most trained, set in their ways and corrupted in the most corrupted system humanity has known.

I welcome any and all outsiders.

[sharemywin]

I don't know capitalism seems pretty corrupting. I doubt people grow-up thinking gee I wish I could work for a company that hides research for years that my company produces a product that kills people and spends billions researching how to make it more addictive. or commit the largest ponzi scheme or pollute the environment or push drugs that have marginal benefit to people, etc.

Also, for every bribee in politics there's a briber as well.

[sharemywin]

not sure why I'm being down voted.

corruption - dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power.

CEOs and other decision makers of companies certainly have power. Several of them have hid the side effects of their products to continue making money.

I would call that being corrupt.

[lj3]

You're being downvoted because capitalism has nothing to do with the topic at hand. But, because I feel like tilting at windmills, I'll say this: there's nothing inherently corrupting about capitalism. Corruption is inherent to human nature and exists in socialism, communism and every other form of government ever invented.

The reason for this is humans naturally sort themselves into hierarchies and people will always strive to better their position in those hierarchies. With better position comes better chance at survival for you and future generations of you.

Money helps in the climb up the hierarchy, but it's not sufficient in most cases. Most climbs require power. Money can sometimes buy power, but it's not nearly as effective as trading favors, forging political alliances and manipulating people through blackmail.

Money influences power outside of capitalist systems as well. CGP Grey's video 'Rules for Rulers'[0] does a great job of illustrating why.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

[sharemywin]

fair enough I should have just down-voted the guy above me for saying government is innately corrupt and moved on.

The more people dismiss corruption as normal in the government the more corrupt it will be.

[lj3]

It's a joke. Lighten up.