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by AndrewKemendo 3459 days ago
Except power in US politics is fleeting. 8 years. That's the most you can be at the "top." Maybe being a long standing senator is better - even then though, it's a fight every 6 years.

You can however influence successive political parties around the world if you have a big enough company.
3 comments
eli_gottlieb 3459 days ago
>Except power in US politics is fleeting. 8 years. That's the most you can be at the "top."

What makes you think that regular fair elections are going to continue indefinitely in the United States of America?

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AndrewKemendo 3459 days ago
Nothing. However there is nothing saying that it's going any other direction either, so I don't think that's worth considering.

Do you contend that Zuckerburg would be running to become emperor for life of the US? I don't think that's a reasonable argument.

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eli_gottlieb 3459 days ago
>Do you contend that Zuckerburg would be running to become emperor for life of the US?

No, he'd have to assassinate Trump to get the position.

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rabbyte 3459 days ago
8 years is a century to network with the most powerful people in the world.
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AndrewKemendo 3459 days ago
It's literally less than a century, and look at what former presidents are doing now.

Who has more power over a longer period of time: Bill Clinton or Bill Gates? I argue Gates.

It's just going to get magnified too, as technologies dominate everything. The government can't keep up.

The US Government is not designed such that the president or any other job "runs the country" or has crazy power. That's the whole point of the constitution. Even if you consider nukes, despite what you read in policy they aren't a one man decision. People resign instead of using them, just look at the NIxon/Kissinger conversation about nuking Vietnam.

So there is an upper limit on power in the government. There is no upper limit on power in the private sector.

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rabbyte 3459 days ago
> It's literally less than a century

That's not how metaphors work. When you're the head of state, you have unique access and influence that others need. You become an unavoidable actor in the networks of power that manage the worlds resources. Your access will go deeper into those networks than by any other means.

> It's just going to get magnified too, as technologies dominate everything. The government can't keep up.

That's not how the world works. Technology is simply an extension of our will, we fashion it to govern us, but it can never replace us. The "private sector" is just another branch of governance and exists purely in legal forms. I do believe technology can be a liberating force and that we can design a system of incentives that reduces the need for human dependencies but it would be absolute terror to remove us from the instrumentation of the world.

edit- can't reply to you below so I'll reply here: AGI is just the latest fashion, it's still technology which means it still extends from our will. Technology is an ancient human practice, digging into the world with our understanding and forming tools to manage it. It's as old as clothing or written language. That we can replicate or automate our will doesn't negate that our will is being represented and that everything must conform to our needs or be taken as damage. It's fully possible to exterminate ourselves by removing our role from the universe but this isn't something I advocate.

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AndrewKemendo 3459 days ago
When you're the head of state, you have unique access and influence that others need.

You have the same access and influence as a F50 CEO, but for longer.

Technology is simply an extension of our will, we fashion it to govern us, but it can never replace us.

Famous last words.

edit: I'll just say it, the company (and I believe it will be a company) that builds AGI, will for a brief period be more powerful than the collection of all nation states.

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saghm 3459 days ago
> Who has more power over a longer period of time: Bill Clinton or Bill Gates? I argue Gates.

Right, but Clinton wasn't a CEO of a tech company before he was president. A better analogy would be who would have had more period over a longer period of time, Bill Gates as he is now, or Bill Gates if he had become president after stepping down as CEO of Microsoft?

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kawera 3459 days ago
But after those hypothetical 8 years he would still have FB.
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AndrewKemendo 3459 days ago
Maybe. You have to by law divest interests during the period of service and it would be a really weird power shift back and forth.
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rezashirazian 3459 days ago
I doubt any of these powerful individuals would ignore a call from Mark Zuckerberg right now.
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SilasX 3459 days ago
... because you're immediately ignored as persona non grata when your presidential term is up?
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AndrewKemendo 3459 days ago
Kind of and depending on who is being talked to. As soon as you leave office you lose the reason people care about you: your ability to influence levers of power. That is unless you start something else big or had something big before you came into office.

So yea, former presidents aren't really power players after they leave office - they still have influence but nothing at the same level as the people at the top of the Forbes list because they control so little.

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