[arethuza]

When it comes to "charismatic leaders" I like this quote from Frank Herbert:

"“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: "May be dangerous to your health." One of the most dangerous presidents we had in this century was John Kennedy because people said "Yes Sir Mr. Charismatic Leader what do we do next?" and we wound up in Vietnam. And I think probably the most valuable president of this century was Richard Nixon. Because he taught us to distrust government and he did it by example.”

Edit: Maybe what we really need to worry about is an AI developing charisma....

[marcosdumay]

> Edit: Maybe what we really need to worry about is an AI developing charisma....

That is the most immediate worry, by a wide margin. It seems to be dangerously charismatic even before it got any recognizable amount of "intelligence".

[keiferski]

Not really a good example, honestly. Kennedy’s involvement in Vietnam was the culmination of the previous two decades of events (Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Taiwan standoff, etc.), and not just a crusade he charismatically fooled everyone into joining. If anything, had Nixon won in 1960 (and defeated Kennedy), it’s possible that the war would have escalated more quickly.

[arethuza]

Yeah - I really meant to only copy the first part of the quote - I agree that it is a bit unfair to Kennedy who I think did as much as anyone to stop the Cuban Missile Crisis becoming a hot war.