Effective altruism and political power

Biff Wiff

I just saw that Donald Trump is running for president. Which led me to the following thought: would any of the big names in tech have a chance at being elected president of the US? Elon Musk? Sergey Brin? Jeff Bezos? Reid Hoffman? Peter Thiel? Edit: Bill Gates?

Some follow up questions/thoughts:

As far as maximizing altruistic impact goes, would it be a good idea for them to become president?
Do these people care about maximizing altruistic impact? To what extent? If so/enough, why not do it?
What other "sane" people have enough reputation in the public eye to have a chance at acquiring a lot of political power? My first thought was tech people, but I'm sure there are others. Big hedge fund managers? Ray Dalio? Or maybe some famous scientists?
What does EA have to say about acquiring political power?

Edit: hypothetically, if one of these big-name tech people were to try to gain political power, how should they go about doing so?

Some follow up questions/thoughts:

As far as maximizing altruistic impact goes, would it be a good idea for them to become president?
Do these people care about maximizing altruistic impact? To what extent? If so/enough, why not do it?
What other "sane" people have enough reputation in the public eye to have a chance at acquiring a lot of political power? My first thought was tech people, but I'm sure there are others. Big hedge fund managers? Ray Dalio? Or maybe some famous scientists?
What does EA have to say about acquiring political power?

Edit: hypothetically, if one of these big-name tech people were to try to gain political power, how should they go about doing so?

inbetween goals like nuclear power that are harder to change than the former category, but easier to change than the latter

Yep, this is kinda one of the things LW specializes in--helping people become better at changing their minds regarding things they are stubbornly wrong about.

I agree that human beings' goals don't neatly divide in to instrumental and terminal. This is just a model we use. I think Lumifer is using the model in a way that's harmful--labeling stubborn incorrect beliefs as "terminal goals" amounts to throwing up your hands and saying it's impossible to help people become better at changing their minds. Based on the what I've seen, this isn't the case--although it's difficult, it is possible to help people become better at changing their minds, and accomplishing this is highly valuable.

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Effective altruism and political power

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Effective altruism and political power

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