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?

Could be or could be not -- the original example is quite barebones and we can read different interpretations into it. But in any case that seems irrelevant: we are not talking about the difference between instrumental and terminal goals, we are talking about the choice between two agents/proxies one of which has a closer value system and the other is more effective at achieving his goals.

we are talking about the choice between two agents/proxies one of which has a closer value system and the other is more effective at achieving his goals.

If the two environmentalists had a debate about this subject, each could start the debate by saying they want to do whatever is best for the environment. And then each could present a series of facts suggesting that nuclear power either is or is not good for the environment--a factual disagreement about what the right instrumental goal is for achieving the terminal goal of helping the environment.

If yo... (read more)

1skeptical_lurker11y

I agree with hg00 - I meant that environmentalism is a goal and nuclear power is a means to an end, not a value in itself.

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Effective altruism and political power

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Effective altruism and political power

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