"They are not average and they are not normal" — Brian Klaas on power seekers. #shorts

less than 1m read

·Nov 3, 2024

Processing might take a few minutes. Refresh later.

The people who end up in power are not representative of the rest of us. They are not average, and they are not normal people. Those who are power hungry tend to self-select into positions of power more than the rest of us.

As a result, we have this skew, this bias in positions of power where certain types of people, often the wrong kinds of people, are more likely to put themselves forward to rule over the rest of us. That is one of the key challenges of modern life: we have to find ways to block them.

There's this absolute intersection between culture, behavior, individuals, and systems. When we have this simplistic view of power, we're missing the story.

What you really need is a system that attracts the right kind of people, so that the diplomats who are clean, nice, and rule-following end up in power. Then, you need a system that gives them all the right incentives to follow the rules once they get there.

If you do have people who break the rules, there needs to be consequences.

15 Signs You Get Played By Others

Ponzi Factor | V-Log 4 | Tesla SEC Settlement

View All

One-sided limits from graphs: asymptote | Limits and continuity | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

So over here we have the graph of y is equal to G of x. What I want to do is figure out the limit of G of x as x approaches positive 6 from values that are less than positive 6, or you could say from the left, from the negative direction. So what is this …

How to Calculate the Intrinsic Value of a Stock (Full Example)

Warren Buffett says the three most important words in investing are “margin of safety.” It’s no doubt the margin of safety is an integral concept used extensively by value investors, both past and present. We’re talking people like Charlie Munger, Warren …

Experiments in Art and Technology with Artforum Editor Michelle Kuo

So I’ll just start by saying experiments in art and technology was a group that was founded in 1966 by the artist Robert Rauschenberg by an engineer named Billy Kluever, who was a research scientist at Bell Labs at that time. Literally, the heyday, or bas…

He Hears Music in the Quietest Place on Earth—Can You? | Short Film Showcase

I like to say that silence is the think tank of the soul. Listening is something different. Listening means taking all sounds in with equal value. So instead of listening for a sound, I simply listen to the place. Today it’s the echo of the whole river br…