"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.

Having no charisma is ruining your life

The Power of Leverage

View All

Judgment Is the Decisive Skill

We spoke about specific knowledge. We talked about accountability. We talked about leverage. The last skill that Naval talks about in his tweet storm is judgment, where he says that leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment. We are now living in an…

The Problem With Elon Musk

Uh, I mean, my mind is a storm. I don’t think most people would want to be me. They may think they would want to be me, but they don’t. They don’t know—is your storm a happy storm? No. I’ve grown tired of hearing the name Elon Musk and not really understa…

Homeroom With Sal - Is College Right for Me? (Part 2)

All right, well, I think we are back. So we had a little bit of technical difficulties as sometimes might happen on the internet. But Ernest, you were going through your explanation, and you were talking about how at Morehouse you were able to work with t…

What Happens if Earth Suddenly Stops Rotating? #kurzgesagt #shorts

What happens if the Earth suddenly stops rotating? A thing that isn’t attached to its surface remains at its initial speed—not just cars, buildings, and people, but also water and our atmosphere—causing giant tsunami waves and global windstorms. Areas ne…