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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began 2017 with a bold personal challenge: "to have visited and met people in every state in the US by the end of the year."
So far, his whistlestop tour of the states certainly bears all the hallmarks of early political canvassing.
As part of the challenge, Zuckerberg reportedly wanted to meet longtime Democrats who voted for Trump in the last election and asked his team to reach out and find such people.
[...]
Such a tour becomes even more conspicuous in light of unsealed court filings from a class-action lawsuit in 2016 in which Zuckerberg attempted to dilute shareholder power and afford himself permanent control of the $440 billion company.
Of particular note in the proceedings was a message sent to Zuckerberg by Marc Andreessen, one of Facebook's most prominent investors, in which he raised the issue of "how to define the government service thing without freaking out shareholders that you are losing commitment."
"It's the thing people will point to on announcement and say 'what the f**k are you guys doing agreeing to this', particularly since... government service would require you to give up control of Facebook anyway and it's a moot point," said Andreessen, adding credence to speculation that Zuckerberg will make a run for political office at some point in the future.
One of the richest men in the world will be looking out for the little guy, right?
Source: https://www.rt.com/usa/386718-zuckerberg-political-campaign-rumors/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 02 2017, @01:53PM (15 children)
Obama will be our last president whose not a billionaire or part of some fucking dynasty.
Pretending to have a democracy was fun though.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @02:15PM (14 children)
What would be better, given that we even allow you to vote? Changing who votes would be great of course: you must have a traditional engineering degree with at least a minor in economics, and you must be invested in the future of the nation (have 3+ kids).
Normally we choose by looks. Given photos of two unfamiliar candidates (senators or governors from a different state) people can usually predict the winner.
Sometimes a good campaign slogan helps. Everybody wants "change", as long you carefully avoid giving details that might piss people off. (no, I don't want that change at all, I want the other change) Promise the moon ("You can keep your health insurance plan. You can keep your doctor.") and speak in poetic words. It's all nonsense.
At least a billionaire knows how to manage money. Having a good feel for money is important. Somebody who is a mere millionaire might be a bit erratic dealing with millions of millions. It's hard enough stepping up 4 orders of magnitude; 7 is worse. For example, "the wall" feels expensive to most people, but it's barely even pocket change to the US federal government.
The dynasty types will know the levers to pull. They might be more able to get stuff done... though perhaps that is a bad thing. Somebody with that kind of power can get away with murder.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:05PM (9 children)
It's amazing the number of my fellow engineers who get this mistaken impression that they know jack-shit about running a country.
Anyone who has spent substantial time with engineers would know that that being able to plan a 40nm board layout or check a manual to determine the appropriate wire gauge for support 17 tons across a 20 foot span doesn't make you smart.
Also, I would do anything to save myself from people who've only ever taken econ 101 reducing every social problem to a linear supply/demand curve.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:16PM (1 child)
Engineers generally lack the skill to get people to do what they want, as politicians. When they morph into technocrats, though, they can become a much more positive and helpful variety of bureaucrat.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:30PM
Steps for an engineer to gain the skills to become president / ceo type.
Step 1. Surround yourself with people who only say Yes.
Step 2. Insulate yourself from cause and effect loops.
Step 3. Tell yourself it's THEIR problem if you don't understand something.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:33PM (5 children)
Perhaps, but I'd rather have engineers in public office than a bunch of lawyers. At least engineers know how to solve problems, not make them worse.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:39PM
.... aaaaand that's the problem in that a lot of "problems" are rackets where the "right" people are making money.
What an engineer sees as a ridiculous design mistake is some saledroid's commission opportunity or upselling feature.
If the purpose of the government was to fix things, things would run quite a bit different and engineers would already be in charge. If the purpose of the government is to entrench corruption, then you need something like the breaking bad "Criminal" defense attorney.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:45PM (3 children)
At least engineers know how to solve problems,
That's a false equivalency.
Engineers know how to solve a specific class of problem involving hard sciences like physics and chemistry.
Lawyers know how to solve a different class of problem involved soft sciences like psychology and sociology.
Guess which class most closely resembles the problems of governing, especially governing a democracy?
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:05PM (1 child)
Lawyers know how to solve a different class of problem
With all due respect its more like the consultant who's pretty good at keeping the money rolling in and fixing things may or may not help with keeping the money rolling in.
Like the old joke about a lawyer starves in a one-lawyer-town but once a town has two lawyers nothing gets fixed, but the two lawyers do get fat. Any other profession, if the existing population in a professional field is starving, doubling the population would result in utter famine, with the sole exception of lawyers, LOL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:41PM
With all due respect you suck at analogies.
Telling jokes that illustrate your ignorance of fields you have no experience in isn't an analogy, its just superficial invective.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06 2017, @04:14AM
Guess which class most closely resembles the problems of governing, especially governing a democracy?
Neither, because the differences are insignificant. Lawyers tend to want power and money above all, and many are sociopaths/psychopaths. Of course, that problem applies to most politicians, and being an engineer would not really solve anything. The soft sciences are also generally useless and studies can be replicated only some of the time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @10:00PM
Right now, it isn't engineers with economics minors. We get:
gardeners, hair stylists, receptionists, janitors, burger flippers...
Um... let's go with the engineers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:14PM (3 children)
Whoa, lemme stop you right there. This is a common misapprehension repeated by people who don't know billionaires. Billionaires don't know shit about managing money. They have accountants and lawyers for that. They also generally don't know shit about business. They have vastly more talented lackies for that. What they know about is rigging the game.
There are a couple of exceptions to that. Michael Bloomberg is one that springs to mind. He does understand managing money because he made his fortune rather than having it handed to him. He also understands managing people; I have only ever heard people extol how well-run his company is, and everyone who deals with the City of New York reports his level of organization and management was head and shoulders above Giuliani or de Blasio.
The dynasty types you're lauding do know how to pull levers, but they only ever pull them to further concentrate their own wealth and power above the already stratospheric stratum they're at. They never do anything to help anyone else.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:38PM (2 children)
He also understands managing people; I have only ever heard people extol how well-run his company is
I've only heard about how horrible working at his company is for programmers, because his company is a huge proponent of the open office, with really nothing more than flat tables in a giant open room. How forbidding quiet and privacy to people who need to concentrate to get their work done equates to "understand[ing] managing people", I'd really like to know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:37PM
Big deal.
No, seriously, big deal.
His company is exactly like 90+% of all other big companies with that open-office stupidity (which is about saving money on floor-space per employee).
And that may be a big deal to you personally, but when it comes to the entirety of managing a company its a drop in the bucket.
(Score: 1) by Atatsu on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:32PM
Spoken like someone who has never actually worked in an open floor plan environment! The last company I worked for had an open floor plan and it was awe.... nope, you're right. It sucked.