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I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)
by obilgic 10y ago
I wish Bill or Warren would have run for presidency as an "outsider" instead of Trump. I guess our only hope will be their successor Mark (Zuckerberg)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- GuiA 10y agoI would argue that in the long term, Bill Gates running his foundation has a much deeper impact on humanity than being president, which would effectively cut him off from his philanthropic activities for 4-8 years. In other words, we're better off with Bill helming the Gates foundation rather than presiding the USA.
- CobrastanJorji 10y agoWould it? If it's permissible now to run a major international business while President, would it not also be permissible to run a giant charity?
- jplasmeier 10y agoI believe the comment was in regards to time spent on either venture, not the legality of doing both.
- rconti 10y agoBack in October, no, it was not permissible to run a giant charity. Apparently.
- obilgic 10y agoI would argue the otherwise. Imagine the resources and the influence power he would have on both U.S. and other nations, compared to few billion dollars spared by few people.
- sn9 10y agoYou're forgetting he'd be hampered by Congress. POTUS isn't a dictatorial position. He can move more or less unilaterally.
- giarc 10y agoCountries where the president can't go because of diplomacy, Bill can. Bill also doesn't have to deal with things like the debt ceiling, F35 contract, nominating supreme court justices etc etc. He can focus on global health.
- lostlogin 10y agoHow many would vote for him if they knew he hoped to help non-Americans with US txpayer dollars?
- adrianN 10y agoThat depends on how good his marketing team is.
- GhiliaWeld 10y agoI know it's called the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but isn't it Melinda that runs and manages everything? I'm pretty sure Bill just donates to the foundation. I could be wrong tho.
- lostlogin 10y agoDid you notice the format that report took? Melinda, Bill, Melinda, Bill...
- girvo 10y agoNot that I feel this is the case, but one could argue that having Bill sign his name to something doesn't mean he's not "just a donor" and they're using his name for marketing purposes. Of course, I don't feel this is true, but I wanted to point it out nonetheless :)
- hamburglar1 10y agoI get Bill and Warren, but Mark?
- jmathai 10y agoA reference to the rumors that he's preparing to run for office. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/zuckerberg-2020/513689/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/zucke...
- geoka9 10y agoDon't know about Buffett, but I don't get Gates either. He was a ruthless businessman using every trick in the book (legal and illegal) to solidify his company's monopoly.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- criddell 10y agoWell it wouldn't be Gates of 1992 running, it would be Gates of today. Have you changed in the past 25 years? I sure have.
- spooterspooter 10y agoHe'd have to be a fool to change the thing that made him one of the richest men alive. So I assume he's still quite ruthless.
- criddell 10y agoWhy? If somebody was the best marathon runner in the world and they retired and took up fly fishing, would you say they were fools for doing so?
- spooterspooter 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- koolba 10y agoI can't help but shudder at the thought of the dystopian future that leads to a Zuckerberg presidency.
- luck_fenovo 10y agoAgreed. That said, I'd gladly read a book based on that premise.
- clydethefrog 10y agoAlready a short story is written about this premise. Democracy 3.0: A science-fiction story about what comes next in America https://qz.com/884971/democracy-3-0-a-science-fiction-story-about-what-comes-next-in-america/ https://qz.com/884971/democracy-3-0-a-science-fiction-story-...
- icantdrive55 10y agoHe'll eventually do a 180 on most things we are miffed about. He already has his name on a hospital. How long will it be before he decides he can do a better job as President? Once these rich boys make their "nut"; they become very moral/ethical in their latter years, except Trump? I think it has to do with their guilt? I don't know a wealthy man who didn't do some very unethical things clawing their way to the top.
- pizza 10y agothink of all the denied pluralities-to-be; those poor, slighted real estate tycoons. It's not hard to argue we're already in that simulation - first it starts with FB trialling their electioneering-algo with Trump as a proof-of-concept. Then once they work out all the kinks, initiate stage 2, reusing the mechanism!
- ethbro 10y agoArguably, a better plan would be to appear apolitically neutral until a surprise election result occurs, then roll out an algorithm in response to the calls for more filtering...
- kornish 10y agoIt's a funny observation that Mark Zuckerberg (32) actually isn't old enough to run for president at the moment (35). The next election would be the first where he's legally able. (all this irrespective of whether or not that's in his or others' best interests)
- ekianjo 10y agoSO there is a minimum age - how about a maximum one ?
- kornish 10y agoThere is no maximum age requirement. The requirements are well-articulated: http://americanhistory.about.com/od/uspresidents/f/presidential_requirements.htm http://americanhistory.about.com/od/uspresidents/f/president...
- logfromblammo 10y agoI wouldn't be averse to an amendment establishing the maximum age of eligibility for any elected federal office to be 130 years old on election day. I figure that if we ever get people to routinely outlive that mark, we may have a problem getting the elder generations to voluntarily yield power to the younger.
- glasz 10y agobe careful what you whish for. very careful.
- aanm1988 10y agoWhy would I ever want Zuckerberg as president? Why would I want any of these intelligent, but unqualified people as president? Trump has about the same qualifications. Look at that so far.
- 3825 10y ago(I'm not trying to be partisan here even though it might appear to be) I don't think it is possible for anyone to have the kind of broad and deep qualifications to be POTUS at any age, much less thirty five. This is one job which effectively requires on the job training and (I imagine) lots of delegating. Sorry if this sounds partisan. It isn't my intention. I'm not saying this as anything in defense of or in opposition to the incumbent. I'm just making a general comment.
- jfoutz 10y agoGovernors of large states are about as close as you can get, i think. They lack the military, intelligence and a lot of foreign policy experience though. I pretty much agree - OJT is intrinsically part of the deal.
- jasonjayr 10y agoOf course, it's a unique job. However, it does require a certain bit of humility, something that I think our current POTUS knows nothing about.
- lostlogin 10y ago> This is one job which effectively requires on the job training and (I imagine) lots of delegating. Do you mean that it should require that? It certainly didn't last year. I lack your 'fair and balanced' approach.
- xapata 10y agoAs far as I can tell, Trump lacks intelligence. I'd rather have a Gates or Buffet presidency. They've at least shown to care about philanthropy a bit. Trump has his foundation, but it mostly seems to do stuff like pay his legal fees and buy portraits of himself.
- pinewurst 10y agoParaphrasing Oliver Wendell Holmes, one generation of sociopaths is enough. Zuck should stick with "curing all diseases".
- foxylad 10y agoBill and Melinda are better where they are, because they are free from political interference. Can you imagine the opposition they'd get from the GOP for pushing contraception so centrally? And if they get into power, probably from the democrats too, for not focusing on their favourite bandwagons. OT: Can someone explain the GOP's strident opposition to funding contraception, both domestically and in the US's foreign aid? Apart from the obvious problems with unrestrained population growth, I'd have thought that aversion to abortion would imply whole-hearted support for contraception.
- throwaway729 10y ago> Can someone explain the GOP's strident opposition to funding contraception, both domestically and in the US's foreign aid? It's a culture war thing from the 80's and 90's. Contraception is for godless libs who fuck like rabbits out of wedlock. (Setting aside the fact that most religious right voters probably use birth control themselves...)
- vacri 10y agoThere are a lot of Catholics on the conservative side of things, and contraception has been verboten to Catholics since the early days ("sex is for making babies, not fun" is the company line)
- vkou 10y agoThis is quite false. Catholics split the democrat/republican vote ~50/50. They voted for Gore, Bush, Obama, and Trump with small margins. [1] They care about this question, but not very much. Evangelicals, on the other hand overwhelmingly vote republican. Catholics, in general, are the most liberal religious denomination in the US. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-fait...
- vacri 10y agoLooking more closely at your link, the white catholics were more likely to vote for Trump than protestants were (higher than anyone except evangelicals), and as I understand it, it's white catholics that are the most prominent in congress. Sorry, I meant politicians (as the parent referenced the GOP) rather than laypeople.
- pjmorris 10y agoIMO, anyone with over a Billion dollars is more like an insider than an outsider. Probably anybody over ~4 Million, actually.
- xapata 10y agoIf you conflate "insider" with economic class, there's no benefit to using the term anymore.
- pjmorris 10y agoIt is very fair to say that there is a class of people of various professions who have a great deal of influence but not a great deal of money. To what degree would you buy my notion that most of those people work for people in a higher economic class? Where do you see decisions being made independent of (or out of proportion to) their economic impact?
- xapata 10y agoNow you're going in a different direction. I'm just saying that not all wealthy people are "insiders".
- pjmorris 10y agoI'm more sure that wealthy people tend to be insiders than the professional non-wealthy. Once you've acquired enough to be considered wealthy, you care about the stability of currencies, banking systems, countries at least to the degree that it preserves your own wealth. 'The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep.' - Ecc 5:12
- xapata 10y agoThe way you phrased it previously suggested equivalence (all wealthy are insiders) rather than tendency (more wealthy are insiders).
- dorfsmay 10y agoChances are that they'd want to disturb the military industrial complex and secret government foreign operations, possibly leading to an drastic shortening of their life expectancy.
- deepGem 10y agoor Mark Cuban. His latest twitter spat with Trump is quite interesting. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a53079/trump-cuban-twitter/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a53079/trump-cuban...
- maverick_iceman 10y agoWhile I applaud Bill Gates for his philanthropic work, I would be extremely doubtful of him if he decided to run for public office. His behavior during Microsoft antitrust trial wasn't exactly awe inspiring.
- majani 10y agoNone of those have the charisma necessary to run a successful presidential campaign
- imaginenore 10y agoDo you think George Bush (junior) did?
- princeb 10y agowhen I read comments on the internet like this, where people wish for a single influential person to run the country like, i begin to wonder how many Americans are out there who believe in and long for a "philosopher-king" system without any of the check and balances that the Federal Government has in place... a country like Singapore, with the benevolent dictator Lee Kuan Yew, perhaps? Whose single-mindedness and ability to execute has made the country one of the most successful (by several measures) in the world? Perhaps the US will benefit from blowing up the existing structure, whose rigidity was supposed to prevent demagoguery but appeared to have failed in the new era, and so we're left with is all the bureaucracy and no benefits.