9 ms·

General rule for me is If any person has soooo much power we need a dedicated team of people to protect them continuously, that person has too much power and t

General rule for me is If any person has soooo much power we need a dedicated team of people to protect them continuously, that person has too much power and the solution is not ever-increasing amount of security, but ever decreasing amount of power to that individual

hotpotamus 4y ago
I wonder how big Musk or Bezos's security teams are?
- safety1st 4y ago
  Who cares? The perennial mistake is believing that if any of these guys get capped, it's some irreparable loss to society. It's not. Let them play the odds of life like the rest of us do. A society that depends on strongmen isn't a free society.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Oh you're singing to the choir on that stuff. Don't get me started on who we can and can't feed into the woodchipper because I'm already rate-limited. I'm just always surprised when people limit their thinking (and I'm not saying the post that spawned my response was guilty of that, though it's possible) of the powerful in society to government officials.
  - petsfed 4y ago
    I think there's merit to at least forestalling rule-by-assassination. Like, yes, I would not mourn a lot of people who end up having protective details. But I absolutely don't want to live in a world where all it takes to change a policy is one particularly motivated sociopath. Keep in mind that John Hinckley Jr's assassination attempt on Reagan wasn't out of disagreement with Reagan's policies, it was to impress Jodi Foster. A nobody's obsession with an actress is really, REALLY not the thing we should allow to materially affect our civilization. I think there's a good argument to be made that the WWII-era Japanese government became the one capable of its atrocities in China specifically because assassination was so frequently employed to check to its power.
    - ElevenLathe 4y ago
      Reagan had an elected vice president. Bush Sr. being in charge instead of Reagan is not what I would call a material effect on our civilization. These guys are all interchangeable, as evidenced by the fact that we change them on purpose at least every eight years.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - int_19h 4y ago
      I think that was kind of OP's point - if one person has so much power that a major change in policy can be achieved solely by assassinating them, then they probably have too much power in general.
- cowsup 4y ago
  Nowhere near as large, or influential, as the Secret Service. If you’ve ever had to commute near airport, and the POTUS is flying in or out, you’re essentially screwed, for potentially hours. Musk or Bezos could request a place deny entry to other customers while they shop or eat. Secret Service can demand. It’s a whole different beast altogether.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Now I wonder about the specifics. Do they compensate business owners for lost customers? Can the owner refuse to serve the protected person?
- boeingUH60 4y ago
  I'll bet it's large but nothing close to that of the President and other top government officials. For example, the U.S. government is currently paying $2 million per month to protect former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo due to Iran threats[1]. That's the former, now think of what it'll cost to protect the current Secretary plus all the private travel costs on that giant Boeing 757. 1- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/us-pays-2m-a-month-to-protect-pompeo-aide-from-iran-threat https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/us-pays-2m-a-month-to-...
  - throwaway1777 4y ago
    It was revealed a few years ago Zuckerberg was paying about 20M per year on security. That’s almost 2M per month…
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      It seems likely he gets less bang for his buck. The Secret Service is a much larger organization so they can take advantage of economies of scale. On the other hand, government agencies can be very inefficient when permitted to be, so who really knows.
aidenn0 4y ago
Assassinating the president has little to do with denying him the power of the presidency, and more to do with what he is a symbol of. Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Symbols can be powerful... That is the issue, the foundational principle of the United States was that we were a federalist system with a weak and narrowly defined federal government. The office of Presidency should be inconsequential to the Everyday citizen of either the US or the world. The fact that we continually shift more power from Local / State government, then from Congress to the Executive is the exact reason the president is a "Symbol of Power" >Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers Again the theory of Distribution apply here to building as well. World Trade Center was attacked because NYC is seen as the Central Place for world finance. NYC has become too powerful and that power should be distributed.
  - marnett 4y ago
    I always thought the two WTC towers were more representative of global capitalism, not just good targets for attacking NYC.
  - jancsika 4y ago
    > The fact that we continually shift more power from Local / State government, then from Congress to the Executive is the exact reason the president is a "Symbol of Power" This is all rank and dubious speculation wrt your general rule about POTUS needing a dedicated security team. Hell, Duane Johnson needs a dedicated security team. If you are positing a federal government so weak that POTUS is not widely known within the U.S. population, you're political views are more radical than you're letting on.
    - prottog 4y ago
      What part of GP's take on the American federalist system are you describing as radical? Seems to me that the truly radical thing is what the federal government has morphed into over the years, its founding constitutional document notwithstanding.
pixl97 4y ago
So how do you plan to deal with the continuation of government and nuclear weapon problem?
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  >>how do you plan to deal with the continuation of government Federalism. The Federal Government does far too much and most of its function should be left to State and Local governments. >>and nuclear weapon problem? MAD is a terrible strategy, and I dont think our Nuclear weapons serve the function many believe they do.
  - beebmam 4y ago
    If the federal government should be reduced in power, then why should state or local governments have any more power over individuals?
    - sobkas 4y ago
      > If the federal government should be reduced in power, then why should state or local governments have any more power over individuals? Because the smaller government is (federal>state>local) the resources needed to hollow it out and made into puppet also drop.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - mulmen 4y ago
      Because I have more power as a voter and constituent to influence policies that affect me. At a national level I am 1 of 331,900,000. At a state level I am 1 of 7,739,000. At a county level I am one of 2,252,000. At a city level I am one of 733,919. At a neighborhood level I am one of 82,123. I have four orders of magnitude more influence over my city council rep than I do over my president.
      - 4y ago
WaitWaitWha 4y ago
> ... but ever decreasing amount of power to that individual Assuming that the power needs to exist, this implies that we would need more people, which in turn makes the government larger.
ufmace 4y ago
So I sympathize with the idea of this in a sense. But it feels like we're so very far removed from that point that there's hardly any point in talking about it. Also, maybe the US President and other super high level individuals are too powerful. But then if we make them much less powerful, who keeps other bad actors like Russia and China from stomping on whoever they want - ask the Ukrainians or the Uyghurs.
toss1 4y ago
Lovely idea in theory. Yet, despite the fact that one of the foundational principles of good governance is to avoid excessive concentrations of power, that does NOT mean that there can be no concentrations of power. The sad fact is that, whether it is the neighborhood bully or the authoritarian state next door, anyone who wants to live a self-determined life, with a self-determining government, must be better armed, better prepared, and better allied than the abusers and autocrats, or they will be taken over in short order. This includes being able to make decisions quickly. This requires a concentration of power in something like an executive branch. Similarly, regulating society requires making of laws, and again, by the time a society gets to tens or hundreds of millions of people, this will literally take forever without some kind of representative government; heck, just look at how long it takes to get a couple hundred congress or parliament members to get a basic majority something passed... So, sure, when you have a tribe of several dozen or maybe the 150 of Dunbar's number [0], the leaders can be near-anonymous or completely unremarkable. Maybe even up to the size of a small town. But once the size of organization, financing, and weilding of power just required to get anything done to maintain the society gets large, so must the concentrations of power. The trick is not to pathologically avoid concentrations, it is to balance them. This is the difference between a democracy and an autocracy. In a democracy, all of the institutions, the govt executive, legislative, judiciary, as well as the press, academy, industry, etc. are all independent, having their own will, centers of power, etc. In an autocracy, all of these govt and societal/economic institutions are bent to do the will of the executive. The trick is keeping those healthy, independent, and balanced. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

hotpotamus 4y ago

I wonder how big Musk or Bezos's security teams are?

safety1st 4y ago
Who cares? The perennial mistake is believing that if any of these guys get capped, it's some irreparable loss to society. It's not. Let them play the odds of life like the rest of us do. A society that depends on strongmen isn't a free society.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Oh you're singing to the choir on that stuff. Don't get me started on who we can and can't feed into the woodchipper because I'm already rate-limited. I'm just always surprised when people limit their thinking (and I'm not saying the post that spawned my response was guilty of that, though it's possible) of the powerful in society to government officials.
- petsfed 4y ago
  I think there's merit to at least forestalling rule-by-assassination. Like, yes, I would not mourn a lot of people who end up having protective details. But I absolutely don't want to live in a world where all it takes to change a policy is one particularly motivated sociopath. Keep in mind that John Hinckley Jr's assassination attempt on Reagan wasn't out of disagreement with Reagan's policies, it was to impress Jodi Foster. A nobody's obsession with an actress is really, REALLY not the thing we should allow to materially affect our civilization. I think there's a good argument to be made that the WWII-era Japanese government became the one capable of its atrocities in China specifically because assassination was so frequently employed to check to its power.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    Reagan had an elected vice president. Bush Sr. being in charge instead of Reagan is not what I would call a material effect on our civilization. These guys are all interchangeable, as evidenced by the fact that we change them on purpose at least every eight years.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - int_19h 4y ago
    I think that was kind of OP's point - if one person has so much power that a major change in policy can be achieved solely by assassinating them, then they probably have too much power in general.
cowsup 4y ago
Nowhere near as large, or influential, as the Secret Service. If you’ve ever had to commute near airport, and the POTUS is flying in or out, you’re essentially screwed, for potentially hours. Musk or Bezos could request a place deny entry to other customers while they shop or eat. Secret Service can demand. It’s a whole different beast altogether.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Now I wonder about the specifics. Do they compensate business owners for lost customers? Can the owner refuse to serve the protected person?
boeingUH60 4y ago
I'll bet it's large but nothing close to that of the President and other top government officials. For example, the U.S. government is currently paying $2 million per month to protect former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo due to Iran threats[1]. That's the former, now think of what it'll cost to protect the current Secretary plus all the private travel costs on that giant Boeing 757. 1- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/us-pays-2m-a-month-to-protect-pompeo-aide-from-iran-threat https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/us-pays-2m-a-month-to-...
- throwaway1777 4y ago
  It was revealed a few years ago Zuckerberg was paying about 20M per year on security. That’s almost 2M per month…
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    It seems likely he gets less bang for his buck. The Secret Service is a much larger organization so they can take advantage of economies of scale. On the other hand, government agencies can be very inefficient when permitted to be, so who really knows.

aidenn0 4y ago

Assassinating the president has little to do with denying him the power of the presidency, and more to do with what he is a symbol of. Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers

phpisthebest 4y ago
Symbols can be powerful... That is the issue, the foundational principle of the United States was that we were a federalist system with a weak and narrowly defined federal government. The office of Presidency should be inconsequential to the Everyday citizen of either the US or the world. The fact that we continually shift more power from Local / State government, then from Congress to the Executive is the exact reason the president is a "Symbol of Power" >Kind of like how 9/11 wasn't about killing some office workers Again the theory of Distribution apply here to building as well. World Trade Center was attacked because NYC is seen as the Central Place for world finance. NYC has become too powerful and that power should be distributed.
- marnett 4y ago
  I always thought the two WTC towers were more representative of global capitalism, not just good targets for attacking NYC.
- jancsika 4y ago
  > The fact that we continually shift more power from Local / State government, then from Congress to the Executive is the exact reason the president is a "Symbol of Power" This is all rank and dubious speculation wrt your general rule about POTUS needing a dedicated security team. Hell, Duane Johnson needs a dedicated security team. If you are positing a federal government so weak that POTUS is not widely known within the U.S. population, you're political views are more radical than you're letting on.
  - prottog 4y ago
    What part of GP's take on the American federalist system are you describing as radical? Seems to me that the truly radical thing is what the federal government has morphed into over the years, its founding constitutional document notwithstanding.

pixl97 4y ago

So how do you plan to deal with the continuation of government and nuclear weapon problem?

phpisthebest 4y ago
>>how do you plan to deal with the continuation of government Federalism. The Federal Government does far too much and most of its function should be left to State and Local governments. >>and nuclear weapon problem? MAD is a terrible strategy, and I dont think our Nuclear weapons serve the function many believe they do.
- beebmam 4y ago
  If the federal government should be reduced in power, then why should state or local governments have any more power over individuals?
  - sobkas 4y ago
    > If the federal government should be reduced in power, then why should state or local governments have any more power over individuals? Because the smaller government is (federal>state>local) the resources needed to hollow it out and made into puppet also drop.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - mulmen 4y ago
    Because I have more power as a voter and constituent to influence policies that affect me. At a national level I am 1 of 331,900,000. At a state level I am 1 of 7,739,000. At a county level I am one of 2,252,000. At a city level I am one of 733,919. At a neighborhood level I am one of 82,123. I have four orders of magnitude more influence over my city council rep than I do over my president.
    - 4y ago

WaitWaitWha 4y ago

> ... but ever decreasing amount of power to that individual Assuming that the power needs to exist, this implies that we would need more people, which in turn makes the government larger.

ufmace 4y ago

So I sympathize with the idea of this in a sense. But it feels like we're so very far removed from that point that there's hardly any point in talking about it. Also, maybe the US President and other super high level individuals are too powerful. But then if we make them much less powerful, who keeps other bad actors like Russia and China from stomping on whoever they want - ask the Ukrainians or the Uyghurs.

toss1 4y ago

Lovely idea in theory. Yet, despite the fact that one of the foundational principles of good governance is to avoid excessive concentrations of power, that does NOT mean that there can be no concentrations of power. The sad fact is that, whether it is the neighborhood bully or the authoritarian state next door, anyone who wants to live a self-determined life, with a self-determining government, must be better armed, better prepared, and better allied than the abusers and autocrats, or they will be taken over in short order. This includes being able to make decisions quickly. This requires a concentration of power in something like an executive branch. Similarly, regulating society requires making of laws, and again, by the time a society gets to tens or hundreds of millions of people, this will literally take forever without some kind of representative government; heck, just look at how long it takes to get a couple hundred congress or parliament members to get a basic majority something passed... So, sure, when you have a tribe of several dozen or maybe the 150 of Dunbar's number [0], the leaders can be near-anonymous or completely unremarkable. Maybe even up to the size of a small town. But once the size of organization, financing, and weilding of power just required to get anything done to maintain the society gets large, so must the concentrations of power. The trick is not to pathologically avoid concentrations, it is to balance them. This is the difference between a democracy and an autocracy. In a democracy, all of the institutions, the govt executive, legislative, judiciary, as well as the press, academy, industry, etc. are all independent, having their own will, centers of power, etc. In an autocracy, all of these govt and societal/economic institutions are bent to do the will of the executive. The trick is keeping those healthy, independent, and balanced. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number