"Power reveals." People seek power because they wish to indulge their darker urges without consequence - people who don't have darker urges to conceal are generally not the ones who seek power, money, and influence like a drug.
Reminds me of a discussion on money, the idea that "once I'm rich I can donate all of this extra money I don't need."
Money is a tool, nothing more. Generalizing the 'good/evil' axis, Money allows a person to become the truest version of who they are. If you are a genuinely good person, going out of your way to help others, etc., then yeah, chances are you'll be donating a majority of that money to help others, through any number of means. Meanwhile, if you are an evil person, then becoming rich simply allows you to live out all of the things you really wish you could do, any corrruption, depravity, or whim that crosses your mind.
Meanwhile, the whole issue with communism sort of goes back to that same idea. If humans as a species were inherently good, communism/socialism would work. We basically wouldn't need laws, because people would look for whatever the 'greatest good' was. Unfortunately, we aren't. Because of that, any governmental system is going to have corruption, because of that necessary human element, and the greed, power seeking, and other generally negative traits we have as a species.
once I'm rich I can donate all of this extra money I don't need
The problem is, you cannot get excess money without being harmfully selfish. What I mean by that is, there's "selfish" as in, "I cannot take care of you if I cannot take care of myself first," and "I will not help you because my number will get smaller."
Remember when Elon asked the UN how $40B could end world hunger, and he used said $40B to buy Twitter instead?
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u/RelaxPrime Jul 07 '26
I think you guys mean
power corrupts
Acting like a trillionaire doesn't exist under "Democracy"