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New Tech Super PACs Could Tap Into Google Riches
An anonymous reader writes "A for-profit university bankrolled by prominent tech firms and co-founded by futurist Ray Kurzweil is behind four separate super PACs formed this week, according to interviews and documents filed with the Federal Election Commission. Randi Willis, an official at Singularity University, confirmed to the Center for Public Integrity that leaders at her institution will later this year begin determining how to best use these new political committees, which could tap into the wealth of tech industry titans."
It's becoming clear they have no idea what to do with their billions.
They'll decide that they know how we should all live our lives. Then they'll lobby government to force us to live that way. Futurists and tech "geniuses" are neither wise nor humble.
I for one welcome our new... for-profit-university-owning futurist overlords? ... Wait, no, I don't welcome that! Stop, please!
"We buy law. We have money."
Wonder what their vision of the future will be. Hopefully some Henry Ford is part of their vision where they pay people enough to by the products the company sells (unlike today where most car maker employees can't afford the vehicles being made.)
I fear though... If Steve Jobs is the archetype of the modern tech CEO, (leaving $0 in donations to charity, no foundations, nothing but his company/products and a debt-laden ship behind), it might be that we have grim times ahead for ourselves and the next generation. Even the cruel tycoons of the Gilded Age left hospitals, theaters, arts foundations, and many other things which persist today.
Steve Jobs was obviously a narcissist. Fortunately not all billionaires are that problematic.
Really? Just because he believes doing good things should not be a publicity contest now means he is a narcissist?!
Leaving money to charity upon one's death is a matter of public record in many jurisdictions. If it had happened, we would have heard about it.
Leaving money to charity upon one's death is a matter of public record in many jurisdictions. If it had happened, we would have heard about it.
I invite you to learn about the concept of a living trust which avoids probate and is therefore NOT a matter of public record. I have no clue what Jobs did or did not do, but your assertion is simply wrong.
Great... another group of rich assholes deciding what we should think and do and say and running our government.
Would be much better if we had an actual democracy where the government did what the majority of people wanted rather than just what the rich bastards wanted.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
He might have done good things, but how do we know?
History is going to be hard on him because, as far as anyone knows, he did nothing concrete and provable for anybody but himself. Even small things like the talk about him taking handicapped parking spots are not going to give him a good place in the textbooks in 5-10 years.
My big fear is that Jobs is just the start of what the "modern" tech CEO is about... with echos of "let them eat cake" royalty.
I do keep hope though... Google has done a lot of good, and is the -only- hope we have for getting around the ISP monopolies in the US with the ever tightening vise grip they have.
Kurzweil's big into life extension. It's a fair bet that one or more of the PACS will lobby for more research into the mechanisms of aging and improved health care techniques for it.
Another would be prosthetics and human augmentation (I want my brain interface VR, dammit! Screw the flying car.).
He might actually do some good in those areas.
If it's just the usual corporate type lobbying I can't really see that as much of a plus.
For those clueless like me, PAC stands for Politicial Action Committee
I can forgive the headline and summary for not defining the acronym, but when the article itself also doesn't say, it's getting ridiculous.
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
whose predictions are usually 97% wrong?
Good lord, when is kurzweil going to die, already?
If we had a government that did what the majority of people wanted then the government would just hand out freebies and aim to end the need for the majority to work. We are steadily building an entitlement mentality based society that is increasingly comfortable with reliance on the government to provide for their basic needs. This is a means to an end that will not be pretty.
What a fucking unashamed announcement to buy the elections right in the face of everybody. FUCK YOU.
Your faith in the lord Steve Jobs will be rewarded. The rest of us know he was a dick.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
How do you think the president became the president? By lobbying and spending millions of dollars. He affects how you live and is still influenced by outside corporations. That's constitutionally fair, right? So another group are operating in the same way. It's part of American life. If th And to those who are going to reply with "but he was elected", well not by me or millions of other people he wasn't. But he still affects us all.
Just put the greenbacks into the ballot boxes instead of bothering with all that cargo cult called "voting". Those "ballots" really don't mean a thing.
There is the third party doctrine, of course: you don't get a reasonable expectation of privacy until voting for a third party.
The Supreme Court thinks that money = speech. It's amazing that amongst nine judges and their research staff nobody could find a dictionary or a thesaurus. I'll send them nine sets and see if it does any good.
"THANK YOU!" said every single politician in the US. "It's about time. What the hell do you think these antitrust lawsuits hassling you were for?"
Alsmost every country you go into politics so you can get in the way so you can get paid to get back out of the way. It's just that in the US the "useful idiot" touting the surface meme of regulatory utility exists as a strange blindered creature.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The best way to use these committees would be to have them shut down the stupid situation that allows them to exist in the first place.
Like Lessig is doing with Mayday PAC.
I can't figure out what Google gets out of having Kurzweil linked to them. He is a big-time kook that blemishes Google's technology bona fides. Just associating with someone who has inflicted decades of kooky nonsense in book after self-promoting book gives Google a black eye. Now they want to give him more money?
Why doesn't Google invest some of this money in open-source development or something instead of giving it to this kook?
It's a statement of fact, dumbass. My living trust and its bequests will not be a matter of public record. I don't know or care what Jobs did or didn't do. I take issue at the false statement that estate donations to charity are necessarily a matter of public record.