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In the Age of Trump, Tech CEOs Cast Themselves As the New Statesmen (buzzfeed.com)
An anonymous reader shares an insightful story on Buzzfeed News: Mark Zuckerberg isn't running for president of the United States, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. On Tuesday morning, the Facebook CEO kicked off the company's annual developers conference in San Francisco with a glancing shot at Donald Trump, followed by a reiteration of the company's oft-repeated pledge to bring the world together. Zuck's not alone. Last month Apple CEO Tim Cook led his keynote with a similar stump-speech vibe. He dove right into the company's national security and privacy fight against the FBI. Two weeks ago Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told attendees of the company's annual Build developers conference of plans to "move our society forward," asking "profound questions" of his developers:"Is technology empowering people or is it displacing us? Is technology helping us preserve our enduring values such as privacy, or is it compromising it?" Google CEO Sundar Pichai hasn't delivered his big keynote yet (it's coming up May 18), but late last year he issued an open letter in support of Muslims after Donald Trump suggested he'd blanket-ban the religious group from entering the United States. Welcome to 2016: where tech's biggest leaders are no longer selling themselves as innovators, creative geniuses, or domineering tycoons, but as world leaders -- statesmen shaping the course of human history.According to a report from last month, several tech executives -- including Tim Cook, Elon Musk, Larry Page, and Sean Parker -- met recently to discuss how to "stop Donald Trump." Musk, however, later refuted such reports.
You lost me....
No need to attribute to plutocratic machinations that which can be adequately explained by logic. [...]
So Donald Trump is POTUS. You wake up in the morning, and legitimately wonder if today President Trump is going to:
Okay, wait.
Each of these would benefit the people of this nation. Directly, immediately, and clearly.
- Begin a campaign of mass deportations:
Translate: more jobs for citizens
- Decide we shake down Mexico for billions of dollars and divert significant steel and cement production to build a big ass wall;
Translate: prevent illegal immigration, lessen some conflicts in border states, make construction jobs available
- Decide to cut an entire federal agency;
Translate: reduce the deficit
- Decide to end a major work visa program;
Translate: citizens keep their high-tech jobs, don't have the indignity of training their replacement
- Simultaneously shit on the tourism industry and the Constitution by announcing an entire religion is forbidden from entering the country
Translate: temporarily make us feel safe
(Also, declining tourism? Have you noticed the effect DHS has had on our tourism?)
- Say some offhanded ridiculous thing that makes it harder for people in $your_industry to do business here or abroad;
Counter: something that sounds bad, but that businesses abroad don't care about
- Say something cute about [minorities/women/Muslims/poor people/some other group he thinks are 'total losers"] that paints America and American businesses in a bad light;
Counter: As opposed to, for example, putting Muslims in a gulag indefinitely, torturing prisoners, bringing down democratically-elected governments?
- Embarrass the country; act like running the country is a reality TV show;
Counter: I suppose that depends on what your definition of "is" is. (Elect his wife!)
- Try to shout over, or interfere with, or shut down a media outlet that's giving him problems;
Counter: baseless conjecture. "Shouting over" is something his protesters do.
- Refuse to raise the debt ceiling and/or let us default on some obligations;
Translate: force the government to reduce the debt
- Cause worldwide condemnation and mutiny by ordering our armed forces to kill terrorists' family members;
I'll give you that one.
- Pull troops out of Japan and South Korea and try to hand them nukes to make up for it;
Translate: Implement a cheaper solution that gets us out of a potential conflict area, letting us divert resources to fixing our own problems.
Regardless of what kind of job he's done running his own private sector interests, his unpredictability and volatility (a source of personal pride for him) would cause perpetual fear and chaos in the global economy.
I'm sorry, I thought the president would be concerned with the interests of Americans!
I didn't realize the welfare of non-citizens were more important that the lives of our own.
That was the worst time to put that apostrophe in American's.