"Absolute power corrupts absolutely." is less a statement of fact and more a confession by the speaker.

This page is a stub, created on 2020-04-23 (last updated on 2020-10-02). Its contents are notes on the issues and angles I want to address about this topic.

Here are a few things I'd like to discuss around power:

• power to versus power over
• economic power versus political power
• "The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what's to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn't have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine." (Penn Jillette)
  • relatedly, how "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." is a confession (Like, what is it that you're so tempted to do that the chief barrier to doing it is your lack of absolute power?)
• why I wear The One Ring
  • my protest against a false view of power
  • my arrogance that I have a stronger will than Sauron
• relationship to my being a "control freak"; what control means to me (and relationship to P/J Myers-Briggs dichotomy)
  • relationship to my claustrophobia
• If I were Riker in Hide and Q, would I accept infinite control over time, space, and matter? (Spoiler alert: Hell, yes.)