You want power over people...

[ALPHA.]

You want to have power over people, whether it be for good or evil. You have two choices: You can control the world's governments or the world's money supply; one or the other, not both. What will it be and why?

[Explodicle]

I voted for governments. The way I see it, if I controlled the money supply, people would just gradually switch to non-capitalist alternatives or create a new supply out of thin air. If I controlled all governments, people couldn't easily switch. The only reason people use fiat currency is because of government power.

[cbeast]

Why not control their belief system with fear based double-speak and fallacious arguments that reinforce those fears? Write a vitriolic book, wear a scary uniform, or just repeat yourself with INCREASING VOLUME and maybe you will find other weak minded people to follow you. It worked for Hitler, Ayn Rand, and every other powerful person spewing really bad ideas.

[boonies4u]

Why not control their belief system with fear based double-speak and fallacious arguments that reinforce those fears? Write a vitriolic book, wear a scary uniform, or just repeat yourself with INCREASING VOLUME and maybe you will find other weak minded people to follow you. It worked for Hitler, Ayn Rand, and every other powerful person spewing really bad ideas.

What if you had really good ideas? Would it work even better, or backfire?

[cbeast]

Why not control their belief system with fear based double-speak and fallacious arguments that reinforce those fears? Write a vitriolic book, wear a scary uniform, or just repeat yourself with INCREASING VOLUME and maybe you will find other weak minded people to follow you. It worked for Hitler, Ayn Rand, and every other powerful person spewing really bad ideas.

What if you had really good ideas? Would it work even better, or backfire?

Well, it depends on what you consider good. Niccolò Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Dale Carnegie, Karl Marx, and other philosophers wrote some useful books that did not denigrate races or classes of people. It's fine to criticize ideas if you have good arguments, but power does not have to be used to force people how to think. That's probably why nobody has developed any single way to live our lives.

[boonies4u]

That's probably why nobody has developed any single way to live our lives.

Oh no, they try to do that! They just know that they need to put the idea of God behind it! As well as objective morality.

[deuxmill]

Whatever "we" will end up delusioning as valuable.

[ALPHA.]

Why not control their belief system with fear based double-speak and fallacious arguments that reinforce those fears? Write a vitriolic book, wear a scary uniform, or just repeat yourself with INCREASING VOLUME and maybe you will find other weak minded people to follow you. It worked for Hitler, Ayn Rand, and every other powerful person spewing really bad ideas.

What if you had really good ideas? Would it work even better, or backfire?

Well, it depends on what you consider good. Niccolò Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Dale Carnegie, Karl Marx, and other philosophers wrote some useful books that did not denigrate races or classes of people. It's fine to criticize ideas if you have good arguments, but power does not have to be used to force people how to think. That's probably why nobody has developed any single way to live our lives.

I think it's degenerative to individuals to group them into collectivist groups that are incapable of thoughts and feelings such as races and classes.

[Hawker]

Why not control their belief system with fear based double-speak and fallacious arguments that reinforce those fears? Write a vitriolic book, wear a scary uniform, or just repeat yourself with INCREASING VOLUME and maybe you will find other weak minded people to follow you. It worked for Hitler, Ayn Rand, and every other powerful person spewing really bad ideas.

What if you had really good ideas? Would it work even better, or backfire?

Well, it depends on what you consider good. Niccolò Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Dale Carnegie, Karl Marx, and other philosophers wrote some useful books that did not denigrate races or classes of people. It's fine to criticize ideas if you have good arguments, but power does not have to be used to force people how to think. That's probably why nobody has developed any single way to live our lives.

I think it's degenerative to individuals to group them into collectivist groups that are incapable of thoughts and feelings such as races and classes.

You are of course correct.  The problem is how to you stop them.

[JeffK]

Why not control their belief system with fear based double-speak and fallacious arguments that reinforce those fears? Write a vitriolic book, wear a scary uniform, or just repeat yourself with INCREASING VOLUME and maybe you will find other weak minded people to follow you. It worked for Hitler, Ayn Rand, and every other powerful person spewing really bad ideas.

What if you had really good ideas? Would it work even better, or backfire?

Well, it depends on what you consider good. Niccolò Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Dale Carnegie, Karl Marx, and other philosophers wrote some useful books that did not denigrate races or classes of people. It's fine to criticize ideas if you have good arguments, but power does not have to be used to force people how to think. That's probably why nobody has developed any single way to live our lives.

I think it's degenerative to individuals to group them into collectivist groups that are incapable of thoughts and feelings such as races and classes.

Human evolution is literally built on our ability to work together for survival or a greater good

[boonies4u]

Why not control their belief system with fear based double-speak and fallacious arguments that reinforce those fears? Write a vitriolic book, wear a scary uniform, or just repeat yourself with INCREASING VOLUME and maybe you will find other weak minded people to follow you. It worked for Hitler, Ayn Rand, and every other powerful person spewing really bad ideas.

What if you had really good ideas? Would it work even better, or backfire?

Well, it depends on what you consider good. Niccolò Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Dale Carnegie, Karl Marx, and other philosophers wrote some useful books that did not denigrate races or classes of people. It's fine to criticize ideas if you have good arguments, but power does not have to be used to force people how to think. That's probably why nobody has developed any single way to live our lives.

I think it's degenerative to individuals to group them into collectivist groups that are incapable of thoughts and feelings such as races and classes.

Human evolution is literally built on our ability to work together for survival or a greater good

Post-humanism is so much more interesting... It's built on the ability to overcome our humanity in order to become something much more.

I'm pretty sure that when ideas like this are entertained it is either labeled as Social Darwinism or Eugenics.

[rahl]

Governments.

Governments can exist without controlling the monetary supply, they would just be more limited.
But for maintaining any control over the monetary supply help from government is necessary.

[deuxmill]

Governments.

Governments can exist without controlling the monetary supply, they would just be more limited.
But for maintaining any control over the monetary supply help from government is necessary.

If you control the money supply you control the government for as long as people care about money , since money is whatever you can think of that can be exchanged (redemption , power , currency , wealth , etc).

[Hawker]

Governments.

Governments can exist without controlling the monetary supply, they would just be more limited.
But for maintaining any control over the monetary supply help from government is necessary.

If you control the money supply you control the government for as long as people care about money , since money is whatever you can think of that can be exchanged (redemption , power , currency , wealth , etc).

Not entirely true.  For much of our history, we had gold as a currency and the supply was controlled by how fast it could be mined.  But there is no way to say that the miners controlled the governments.  Quite often, they depended on government for the right to mine.

[herzmeister]

@OP is Mr Mayer Amschel R. allowed to vote too?