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  • Today, we're going to be talking about power.

  • Because power is the result of several factors, it's a very complicated subject.

  • I'm by no means claiming to be an expert on power; I don't know if anyone can comfortably

  • make that claim.

  • Instead, I want to give you some food for thought, in the form of a framework, about

  • power.

  • It's a force that permeates into all aspects of our lives.

  • So, it's important to have at least some conception of it.

  • While I don't expect everyone to adopt this framework, I think it serves as a good starting

  • point for discussion and hopefully urges you to think more about constructing your own.

  • But, before we can even discuss power, we must define it.

  • What does it mean to be powerful?

  • It's not a simple question to answer.

  • This is the definition that I'll put forward:

  • Power: The ability to actualize any idea.

  • The ability to make any idea into a reality.

  • I believe that this definition is broad enough to cover various forms of power, yet specific

  • enough to remain useful.

  • Power can be thought of as a spectrum; one end of the spectrum represents a complete

  • lack of power, and the other end represents absolute power.

  • If you accept this definition, we can move on to the next question: why?

  • Why Would Someone Want to be Powerful?

  • It seems that, in modern times, power has taken on a negative connotation.

  • For many, power has become synonymous with evil, tyranny, authoritarianism, dictatorship,

  • or manipulation.

  • These beliefs are not completely unjustified.

  • In a not too distant past, we've seen what happens when power - the ability to actualize

  • - accumulates in the wrong hands.

  • Furthermore, a lot of popular literature on power takes the machiavellian approach of

  • obtaining it by any means necessary; for a lot of people, these approaches are considered

  • immoral.

  • However, I think defining power as intrinsically negative is incredibly unproductive.

  • Just as power is used to make negative changes, it is also used to make positive changes.

  • If we define power too narrowly, we lose the ability to have productive discussions about

  • how we can obtain it, use it, and distribute it for positive change.

  • For these reasons, I feel motivated to put forth a different conception of power.

  • Is power a bad thing?

  • I think not.

  • In the context of our definition, it's simply the ability to make potential ideas into realities.

  • My ability to pick up the pencil on my desk and draw a letter is a form of power.

  • First, I must conceptualize that I want to move the pencil in my mind and then act it

  • out.

  • There's nothing right or wrong about the action - it's amoral.

  • Power is simply the ability to actualize any idea; so, why would someone want power?

  • Why and what do they want to actualize?

  • This is a deeply philosophical question in itself and depends on an individual's worldview.

  • For example, let's use a worldview that we've discussed in the past: preference

  • hedonism.

  • From the view of a preference hedonist, the ultimate goal in life is maximizing pleasure

  • where:

  • Net pleasure = pleasure - suffering (pleasure refers to any state that we would enjoy being

  • in) [10]

  • Therefore, a preference hedonist may want power to actualize ideas that can reduce suffering

  • and increase pleasure, for themselves and others, which should increase net pleasure

  • for the world.

  • Looking at power through this lens, it becomes quite clear that it isn't right or wrong

  • to wield it.

  • Evil doesn't emerge out of power; rather, it emerges from the worldview of the person

  • who wields it.

  • How Do You Become Powerful?

  • If power is the ability to shape reality, I would argue that there are two fundamental

  • ingredients to accomplishing that: a true understanding of reality and the resources

  • to shape that reality.

  • Let's start with the former.

  • It's debatable whether humans can ever have an absolutely true understanding of the world.

  • But, I do believe that we can approach it; some conceptions of the world are more true

  • than others.

  • True beliefs tend to be more useful than untrue beliefs.

  • For example, understanding the laws of nature allows us to construct planes and fly them.

  • Understanding that there are biological reasons for sickness allows us to provide the appropriate

  • treatment.

  • On the other hand, the belief that bloodletting is a great way to cure all illnesses is an

  • untrue belief that leaves us powerless in actually curing them.

  • Therefore, it's not difficult to accept the claim that a true understanding of our

  • reality is the first step to being powerful.

  • Certain ideas simply cannot be actualized without a true understanding of the world;

  • you can't make a rocket ship without understanding physics.

  • The next key to power is having the resources to shape reality.

  • What do I mean when I say, “the resources to shape reality”?

  • There are a lot of them, but here's a few: * money

  • * natural resources * the right to vote

  • * a political voice that matters * societal support

  • * a labour force * education

  • Without the proper resources, one cannot shape reality.

  • Here's the catch: access to these resources is often limited and controlled by society.

  • This brings us to The Resource Problem.

  • To understand the resource problem, let's think of a spectrum.

  • On the extreme left there are unhealthy societies, and on the extreme right there are healthy

  • societies.

  • At this point in the video, I think it would help to have a definition of society:

  • Society: a collection of people that work together to actualize ideas

  • I like this definition because you can scale it down to the level of a club on your university

  • campus, but you can also scale it up to the level of a city or a country.

  • Now, how does this collection of people decide what ideas to actualize?

  • You can see where politics start to arise but we will leave that aside.

  • In a perfectly healthy society, resources would be distributed fairly such that the

  • best ideas are always the ones that get actualized.

  • Of course, what constitutes thebest ideasis a matter of debate and not really important

  • to the current discussion.

  • In an unhealthy society, resources are unfairly distributed or distributed at random.

  • All societies fall on this spectrum.

  • As you can imagine, the way a society grants resources acts as a barrier to power.

  • Access to resources is such a necessity to obtaining power that many people living in

  • unhealthy societies are rendered powerless.

  • In fact, without a proper system of education to teach reading and writing, people become

  • severely limited in their ability to understand the world which was the first key to power.

  • I think this is important to realize because power is not as easy to obtain as following

  • a set of rules.

  • In a lot of ways, power is granted to us by the society we live in.

  • All societies also suffer from another difficulty that I'll call The Pareto Distribution of

  • Power.

  • Power compounds; the powerful get more powerful and the powerless become more powerless.

  • This is likely one of the factors that leads to the creation of unhealthy societies and

  • societal tension.

  • The resulting inequality is often dealt with through rules, rights, and regulations laid

  • out by the society.

  • This is an incredibly complex problem to deal with that often relies on political solutions

  • which are outside the scope of this video.

  • In short, the solution requires regulations that prevent one person or entity from accumulating

  • too much power.

  • A democratic society, for example, gives less power to the government and more to the people;

  • the idea is that power should be more equally distributed in a democratic society.

  • This leads me to my next point: not all power is equal.

  • Power runs on several spectrums.

  • For example, someone with power can make positive changes or negative changes; they can make

  • big changes or small changes.

  • If you combine both spectrums you get a set of axis.

  • Let's call someone who makes big positive changes a reformer.

  • Someone who makes big negative changes is a destroyer.

  • Someone who makes small positive changes is a hero, and someone who makes small negative

  • changes is a criminal.

  • Positive changes tend to last in society.

  • They either get improved upon or become a fundamental part of the structure of society.

  • On the other hand, negative changes often need to be corrected for.

  • Large changes require a lot of resources from society and small changes, on the other hand,

  • require relatively little.

  • So, how can one acquire more resources from society?

  • Again, I will avoid any political suggestions because that's outside the scope of this

  • video, but I'd like to offer a simple suggestion: become a valuable person.

  • What does that mean?

  • To simply make a place better off for having been there than not.

  • In a healthy society, those who leave places better off than they found them tend to accumulate

  • value in various forms such as trust, companionship, and possibly even wealth.

  • The best way to become valuable is to start by knowing yourself.

  • The Big 5 Model is the most widely accepted model, among psychologists, for understanding

  • personality.

  • There are several places online where you can find the test.

  • I would suggest doing it and figuring out in which of the 5 traits your strengths lie:

  • agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, or extraversion.

  • This might help you figure out places to live and work where you would be most likely to

  • excel.

  • As a result, you'll be more valuable in these environments and naturally accumulate

  • more power that you can apply towards positive change.

  • If you'd like to understand the Big 5 Personality traits in depth, I've linked to some great

  • resources you can check out in the description.

  • Out of all of the Big 5 Traits, conscientiousness is shown to be the best predictor of long

  • term school & career success.

  • That means that society values certain conscientious personality traits.

  • People who are high in conscientiousness are very orderly and industrious.

  • They're the kind of people who enjoy leading structured and disciplined lives; they like

  • using calendars, organizing, keeping checklists, and scheduling things.

  • [1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 12]

  • Although there is controversy over whether someone can consciously change their temperaments,

  • it does seem that we can change our personality - to a degree - by adopting new habits.

  • This does, however, take a lot of time and effort.

  • [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

  • For example, introverts can adopt the habits of an extroverted person to seem more outgoing.

  • However, they will likely still get tired after social events and need to be alone to

  • recharge.

  • In a sense, they can reap some of the benefits of being an extrovert without being extroverted.

  • [5]

  • Likewise, some people are naturally not very conscientious.

  • But, they can adopt the habits of a conscientious person and reap some of the benefits.

  • If you want to learn about some potential habits that you can adopt to be more conscientious,

  • check out my playlist on productivity and habits.

  • However, I think this solution alone is just one side of the coin.

  • If the resources for power are given by a society that deems you valuable then it would

  • be quite logical to seek out a society where you are valuable.

  • Recall that, in our case, a society is a collection of people trying to actualize an idea.

  • It would be logical to seek out groups of people who value the strengths you have because

  • you're more likely to be valuable to them.

  • For example, an extroverted person would probably be valued more in a job that deals with people;

  • a disagreeable person may be valued more in a competitive environment.

  • In both cases, the environment is better suited to the individual's strength.

  • Lastly, do what's meaningful.

  • Whenever possible, find the places where what's meaningful to you intersects with what society

  • finds meaningful.

  • These are the best places to operate.

  • As mentioned in the last video, when we do things that are intrinsically valuable we

  • are able to focus on the task a lot better.

  • When we can focus better, we perform better.

  • When we perform better, we produce more value for society and as a result we receive more

  • resources in return.

  • So, we've discussed one aspect of power: the acquiring of resources and becoming more

  • valuable to obtain them.

  • However, we did not touch on the first key to power which was understanding reality.

  • That will be the topic of the

  • next video.

Today, we're going to be talking about power.

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