Having Mark Zuckerberg run for President in 2020 or 2024 isn’t too far fetched. Definitely, not science fiction let alone fiction. There are Zuck insiders / friends who’ve said, “he wants to be emperor”. Why govern 1.8 billion virtual people when you can rule 320 million real people ;)
My money is on Peter Thiel helping Zuck. Why? Because Thiel is a Trump advisor, an early investor in Facebook and still sits on the Facebook’s board. Facebook Nation!
Trump has set the precedent. The People’s House will become The Billionaire’s House!
Strange to think now that it’s been only seven years since Mark got the idea of being president. Until that moment, the idea of a 30-something going straight from Facebook CEO to the White House would have been crazy. Then Trump got elected and nothing was crazy anymore. People guessed right away when Mark said he was going to tour all 50 states and then hired the guys who helped Bush and Obama get elected. Still, I don’t think anyone fully believed it at first. Much less that he’d win in 2020 with an unprecedented electoral-college margin and the highest voter turnout ever recorded.
Of course, Trump made it easy for Mark. He had broken down the biggest taboo—having a president who’s never held elected office. And then, of course, there was the shitshow that ensued. Obviously, Trump wasn’t really the one governing, nor was he the first president to play figurehead while other people pulled the strings. But after four years people were just tired. It wasn’t only the egregious things, the wall and the trade war with China and the price swings and abortion curbs and voter disenfranchisement and the blatant, endless corruption and influence-peddling. It was the sheer wearying noise of it, the anger and the yelling on all sides, like when you’ve had the TV on too loud for hours and you just want to switch everything off and lie down somewhere quiet and stare at the ceiling.
We are cycling American democracy back to the Greek ideal, only better. The title below the seal on the Executive Order reads simply: Activating Democracy 3.0.
Why 3.0? Ancient Greece was 1.0: a good system, but with limited access privileges. A beta, if you prefer. Twentieth-century democracy was 2.0: a full-scale implementation, but too susceptible to gaming and abuse. In 3.0, none are enslaved or excluded, none are bullied or coerced, and every single citizen participates. This is the first truly robust build.
The teaser comes from Facebook’s Proxy Statement in May 2016. Basically Zuckerberg can run for office and still maintain control of Facebook. Sound familiar?
“Mr. Zuckerberg's leave of absence or resignation would not constitute a Voluntary Resignation if it were in connection with his serving in a government position or office”
“My personal challenge for 2017 is to have visited and met people in every state in the US by the end of the year. I've spent significant time in many states already, so I'll need to travel to about 30 states this year to complete this challenge.”, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook post
Zuck trading in his grey t-shirts for suits!
The idea for "The People’s House" was for the video to be part historical document and part Obama’s personal narrative
"Michelle and I always joke, ‘we’re just renters here,’" Obama says early in the video of the house he and his wife have lived in for the past eight years, and where their two daughters have more or less grown up. "The owners are the American people and all those invested in creating this amazing place with so much history."
Today, Facebook-owned Oculus is releasing "The People’s House," a 360-degree video featuring President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Shot by well-known virtual reality production company Felix & Paul Studios, the eight-minute Facebook 360 video brings viewers along for the ride as the outgoing president waxes philosophical about the White House, what it means to him—and the American people—and some of his favorite memories there.
