[ExI] Be nice to leftists

[Anders Sandberg]

spike <spike66 at att.net> , 17/5/2014 4:31 PM:
 
>... On Behalf Of BillK 
>...And, generally, the more money spent on lobbying then the greater the 
success. So small special interest groups have great difficulty in fighting 
the big money corporations. 
The scaling of success with money is not obviously linear. A lot has to do with what the natural difficulty is: are there stakeholders that loudly and strongly take a position, while the opposition is apathetic? Does the issue naturally mesh with other issues? Is this an entrenched debate, or a new one where enterprising politicians can stake out their claims?
So why fight big money corporations?  I can think of a number of strategies 
that might work better.  For instance, become a big money corporation. 
Alternately, buy stock in a big money corporation interested in fighting for 
your political views.  Or get a ton of money from the other people who share 
those political views and use that to fight the big money corporation.  Or 
advertise on the internet or various other means to influence consumers to 
favor those corporations which you think better represent your political 
views.  Or the good old fashioned lobbyists can be hired. 
If you can get a corporation (or any other organisation) to promote your idea you have a mighty ally. Especially if you can formulate the idea so that it makes business sense to promote it (consider how many of the big US companies now promote gay marriage). This way it actually becomes part of the corporate DNA.
Typically the trick is to figure out what corporation or business has parallel needs with you or your idea, and then demonstrate it to them. 

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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