Who Rules the World?

[Raver]

I am genuinely curious on what people believe on this subject. Poll was made deliberately anonymous to prevent fear based voting. Multiple options are not allowed so you are forced to choose what coincides with your beliefs the most. Feel free to post your thoughts in a civil fashion.

[bgbg]

tides of the collective

[maniac]

Girls

[powerrainbowcrystal]

My heart says Fefe Dobson of course. <3

In objective reality: Evil assholes, and misguided people who think they aren't evil but are in actual realty beyond all veils and shitty institutions- the worst of them all.

It's too simple to say money is the root of all evil - especially when there's compassionate rich people and poor people who are assholes, but you better believe the rich people who are in fact assholes make the world miserable for everybody else.

[The Reality Denialist]

koala bears.

Seriously:
Biology
1. how it connects to our bodies -> chemistry or evolution
2. environment

Change of environment might produce something else. Like let's say even distribution of sun light or nutrition which both are also interlinked. It is complex web of things.

We think that we have completely free will. However our dependence on environment tells otherwise


Do rulers rule themselves? Nope. They are puppets made by environment.


We have gotten here https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Fundamental_interaction
Which might not be the final answer.

[Adam Strange]

You left out "A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires, about 50 to 150 in number".

The answer also depends on what you mean by "rules".

[Anglas]

Jews

[squark]

Me. I rule the world. Sorry for messing it up so badly. I'll do better on the next one, this was just a practice run anyway.

[The Reality Denialist]

Before I started school (I think) I thought that we are just part of controlled built up experiment/simulation.
Maybe I even went to recursion in my thoughts. Yeah I was and still am a nut case.

[Raver]

You left out "A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires, about 50 to 150 in number".

The answer also depends on what you mean by "rules".

That is basically option 1, it has a typo I cannot edit. I put in the "other" option in case people could not find an option that suited them, but technically you could shoehorn most beliefs into the main options.

[Capitalist Pig]

No one rules the world. There's just a minority population of people who have amassed a ton of wealth and influence over various financial and political institutions, granting them privileges and opportunities unique to their status. But I don't believe that all of these people or organizations (whether public or secret) are necessarily on the same page all of the time, colluding and conspiring to manipulate the world at large. I think they compete more than they cooperate, which tends to gridlock complicity. I could be wrong though.

[Raver]

No one rules the world. There's just a minority population of people who have amassed a ton of wealth and influence over various financial and political institutions, granting them privileges and opportunities unique to their status. But I don't believe that all of these people or organizations (whether public or secret) are necessarily on the same page all of the time, colluding and conspiring to manipulate the world at large. I think they compete more than they cooperate, which tends to gridlock complicity. I could be wrong though.

Yeah, this is what I had in mind with option 1 basically.

[Capitalist Pig]

Yeah, this is what I had in mind with option 1 basically.

Oh, then I guess I shouldn't have voted other.

I guess a minority of people/institutions with the majority of influence could be considered ruling the world. But I don't think that they have the power to force anyone to do anything they don't want to unless they resort to outright criminality. Nor does any singular individual, committee, or institution possess all the power.

[consentingadult]

The question should not be "who rules the world", but "What rules the world?" The world is ruled by institutions. The major institutions rule select groups of elite people in various areas, e.g cultural and economic spheres. As I have found out myself, most of these spheres are ruled by people the general public never hears about. All those well known 'powerful' figures are, in fact, powerless puppets and facades.

Nice bonus: Socionics can be a valuable tool for understanding the very basic institutions that rule the world...

[Raver]

The question should not be "who rules the world", but "What rules the world?" The world is ruled by institutions. The major institutions rule select groups of elite people in various areas, e.g cultural and economic spheres. As I have found out myself, most of these spheres are ruled by people the general public never hears about. All those well known 'powerful' figures are, in fact, powerless puppets and facades.

Nice bonus: Socionics can be a valuable tool for understanding the very basic institutions that rule the world...

Interesting take, which is possible of being true. This kind of ties into the first option though, but with a bit of a difference. I am kind of curious to what kind of and which institutions you are talking about exactly though?

On a side note, I kind of regret putting in other as an option in this thread as it is a cop out. If I put noone rules the world instead of we in the third option, then perhaps more people would of voted for that. The poll ended up being completely useless regardless because of the other option, but it was worth a shot.

[WinnieW]

In terms of global economics: The members of the Bilderberg Group

[consentingadult]

Interesting take, which is possible of being true. This kind of ties into the first option though, but with a bit of a difference. I am kind of curious to what kind of and which institutions you are talking about exactly though?

This question cannot be answered in a simple post. Also, I get the impression you 'misunderstand' the word 'institution'. Institutions are not formal groups, such as organizations, but mechanisms. If you want to understand institutions, you need to study sociology (i.e. the science of institutions). And Socionics, the theoretical science of the institutions of quadras.

[Raver]

This question cannot be answered in a simple post. Also, I get the impression you 'misunderstand' the word 'institution'. Institutions are not formal groups, such as organizations, but mechanisms. If you want to understand institutions, you need to study sociology (i.e. the science of institutions). And Socionics, the theoretical science of the institutions of quadras.

I see what you mean. Technically speaking, corporations and governments fit into the definition of institutions. There may be a president/prime minister or a CEO, but they don't possess absolute power like an emperor, dictator or owner would.

[Capitalist Pig]

I see what you mean. Technically speaking, corporations and governments fit into the definition of institutions. There may be a president/prime minister or a CEO, but they don't possess absolute power like an emperor, dictator or owner would.

They're big fish in a small pond, I don't think anyone disputes that here. The distinction @consentingadult draws between institution and institute isn't benign, and I can grok rephrasing the question from who to what rules the world.

After all, it's not a Marvel or DC universe. There are no cut-and-dry bad guys bent on a brutal and public plan of world domination. It's a hegemony handcrafted by hundreds of years of "old money" hedging their bets, and playing a generations-long game of chess with the world's politico-economy. A metric that can't be measured by net worth.

[wacey]

Gurls.

[Desert Financial]

I thought this was going to be about one of Chomsky's more recent books.

[woofwoofl]

Entropy rules the world, and it's on all of sentience to obliterate its tyranny. Getting closer...

[consentingadult]

Technically speaking, corporations and governments fit into the definition of institutions.

Perhaps in everyday language they do, but in the vocabulary of the social scientist, corporations and governments are not institutions, but organizations. E.g. penal law is an institution, but the goverments that creates it and the police and the courts that enforce it, are organizations.

Now this might sound as nitpicking, but I do believe it is important to make the distinction: the sooner one understands what social scientist mean by the concept of 'institutions', that things like institutions exist, how they work and what effect they have on all of us, the better you will understanding how the world actually is ruled. And more importantly, which people are the actual key figures before and behind the institutions.

E.g. in many countries people believe it is politicians who have a lot of power, when it is actually civil servants.

[lavos]

Reptoid entities from another dimension? Are you schizophrenic, man? How is this even an option??

[Raver]

Reptoid entities from another dimension? Are you schizophrenic, man? How is this even an option??

Hey, I never said I believed in that option, don't put words in my mouth. I even mentioned in other posts that I think that possibility is ridiculous. However, I put in every single possibility anyways just in case someone believes in it.

[idontgiveaf]

The Jews

[WVBRY]

Noone.

I think you have two types of power, economic power and political power. The first is basically having large amounts of money and being able to buy what one wants, or invest in anything you want, the other is the use of military or police to impose and maintain power over others.

I will address both types of power and why noone controls the world through either.

Economic power: There are conspiracy theories about rich families of bankers and corporations ruling the world but it can't be true simply because a single person or group cannot control a country's economy, much less the world's. This happened with communism and central planning of economies in general, you had one central authority trying to control production and such, but this doesn't work since a single failure commited by a centralized planning agency leads to mass shortages everywhere and you had people starving to death like you had in China and Russia, whenever I read about the "great leap forward" and how much of a failure it was I would crack up laughing if it weren't for the fact that millions of people died. The same logic is applicable to any supposed Rothschild conspiracy; if one group controlled the economy and pulled its strings wouldn't this lead to mass shortages too? Or maybe they are controlled by reptilians so they don't make mistakes, lol (I have a relative who believes this).

I'm not using this as an excuse to preach any political views about capitalism being better as that is not the topic at hand, just to point out that any one person controlling the economy isn't possible.

As far as political power goes, you have dictators who control basically everything within the borders of their own country but when they try to expand militarily they usually end up failing. So they control their countries but not the world. If you had a world government though, they could (supposing it is even realistic to imagine such a government; you have lagnuage barriers cultural differences, not to mention the earth is a vast territory for one entity to control) place one person in power and we could imagine that person becoming dictatorial. IMO, world government is a bad idea and borders are fortunate limits on the power of dictators.

So no I don't think anyone does. Economic power is too decentralized and those who wield it usually compete with others who do the same. Political power is limited to the country it rules over, so you have people controlling countries but not the entire world.

[strangeling]

I think option 1 definitely becomes the resistance to any kind of change and tends to define where progress is going to head. For example, I've been watching Elio Motors for awhile and following them and it seems they have met a lot of resistance in the automobile industry to get their car made. The giants own most of the production and capital and without their support it's really hard to compete in the industry. Same thing seems to be happening with Tesla lately. Their Model S is way behind schedule and they can't seem to get production together, running on investor funds and pre-orders. Meanwhile, the big auto giants could care less, know this is happening, and seem to be hoping Tesla will fall flat on its face. I don't even know if most people know this, but Tesla is not even allowed to sell their cars directly to the public. If you buy one, it has to be shipped to you because it's against the law for a car manufacturer to sell directly (not through a dealer). It's another way to ensure that someone is going to make money, no matter that the consumer may not even like dealers or want to "deal" with them just to buy a frickin car.

I mean you can look at wireless communications. These guys all pretty much charge the same rates and "own" as ridiculous as that sounds certain electromagnetic frequencies. I forget what they call it when all the companies kind of agree on charging the same hiked rate to make more money, but it's as bad as a monopoly.

Then you have government, where contractors work to get as much money from them as possible, not necessarily to do good work for them at the cheapest price. It's not uncommon for contractors to over-charge immensely for items sold to the government just because they can get away with it. I've heard a story about people selling office supplies and charging thousands of dollars for things like sticky notes before someone noticed something off. I work for a large government contracted corporation, which will remain unnamed that is contracted by the government to develop military weaponry. They had an investor meeting where they basically said they want to grow the company steadily over the next decade, which is great for investors, but we're aren't even in a war...so I'm sitting here wondering why the government just let's this go on. So imo, there definitely seems to be a lot of push and resistance by the big dogs with all the wealth, power, influence, etc.

[Tigerfadder]

Gurls.

Hopefully not.

I think there is a majority of people beliving in something and than someone bring up the idea, like elon musk. People are like ants chatting between each other and the best ideas get displayed somehow.

[nyessss]

This early on in advanced civilization? old money > new money. There is no way elite families that have been at the forefront of humanity for 100+ years aren't pulling the strings behind major, more "explicit" powers. Beyond this? Aliens that have a highly developed form of socionics. I have devised a purely intuitive system of organizing information elements that have been manifesting themselves everywhere in a complex quilt of synchronicity. I will soon publish several methods detailing the growth and shifting of functions within opposing blocks - if they allow me

[Samson]

Ego and Fear rule the world.


If you want this post to be more poetic, and perhaps to be more bewildering, then the answer is the devil. Not any devil. THE devil. The one and only. The world keeps on slapping this truth in your face but the message is lost in translation. Your Other rules you from the underworld, why else visit this forum? As long as you don't venture to the dungeons (subconscious) and face the dragon - which is none other than yourself, - then you'll never save the princess (innocence). Most people don't do it because they are too afraid to die. One (1) needs to die (death of ego / crucifixion) in order to incorporate (ascend) the Other (0). That's why you don't do it, you won't let go, and your world is inevitably ruled by fear.

I am still exploring.