So apologies if too many rants about Zuckerberg are annoying, but the reason why he disturbs me so much is he's so transparently power hungry and manipulative.

You can find it in everything he does. He's got this weird personal aura where he feels like everyone in the world cares about him and his kids, while at the same time he uses himself and his kids to spread his view of the world and his view of how it works. It just makes me feel slimy.

Example, his attitudes about Xi:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabetheconomy/2014/12/09/zuc...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently stirred up controversy by advising his employees to read Chinese President Xi Jinping’s book The Governance of China, because he wants them to “understand socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The book appeared prominently placed on his desk during a recent visit from China’s Internet czar Lu Wei, and he apparently has bought a number of copies to share with others.

This of course went so far as to ask Xi to name his child. What the fuck is that? Xi hilariously turned him down, but let us remember that this is the same Xi whose father was the vice premier and propaganda chief while Mao was killing murdering millions of his countrymen, the same Xi who is now the most powerful Chinese leader in a generation and who continues to consolidate power and control.

Yet here's Mark, putting out posts about the importance of democracy, etc. It's like he's speaking out of two sides of his mouth and what he really wants is people to trust his institution, Facebook, and him as benevolent or competent. I'd have less of a problem with it if what Facebook did wasn't so damn mediocre, but he continually excuses that mediocrity through acting all feely carey about social issues.

In earlier eras, when the leader of a trusted institution failed to live up to the mores of the organization, he (and it was usually a “he”) could leave without threatening the existence of the institution.

Maybe, but the reality is that up until about 100 years ago, non-democracy, authoritarianism, and autocracy were the norm and incompetent leaders and their progeny could go on fucking up a nation and other nations for centuries. Our governments have opened up, but Facebook and other companies are still kingdoms. We've got this social system thing going on where we funnel the smartest and most well off kids through lottery machines and when one of those kids wins the lottery, we assume they are specially gifted and fit to rule the world. Maybe they aren't. Maybe they should accept that having a net worth of 50 billion dollars is enough and they should spend that money to shut the fuck up about things they don't know anything about.

It's fun to bullshit on HN about worldviews, but Mark's HN quality bullshit has been affecting the world for the last 10 years and his only excuse is trust me, dumb fucks. Of course Mark won't call you a dumb fuck anymore because Mark has studied human behavior enough to understand that's not palatable, but how different are his actions?

He wants more, more, more, like a bunch of this titans of industry. It's never enough, presumably because they've adopted the idea that the best possible thing in life is to have "influence" and to them that influence is more important than whether that influence is any good.