@Steven: There’s a selection effect for ideologies that justify any means to attain a distant future payoff, so you can locally optimize for the acquisition of power, and do good with it once you have enough that you’d get more results by spending than investing your political capital. Consequentialism is particularly good for this (and gets even more suited to it when one takes into account existential risk and technological considerations).
@Eliezer: IOW, there are eviler mutants.
@Steven: There’s a selection effect for ideologies that justify any means to attain a distant future payoff, so you can locally optimize for the acquisition of power, and do good with it once you have enough that you’d get more results by spending than investing your political capital. Consequentialism is particularly good for this (and gets even more suited to it when one takes into account existential risk and technological considerations).