Well, the first thing I would say is

It's a mistake to be fatally cynical about politics because

For all the reasons there are to be fatally cynical about politics

There's much more reason to be fatally cynical about

the conflict that will inevitably arise or the tyranny that will inevitably

Manifest itself if we can't handle the dirty business of politics

properly. So I would say don't become prematurely

Cynical about it. The next thing I would say is

What do you know? And

That's a very important question. It's like

What does it mean to get into politics?

Exactly. Does that mean to seek political power? Does that mean to seek power?

Well, first of all, you shouldn't be seeking power. You should be seeking competence and

In order to seek competence, you better know something and so I would say well if you want to get into politics

You want to educate yourself, you know and all the things you need to be educated in life

I mean you can you can start to play the political game to familiarize yourself with it

But you know, it's not such a bad idea - to

well it's not such a bad idea to have a job for a while and

Maybe a career and maybe it's not such a bad idea to have a successful career, upon,

In which people are dependent on you so that you start to understand what that sort of

Responsibility means. And then maybe it's not such a bad idea to have a family because like human beings

mature adult human beings tend to have families and and they transform when they have families because when you have children then someone

becomes more important to you than you are and you're not mature until that happens. And so that's necessary

And so I would say well make sure that if you're looking to get into politics that you're even more looking

To get into competence and that you learned

everything you can possibly learn that would make you a reasonably wise person by the time you

Attain whatever level of power you might, authority, let's say, you might be seeking. I mean I've seen lots of people

Get into politics

You know this happens with ideologues and the way they ratchet themselves up the power hierarchy is by being more effective

Avatars... puppets of their particular ideological stance and there's nothing about that, that's useful

There's nothing in it that will solve any real-world problems and there's plenty that will make it much worse

And so if that's what getting into politics means I would say stay the hell away from it

but if it's a matter of developing your character and then at some point

adopting your social

responsibility then go for it and more power to you because we need people who are competent and careful and truthful and courageous and

forthright to enter the political sphere so that things don't

degenerate and hopefully have some chance of at least maintaining themselves or improving so

There's...you need... What do you need to know?

You need to be really good at at least one thing you have to specialize. You have to be a great networker

You have to know a lot of people. You have to be honest. You have to be articulate.

you have to... You have to have a vision. You have to have a strategy. You have to know something about history and

Economics and politics. It'd be good to know something about science

You know

you have to be a polymath of sorts before you should dare to enter that realm with any degree of

confidence because otherwise

All you are is a loose cannon and you'll come up with global proposals to improve improve the world

You know by waving your wand that will do nothing but make everything worse