Power to move matter, bits or people… is always the same power, eventually.

Ask a physicist and she’ll tell you that power is “the rate of energy transfer,” measurable in watts. But that’s not how most of us use the word. When we speak of the power of a dictator or a billionaire, we’re not concerned about their ability to convey a lot of energy quickly. The kind of power that people wield over one another is usually defined as “the possession of control, authority, or influence over others.” How are these two meanings related—or are they? Are we merely using one word to refer to two or more completely different things?

Gradually, through research and thought, I have come to see the many and varied meanings of power as inextricably linked. The link is evolution.

Provokingly continues here. Read it. And, speaking of inextricability, read it keeping firmly in mind, as I regularly explain here, the inextricable links between political power, physical power and “digital” power, which is every year more the replacement, or new face, of that “Social power” that Heinberg defines as “the ability to get other people to do something - whether by incentive, threat, or inspiration."