The Inanity of the Insanity

"If you see a conspiracy behind every tree maybe you need to get out of the forest!" - Futurist Jim Carroll

All of us have lost someone to the maelstrom of the madness, the confusion of the crazy, the innards of the insanity. We've seen otherwise rational people fall prey to delusions, subscribe to conspiracies, and fuel their paranoia through the warm path of the social media misinformation swamp.

I've long been watching all of this with the unease common to most rational, logical, and sane people. I dare not wade into the debate, knowing that all too quickly, those who have been sucked down into the conspiracy wormhole will rise up in righteous madness. I know I've lost a few friends along the way, and I always ponder the issue of how otherwise intelligent people can fall into a world of the absolutely irrational. I don't bother trying to debate with them; it seems that they have devoted much time to empower themselves with information from within the conspiracy swap, eager to do nothing more with their lives than to fight within a debate. I have better things to do with my time. I just feel sad for them.

As a futurist, I've long had to pay attention to the issue though. After all, while it's easy to predict the future, it's not easy to predict the implications of madness-driven volatility. I have written about the implications of this in my post The Dark Underside of a Usually Optimistic Future - specifically, point 2. I truly believe that at some point in the future, the medical and psychological community will have identified that there is, indeed, some unique new form of illness that did not previously exist.

Acceleration of mental illness: we are seeing a new form of collaborative mental illness driven by the connectivity of the Internet, and years from now it will be diagnosed as such. This is not any type of routine mental illness – this is full-on whack-a-doodle loopy-doo full-on-gone type of crazy. Like, beyond batshit. You know them when you see them; you feel for their families. This has obviously become a massive part of the political agenda – people subscribe to the craziest of conspiracy theories. Your crazy uncle is now everywhere all at once – you are surrounded by too many crazy uncles. Crazy feeds on crazy, and so the new iterative insanity loop drives more insanity. It won’t end well.

What I do wonder about as a futurist is this - what are the implications of all this going forward, not only from a geopolitical perspective but also from a business perspective? Business organizations try to make decisions based on predictable patterns, logical assumptions, and rational reasons. Even as they do this, they try to prepare for and think about the 'black swan' events - those massive unforeseen events - to the extent they can. It doesn't always work - something like a global pandemic comes along and throws all the assumptions about volatility and uncertainty out the window.

There are real-world implications. Utility companies have had to deal with folks who think that wind turbines cause all kinds of havoc. Chicken feed companies have had to battle a fast-emerging story implanted in social media that chickens are no longer laying eggs due to some nefarious plot. Food companies have had to battle all kinds of crazy stories as to how they are engineering food to control the minds of the populace. Communications companies have been dealing with the insanity of the 5G conspiracy for quite some time. And I won't even touch the medical and healthcare implications of the madness, since I nailed the outcome of that trend back in 2017 in my post on the emerging healthcare reality crisis. Read it - I was dead on with my prediction of what would happen through the pandemic.

There are serious implications to the madness. How bad is it? Here's a study to ponder:

There are conspiracy theories online about nearly half of large companies in the Netherlands, BNR reports after searching the brand names of the 25 AEX-listed companies on social media. The broadcaster found conspiracy theories about 12 companies, mostly on Telegram, which has virtually no measures against disinformation.

What does it lead to? Wild, unpredictable results:

Despite their lack of substantiated evidence and often unfollowable logic, conspiracy theories can still have significant consequences for the people and businesses they touch. The arson attacks on 5G masts in 2020 are an extreme example of this.

What to do about it? That's a bit of a problem since any action can often make it worse.

Responding to these theories can often exacerbate the problem, Ronald Kroes, an independent communications manager and interim spokesperson, said to BNR. But there are things companies can do to guard against conspiracy theorists.

The reality today is that every organization must adapt to the madness of the crowds; strategies need to be refined to manage the complexity of the crazy; and leadership must be on guard to work through the insanity. All of it provides for an acceleration of the new era of volatility and is a part of our world in which volatility is the new normal.

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At the age of 9, Futurist Jim Carroll marveled in the moment that saw Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the lunar surface.

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