In the first article published in this series, I stated that the world incurs hundreds of trillions of dollars in costs each year, stemming from issues as varied as cybercrime, soil erosion, obesity, hunger, food waste, air pollution, and corruption, to name a few. The second article focused on the empty space economy, offering a brief yet comprehensive view of how standardization creates costs that not only harm third parties but also hurt consumers, organizations, employees, and even shareholders themselves by leaving these costs unaddressed. The core issue is that they arise when standardized, regularly shaped containers and twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) meet products that are “irregularly” shaped, causing vast amounts of empty space to be shipped worldwide. In both articles, I argued that our mechanistic worldview is to blame—in other words, that we fail to grasp the complexities of the world.
As our society strays further from reality, we can see the growing costs more clearly.
The earlier articles discussed economic costs that are not easily perceivable, but in recent days we’ve been confronted with dramatic losses that, as I’ve shown before, have subtracted trillions of dollars from financial markets, directly eroding the purchasing power of many people. This supports my point: An inability to understand the world leads to enormous economic costs, which eventually become financial costs that will severely affect the purchasing power of at least 95% of the population in the next 100 years. Ongoing, unresolved problems—like air pollution, water shortages, soil degradation, and others outlined in the first article—are compounding. Yet instead of moving toward a deeper understanding of the world, we’re steering further away.
Perhaps the furthest we can stray from understanding our world is when we outright deny centuries of accumulated knowledge. Take, for example, the flat earth community: millions of people willingly reject mountains of evidence gathered over thousands of years in favor of a belief that is demonstrably false—and the community keeps growing.
In December 2024, a priest took a group of flat-earthers to Antarctica so they could witness the sun remaining visible for 24 hours. They set up ten cameras and livestreamed the experience for all to see. Predictably, the flat earth community’s responses were dismissive: accusations of computer-generated imagery (CGI), green screens, or even Satanic pacts to fake the sun. Despite the noble intentions behind the experiment, it made no meaningful dent in the community’s convictions. Once again, facts have lost this battle.
Another example can be seen in the recent measles outbreak in Texas, where two children have tragically died—and more deaths are likely without proper vaccination. As a father, I was outraged—not only by the news itself but by the profound ignorance of the father of the first deceased child, who endangered others by refusing to acknowledge that community vaccination protects everyone’s children. And now, figures like RFK Jr. wage a war against scientific evidence on autism to justify reckless deaths.
A reporter wrote in The Atlantic, quoting the girl’s father: “The death of his daughter, Peter told me, was God’s will. God created measles. God allowed the disease to take his daughter’s life. ‘Everybody has to die,’ he said.”
Please note, I am angry at the ignorance—not the human being.
The ignorance cultivated by the interactions of people who either willingly or unknowingly reject reality contributed to this tragedy.
I understand that blaming someone in profound grief is unproductive. We must instead recognize that our collective tolerance for ignorance has enabled such outcomes. The father and his community have built fact-resistant shared realities that are incredibly hard to dismantle—especially when we remain passive and assume others’ choices don’t affect us. Today, we risk the mutation of the most contagious pathogen ever known, potentially endangering millions.
No person is an island.
In my earlier articles, I argued that our worldviews lead to dramatic costs. One such view is that we are isolated islands, responsible only for our own “island,” indifferent to others. But as John Donne wrote, “no man is an island.” The bell that tolled for those children in Texas tolls for all of us. This self-centered worldview, while less extreme than believing in a flat earth, is still a denial of reality. It ignores the complexity and interconnectedness of markets, societies, and civilization itself. It’s frustrating to see these patterns unfold in the 21st century—and even more frustrating that so many remain unaware, their mental models repeatedly surpassed by current events they thought impossible.
Institutional theory didn’t predict the blatant illegality and corruption now rising in the United States. The “end of history” thesis never imagined a full-scale land war returning to Europe just one generation after the fall of the Berlin Wall. “McDonald’s diplomacy” couldn’t foresee two nations with McDonald’s franchises going to war. Democracy was heralded as inevitable since the 1990s—yet now we see democratic institutions decimated worldwide: the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), the Paris Accords, even domestic institutions in democratic nations.
How? Through cyber guerrilla warfare—implemented at a fraction of military budgets.
The ideas of Carlos Marighella, Ernesto Guevara, Committee for State Security (KGB) theorists, and others who pioneered guerrilla warfare have destabilized systems once thought invincible. Their model treated human beings not as rational actors but as manipulable entities swayed by fear and lies. Meanwhile, the model of the Enlightenment and of social scientists presumed rational individuals acting in self-interest. And yet, operant conditioning—the idea that institutions and people can be associated with irrational fears—has prevailed. Kamala Harris branded a communist? Ridiculous, but effective. By creating a problem and offering a “solution,” they’ve waged global rackets, influencing national politics and entire parties.
Let’s revisit Syria’s refugee crisis. Brutal missile attacks generated a migrant wave into Europe. Anti-immigrant party campaigns, many funded by the Kremlin, gained traction. Create the problem, offer the solution. Who will stop it? What functioning police state is left to intervene? Neither model fully grasped the world’s complexity, but Marighella’s model has proven more self-fulfilling.
It’s an escalating war on science and reason.
Globally, we’re witnessing an attack on the core principles of the Enlightenment:
- The use of reason (measles vaccination) over belief (unsafe vaccines) as a basis for law.
- The separation of powers to check government authority, which has come under attack in recent years in the U.S., Poland, Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, and the U.K.
- The establishment of human rights, undermined for billions (e.g., lack of due process as in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia).
- The development of scientific education, dismantled by leaders attacking universities.
- The use of scientific inquiry to advance reforms, undermined by conspiracy (e.g., autism myths).
- The development of tolerance and peaceful relationships based on mutual interests (undermined by for instance absurdly high tariffs).
- The rejection of the divine right to rule, now challenged by leaders who claim absolute power and threaten sovereign nations (e.g., Canada).
Hence, the Enlightenment itself is under attack—its ideas dismantled by those who believe only others will suffer, not them.
The markets and institutions will solve it, right? Right?
The response from defenders of reality has been tepid at best. Some cling to faith in institutions, shocked when they fail. Scientists, believing apolitical detachment was safest, are now scrambling to sound the alarm.
Democrats offered small, paper-thin protests at the State of the Union. Thankfully, others have taken to the streets, fed up with the lies of the Enlightenment’s dismantlers. But broadly, the response has been mild—a reflection of misplaced faith in systems we assume are self-correcting. Meanwhile, we lack a meaningful response to the social media guerrilla warfare assaulting democracy and rule of law.
I don’t know how unscathed we’ll emerge from this global crisis of ignorance. But I do know the outcome depends on how actively we work to understand our world’s complexity—and help others do the same. The more people who miss this complexity, the worse the outcomes will be.
Consider this: over half of U.S. adults have literacy skills at a sixth-grade level—a deficit costing $2.2 trillion annually.* Or that racial and ethnic discrimination has cost the U.S. $51 trillion since 1990—more than its entire national debt.
The ongoing attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the U.S.—as an excuse to undermine ethnic minorities, women, and other marginalized groups—serve as yet another example of the high price of such policies.
We must rebuild on stronger foundations that resist sensationalists and “guerrilleros.”
We’ve failed to recognize humans as complex beings. We’ve failed to anticipate instability. We’ve failed to see markets and institutions as open systems shaped by complex human actors. We’ve failed to shield society from sociopathic megalomaniacs. We’ve failed to grasp our interconnectedness with each other and the world.
We need new models, new ways of thinking—less mechanistic, more human.
We need stronger responses, less apathy, and less clinging to routine. We need awareness of the flaws in our thinking and mental models. We need spaces that foster participation, interdisciplinary exchange, and creative solutions as counterweights to the tidal wave of ignorance and reality denial. We need to nurture human creativity instead of stifling it through repetitive tasks.
Adam Smith knew this already back in 1776, as shown in his book The Wealth of Nations (published the same year as the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence). He warned that in an industrialized society, repetitive and narrowly specialized labor could limit workers’ opportunities to develop their intellectual, social, and civic capacities. He argued that without supportive structures like education, individuals engaged in monotonous tasks risk becoming disconnected from critical thinking, creativity, and participation in democratic life.
To reclaim reality, we must reinforce human rights, the separation of powers, science, and tolerance.
We need the patience to guide others toward reality without blame. If we fail, it will be a collective defeat—one that 95% of us will pay for dearly, as we drift deeper into willful ignorance and apathy, trusting in institutions already decimated with the equivalent of a few small nations’ military budgets.
(*) Low literacy levels reflect both poor policy and a lack of learned skills—both forms of ignorance.
By Dr. Javier Gomez Mata
The views of our contributing authors do not necessarily reflect the views of The Leipzig Glocal as a whole.
