Imprudence - A Growing Epidemic

Whether it was Alexander the Great or Hannibal in their military campaigns, King Louis XI or Queen Elizabeth I in their political reigns, Rockefeller or Carnegie in their industrial conquests – history shows us that those most prolific throughout time owe the majority of their success to their ability to think far into the future. Ultimately, they were prudent. 

Prudence has many names & definitions today, but in essence, it embodies a fundamental way of thinking. It is a rational approach to goal-oriented consequential thinking – meaning thinking beyond the solution to a problem and into the consequences of that solution. Like a grand master of chess, thinking 5 moves ahead, viewing the relationships between pieces (people) as dynamic and the board as a new game after every subsequent move – perhaps sacrificing pawns (ego) or even the queen (the public opinion) to achieve the ultimate goal or desired outcome.

Too often are we blinded by fixing the surface level problem, that we fail to see the consequences of the solution and how it affects our overarching goal (positively or negatively). We observe this in our daily lives or more demonstrably, in major policy, both today and throughout history. If we were to truly consider the goal we are trying to achieve rather than the ‘fix’ to a given problem, we may come to realize what was once the obvious ‘solution’ instead will result in far worse issues down the road.

This is not a new or unique concept by any means. Despite having the most information ever available in human history, it has become quite clear that people are increasingly incapable of thinking both rationally and consequentially. Whether it is an individual reacting to a headline or a politician creating a major public policy, emotion or emotional appeal guides their decision.

“Think before you act”

It can be as simple as making an innocuous post on Facebook, as costly as putting your life savings into DodgeCoin or as detrimental as writing an angry email to a vindictive coworker. Today more than ever, it is paramount that you think before you act. Within every decision of every day, every person must choose how to respond to a problem or situation and will in-turn, suffer the consequences of that choice.

Why today, with so much knowledge, history and wisdom so readily available, are we regressing in our way of thinking, reverting to short-sightedness more often than not? Is it a result of information overload? Is the speed of which we must interpret, process and use that information, too unrealistic? Have we reached our processing power limit as humans? Or are we just lazy? Are things like Artificial Intelligence (AI) meant to fill that gap? And more cynically, are we being engineered to not think critically? 

There is no question that personalized data streams and information have been a pervasive force via our phones. While the future of AI remains to be seen – what is more than evident is that the system we live in today has been designed, purposefully or not, to make us more reactionary and irrational.

The next step may be to ask, who then is engineering the system and the people? Is it more about who the President is, or those controlling TikTok, Facebook and Twitter? Is it a result of indoctrination of kids in school or social media? And who is to blame, the teachers or the parents? Regardless, we are teaching society what to think, rather than how to think.

“A little learning can be a dangerous thing”

People today believe they are more informed than ever – they are not. However, it is only natural we believe this; consider the number of headlines you have read on COVID-19 this year alone. As we are shown information perpetually, about innumerable subjects to which we are unfamiliar & untrained, we naturally begin to feel we know just enough to hold an opinion. But breadth of knowledge does not equal depth and the world isn’t as black and white as we are so often led to believe. Understand that the world is far more nuanced than simple cause and effect relationships, that people are vastly complex and that the person or person(s) supposedly in power, are usually not.

The ability to reason seems like a distant memory. We see complex problems and begin offering up simple solutions – disillusioned, often pointing to sacrificial lambs to explain away the destructive reality we ourselves caused. It is the fault of the rich, we say, or the poor, the right or the left, the figureheads or the masses; whoever the proverbial boogeyman may be, ridding ourselves of them is our only path to salvation.

“Out of the frying pan, into the fire.”

Attribute this to laziness, hatred/love or just plain stupidity, there are infinite examples of how this form of simplistic thinking rarely works out in the end. In extreme cases, we can look to the Russians who rid themselves of the Czars only to empower individuals that rivaled Hitler in the number of bodies they placed in mass graves. Or perhaps those who decidedly punished Germany via the Treaty of Versailles that in turn led to the rise of Hitler. In less extreme examples of policy, prohibition of alcohol in the past or drugs in the present, has led to an increase in dangerous use/crime in both cases. Solutions to problems have consequences. And those solutions, one may argue, should be analyzed even more so than the problem itself.

Finally, history is replete with examples of those in power (or looking to gain power), instilling chaos by weaponizing mass hysteria (irrationality). It’s a story as old as time and is almost formulaic: Controlling streams of information guides the people on what to think – this leads to irrational thinking, irrationality gives way for polarization, polarization gives way for division, division causes weakness and weakness gives way for the powerful to seize control. After the dust settles and those in power take their throne, the very same people who empowered these tyrants, suffer the most by their hand.

The consequences endured almost always trace back to a systemic lack of foresight among the people who thought, “if only we could rid ourselves of ‘them,’ we would be better off.” One-dimensional thinking has often been at the root of human atrocities throughout history, and if only some level of prudence was shown by the leaders, the populous and/or individuals at the time, they may have been avoided entirely.

Politicians, large corporations and anyone in power, all benefit from being the order in a chaotic world. Understand that in 2021 and the era of COVID, while we may have tools to give us more information than ever before, those same tools may be weaponized to spread disinformation, fear and chaos. Often these weapons of disinformation lay subtly, almost undetectable in every news source you read, under the guise of misrepresented statistics, partial proof sources or simply a lie.

So the question remains, are humans simply destined to repeat this cycle of irrationality, or is it perpetuated by those in power? Maybe both?

Whatever the answer is, if we are unable to see the forest for the trees, we may find ourselves trapped, doomed by our own inability to see what is really going on around us and with only ourselves to blame.