THE NEW CRIME WAVE IS STEALING YOUR MIND — AND YOU HAVEN'T EVEN NOTICED
The new criminals don't rob you at gunpoint: they steal your mind without you realizing it. Operating under the banner of free speech, they manipulate masses and destabilize laws and even entire countries. Millions follow them without realizing they're being dominated and controlled. This is the new reality of the world we live in, and it's urgent that the law catches up. And yes, as an entrepreneur and business owner, you should care.
When Socrates conversed on the streets of Athens, he didn't offer brief speeches or clever soundbites to impress people. His ideas were put to the test in dialogues that sometimes lasted hours, where every argument was examined, questioned, and taken apart by those listening. In that kind of sustained exchange, it's hard to hide superficiality: weak ideas contradict themselves and end up collapsing under the weight of their own words. Only those that withstand continuous scrutiny manage to remain standing. That's why coherence and intellectual rigor were essential for anyone who, from dialogue or the Greek stage, wanted to avoid a shower of tomatoes.
In the same way, conversations and gatherings—that ancient source of culture, ideas, and opinions—transmit knowledge that only reproduces if inhabited by logical and well-founded ideas. Even if they're wrong, they at least have to be wrapped in justifications that put people's reasoning to the test. Today just as much as three thousand years ago.
Then came books, and much later with the arrival of the press, radio, and even television, the ideas transmitted through these media still had to justify themselves sharply because they were disseminated through columns or segments of several hundred words (or thousands), in which they had to build a logical foundation solid enough to avoid embarrassing ridicule.
Until social media arrived.
And it arrived to change that ancient mechanism in one fell swoop, because now any idea can be transmitted with a phrase, a photo, or an audiovisual piece lasting seconds, using sloppy logic dressed up as wisdom, any reasoning that sounds outrageous, or any form that stirs emotions. For the first time, we've designed a weapon of mass distribution of ideas—with logical or illogical footing, wise or stupid—capable of hijacking your dopamine reward circuit in just seconds.
But there's something worse. That weapon is in everyone's hands: the modern Socrates and the village lunatic alike.
One could argue that social media represents a qualitative democratic advance or a defining leap for our rights of expression and freedom. They are, on the surface, and even fundamentally, it's true. But within that foundation lies a chilling underbelly, because what we've actually built is a weapon of mass destruction—since when you give an open mic to stupidity without requiring it to broadly justify what it's spouting, the minds running on autopilot (which are the majority according to Kahneman's studies) adopt these ideas with fervor. At that precise moment, the infection begins to spread through society, leading to radicalization, polarization, outrage, frustration, and... then, to its natural consequence: violence. A world infected with stupidity ends up being a violent world.
I wish the misfortune stopped there, but it doesn't. And what follows is what motivates my writing today.
Truth be told, the effect keeps mutating in a terrifying way until it becomes an ideal scenario for cognitive crime. Let's look at this:
How is it possible that a country's president dedicates himself to lying on social media daily, systematically? Let's start by asking ourselves: how can that happen? And let's finish by asking: how is it possible that he can keep doing it without anything happening to him?
This is no small matter. And I wouldn't want to taint these writings with politics, but this was the last straw; we've reached the point where I consider it urgent that someone raises their hand accompanied by a scandalous shout to see if any cop in the world pays attention.
For example, fact-checkers documented over 30,000 false or misleading statements by Donald Trump during his first term, which places him as one of the most extensive cases of political disinformation in modern U.S. history.
Or let's talk about Elon Musk himself, that redeemer of modern innovation and entrepreneurship. And I ask that we talk about him because what he's doing is frightening, as he insists on unmasking himself, without the slightest scruple, as a supposed moral beacon who's actually driven by his selfish capitalist interests. Why do I say this? Because at first I saw him attacking Sam Altman of OpenAI on X, and then retweeting unfortunate news about OpenAI in an obvious attempt to discredit them through dirty play—or let's say, inelegant tactics. So up to that point, I thought everything fit within normal corporate warfare.
Until I started seeing him viciously sharing negative news about Bill Gates (a direct and indirect competitor in some areas) regarding the Epstein case. Why is he sharing Gates's troubles through his wife's pain and grief? What's he after?
Shortly after, he aggressively mocked Spain's president, associating him with filth and shit, and then repeatedly calling him a fascist for restricting social media use for those under 16—a measure that, by the way, several countries have already adopted. These are just a few examples of conduct that sets off all the alarms: because they're not part of a millionaire's normal eccentricity or unethical arrogance. It's quite a bit more than that. With his nearly unmatched power and a megaphone of 234 million followers on X, he becomes a mass bully and harasser who twists public opinion with five words, not for collective benefit, but for his own personal gain. Of course it's beneficial for minors to avoid social media; too many studies prove it. But it doesn't suit Mr. Musk, owner of X, so he uses his virtually unlimited megaphone to create a regime of terror to protect himself. It's an abusive strategy of domination and intimidation, in which he disguises free speech as privatized, antidemocratic, unethical, and I'd say almost criminal political power.
This is, then, the inspiring role model for the world's entrepreneurs to follow.
As I write this about OpenAI, I wonder what he'd say about his Teslas that have already killed people before.
But probably the most atrocious case, because it really gets under my skin, is that of Mr. Gustavo Petro (President of Colombia), an individual from whom it's almost impossible to catch a truth. And I'm not talking about opinions or perceptions, but what he transmits as facts and data. So I'm not speaking from subjectivity; not about his subjective opinions, ideas, or proposals. I'm talking about what he asserts, the statistics he shares, the "facts" he mentions, the theories he argues, the supposed works "of his" that he inaugurates. In over 90% of cases (because I've done the exercise of taking a sample of them), they're false or come mixed with lies. I'm not the only one who's proven it; media outlets like La Silla Vacía or Infobae have compiled threads on X where Petro shared unverified or erroneous information, including narratives that were later proven to be falsehoods or confusions with real facts. The evidence is overwhelming.
This is how every single day, without fail, he says something that twists the truth or distorts it, and that can be refuted very easily by having official data or reliable sources at hand. (If you don't believe me and want to challenge me, I invite you to do the exercise objectively; take 10 tweets and contrast them with artificial intelligence or with objective sources you find).
I want to clarify something: what Petro does isn't slipping up. These aren't failures of attention or lack of rigor. Nor is he just a little crazy. No, no. Let's not be naive. Such a volume of disinformation is only possible when there's a deliberate plan to transform the truth.
Here are two examples; two posts I shared almost four years ago exposing his lies:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GEbZPQfYJ/
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Bm4UfmZRt/
So this man, who's supposed to be the leader of 50 million souls, for whom he's supposed to be their guide, their beacon, their inspiration, authority, and law (calculate the level of responsibility he carries), what he actually dedicates himself to day after day is being a systematic and massive liar.
But no. It's not even that. It's more than that. Much more than that. Because if you think about it, the man is twisting the reality and values not of dozens of people, but of millions. Yes, read that again: millions.
So then? What is that? What do you call it? What does that make him?
Today it has no name because it's a somewhat new behavior, but basically what he's doing is stealing people's freedom by nullifying their ability to recognize the truth in order to introduce them into a parallel world of fantasies that he's designed for them. In other words, he's holding their minds hostage. And they don't even suspect it.
Gustavo Petro is therefore a criminal, and these types of acts should ALREADY be judged as kidnapping is judged, as armed robbery is judged, or at the very least, as intellectual theft.
It might seem like an exaggeration to you. But the least of it is that in this era, human stupidity now has an open mic for the world to hear. What's truly serious is that high-level businessmen and criminals have realized they can stand at the podium and say any nonsense without foundation with Socratic conviction, thus amassing a millionaire herd of polarized and outraged followers, capable of exercising a pyromanic violence that can very well destroy cities and poison the future of entire countries. More than that: cross-border mobs, carriers of dangerous ideas capable of burning not territories, but rights.
That's why the time has come for the law to adapt to these new and unprecedented circumstances.
Because with unlimited free speech, you don't need bullets anymore. All you need is X.
(...and as an entrepreneur and business owner, you should care because we’ve entered a new era of feudalism. And... can you imagine how this ends now with AI's communication powers?).
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