Power Politics: the Rise of the Meta-Mafia
We watch in awe as online hacktivist group Anonymous attacks Russia, but do we really understand what we’re witnessing? Remove the rose-tinted glasses of glorified warfare and you’ll see a dangerous reality unfold. Mafias start as friendly heroes, rising in times of endemic lack of trust, capturing power, and eventually spiraling out of control. Pay attention - a new world order is forming.
Justice is Always Served
Despite our cinematic fascination with mafias, we rarely consider how mafias originate. Rewind the salacious scenes of murder, drug traficking, and financial exploitation and you might be surprised to find that mafias are created to serve an unsuspecting goal: to enforce order.
A safe, stable, and prosperous society must honor the innocent and shame the guilty. When we can trust in the justice system to protect us, there is order. But when we can’t, there is chaos. A void is created and parallel justice systems, more commonly known as mafias, emerge.
Mafias typically start as friendly, anti-establishment distributors of justice.
Even the most dangerous mafiosos were noble to someone. Pablo Escobar was the King of Cocaine, but at home, he was Robin Hood building hospitals, stadiums, and housing for the poor. Al Capone was the ultimate mobster, but at home he fed thousands during the Great Depression.
Consider the iconic film, The Godfather. As the opening scene unfolds, Bonasera, an innocent law-abiding civilian, recounts the attempted rape and animalistic beating of his daughter, only to describe how the American police service failed him. Disgusted, with nowhere left to turn to right the wrong, Bonasera begs,
“Don Corleone, give me justice.”
The opposite of national security isn’t war, it’s a nation of insecure people. Neurologically, we’re hardwired to seek deals that right wrongs, no matter the debt. When the social contract is broken, justice is still served, but through different means.
Today’s World Needs a Mafia
Whether it’s a prime minister caught partying in a pandemic, a president caught enticing citizens to raid the Capitol, or a thieving financier, we live in an upsidedown world that constantly honors the shameful and shames the honorable.
What’s worse is that the non-partisan systems designed to protect social order have also failed. Gross violations, from Breonna Taylor to Sarah Everard, warn us that those promising to protect us could betray us at any moment.
We are civilians riddled with unjust shame, fear, and anger.
We are Bonasera.
And we’re ready to make a deal.
Already, hundreds of millions are turning online in outrage to find alternative sources of justice. #MeToo #BLM #BringBackOurGirls #YesAllWomen #FridaysForFuture #ThingsLongerThanBrockTurnersRapeSentence #TinderSwindler #STOPRUSSIANAGGRESSION. We’re surrounded by hashtags that package and sound the alarm of our collective distress.
And the internet answers - from Derek Chauvin death threats to Prince Andrew’s pariah status, unknown respondents create innovative ways to shame and cancel the guilty. Now that the courts of justice have failed, the court of public opinion is rising supreme.
Mafias Follow a Problematic Pattern
The history of human power struggles is simple - power follows those who protect the virtuous. The basic truths, such as the basic principles of kindness, freedom, self-respect, and self-determination, attract power.
To self-regulate our collective virtue, we swing on a pendulum of power, moving from authority to chaos as needed. When authority becomes too established, it gets complacent. Errors, misgivings, and corruption - a pick n’ mix of human vices - occur. Vigilante groups fill the void and form ad-hoc leadership.
But as these groups gain power, they inevitably fall to the same fate, lured by greed and ego. They start attracting criminals who dream of becoming dons, stop providing the righteous with honor, and become corrupt. Society then objects and reestablishes authority.
Except now there's a bigger challenge to this natural process - one unique to our era. Technology stretched the length of the pendulum, making the swings exponentially more destructive. With new issues like revenge porn, misinformation, trolling, phishing, cyberstalking, grooming, privacy, and terrorism recruitment, potential crimes are uncontrollable.
In 2021 alone, we sampled the unimaginable. From GameStop stock manipulations, to the Minneapolis Police Department DDoS attacks, to AXA, Brenntag, Acer, JBS Foods, Quanta, CNA, and Kaseya ransomware attacks, damages from cybercrime hit almost $6 trillion. And authorities had no power to stop it.
Technology didn’t just decentralize finances with crypto, it decentralized social governance. Today, a digital player has the power to conduct a crime in any country in the world, from the comfort of their own home. As no country truly holds the remit to punish international crime, chaos runs wild. And, that’s before explosive initiatives like the ill-conceived Metaverse poured gasoline on the fire of social disruption.
In a lawless world, the rise of metajustice is inevitable. While online realities may seem self-contained, the emotional consequences spill out and impact the entire fabric of society. Society self-rectifies, yes, but given the international nature of technology, for the first time in history, if a full-on mafia were to develop we would have no legal infrastructure to break it up.
It would be the mafia 3.0; the meta-mafia.
The Meta-Mafia is Already Forming
Analyzing historic accounts from as early as the first century, shows that mafia formation follows simple patterns.
How to Set Up a Mafia
Aim to maintain public order through private means. Appear at a time when the public perceives injustice around them and distrusts the existing system.
Provide no specific details on group aims or programs - it’s not a pure social movement. Stay flexible and change objectives quickly without large repercussions from the group.
Create a largely unorganized, decentralized system of local groups with no clear leader or hierarchy. Allow activity to be mostly determined at local levels. If a Don is named, recognize this as the first sign of group decline.
Enforce desired community behavior through action. Action is typically focused around fighting, physical or digital.
Recognize no legal or national obligation, except those of the code of honor. If members are arrested, they are perceived as heroes.
Gain respect from mainstream society and media. Civilians must believe the group can provide them with justice when the government fails.
Imagine a modern mafia and you picture notorious groups like Black Axe, QAnon, or the alt-right more generally, but although dramatic, they lack the power to gain large-scale public support. It’s a much friendlier, noble group that holds the power. Anonymous.
Whether it’s Anonymous’ declaration of war on Russia or their action against ISIS, homophobia, child pornography, and police brutality, when a major social injustice appears, Anonymous is there to seek retribution. At times, they’re society’s only channel for making amends, and were once listed in Time’s 100 Most Influential People.
A few meaningful pushes and Anonymous could emerge as heroes, capturing the last of the young and virtuous into their digital nomadic army.
Right in front of us, momentum is gaining.
We Need an Intervention
We’re still far from calling Anonymous an evolved and destructive mafia, but it’s important to hear society’s cry for help. It’s incredibly important, because if the impending technological criminal catastrophe wasn’t enough, we’re also knocking on war’s door.
With the threat of nuclear war hanging on a knife’s edge, cohesive and planned action is needed. Wars are rarely intentional - instead micro escalations lead to the point of no return. A four sided war, against nations and hacktivists, will be utter havoc.
The challenge is, though, that we can’t tackle Anonymous directly. Anonymous’ rise to, or fall from, prominence won’t be determined by their own prowess, but by our societal needs. They are merely the symptom of corruption, not the cause - eradicate them and another will appear. If our protection continues to be diminished, if we continue to shame the innocent and honor the guilty, we will push them into power ourselves.
We’ll have to.
Heed the instinct to play whack-a-mole and fight extremism, vigilante activity, and criminal gangs at the symptomatic level. The cycle can only be broken when we address the root of the problem: our emotional security.
To stop the development of a full-blown mafia, only one thing will work: take justice off the black market, and bring it back to mainstream society. Understand the severity and significance of shaming the innocent, and rectify the wrongs. We need new leadership, innovative technology that can help us color within the lines, and a realignment of values.