Originally for Anáhuac Puebla University, Mexico
I gave a short presentation to provoke consideration of the critical space between who we claim to be and what we actually do. This was essentially a discussion of leadership that connected three surprisingly revealing cases.
The FTX cryptocurrency collapse showed how Sam Bankman-Fried's techno-humanitarian rhetoric masked straightforward fraud. The tragic fire at a Juárez detention centre, where 40 migrants died in March 2023, revealed how bureaucratic hierarchies can prevent basic human response during crisis. Our cultural mythology of "born leaders" was examined through the unlikely lens of Boss Baby, a film that literalises our absurd belief in innate leadership traits. The virtual reality elements explored avatars as another expression of this same gap: the persistent difference between who we claim to be and who we actually are.
Most people consider themselves morally good. Nobody who went to work that morning at the Juárez detention centre imagined they would be responsible for deaths. Yet 40 people died in their cells. Who bears responsibility? The low-level employee holding the keys? The leaders? Or the more ambiguous complex system that entangled both staff and prisoners in urgent choices? Are we who we are, or are we what we do?
Rather than offering solutions, the conversation aimed to sharpen our ability to recognise this gap. The juxtaposition was deliberate: cryptocurrency evangelism, immigration enforcement, and children's entertainment all share similar fantasies about natural authority and inevitable progress, making them specimens for examining leadership's actual mechanics.
Thank you to futurist and professor Mauricio Hernandez (Universidad del Futuro) for the invitation.
Image: The Truman Show (1998), Dir. Peter Weir
