Famous Disease (opens in new tab)

This is exactly right. It affects movie stars, dictators, successful politicians, powerful CEOs, cult leaders, and so on. (Hello there, Donald Trump.) When you're surrounded by people who are willing to tell you whatever they think that they want to hear, a contrary opinion can become painful.

And people who have fallen into this are very often exploitable. See Scientology for an organization that has successfully done this in Hollywood. (I didn't see you there, Tom Cruise.)

I have some personal familiarity with this. Two of my sisters are (at this point minor) movie stars with Oscar nominations. (Jennifer Tilly, and Meg Tilly.) Neither suffers from this. But only by consciously working to keep touch with reality. And both know plenty of others who went off the rails.

When I've seen recently how people have been losing touch with reality with ChatGPT, it was very familiar. It's actually building on the same phenomena that creates ideological bubbles in social networks. The leaders of whom have also had this same famous disease. (I won't even try to name the various influencers.) Except this time more personalized. You get to be the center of attention, rather than a member of the group.

I think we've all known a few narcissists in our lives. Well buckle in. That's becoming the new normal. And there's no limit on how far out there these ones are going.