The most beneficial hallucination today might be a functioning democracy?
Democracy is a hallucination, not in the sense that it does not work or does not exist.
Democracy is a hallucination because it gives the voter a sense of input and control that does probably does not exist.
Your Facebook and Twitter posts didn’t change anyone’s mind – and your vote is not going to change a Presidential election.
There is a better chance of you winning the MegaMillions lottery – multiple times – than your Presidential vote swinging the outcome.
However, if everyone believes this, democracy falls apart, right?
This might all be true for voting.
But what about the larger context?
As I got older, and more aware of my mental limitations, I came to understand that my vote adds nothing to the quality of the outcome. As far as I can tell, no one else adds intelligence to the election outcome either, but most voters think they do. And that illusion is necessary to support the government. It gives the voters a sense of empowerment and buy-in. That creates national stability. The democracy illusion is probably one of the most beneficial hallucinations humankind has ever concocted. If you think democracy works, and you act as if it works, it does work.
-Scott Adams, Win Bigly
