There is an epidemic of magical thinking. An unwillingness to confront reality. Because reality is scary.
This affliction cuts across all ideological lines, manifesting in different forms but serving the same function: allowing us to avoid the difficult truths about what it will actually take to preserve human dignity, meaning, and freedom in the face of forces designed to eliminate all three.
We live in the most dangerous moment in human history—not because of nuclear weapons or climate change, though both threaten our survival, but because we are creating systems that threaten something deeper: our capacity to remain human. To make meaning. To experience genuine choice. To live lives worth living rather than optimized lives managed by algorithms and administered by bureaucrats.
And our response to this existential crisis? Magical thinking. The comfortable delusion that simple solutions exist for complex problems, that we can have technological progress without existential consequences, that we can avoid difficult choices by pretending they don’t exist.
This is not just political failure—it’s the systematic abandonment of what makes us human in the first place.
Human beings are meaning-making creatures. This isn’t a nice feature of consciousness—it’s what consciousness is for. We don’t just process information like biological computers; we create significance, purpose, and value through the active engagement of our minds with reality. We transform raw experience into narrative, chaos into order, suffering into wisdom.
But meaning doesn’t emerge from comfort or certainty. It emerges from tension—from the creative friction between what is and what might be, between constraint and possibility, between self and world. Meaning is born in the space where we must choose, where we must struggle, where we must actively participate in creating our own understanding rather than passively receiving it.
This is precisely what many of our technological systems are designed to eliminate. Social media algorithms don’t enhance human connection—they replace it with engineered engagement designed to maximize screen time rather than genuine relationship. They don’t help us make better choices—they manipulate our choices through carefully calibrated dopamine hits that bypass conscious decision-making entirely.
Artificial intelligence has the potential to augment human creativity in remarkable ways—providing new tools, expanding possibilities, enabling forms of expression previously impossible. But it also threatens to replace human creativity entirely when we mistake sophisticated pattern recognition for genuine innovation. When machines can generate art, music, and writing that satisfies human aesthetic preferences while eliminating the human struggle that makes creativity meaningful, we face a crucial choice: do we use AI as a tool that enhances human capacity, or do we allow it to substitute for human agency altogether?
The same tension exists across all technological development. Systems designed to make life more efficient can either free us for more meaningful pursuits or eliminate the need for meaningful pursuits entirely. The question isn’t whether efficiency is good or bad, but whether we remain conscious agents directing our tools toward human purposes, or become passive recipients of automated optimization.
The magical thinking here is that we can have all the benefits of technological optimization without making conscious choices about what we’re optimizing for. That we can make everything more efficient, more predictable, more frictionless—and somehow preserve the friction that makes human life worth living, without ever having to choose between them.
But meaning doesn’t emerge from efficiency alone. It emerges from the necessity of choosing, of struggling, of creating order from chaos through conscious effort rather than algorithmic processing. When we eliminate that necessity without replacing it with something equally meaningful, we don’t liberate human consciousness—we make it redundant.
Every system we build now tends toward a single principle: optimization. Maximize engagement. Minimize friction. Increase efficiency. Reduce uncertainty. Streamline processes. Eliminate waste—including the “waste” of human agency, human choice, human unpredictability.
This optimization imperative extends far beyond technology into every domain of human experience. Education becomes optimized for measurable outcomes rather than genuine learning. Healthcare becomes optimized for statistical improvements rather than individual healing. Politics becomes optimized for electoral efficiency rather than democratic deliberation.
The result is systems that work perfectly for their designed purposes while destroying the human experiences they were supposedly created to serve. Consider dating apps that optimize matching algorithms to increase user engagement—not to help people find genuine connection, but to keep them swiping. Consider social media platforms that optimize content delivery to maximize time spent scrolling—not to inform or connect users, but to generate advertising revenue. Consider recommendation systems that optimize for consumption—not for satisfaction or growth, but for continued consumption.
Each system achieves its optimization goals while systematically undermining human agency, human choice, and human meaning-making. They work exactly as designed—which is precisely the problem.
The magical thinking is that optimization and human flourishing are automatically compatible goals. That making systems more efficient automatically makes human life better. That eliminating friction eliminates suffering rather than potentially eliminating the experiences that make life meaningful.
But human flourishing isn’t simply optimizable. It emerges from the irreducible complexity of conscious beings navigating an uncertain world through choices that matter. When we optimize that complexity away without conscious consideration of what we’re preserving, we risk creating managed human existence that resembles life while lacking its essential qualities.
Nowhere is magical thinking more dangerous than in our approach to conflict and justice. The position that says “I’m pro-peace” without a conception of justice represents one of the most insidious forms of reality avoidance—it sounds moral while being fundamentally amoral.
Martin Luther King Jr. understood this: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” Peace without justice isn’t peace—it’s imposed order. It’s the peace of the graveyard, the peace of submission, the peace that comes when one side stops fighting because they’ve been crushed.
We see this magical thinking everywhere in contemporary discourse. When Russia invades Ukraine, the “pro-peace” position says: “Just stop the fighting. Negotiate. Find compromise.” As if there’s meaningful compromise between a people defending their homes and an empire trying to erase their existence. As if Ukrainian surrender would create peace rather than eliminate Ukraine.
When authoritarian regimes systematically oppress their people, the “pro-peace” position says: “Intervention causes more violence. We should focus on diplomacy.” As if the absence of visible international conflict somehow eliminates the violence of systematic oppression. As if the peace of the concentration camp is morally preferable to the disruption of liberation.
When democratic institutions come under assault, the “pro-peace” position says: “Both sides need to calm down. We need unity, not division.” As if there’s meaningful unity between those who defend democratic norms and those who systematically violate them. As if the peace of authoritarian control is preferable to the tension of democratic resistance.
This isn’t pacifism—pacifism at least acknowledges moral stakes while choosing non-violence as a strategy. This is conflict avoidance disguised as moral principle. It mistakes the absence of visible resistance for the presence of justice, when often the absence of visible resistance just means the resistance has been successfully crushed.
Real peace requires justice. Justice sometimes requires resistance to injustice. Resistance sometimes requires confrontation, sacrifice, and yes—the willingness to fight and even die for principles that make life worth living. The magical thinking says: “If we just avoid conflict, there will be no more conflict.” Reality says: if only one side avoids conflict while the other side pursues it systematically, the aggressive side wins. And when the side that wins is committed to eliminating human dignity, “peace” becomes complicity with that elimination.
Human dignity is worth fighting for. When someone attacks human dignity systematically—whether through invasion, oppression, or the systematic elimination of human agency—opposing them isn’t the failure of peace. It’s the requirement of peace.
Another manifestation of magical thinking is the belief that vulnerable institutions will protect themselves through their own momentum rather than through conscious defense and reform. We see this in the faith that democratic institutions will somehow resist degradation without active maintenance and vigilance.
The magical thinking says: “The system will correct itself. Institutions are resilient. Norms will hold.” As if institutions possessed independent moral agency rather than being tools that serve whoever controls them.
When the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is undermined by ethical scandals and decisions that appear more political than legal, the magical thinking says: “Respect the Court. It will self-correct.” When electoral processes face manipulation through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and disinformation campaigns, the magical thinking says: “Trust the process.”
When regulatory agencies become vulnerable to capture by the industries they’re supposed to regulate, when intelligence capabilities risk being turned toward partisan purposes, when aspects of the justice system show signs of political influence—the magical thinking insists that somehow, if we just maintain faith in these institutions, they will automatically return to their proper function.
But institutions don’t have independent moral agency. They’re tools that work well when designed and maintained properly, but they require active defense against those who would corrupt their purposes. Institutional resilience comes not from magical self-correction but from citizens who understand their principles and actively work to preserve their integrity.
Real institutional preservation sometimes requires acknowledging when institutions are being corrupted and taking action to restore their proper function—through reform, oversight, and the willingness to hold officials accountable to the standards their positions require. It requires distinguishing between legitimate institutional authority and illegitimate abuse of institutional power.
Climate change represents perhaps the starkest example of how magical thinking prevents us from confronting reality. The magical thinking takes multiple forms, but all serve the same function: avoiding the necessity of fundamental change.
One version says: “Technology will save us.” Electric cars, renewable energy, carbon capture—if we just innovate fast enough, we can maintain current consumption patterns while eliminating their environmental impact. This ignores the reality that technological solutions require massive coordination, sacrifice, and economic disruption to implement at the necessary scale and speed.
Another version says: “Individual action will save us.” If enough people change their consumption habits, bike instead of drive, buy sustainable products—the collective impact will solve the problem. This ignores the reality that individual consumption changes, however admirable, cannot address systemic problems that require systemic solutions.
A third version says: “It’s not really that bad.” Climate change is natural, exaggerated, or manageable through adaptation rather than prevention. This ignores overwhelming scientific evidence and the accelerating pace of environmental breakdown.
All these forms of magical thinking serve the same purpose: avoiding the uncomfortable reality that addressing climate change requires coordinated global action that will disrupt existing economic, political, and social arrangements on a scale that makes World War II mobilization look modest by comparison.
The magical thinking allows us to believe we can address an existential threat to human civilization without fundamentally changing how human civilization operates. That we can have infinite growth on a finite planet, that we can maintain current consumption patterns while eliminating their environmental impact, that we can solve collective problems through individual solutions.
But reality doesn’t care about our comfort or our preferences. Climate change is a collective action problem that requires collective solutions implemented through legitimate authority backed by the willingness to override short-term interests for long-term survival. No amount of magical thinking will change the physics of atmospheric chemistry or the mathematics of exponential change.
Perhaps the most pervasive form of magical thinking in contemporary politics is the belief that democracy can be preserved without defending it—that democratic institutions will somehow maintain themselves through their own momentum rather than through the active commitment of democratic citizens.
This magical thinking manifests in the faith that “the arc of history bends toward justice” without human effort to bend it. That progress is automatic rather than the result of struggle. That freedom is the natural state of human affairs rather than an achievement that must be constantly renewed.
We see this in the shock and disbelief when democratic institutions prove vulnerable to authoritarian pressure. “This can’t happen here.” “The system will protect itself.” “Cooler heads will prevail.” As if democracy were a natural law rather than a human agreement that requires constant maintenance and defense.
But democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires citizens who understand its principles, institutions that serve its purposes, and the willingness to confront forces that would undermine both. When citizens become passive consumers of political entertainment rather than active participants in democratic governance, when institutions become vulnerable to partisan manipulation rather than serving democratic principles, when anti-democratic forces operate without serious resistance—democracy doesn’t gradually weaken. It collapses.
The magical thinking says: “Democracy is resilient. It will survive.” Reality says: democracy survives only as long as enough people are willing to defend it against those who would destroy it. And that defense requires not just voting or peaceful protest, but the full spectrum of democratic action—including the willingness to confront authoritarianism with the force necessary to stop it.
To remain human in an age of systematic dehumanization requires rejecting the magical thinking that makes dehumanization comfortable. It requires acknowledging that preserving human dignity, human meaning, and human agency will not happen automatically. It will require conscious choice, sustained effort, and the willingness to defend what makes us human against forces designed to eliminate it.
Rejecting magical thinking is not enough. We must also build alternatives that align with human flourishing rather than algorithmic optimization. This requires conscious choices about how we design systems, how we engage politically, and how we live daily life.
What does technology designed for human flourishing rather than engagement optimization actually look like? It starts with platforms that prioritize genuine connection over screen time, that enhance human creativity rather than replacing it, that preserve the friction necessary for meaningful choice. This means choosing technologies that require human judgment rather than automating it away. Educational software that preserves intellectual struggle rather than gamifying learning into dopamine hits. Social platforms that facilitate real conversation rather than performative broadcasting. Professional tools that augment human creativity rather than generating content automatically.
It means choosing applications and services that respect human agency—that give you control over algorithms rather than being controlled by them, that present information clearly rather than manipulating attention, that enhance your capacity to think rather than thinking for you. Most importantly, it means insisting that technological development serve human purposes rather than treating humans as inputs to be optimized. When we encounter systems designed to manipulate our behavior, extract our data, or automate our judgment—we have the choice to refuse participation, to demand alternatives, to build better options.
Defending democracy requires abandoning the fantasy that democratic institutions will protect themselves through their own momentum. It requires acknowledging that when institutions become corrupted or captured, working within those institutions can become complicity with their corruption. This means supporting constitutional reforms when existing frameworks enable rather than prevent authoritarian capture. It means building parallel institutions when existing ones are corrupted, creating new mechanisms of accountability when traditional ones are subverted.
It means the willingness to bypass corrupted institutions when they serve anti-democratic purposes—using state and local authority when federal institutions are compromised, supporting grassroots movements when official channels are blocked, creating alternative spaces for democratic practice when traditional ones are eliminated. Political realism also means acknowledging that democracy requires not just institutional mechanisms but democratic culture—citizens who understand democratic principles, who participate actively rather than consuming passively, who defend democratic norms even when doing so disadvantages their preferred political outcomes.
Building institutions that serve human flourishing rather than mere optimization requires rethinking fundamental assumptions about efficiency, measurement, and purpose. Instead of optimizing for metrics that can be gamed, we must design for outcomes that matter even when they’re difficult to measure. In education, this means preserving intellectual challenge, genuine assessment, and the development of critical thinking—schools that require sustained attention, deep reading, original thinking, and moral reasoning.
In healthcare, this means treating patients as whole human beings rather than collections of symptoms to be processed through algorithmic diagnosis and standardized treatment protocols. Medical systems that preserve the doctor-patient relationship, that integrate mental and physical health, that prioritize healing over metrics. In governance, this means structures that facilitate genuine democratic deliberation rather than just electoral efficiency. Town halls that require real engagement, representatives who remain accountable to constituents rather than donors, decision-making processes that preserve space for minority voices and dissenting opinions.
Critics will argue that optimization has genuinely improved human life in countless ways—that efficiency isn’t inherently dehumanizing, that some friction is just unnecessary suffering, that this argument sounds like romantic anti-modernism that would return us to pre-technological hardship. They’re right that optimization can make our lives better. The question isn’t whether to optimize, but who decides what to optimize for and how those decisions are made.
The problem isn’t efficiency itself—it’s optimization imposed by algorithmic systems or corporate interests without democratic input about what human values should guide that optimization. When we optimize transportation, do we prioritize speed, safety, environmental impact, or community connection? When we optimize education, do we focus on test scores, critical thinking, creativity, or civic engagement? When we optimize healthcare, do we emphasize cost reduction, patient outcomes, doctor-patient relationships, or population health?
These aren’t technical questions with objectively correct answers—they’re moral and political questions that require democratic deliberation. The current system optimizes for metrics that can be easily measured and monetized, often at the expense of human values that are harder to quantify but more important to preserve.
Real progress means optimization guided by democratically determined human values rather than algorithmic efficiency alone. It means distinguishing between improvements that enhance human agency and those that eliminate it. Between systems that serve human purposes and those that treat humans as obstacles to optimization.
Consider the difference between GPS navigation that helps you reach your destination and GPS that tracks your every movement for advertising purposes. Between medical technology that enables doctors to heal more effectively and medical algorithms that replace doctor judgment entirely. Between communication tools that facilitate genuine connection and engagement platforms designed to maximize addiction.
The issue isn’t friction itself, but the elimination of meaningful friction—the struggles that generate growth, learning, and purpose—while preserving useless friction that serves no human end. We want to eliminate the friction of poverty, disease, and genuine oppression while preserving the friction of choice, challenge, and moral responsibility. This isn’t romantic anti-modernism but conscious modernism—technological development guided by human values rather than optimization metrics alone. It’s the recognition that efficiency is a tool, not an end in itself, and that the most efficient system is often one that destroys the very purposes it was designed to serve.
The argument for preserving meaningful struggle must be distinguished from justifying unnecessary suffering. Not all difficulty generates meaning—some struggles are simply destructive, some challenges are purely wasteful, some friction serves no purpose beyond perpetuating injustice. The task is learning to distinguish between suffering that diminishes human dignity and challenge that enhances it. Between obstacles that prevent human flourishing and resistance that enables it. Between systems that create artificial scarcity to maintain control and natural constraints that generate creative response.
Poverty, for instance, is not meaningful struggle—it’s systematic deprivation that prevents people from engaging in the kinds of challenges that actually generate growth and purpose. But the elimination of poverty should not require the elimination of challenge itself—people freed from economic desperation should have access to meaningful work, creative expression, and moral responsibility. Similarly, eliminating discrimination doesn’t require eliminating standards or expectations. A just society removes barriers to human development while preserving the challenges that make development possible.
Beyond systemic change, remaining human requires daily choices that resist the optimization of human experience. These practices begin with attention—choosing what deserves your conscious engagement rather than allowing algorithms to make that choice for you. This means reading books that require sustained attention rather than consuming only bite-sized content optimized for engagement. Engaging in conversations that risk genuine disagreement rather than staying within filter bubbles that confirm existing beliefs. Choosing activities that require skill development rather than providing instant gratification.
It means supporting businesses, artists, and creators who prioritize human values over optimization metrics. Buying from companies that treat workers as human beings rather than efficiency units. Consuming media that challenges you to think rather than simply triggering emotional responses. Participating in communities that require genuine contribution rather than passive consumption.
It means practicing the skills that artificial intelligence cannot replicate—moral reasoning, creative synthesis, emotional intelligence, the capacity for genuine relationship. These aren’t just personal benefits but acts of resistance against systems designed to make these capacities irrelevant.
Individual practice is necessary but insufficient. Remaining human requires communities that support human values against systemic pressure toward dehumanization. This means creating and participating in groups that prioritize genuine connection over digital networking, that engage in meaningful work rather than optimized productivity, that practice democratic decision-making rather than algorithmic management.
Local politics becomes crucial—participating in governance at scales where individual voices still matter, where decisions affect real communities, where democratic practice can be learned and preserved. Town councils, school boards, neighborhood organizations where citizens can experience genuine agency rather than just electoral participation. Educational communities that preserve intellectual challenge—book clubs that tackle difficult texts, discussion groups that welcome disagreement, learning environments that require sustained attention and critical thinking rather than just information transfer. Creative communities that maintain the connection between effort and achievement—maker spaces, artistic collaboratives, skill-sharing networks where people create rather than just consume, where expertise is developed through practice rather than downloaded through tutorials.
At the policy level, choosing reality over magical thinking requires supporting legislation that prioritizes human agency over algorithmic efficiency. This means regulations that preserve human choice in automated systems, that require algorithmic transparency, that protect the right to human review of automated decisions. It means educational policies that preserve intellectual challenge rather than optimizing for standardized metrics. Curricula that require deep reading, sustained attention, original thinking—even when these are more difficult to measure and manage than algorithmic content delivery.
It means supporting democratic reforms that enhance genuine participation rather than just electoral efficiency. Campaign finance changes that reduce the influence of algorithmic micro-targeting, voting systems that require genuine deliberation, representation structures that preserve space for minority voices and dissenting opinions.
The threats to human agency are global, requiring coordinated response across national boundaries. This means international cooperation to regulate technologies that undermine human autonomy, to support democratic movements against authoritarian capture, to address existential threats like climate change that require collective action. It means distinguishing between globalization that serves human purposes and globalization that serves only efficiency optimization. Supporting trade relationships that enhance human development while opposing systems that treat humans as expendable inputs to global production.
It means recognizing that defending democracy in one country requires supporting democratic values everywhere—that authoritarian regimes attacking democracy abroad will eventually attack it at home, that surveillance technologies developed to oppress foreign populations will eventually be turned against domestic ones.
The choice to remain human is not a single decision but a daily practice requiring constant vigilance and continuous effort. It begins with the recognition that magical thinking serves not our interests but the interests of systems designed to eliminate human agency. But recognition alone is insufficient. We must build alternatives—technologies that enhance rather than replace human judgment, institutions that serve human flourishing rather than optimization metrics, communities that practice genuine democracy rather than algorithmic management.
This requires both individual resistance and collective action, both personal practice and policy advocacy, both local engagement and global cooperation. It requires the willingness to choose difficulty over comfort when difficulty serves human purposes, to choose reality over illusion even when reality is frightening, to choose agency over automation even when automation is more efficient.
The stakes are nothing less than what it means to be human. The time for magical thinking has passed. The time for conscious choice has begun.
Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And the choice to remain human—to preserve meaning, agency, and dignity in systems designed to eliminate all three—is the most important choice facing our species.
Reality is difficult. But it’s also the only place where genuine human life is possible.
Choose reality. Choose consciousness. Choose to remain human.
Every minute of every day.
Remember what’s real.
Mike Brock is a former tech exec who was on the leadership team at Block. Originally published at his Notes From the Circus.
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