The real takes more effort than the unreal. How fast a group recedes into the unreal is a good measure of its future decline.

In Cargo Cults, the tribe makes artifacts that look like a Plane but it does not fly. They do this in the hopes that eventually the people who made the real planes would come back and help them.

In movie sequels and prequels, often the story simply has the same characters, and a theme as the original. They do this in the hope that all it takes for a great movie is to have the same characters and a similar theme.

Near the end of stock market bubbles, it doesn’t matter how much a stock makes for every dollar a would be hostile takeover would have to pay. Everything recedes into the mere appearance of great companies.

Fake it till you make it is the mantra of startups that fail 9 out of 10 times. The hope is that if we make things that look like a plane but does not fly eventually people who know how to make planes fly will show up, and help the Fake plane fly. See Elizabeth Holmes and her fake blood testing machines.

At the bottom of it all, is the unstated belief that nothing is real. Everything is marketing, appearances and pretension. There is no need for understanding, technique, correctness. There is no time for quality testing. Why should we make sure anything works? Might as well just pretend you did everything right, and then blame another person when something does not work.

असतो मा सद्गमय ।