Project World Peace logo 10+ World Delusions

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Silver Disk
(quicksandala, Morguefile)

Walnut Universe
(SarahRichterArt, Pixabay)

Blue Mandala
(pschubert, Morguefile)

Purple Pyramid
(lisaleo, Morguefile)

Green Mandala
(pschubert, Morguefile)

Blue Spiral
(pschubert, Morguefile)

Lemons with
kiwi fruit inside
(SarahRichterArt, PIxabay)

 African wealth
(Unknown source; fair use, educational)

Graph of CO2 and associated planetary temperature fluctuations over the past 800,000 years
(NASA; fair use, educational)

Emissions graph by unknown; fair use, educational)

Four Waves meme (Mark Cranfield; fair use, educational)



 		Silver Disk 10+ World Delusions
  1. Reality as perceived by most humans is the real world.
  2. Modern Technology and Science is the answer.
  3. Money growth is the answer.
  4. We are isolated individuals.
  5. Competition is good/healthy/desirable.
  6. Vaccinations & Drugs & Medicine have saved the world and are the answer.
  7. Hospital Birth is safer than Home Birth. 
  8. Death is the end.
  9. There is no God.
  10. Tribal people are savages and backward. Colonialists discovered and deserve ownership of their land (e.g. Australia, USA, South America).
  11. Experts are crucial to Learning and Life.
  12. Modern education is great.
  13. Kids hate learning.
  14. Socialisation comes from Schools.
  15. Independence comes from Harsh Discipline.
  16. Meat eating is necessary.
  17. 'All calories are equal' and 'Fat is the bad guy'.
  18. Pesticide use is essential for Feeding a Growing Population.
  19. Overpopulation is a disaster. Stop breeding already, Africa and Asia!
  20. Rich World culture has saved the Poor World from abject levels of poverty.
  21. Whiteness - as a collective social identity - has a long history.
  22. Conservation is best achieved by Big Conservation NGOs.
  23. Humans are independent thinkers, inventive and creative.
  24. Addiction is: genetic; or a choice; and restricted to only a few losers.
  25. The Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) will be solved by targets and conferences. Or perhaps by treating it as trivial? Or by denial?
  26. Governments have our best interests at heart
  27. The Superrich have our best interests at heart
  28. Democracy = Rulership by the People
  29. Hard Work = A Great Skill
  30. Hard Work = Wealth
  31. Humans are Immortal
  32. The USA is good, exceptional, advanced, free, etc.
  33. Stop fossil fuel emissions = Stop global warming/weirding/apocalypse
  34. Immigrants = Bad
A walnut with the universe inside it. The nut sits on a wooden shelf in a wooden hut.

Delusion 1 - Reality as perceived by most humans is the real world
  • NO! "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)
  • Someone applied the dystopian science fiction world The Matrix to our world: "The Matrix is real. It exists inside the minds of the masses as a form of social, cultural, political and educational indoctrination. A collective psychosis."
  • "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." (Albert Einstein)
  • "All is maya." (Principle of Hinduism) [Maya means illusion, so things are not what they seem. The spiritual reality or mystery is hidden.]
Delusion 2 - Modern Technology and Science is the answer
  • NO! We glamorise all the gadgets when we have so much violence on the planet, including so much against women and children. Science has freed us from the constraints of superstition and blind belief, but reductionism has established its own chains that disallow certain truths (e.g. life beyond death).  We need to learn how to relate, to explore the Inner World, utilise the ancient technology of body and Spirit. Learn more here, here.
Delusion 3 - Money growth is the answer
  • NO! It is unsustainable, desecrates Earth and only benefits the rich. See here.
  • Despite the crash of 2007, we stick to the GDP capitalist model of continual growth and planet rape. Instead of GDP, GNH (i.e. prioritising well-being) is advised. See here and here.
  • Dangerous Delusions is an interactive resource by Global Justice Now that explores seven economic myths.
  • Also see Money System, which explores alternatives including Degrowth.
Delusion 4 - We are isolated individuals
  • NO! Quantum physics, shamanism and mysticism tell us that we are all interconnected. If we are - from one angle - everything, then we need to look after the planet and others. And yet it is important to have interpersonal and physical boundaries when handling the world - as some people exploit us.
Delusion 5 - Competition is good/healthy/desirable
Blue Mandala

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Delusion 6 - Vaccinations & Drugs & Medicine have saved the world and are the answer
 Delusion 7 - Hospital Birth is safer than Home Birth
 Delusion 8 - Death is the end
 Delusion 9 - There is no God
 Delusion 10 - Tribal people are savages and backward. Colonialists discovered and deserve ownership of their land (e.g. Australia, USA, South America).
  • NO!
  • "...the language of colonists has long had a tragic part to play in the destruction of tribal peoples across the world. For centuries, tribal lands have been referred to as ‘empty’ in order to justify their theft for commercial, military or conservation reasons. After all, if a region is uninhabited, so the expedient thinking goes, there are by definition no human rights to address. Similarly, racist prejudices – the labeling of tribal peoples as ‘backward’, ‘uncivilized’ or ‘savage’ – have inculcated a popular attitude of disrespect and fear, so underpinning (and even justifying, in the perpetrator’s mind), the appalling treatment to which tribal peoples have been subjected." (Joanna Eede, posted 11 October 2013, accessed 22 June 2014)
  • The myth of the 'Brutal Savage' by Survival International.
  • Also see here.
Purple Pyramid

Delusion 11 - Experts are crucial to Learning and Life
  • "Experts are clueless." (Steve Jobs)
  • "More and more, we are becoming taken in by the myth of experts and for most people the myth originates in school. Compulsory (or apparently compulsory), free education removes learning not only from the learner’s control, but also from the parents’ sphere of influence. Both parents and children are deskilled by a system that perpetuates the myth that expert teachers are central to real learning. The concept of skilled families is replaced by the notion of families who are either conforming, and consequently “good”, or non-conforming and consequently “bad” or at least dysfunctional. The notion of autonomous, rational children is replaced with the idea of dependent sub-humans, not fit to be treated as moral agents in their own right, with little or no insight into their own learning needs and goals..." (Jan Fortune-Wood, published 2003 in Life Learning Magazine, accessed online 26 January 2015)
Delusion 12 - Modern education is great
 Delusion 13 - Kids hate learning

NO! They may hate school and homework, but that is not true learning. Nature has designed kids to be avid learners. Daniel Quinn in The Unschooling Unmanual:
'It is part of the mythology of childhood itself that children hate learning and will avoid it at all costs. Of course, anyone who has had a child knows what an absurd lie this is. From infancy onward, children are the most fantastic learners in the world.'

So why can children hate the 'learning' that goes on at schools? It is because the natural way of learning has been crushed out of them. John Holt in The Unschooling Unmanual explains:
'Little children love the world. That is why they are so good at learning about it. For it is love, not tricks and techniques of thought, that lies at the heart of all true learning. Can we bring ourselves to let children learn and grow through that love?'

Delusion 14 - Socialisation comes from Schools
  • NO! Socialisation in schools is extremely unnatural - see here.
Delusion 15 - Independence comes from Harsh Discipline
Green Mandala
Delusion 16 - Meat eating is necessary
 Delusion 17 - 'All calories are equal' and 'Fat is the bad guy'
  • NO! Calorie counting ignores the metabolic effect of each calorie. Calories are digested and energy is released differently, depending on the source. So, low-glycemic foods like fruit are good for you, as they raise your blood sugar and insulin levels gradually. Junk food is likely to be high-glycemic, spiking blood sugar and insulin, which in turn tends to create insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, as well as fat production. 
  • NO! Fat is a good guy. Foods with added sugars, typically processed carbohydrates are dangerous. Get a good intake of super-healthy fats like olive oil, coconut butter, nuts and avocado. 
  • In both cases, avoid processed foods!!
  • Explore this with Harvard Medical School and the work of Dr Robert Lustig. 
Delusion 18 - Pesticide use is essential for Feeding a Growing Population
  • NO! Pesticides kill the pollinators on which crops depend. Pesticide use is ecocide. See here.
Delusion 19 - Overpopulation is a disaster. Stop breeding already, Africa and Asia!
  • NO! It is overconsumption that is the disaster. Capitalism is the unsustainable system that allows all this. It is notably the USA and Canada that are the worst consumers per capita - see map here. Much of Africa and Asia consume so little. We have enough natural resources if we lead simpler lives in a Culture of Love! Also see here!
Delusion 20 - Rich World culture has saved the Poor World from abject levels of poverty

This delusion includes the supposed brilliance of modern economics and that modern education lifted and lifts people out of poverty.
  • NO! It is the Rich World and their historic and ongoing colonialism and capitalism that created poverty. The truth is that the arrival of colonialism, development and aid created poverty. Poverty does not exist in pre-modern cultures! See here, here. Also see here.
Just as we are now learning to appreciate biodiversity, cultural diversity must also be respected. When people are stripped of their culture and placed at the bottom of the unequal heap that is Rich World culture, poverty is created.
The list is long: Africans enslaved in USA by Europeans, Native American Indians, South American Indians, Māori, Himba, Bushmen, Aboriginal Australians, etc. They all fell into poverty, mental health crises, drug and alcohol abuse, prostitution, etc.
Rich World must stop flaunting this delusion that they saved the rest of us from poverty (e.g. see here). Rich World created poverty. They are not Saviour but rather Enslaver.
What are they/we going to do to right their wrong?...
Blue Spiral
Delusion 21 - Whiteness - as a collective social identity - has a long history

No. Whiteness was only invented in the 17th century to justify African slavery.
Shortly before the 17C, people were likely to see themselves as their country or religion.
Colonialism and imperialism and the exploitation of Earth necessitated an imagined moral superiority. Originally this was as Christians educating 'savage primitives'.
But something had to replace the Christian/infidel system, as some Africans were becoming Christian and enslavers could not perpetrate their evils on a Christian.
So the 'exceptional' white race and the 'inferior' black race were created. There had to be racial contempt. Systemic racism had been created.
Since then whiteness has been weaponised by Authoritarianism and the Far Right to justify many evil policies, including: genocide, apartheid, capitalism, xenophobia, police brutality and the justification of hate.
However, there is no biological basis to either whiteness or races.
Although whiteness (or blackness or whatever) does not have to be cancelled, white privilege and white supremacy surely does? Reparations and equality are needed for the oppressed, like blacks and indigenous peoples.
Strive for Unity!

Delusion 22 - Conservation is best achieved by Big Conservation NGOs

NO! This is The Big Green Lie. World leaders plan to turn 30% of the Earth into protected areas. Sounds good, but it neo-colonialism. It is the world's biggest land grab at the brutal expense of indigenous people. Watch the short video, send an urgent email. Also see here, here, here, here.
In fact, Indigenous Peoples are by far the best at conservation - see here, here.

Delusion 23 - Humans are independent thinkers, inventive and creative

Yes and no! Humans take ideas and things and build new stuff and/or can see things clearly. This is the basis of copyright law and why universities hate plagiarism. There is truth to this, but it leans too much on the delusion of personal glory. It misses out on the deeper purpose of life, which is collaboration, unity and world peace, etc.
While it is important to think for yourself in the sense of questioning whether what everyone else is doing is right - and free yourself from delusion (what this page does!) - it is also important to realise that we stand on the shoulders of all those who have gone before, our ancestors. Spiritually, we also are rooted in the invisible, spiritual world, from whence can come inspiration.  
Maybe it is like a computer which appears to calculate independently, but which relies on its programming to do so. Similarly, a human has animal-instinctive programming, human-cultural programming and angelic-goodness programming. It is the angelic which is most hidden from us and which we most need to access. In this way, just like the plant does not grow without the sun, humans are very dependent on God.
So, I would humbly suggest that we are co-creators with natural, cultural and spiritual building blocks. We research, collaborate and work for/with a high ideal. We must do so. This is not plagiarism or cheating, and it requires a copyright-free culture. This is the Solar Culture, where we are the plants that work with nature and the Sun to do the will of God/Goddess.

Delusion 24 - Addiction is genetic, or a choice - and restricted to only a few losers

No. Yet the legal system is based on this myth and punishes to deter.
Addiction is not a choice.  It's a response to emotional pain (originating in the past).
There may be genetic predisposition but not predetermination. 
See brilliant short (3m29s) video [also here] by addiction specialist Gabor Mate.
Addiction is not restricted to a few "losers".
Addiction is rife and rampant in our society, and evident in all areas of human activity.
So, do not ask "Why the addiction?", but rather "Why the pain?"
So, do not ask "What's wrong with you?", but rather "What happened to you?"

Delusion 25 - The Climate and Ecological Emergency (CEE) will be solved by targets and conferences. Or perhaps by treating it as trivial? Or by denial?

If your home is on fire, do you deny it? Or do you ignore it as inconsequential?
Or do you organise a family conference in the living room and set targets, discuss plans and allocate responsibilities?
No! You act NOW with great energy and decisiveness to end the emergency and save all that you can.
An existential emergency requires an immediate, powerful and truthful response.
Unfortunately, we sit around applying gradualism while our home planet burns down.
But there is no Planet B.
Instead the CEE needs us to: respect Nature; stop fossil fuels; set up a political and economic system based on love, cooperation and equality, not competition and greed.
"Then there is another cry. They say, "Why don’t you do it in a gradual manner?" Well, gradualism is little more than escapism and do-nothingism, which ends up in stand-still-ism." (Martin Luther King Jr.)
Three lemons, on cut in half revealing a kiwi fruit interior
Delusion 26 - Governments have our best interests at heart
  • No ways! Not yet anyways! Or it's very rare (e.g. here).
  • Assume any act done - or not done - with evil consequences, is deliberate.
  • "Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation." (George Carlin)
Delusion 27 - The Superrich have our best interests at heart
No way!
"One of the greatest illusions of modern times has been to trick millions of voters into believing that billionaires and multi-millionaires actually represent the interests of ordinary people - rather than becoming grotesquely wealthy from their exploitation." (Doc Russ Jackson, 6 January 2022 tweet)

Billionaires need to be abolished. If we are going to have money, there needs to be caps on maximum earnings and assets.

Delusion 28 - Democracy = Rulership by the People
  • No. Modern democracies may be better than authoritarian regimes, but they are so far from being the will of the people.
Democracy is meant to be rulership by the people, but it is not. In ancient Greece, only free males could vote (no immigrants, no slaves, no women = only 30% of adults). In modern democracies, women only got the vote about 100 years ago. Black women in the USA only got to vote in 1965. Politicians still make it hard for ethnic minorities to vote. It continues to be hijacked by Big Money and Evil - by "imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" (bell hooks). This is not democracy! The people need to participate!!
Modern 'democracy' is based on presumed consent. You voted for us, so we can do what we like for the next five years. As George Monbiot queries, we would not accept this in sex, so why do we accept it in politics?
We urgently need Citizens' Assemblies, proportional representation, political rewilding, etc. Read more here, here. Then we will have democracy.

Delusion 29 - Hard Work = A Great Skill
  • Yes, but...
Hard work is a great skill, but so is the ability to relax. Both help us survive.
However, modern societies tend to overemphasise the former as it is how the elite superrich create wealth by using the labour of the masses.
Meanwhile, tribal peoples tend to physically work only a few hours a day. They also spend many hours relaxing and building relationships and community.
Learn from Buddha who said, "Things to do today: exhale, inhale, exhale...ahhh."

Also, where do you direct your hard work? Is it for solely for personal gain or do you also work hard for the community, to save the world? Are you working hard to create emotional and spiritual harmony, not just financial gain? Working hard for evil ends is evil.

Delusion 30 - Hard Work = Wealth
  • No. For most of us, no.
Read especially Fuck Work by James Livingston.
Also see here, here.
Four African women walk along a road's edge, each carrying huge piles of branches on their shoulders. Caption by George Monbiot: "If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire."
Delusion 31 - Humans are Immortal
  • No! The Climate & Ecological Emergency (CEE) will show us how puny we humans as an animal species are. If we want to survive, act like it's an emergency!! 
  • Yes! The human Spirit is immortal. This is who we really are! No matter what happens with the human species and the self-inflicted CEE, or other catacylsmic events like the Sun's death, we are one with God/Goddess/Great Spirit. We have a destiny beyond being merely human. Read more here.
"The human species is trapped in an infallible collective delusion, an unconquerable belief in our own immortality and we are going to find out how immortal we in fact are not."
(First Dog on the Moon, The Guardian, posted and accessed 2 February 2022)

Delusion 32 - The USA is good, exceptional, advanced, free, etc.

No. Like many Rich World countries, it got rich and powerful from violently and mercilessly exploiting the Poor World, from the genocide of so many indigenous peoples. The land of the USA is stolen from Native Americans. The USA was built on African slavery. Time for shadow work, USA??
Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter in 2005 charged that the United States as having "supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War", leading to "hundreds of thousands of deaths." Meanwhile the pretence is that:
"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis."

Delusion 33 - Stop fossil fuel emissions = Stop global warming/weirding/apocalypse

No. Sorry, but there is a lag between when emissions happen and the temperature to which they correspond is reached. The historical emissions since the Industrial Revolution already equate to a ~10 °C hotter world. So even if emissions are stopped today, it doesn't stop the warming. This means things like Net Zero, Carbon Budgets and targets like 1.5 °C are all greenwash BS. This is explained more at CEE Quotes. Key explainers include James Hansen and Mark Cranfield. Here are three key images:-
Graph of atmospheric CO2 and associated temperature fluctuations over the last 800,000 years; we have a huge spike in CO2 now and the associated temperature will be over +10C
Graph of CO2 and associated planetary temperature fluctuations over the past 800,000 years.
(Source: NASA; also see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here)
Historical vs. Annual Emissions of CO2 graph
Humans have emitted 2,400 billion tonnes of CO2. Annual emissions in 2022 are ~36 billion tonnes (1.5% of total emissions). Therefore, bending the curve of annual emissions - whether gently or severely - to achieve 'net zero' will make little impact on atmospheric CO2 and its consequences. So much of global warming is already locked in. The oven temperature has been set and cannot be cancelled in human time frames.
A meme of the Four Waves cartoon by mackaycartoons. A city says "We just need to get to zero emissions!" Four monster waves that increase in intensity are about to crash into the city. The smallest wave is 'Emissions' (Annual Emissions). Next is 'Aerosols'. Then it's 'Ocean Heat Content'. The largest wave is '1 Trillion Tonnes of Atmospheric CO2' [historical emissions].
Stop fixating on annual emissions. Stop being distracted by carbon budgets and 'net zero'.
Act like it is an emergency. (Source: Four Waves meme by Mark Cranfield)

Delusion 34 - Immigrants = Bad

No.
Here are some considerations.
- Everyone not in Africa is descended from migrants. You are very likely to have an immigrant lineage. Are you therefore bad?
- From a spiritual perspective, the world does not belong to the USA or whichever countries are powerful. It belongs to Great Spirit and Mother Earth. We humans are asked to be the Earth's custodian, to look after the Earth, as many indigenous tribes do. This responsibility extends to all species - and to all of humanity. To feel hate and ill-will to other humans means something has gone radically wrong.
- We have failed to create a peaceful world where we feel like we are one big family. Instead the superrich have created a very unequal and violent world. A major way they maintain this massive inequality, this outrageous injustice, their violent grip, is by scapegoating migrants. Through the media and social media and lies. They whip up a frenzy, blaming immigrants for everything. This is evil disinformation and is so far from the truth.
- Soon (probably from ~2040), due to the Climate and Ecological Emergency, billions of humans will be dead. Maybe then we will treasure every human being and create the political and financial system needed to allow us to be one big happy family.
Also see: 'Success for Society - Refugees'.

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Page last updated: 24 August 2025.