The Ego Delusion/Matrix

A person's brain builds up a model of external reality over the course of a person's life mainly through a process of trial and error. One element of that model is very basic and physical. Very early on in life individuals learn there's a distinction between their body and the outside world. In fact, the play that kids participate in basically builds up the detail of the model of physical reality versus their body. Jumping from a height, or tumbling, or climbing a tree, or balancing on things like a pipe, or rocks, etc... builds up the accuracy and fidelity of that model through a trial and error process. I still remember, decades later, my mistaken understanding of various aspects of the physical world versus my body. I burnt my leg on a tractor exhaust when I was about 10 for example. I fell on some slippery tree roots when I was maybe 14, etc...

A similar trial and error process takes place in many other aspects of life, but unlike the physical feedback that comes from a fall, a burn, or a cut which is very direct and immediate, the feedback from interactions with the human world is muted or non-existent and can be prone to misinterpretation and self-deception. The resulting model a person forms about reality can be faulty. Another factor in the human world is deceit, lies, and predatory grooming by third parties.

There's a severe lack of a "wisdom tradition" in the western peoples. If there ever was such a thing it was obliterated by christian religious institutions, governments, corporations, and the like. Any wisdom tradition wold be an enemy of the vile parasites who benefit most from those structures and would be attacked viciously.

One great example that combines many of these factors together is diamond engagement rings: a mass delusion scam that's inflicted on people throughout the western world. Most young people have no wisdom passed along about relationships, differences between men and women, etc... they have to learn it through trial and error, and possibly just observation of their parents, but also quite unfortunately through the popular media like movies and TV shows.

There are countless movies and TV shows that feature a young couple getting engaged. Often a diamond ring is embedded in the plot, perhaps as a family "heirloom" passed down multiple generations. Another trope is an improvised engagement ring could be used in some quirky romantic comedy. Anyway that trope is pounded into the culture mainly to benefit the shiny rock industry.

The diamond engagement ring scam is a great example of how the "cultural" model of reality is sort of built up in an open-loop system compared to the physical model of reality. What informs a woman's notion of the value of a diamond ring? She sees other women with a shiny rock and they collectively decide a shiny bauble is valuable and the more it costs the higher her "status" is among her peers.

Status seeking and ego protecting prevent feedback about the "real world" from informing the trial and error model development of reality. For most young people, an expensive engagement ring is basically a severe allocation of resources error. An engagement ring today might cost thousands of dollars that most young people don't have, but it's actually worth dozens of dollars of precious metals and shiny rocks.