The image in this picture contains an optical illusion.. As a rule, at first glance, people see plates lying upside down.. This is because the perception pattern we are used to assumes that the light source is located on top.

But if you notice a small plate on the left, in which the shadows lie as if the light is on the right, then everything will magically change and the plates will turn over, and all over the picture.

We see the world as ready-made patterns, we insert information into some ready-made frames.. This is neither good nor bad, it is so and it is understandable why - patterns simplify perception, significantly reduce the time for processing information and making decisions, and that is why they exist. The pattern makes it possible to "draw" a picture by its elements.. If A, B and C are connected in some way, then having seen A and B in a proper connection, we “finish drawing” and C and move on.. And so it is not only in visual perception.. The complex thought process is subject to patterning to a much greater degree.. Actually, the abstract constructions with which we describe the world, starting with the language in which we do it, are nothing but patterns of different degrees of complexity.. It is simply impossible to think “outside the patterns”, as coaches of personal growth call us. However, it is possible to change patterns, reject those that incorrectly describe the world and force us to make mistakes..

Usually, more information, more facts and often a different angle of view are needed to change a template (different concept, different description of the whole). Most of the optical illusions are built on this circumstance: we are being deceived within the framework of the circumstances given to us, but if we can go beyond them we will get new data that will allow us to avoid mistakes. Therefore, in real life, the same optical illusions are found mainly in pictures, in the “living nature” having seen something unusual, we immediately begin to look for information with which we can compare what we see, and, as a rule, quickly find it, why the illusion disappears. Staying within the picture, we are doomed to see what is not, because there are no new facts in it, and the picture itself is a given concept, a given description, for which it is impossible to go. Flip-flops like our picture with plates or the famous girl and old woman work because they contain a “new fact”, a kind of “mistake”, noticing that your brain can collect old data as part of a new concept and get an old woman instead. If there are no such clues and deliberately introduced “errors” in the figure, you are doomed to watch segments of different lengths (which are actually the same), curved lines instead of parallel straight lines, and other tricks of view caused by the design concept and the limited information on it. You can be convinced of the illusion only by resorting to another method of analysis, for example, to replace simple visual observation with a measurement.. The segments that seem different to you will be the same, and the curves will be straight.

The same mechanics is at the heart of more complex processes.. Thinking about such abstract things as “society” or “state” is also based on numerous patterns.. True, the situation here is radically different from the optical illusion in that it is always possible to learn new ideas and facts and go beyond the limits of a given “picture”. If this does not help, you can change the analytical tools and techniques, for example, using economic models instead of sociological models and then we will see that the lines are actually parallel, and the segments are equal. In any case, we have ways to see the truth..

Most often, a change in the pattern occurs when among the facts and ideas you come across your own magic plate, which suddenly builds up the facts you know into a completely different picture that instantly takes shape in your head. For me, such a plate (more precisely, one of them) was the idea that perhaps everything that seems to us to be wrong and not good enough in the state is not a bug, but a feature. That is, no taxes are collected for public schools and hospitals, but schools and hospitals are built for taxes.. And so on. This understanding immediately put everything in its place and the picture acquired a logical and complete look..

Indeed, if you look at the state, perceiving it as a producer of “public goods”, it turns out that there are too many questions that cannot be answered.. And the deeper you research the subject, the more such questions arise.. Who, with whom and on what basis concluded the “social contract”? Why does this treaty apply to everyone, including those who have never signed it? Even if we understand “social contract” as the implied norms of the relations of “power” and “people”, then how do these relations turn into the form of specific financial obligations (taxes), for non-performance of which punishment is provided, that is, they turn into a contract but the contract itself is missing? If this is a contract, when does it expire? How to get out of it? If this is a contract, then why is one of the parties the arbitrator in it (“you cannot be a judge in your case” - a legal principle without which there is no justice). Why are taxes that even modern criminal law are described as robbery, are not considered as such? On what basis are people who have no right to force me to “delegate” this non-existent right to other people? What magic turns non-legal decisions made by the majority into legal ones?.

All these questions disappear when you realize that the state arose from a successful gang that managed to keep the territory from which it collected tribute, two or three generations. All these "democracies", "social treaties" and "public goods" as before them "divine right" are just ways to explain and justify the existence of this system, and to explain so that this explanation shows not only the benefits of this state of affairs, but and its inevitability. Since in fact there is no benefit and inevitability, then "bugs" and "contradictions" in the concepts invented retroactively are inevitable. And they exist not because the founding fathers failed to think about something, and not because the system developed somehow kosoboco, but simply because the description does not correspond to reality.. Taxes are “similar” to robbery, because this is robbery, “legislation” is simply orders of the ruling group, and “democracy”, elections and other procedures are designed to ensure the consent of taxable.

If you understand how the market works, then another illusion will disappear - the illusion of conscious design.. Officials, politicians, journalists and experts are not villains, they do not “hide from the people” and quite often don’t even try to deceive him. The gang that robbed a certain territory knew perfectly well what it was doing, but after several generations this understanding disappeared, the “divine right” appeared, then it was replaced by the “right of the people” and other demagogy, and all this happened not only against the background of the struggle of ideas, but against the backdrop of the struggle of people who really believed in all this.

But your intentions are not interesting to the market, only your actions are interesting and understandable to him.. You can think whatever you want, you can believe in democracy and human rights, but if you earn on government coercion, then your actions will develop those institutions and those concepts that help you implement this coercion.. Whether this “divine right”, “democracy”, “human rights”, “the Fuhrer principle”, “communism” or “Venus project” will be simply a question of how the market will develop.