Hedonic adaptation seems destined to undo widespread appreciation for any progress, wonder, or joyful experience. That dampens the prospect that societies can b

Hedonic adaptation seems destined to undo widespread appreciation for any progress, wonder, or joyful experience. That dampens the prospect that societies can become durably happier by banishing disease or poverty. But since hedonic adaptation is just perception, no more fundamentally real than an optical illusion, maybe other illusions can counter it. A Shepard tone can produce the illusion of a sound that continually goes up in pitch, yet never goes beyond the range of human hearing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone Maybe there is some intervention that can produce a hedonic illusion along the same lines: rising joy every day as if you lived your best experiences for the first time, joy even if you are not socially elevated over others, joy that cannot be diminished by comparison or repetition. Since it's logically impossible for everyone to be The Cleverest, The Most Popular, or The Person With the Most Attractive Spouse, (much less to reach those pinnacles for the first time every day), improvements in quantifiable material conditions will not durably quell dissatisfaction at the population level. No more than better eyeglasses will end optical illusions. We need material improvements and we need perceptual counter-illusions against our natural illusion that things never really get better.