Disney Ex Machina

Disney World is about fantasy. Make believe. There are other amusement theme parks in Orlando, but they are knock offs. They aren’t the real fake thing. Disney World is the real fake thing.

Turns out that Yuval Noah Harari agrees with me. The success of humanity is based on our ability to believe in fictional reality. That’s exciting!

At Disney World, you don’t expect to find real fairies or princesses. Peter Pan can’t really fly, can he? You know that the ghosts on the ride aren’t real. We are terrified of them, and yet we know that it’s all just fake real. Nothing is really dangerous. After all, we even let our children go on Space Mountain!

Perhaps that is why it is so inconceivable that a real tragedy (the recent killing of a young child by a real alligator at the theme park) could occur at a theme park where everything is supposed to be make believe.

Perhaps, in a perfect fantasy world, a super hero would have appeared out of nowhere to save the child. A Disney ex machina, if you will. But of course none of us believe in real superheroes. And none appeared.

More than 50 million people a year visit Walt Disney World in Orlando. Statistically speaking, tragedies are bound to happen, even there. But when one does, we are torn to pieces. It makes us wake up from our make believe world. And there is no real super-hero around these days, is there?