Most people are delusional because they don’t understand the concept of incentives.
Take the moon landings, for example. What was the goal of humans landing on the moon? Did they want to get something from there? Build a base or create something new? No. The only goal was to show the world that they were capable of doing it.
Could it have been done in a different way? Of course. Hollywood has existed for more than 50 years and has produced far more complex special effects. Why would they actually risk everything and land on the moon when they could achieve the same goal by staging it?
Analyze everything through incentives perspective and you will see a completely different world.
People who do big things are not stupid. Everything is driven by incentives. 
