In one way, I'm glad about the confusion of the starting time for FastForward's podcast on Wednesday evening. Because of that, I missed half of the program, but listened more closely to the archived version the next day, and then read Robin's blog on the subject.

We do indeed proceed through life with all sorts of unquestioned assumptions about our reality. One of them which immediately comes to mind is the inane tendency to consider any political point of view as lying somewhere inside a liberal-conservative line segment, and we have unwarranted confidence that our conclusions approach some level of accuracy with that model. We like to believe that we are smart and logical, and easy labels help us with that delusion.

Other imagined constructs like the nature of love, the moral superiority of our native populace, the belief that we can make reliable predictions about complex data, and assumptions about the motivations for much of our behavior – all delusions, and we fight tooth and nail to keep them.

Hanson mentions (paraphrased) that we get away with nutty beliefs, because our standard of living provides a cushion to protect us from the consequences of our mistakes, thereby avoiding the lessons and modification of our behavior.
A minor difference of opinion, here – Robin has a point, but it's also true that human beings have always been good at rationalizing their superstitions, regardless of their economic circumstances. We can still find all sorts of ways to continue our delusions, even without the wealth factor.

On his main point about our unhealthy delusions, Hanson is absolutely right. Unfortunately, the subject is only paid lip service by society, and usually not seriously considered as an obstacle to finding the truth about ourselves, our behavior, our reality.

R.B. makes an interesting comment, in passing, about delusion-dominated virtual reality. VR is a subject which is underrated in importance, frequently thought of as some kind of enhanced sex substitute.
It's more than that. When we have adequate VR, even before it reaches the full immersion level, it will help us to gain the perspective necessary to clearly see through many of the deluded beliefs which rule our thoughts and behavior. I believe, perhaps delusively, that this is one of the areas where we have good reason to be optimistic.

Does anyone remember the Sims, or Civilization, or any other such computer games?

You interacted with computer generated characters in homey settings or in civilization-wide power struggles.

When you mentioned VR and delusions, I thought of how the deliberate construction of delusions (for fun) could actually lead to some powerful socio-political insights.

Imagine a game like Civilization played in an online site like Second Life. Imagine each participant taking the part of a power player in the fictional civilization, trying their best to better themselves and their civilization, butting heads, forming coalitions, etc.

Imagine the game evolving much like Real Life as the players decide, consequences (intended and unintended) emerge, they decide again, and so on, game-year after game-year, reacting more like people would to each other in a real civilization, unlike the old games with only one human player guiding the growth of a civilization.

Imagine sociologists and historians tracking this developing society, asking for commentary by players on their decision-making strategies and judgments.

It would be a goldmine for any scholar in many of the "soft" sciences.

There is a lot of guessing going on right now about how such decisions are made in the Real World and what their impact really is. We could put our new interactive tech to work to find some answers.

Remember the old saying, "just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't watching you?".

How about this for a transhumanist motto:

"Just because you're optimistic, doesn't mean the future isn't watching out for you."

You could say 'delusionally optimistic', but that doesn't have the same bang.