Next Friday: one more mechanism, its break condition, and what I got wrong in the replies.
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The Loop models any system where a single resource circulates: money in a bank, current in a circuit, requests in a queue. A pipe carries the resource around a closed loop.
A “pinch point” — a gate, a regulator, a bottleneck — controls how much enters the system per cycle. When the gate stays open and new input is created from nothing (printed money, fabricated packets, artificial demand), the loop heats up. Energy accumulates. The system turns red.
Real loops that break this way include fractional reserve banking (lending deposits that don’t exist), infinite loops in software (memory fills), and viral demand loops (fake engagement creates more fake engagement).
The break is silent at first. Then the pipe glows. Then it locks.