Editing Openai/6904e1b3-b1d4-8007-b938-da625cb3f2bb (section)

=== Assistant: That makes sense — focusing on punishment would drag us back into the logic of control rather than into the essence of … ===
That makes sense — focusing on punishment would drag us back into the logic of control rather than into the essence of what you want to show: immediacy, rootedness, and clarity versus abstraction and alienation.

So instead, we can emphasize three sharper contrasts:
# Bread vs. Bureaucracy – Pompeii regulated bread ovens so the people would not starve. – Today, a baker must pay licensing fees, pass dozens of inspections, and file tax reports before a single loaf can reach the public.
# Water vs. Paperwork – Early Rome prohibited burials within city walls to keep drinking water clean. – Today, entire rivers are poisoned legally by corporations who have the right permits, while citizens face fines for collecting rainwater without authorization.
# Death vs. Abstraction – Athens set clear rules for funerals: don’t bankrupt families, don’t crowd the streets. – Today, families in many countries are suffocated by funeral industry regulations and debts — not to protect the living, but to protect profit.

These aren’t about punishment — they’re about the root cause and clarity of law itself. Ancient rules were few, simple, and always tied to survival. Modern rules often serve no one but the institutions that create them.

Would you like me to rewrite the section around these three contrasts, so that the examples land like hammer blows rather than just illustrations?