"Control systems fail when they substitute compliance for understanding.
Notice the word understanding. In a scaling issue where efficiency and resilience pull apart, it pulls the quote out of inspiration and into mechanism: what repeats is what the system allows. That is why intent is never enough.
In a scaling issue where efficiency and resilience pull apart, people argue about preferences when the real issue is structure. You see it in a cache added for speed that quietly changes correctness semantics, where the system teaches everyone the wrong behavior. The system learns from what you allow under pressure, not from what you say you value in calm weeks.
Donella H. Meadows is a reminder to keep it concrete. Name the cost you are accepting so you can defend it later. Save it where decisions live.