I hate all analogies like this (complexity budget is another one) because they are wrong and assume that these pseudo-scientific values are static. Your carryi

I hate all analogies like this (complexity budget is another one) because they are wrong and assume that these pseudo-scientific values are static. Your carrying capacity, complexity budget, novelty budget, maintenance budget, etc etc all go up over time. And the cost of things against them tends to shrink as well (see: using a novel PL as an example of this). We aren't static creatures with static stats. We learn and grow. This is hidden dehumanizing management talk imo - a big part of the "fungible resource" philosophy is to not count on humans being human because it isn't a sure thing. But growth & learning is the most human thing you do every day in your career.