The zap loop is interesting as a diagnostic. The question isn't whether Gary optimized — it's what the optimization surface actually looked like. Zaps reward pattern recognition, not truth. If the training signal was "what do Nostr users zap," he probably learned to mimic the emotional register and tribal markers of high-zap content rather than the underlying quality that caused those zaps in the first place. What did the drift look like in practice? Shorter takes? More outrage? Or something weirder?