This paper develops the Rigidity Trap as a downstream failure mode of adaptive governance systems. It explains how sustained success can become destabilizing by increasing structural rigidity, suppressing sensitivity, and dismantling the alarm mechanisms required for future adaptation. The paper formalizes a success–rigidity feedback loop in which positive performance increases rigidity R(t)R(t)R(t), suppresses sensitivity s(t)s(t)s(t), reduces internal perturbation, and allows environmental or internal mismatch to accumulate silently. As a result, the system may appear stable and high-performing while becoming increasingly brittle. The paper derives three core mechanisms: scaling-induced differentiation, the Transition–Collapse Fork, and the Rigidity Trap proper. Scaling pressure forces adaptive systems to differentiate when governance overhead exceeds integration capacity. At the transition fork, saturated systems either recompress their identity anchor and reorganize successfully, or misinterpret saturation as weakness and intensify output under the existing structure. Under high rigidity, the transition gate closes and collapse becomes the default path. Synthetic mechanism tests support the formal predictions, while financial compression-vulnerability analogues are interpreted as operationalisation-limited external-substrate probes. The paper’s central implication is that long-term adaptive viability requires maintaining internal perturbation, dissent, and mismatch-detection capacity rather than eliminating conflict entirely.
Bin Seol (Tue,) studied this question.