Extinction debt

Extinction debt is an ecological term for the delay between a habitat being destroyed and the species that depended on it finally disappearing: the damage has happened, the full loss has not arrived yet. The book borrows it for culture. Original human work may stay present long enough for us to notice when the copies turn flatter, even while the conditions that produced the original signal are being weakened. That delay is dangerous because it looks like safety. We can still recognise the real thing, so we assume the real thing will keep replenishing itself. A debt is not evidence that nothing was lost. It is loss waiting for its date.