Why General Relativity Does Not Supersede Special Relativity

The common narrative that general relativity (GR) supersedes special relativity (SR) mistakenly treats SR as a theory of a flat 4D container, i.e., globally-extended Minkowskian manifold. We argue this characterization rests on a fundamental category error that conflates a meta-theoretic kinematic constraint (Lorentz invariance) with a dynamic law of motion (Einstein's field equations). Viewed from modern physics and differential geometry, SR is not an architecture for a global spacetime; rather, it is a local symmetry principle acting strictly within a linear tangent space. Global geometry is a dynamic feature of GR, not the purview of SR.