Professor Mara Veyn’s Initial Planetary Survey

I had enough material for a substantial provisional catalog when I began this inquiry. My archive supplied comparisons; Earth’s records supplied arrangements whose operation I still needed to establish. I expected to compare them, make corrections, and leave.

This survey gives me a place to follow a promise through its terms and procedures to the conditions people inhabit. I ask what governs the decision, who receives protection, who carries the burden, and where correction can take effect. A resemblance tells me where to look. Evidence must determine whether the comparison holds.

The ten recurring relations organize families of arrangements. They are intersecting ways of examining a case, not stages through which every institution passes. One episode can involve several operations; a familiar word can also conceal an important difference. The classifications remain open to revision or rejection.

The entries define operations and their boundaries. They do not establish how often those operations occur on Earth, who intended them, or what harm followed in a particular case. The schematic illustrations are invented comparisons used to make a distinction visible. They are not reports of events.

Finding an entry

Use this catalog to return to a distinction when it is useful; the chapters do not require a continuous reading of the entries. Begin with the relation map when the operation is unclear, the alphabetical index when you have a family name or familiar search term, the promise index when following a question from a chapter, or Repairs and their limits when examining what would have to change. Page references lead to the entries; family identifiers remain stable across these routes. Cross-references point to distinctions worth testing, not to additional findings already established.

Map and contents (p. 170)  •  Promise index (p. 217)  •  Alphabetical family index (p. 221)  •  Repairs and their limits (p. 210)

Composite patterns describe possible combinations. Repairs identify changes to test and the powers needed to make them effective. Neither section supplies a proven sequence or a guaranteed intervention.

For the inquiry that introduces this survey, see Chapter 1, Sense Making. The chapter can be read without consulting the catalog.

Map and contents

Choose the relation that best describes what changes. A family belongs here because of its operation, not the sector in which its name first appeared. The order does not rank severity, and the number of entries does not measure prevalence.

Perceptual shaping and opacity  R-01 (p. 171) — What can be noticed, understood, compared, or verified?

Procedural attrition  R-02 (p. 175) — What does it take to invoke a claim and reach a usable decision?

Incentive displacement  R-03 (p. 178) — What does the reward select, and where does it diverge from the purpose?

Constrained exit and dependency  R-04 (p. 182) — What can a person refuse, replace, or leave?

Burden and risk transfer  R-05 (p. 185) — Who receives a benefit, and who bears the cost or exposure?

Behavioral steering  R-06 (p. 188) — How does the decision environment affect deliberation and refusal?

Power insulation  R-07 (p. 192) — Who can question consequential authority and secure correction?

Temporal asymmetry  R-08 (p. 195) — Who controls the time in which a claim, choice, or obligation can matter?

Representational substitution  R-09 (p. 198) — What happens when a representation stands in for the condition?

Fragmentation and diffusion  R-10 (p. 202) — Can divided contributions, knowledge, and duties be reconstructed?

Conditions and harms (p. 205)

Composite patterns (p. 206)

Repairs and their limits (p. 210)

Promise index (p. 217)

Alphabetical family index (p. 221)

Evidence and use (p. 228)

Perceptual shaping and opacity R-01

Information can be available without being usable. The question is what permits an account to be noticed, understood, compared, and brought to bear on a decision. Summarization, uncertainty, and necessary confidentiality have legitimate functions; their presence does not establish concealment. The families distinguish how practical access to consequential information can fail.

Disclosure fragmentation F-01-01

Consequential terms are divided across clauses, pages, icons, appendices, or channels so that no single view presents the whole.

Separation matters when it prevents a reader from assembling consequential terms. Several pages alone do not establish the defect. Omission removes material from an account; compartmentalization separates the people who hold it.

Compare Selective disclosure and omission; Information compartmentalization and specialization.

To bring divided terms together, examine Consolidated terms.

Selective disclosure and omission F-01-02

An account presents favorable or required information while withholding material context, limitations, conflicts, or adverse results.

Identify the material missing fact and the decision it bears on. Legitimate summarization or protected information is not omission in the diagnostic sense merely because an account is incomplete.

Compare Disclosure fragmentation; Provenance and context obscuration.

To make consequential terms usable before commitment, examine Consequential disclosure.

Misleading framing and comparison F-01-03

Language, baselines, categories, or comparisons make one interpretation easier than warranted by the underlying record.

The test is a particular frame or comparison and the unwarranted interpretation it favors. An opaque institution or weak research practice does not fit without that operation.

Compare Metric and statistical camouflage; Anchoring and reference point control.

Metric and statistical camouflage F-01-04

Measures, denominators, visualizations, or probability displays obscure the condition they purport to describe.

The defect is in communicating or constructing a measure that obscures its referent. Incentive gaming and a measure's authority over decisions are separate mechanisms and need separate evidence.

Schematic illustration. A service reports that its success rate rose after it stopped counting unfinished applications. That change can mislead comparison. It does not yet show that staff were rewarded for the rate or that the rate overrode evidence about service quality; those are separate inquiries.

Compare Metric target displacement; Metric replacing condition.

Euphemism and narrative laundering F-01-05

Naming and storytelling reduce the visibility of agency, consequence, conflict, or source.

Name the agency, consequence, or source obscured by wording. Euphemism can be conventional or protective; a loaded adjective alone does not establish laundering.

Compare Misleading framing and comparison; Provenance and context obscuration.

Visual and interface deception F-01-06

Visual presentation, layout, imagery, or interface sequence creates a materially misleading impression.

The defect lies in a misleading visual or interface representation. Influence through layout needs a separate account of how it steers a decision.

Compare Misleading framing and comparison; Vulnerability-targeted steering.

Manufactured consensus and social proof F-01-07

Coordinated, fabricated, or selectively amplified signals imitate independent approval or public support.

Signals falsely imply independent support. Authentic popularity cues can steer without fabricating consensus; amplification alone does not prove fabrication or coordination.

Compare Social proof and authority cues.

Algorithmic and institutional opacity F-01-08

A consequential classification, ranking, recommendation, or institutional decision cannot be adequately inspected or explained.

Specify the consequential decision, what explanation is needed, and what cannot be inspected. Complexity, confidentiality, and limited access are not interchangeable explanations.

Compare Confidentiality, secrecy and classification; Information compartmentalization and specialization.

For a route to contest an automated decision, examine Contestable automated decisions.

Attention diversion and overload F-01-09

Volume, urgency, spectacle, or distraction consumes the attention needed to notice consequential information.

Overload diverts attention from material information. Compulsive engagement concerns difficulty disengaging; release timing concerns when information is encountered. Demonstrate the missing attention link.

Compare Attention capture and compulsive use; Release timing and synchronized distraction.

Provenance and context obscuration F-01-10

The origin, chain of custody, or surrounding context of an account becomes difficult to reconstruct.

This entry concerns the origin and context of an account. Loss of continuity between earlier decisions and later conditions belongs under cross-temporal accountability discontinuity. Difficulty reconstructing either does not establish intentional concealment.

Compare Cross-temporal accountability discontinuity; Information compartmentalization and specialization.

Procedural attrition R-02

A claim needs a route through evidence, requirements, decisions, and possible review. Procedures coordinate consistency and limited capacity, but their demands can also change who reaches a substantive answer. Follow the actual effort required and the authority available at each step, including where a claimant stops appearing in the record.

Documentation burden F-02-01

The person invoking a claim must assemble, repeat, or reconcile information that the deciding institution could more readily obtain.

Focus on document production as a barrier to invoking a claim. Administrative labor transfer concerns who must perform the work. Necessary proportionate documentation is outside the diagnostic boundary.

Compare Administrative labor transfer.

To account for the work of invoking a claim, examine Administrative burden budget.

Recursive approval and referral F-02-02

A decision passes through repeated approvals, referrals, prerequisites, or handoffs without a usable route to resolution.

Require repeated referrals or prerequisites that prevent resolution. Several competent decision stages alone are not recursion; missing escalation is a different route defect.

Schematic illustration. Office A requires clearance from Office B, while Office B accepts a request only after Office A has approved it. With no exception or responsible resolver, the prerequisite returns the applicant to the starting point. Two sequential approvals with a usable handoff would not establish this loop.

Compare Layered intermediaries and subcontracting; Inaccessible escalation.

Appeal and review exhaustion F-02-03

Review exists formally but requires enough repetition, delay, expertise, or cost to deter continued use.

Focus on attrition within review or appeal and the effort required to continue. Delay alone does not establish exhaustion or intended deterrence.

Compare Administrative delay; Delay-based leverage.

To test whether review can reach a substantive answer, examine Accessible human review.

Technicality denial F-02-04

A substantive claim is defeated by a procedural defect that is minor, obscure, or weakly related to its merits.

Specify the defect and its weak relation to the claim's merits. Not every procedural safeguard or adverse ruling is a technicality denial.

Compare Deadline and filing traps; Jurisdictional and forum barriers.

Administrative delay F-02-05

Institutional waiting, queueing, or nonresponse changes the practical value of a claim or service.

Record waiting that diminishes a service or claim; temporal leverage requires an additional account of who gains from controlling time. Scarcity and overload remain possible explanations.

Compare Delay-based leverage.

Where institutional delay consumes the claim period, examine Delay tolling.

Deadline and filing traps F-02-06

Narrow, obscure, or asymmetric filing windows convert timing errors into loss of claim, benefit, or remedy.

Focus on filing requirements and forfeiture. General decision pressure is deadline compression; exploiting limitation periods is timer gaming. Transparent, proportionate deadlines are not traps by definition.

Compare Deadline compression; Statutory timer and limitation gaming.

Inaccessible escalation F-02-07

The route from automated or frontline handling to accountable human review is absent, circular, or practically unreachable.

Specify the unavailable or circular escalation route and the authority sought. Refusal after genuine review does not prove inaccessible escalation; human involvement alone does not guarantee a remedy.

Compare Immunity and liability shields; Isolated grievance handling.

Cancellation and exit obstruction F-02-08

Ending a service, authorization, membership, or obligation requires materially more effort than entering it.

Focus on procedural effort to end participation. Contract penalties, rebuilding costs, and renewal windows are related but distinct. Assess justified security and settlement requirements.

Compare Contractual lock-in; Switching barriers.

To compare the work of entering and leaving, examine Procedural symmetry.

Jurisdictional and forum barriers F-02-09

Forum, venue, standing, jurisdiction, or procedural location prevents a dispute from reaching substantive review.

A forum or standing rule blocks substantive review of a claim. Divided jurisdictions concern the wider distribution of responsibility. A boundary is not improper merely because it limits a forum.

Compare Jurisdictional fragmentation.

Remedy limitation F-02-10

The scope, enforceability, or practical use of a remedy is limited by caps, waivers, confidentiality requirements, cost, or conditions of correction.

A remedy can be granted yet too narrow or difficult to enforce to correct the specified wrong. Burdens of bringing a claim and exhaustion during appeal are separate problems; a limited remedy is not inadequate merely because it provides less than the claimant sought.

Compare Appeal and review exhaustion; Immunity and liability shields.

Incentive displacement R-03

Rewards make institutional priorities operational. These families concern a divergence between what is rewarded and the purpose the activity is meant to serve. Establish the reward and the behavior it selects before inferring motive. A disappointing result alone does not reveal the incentive that produced it.

Metric target displacement F-03-01

A measured target becomes the rewarded object even when improvement in the target no longer improves the underlying purpose.

A rewarded target, a stated purpose, and a divergence between them must all be identified. The use of metrics or performance pay alone does not establish displacement.

Compare Metric replacing condition; Metric and statistical camouflage.

To reconnect rewards with the stated purpose, examine Outcome-aligned incentives.

Commission and quota steering F-03-02

Compensation or performance quotas reward recommendations and actions that may not serve the person affected.

Tie a recommendation or action to a specified commission or quota and competing interest. Compensation itself is not evidence that the affected person is poorly served.

Compare Volume over quality; Capacity occupancy incentives.

Volume over quality F-03-03

Throughput, activity, publication, billing, or utilization receives stronger reward than quality, care, reliability, or learning.

The question is whether rewarded activity displaces quality. Capacity occupancy is a narrower case in which keeping places filled explains unnecessary entry or delayed exit, rather than simply greater throughput.

Compare Capacity occupancy incentives; Metric target displacement.

Pay-for-failure and asymmetric reward F-03-04

Decision-makers retain upside or compensation when losses, failure, or long-term costs fall elsewhere.

Specify retained upside and displaced losses. This is an incentive structure; public loss and private gain describes the distribution of realized burdens, which can occur without this compensation design.

Compare Public loss and private gain.

To reconnect retained gains with exposure to loss, examine Clawbacks and loss sharing.

Short-term extraction F-03-05

Near-term revenue, valuation, or performance targets override the institution's stated longer-term purpose.

Identify the near-term reward that displaces an institution's longer-term purpose. Short time horizons alone do not establish extraction; future harm and memory failures are separate claims.

Compare Cross-temporal accountability discontinuity; Future and intergenerational cost transfer.

Engagement monetization F-03-06

Revenue rewards attention and repeated engagement even when additional use no longer serves the participant's purpose.

Revenue rewards attention or repeated engagement. Behavioral techniques that sustain use belong in R-06; avoid inferring clinical addiction from engagement measures or revenue alone.

Compare Variable reward and near-miss design; Attention capture and compulsive use.

Switching friction and dependency monetization F-03-07

Revenue depends on obstructed switching or continued dependency rather than a participant's continuing judgment that the service is worth retaining.

Ordinary subscription income and customer turnover do not establish this relation. The additional return must depend on impaired switching or refusal; an opaque recurring obligation is one possible means of sustaining it.

Compare Opaque or obstructed recurring obligations; Automatic renewal timing.

Conflict and scarcity monetization F-03-08

Revenue, influence, or institutional growth depends on persistent conflict, fear, scarcity, emergency, or exclusion.

Require benefit from persistence of conflict or scarcity. Benefiting does not prove creating it, and essential service provision during emergency does not establish a preference for emergency.

Compare Controlled scarcity and exclusive access; Emergency power and accountability insulation.

Capacity occupancy incentives F-03-09

Payment or institutional survival rewards keeping capacity occupied, encouraging unnecessary entry or delayed exit even when the occupant's needs point elsewhere.

Occupancy concerns the continued filling of capacity, rather than the rate of completed work alone. High utilization can be efficient and appropriate. The diagnostic issue is an incentive to retain or admit occupants contrary to the purpose of the service.

Schematic illustration. A facility is paid for each occupied place and retains a person after the service's own criteria support departure. The payment rule and retention decision supply a possible occupancy mechanism. Payment by occupancy alone would not show unnecessary retention.

Compare Volume over quality.

Procurement and prestige incentives F-03-10

Rewards for securing contracts, expanding budgets, or gaining institutional prestige displace attention to the performance the expenditure is meant to deliver.

Identify what the contract, budget, or prestige reward selects and where it diverges from performance. Public expenditure and institutional ambition are not sufficient evidence. Treating penalties as a routine expense or presenting a settlement as correction requires a separate account of the operative relation.

Compare Pay-for-failure and asymmetric reward; Compliance and accountability theater.

Constrained exit and dependency R-04

Durable relationships, shared infrastructure, and technical continuity can expand what people are able to do. They can also make refusal or departure costly. The relevant question is practical agency within and beyond the arrangement: what alternatives can be used, what must be surrendered, and which obligations justify the cost of leaving?

Contractual lock-in F-04-01

Contract terms, penalties, or waiver structures make refusal or departure materially costly.

Identify the binding contractual cost or restriction on departure. Fair recovery of incurred costs is not lock-in without examining proportionality and practical alternatives.

Compare Cancellation and exit obstruction; Exit retaliation and noncompete restraint.

To compare entry and exit obligations, examine Procedural symmetry.

Proprietary ecosystem lock-in F-04-02

Compatibility, formats, platforms, or exclusive technical standards make alternatives difficult to use.

Technical incompatibility or exclusion of interoperable alternatives supplies the dependency. Switching costs are effects that may have other causes; accounts alone do not imply proprietary lock-in.

Compare Switching barriers; Identity, account and data dependency.

To make a technical alternative usable, examine Open standards and portability.

Switching barriers F-04-03

Moving to an alternative requires rebuilding data, skills, relationships, equipment, or processes to a degree that materially restricts switching.

The barrier is what must be rebuilt and its effect on available alternatives. Ordinary transition costs can be justified; their existence does not establish that someone designed them to prevent departure.

Compare Proprietary ecosystem lock-in; Cancellation and exit obstruction.

Forced bundling and tying F-04-04

Access to one desired product, service, role, or right is conditioned on accepting another.

Access to one thing is conditioned on another obligation. An informed, optional bundle differs from tying; defaults alone do not establish conditional access.

Compare Default exploitation; Contractual lock-in.

Debt dependency F-04-05

Debt structure, compounding, refinancing, or payment design narrows future choices and exit.

Identify the debt terms that narrow future refusal or exit. A loan, interest charge, or refinancing alone does not demonstrate dependence or predation.

Compare Price, fee and cost transfer; Switching friction and dependency monetization.

Captive provider and infrastructure networks F-04-06

Geography, network rules, monopoly territory, or essential infrastructure leaves no practical substitute.

Focus on the absence of practical substitutes arising from infrastructure or provider access. Monopoly governance and deliberate supply restriction require their own tests.

Compare Gatekeeping monopoly and agenda control; Controlled scarcity and exclusive access.

Opaque or obstructed recurring obligations F-04-07

A continuing commitment is difficult to notice, end, or replace, allowing obligations to persist without a usable opportunity to reconsider them.

Recurrence can support reliable service. The defect is a continuing commitment that cannot reasonably be noticed, ended, or replaced. Renewal timing and the steps required to cancel explain different ways that defect can arise.

Compare Automatic renewal timing; Default exploitation.

Identity, account and data dependency F-04-08

Access to functionality or public participation depends on a centralized account, identity, profile, or data relationship.

Show essential functions tied to an account, identity, or data relationship and limited alternatives. Profiling or data collection without a dependency relation does not fit.

Compare Proprietary ecosystem lock-in; Algorithmic and institutional opacity.

Controlled scarcity and exclusive access F-04-09

Gatekeepers restrict supply, eligibility, credentials, membership, or visibility in ways that increase dependence.

Focus on actual restrictions creating dependence. Scarcity messages that accelerate choice are distinct. Legitimate eligibility and rationing require a proportionality and alternative-access assessment.

Compare Scarcity signaling; Gatekeeping monopoly and agenda control.

Exit retaliation and noncompete restraint F-04-10

Departure or competition triggers penalties, exclusion, surveillance, or other adverse consequences that restrict practical exit.

The adverse consequence is triggered by leaving or competing. Penalties for reporting or dissent have a different trigger. The same episode belongs in both entries only if both operations can be established; justified obligations on departure require separate assessment.

Compare Retaliation against reporting and dissent; Contractual lock-in.

To protect a practical ability to leave, examine Exit without retaliation.

Burden and risk transfer R-05

Risk sharing and specialization can put work and costs with those able to manage them. A transfer becomes a question of protection when benefit, control, exposure, and the ability to recover separate. Trace the distribution rather than infer it from a price, an injury, or the existence of a contract.

Price, fee and cost transfer F-05-01

A party with greater control adds or passes costs to people with less ability to refuse, compare, or recover them.

Specify the cost shifted, control retained, and reduced ability to refuse or recover. Prices, fee names, price changes, and costly harms are not automatically transfers.

Compare Selective disclosure and omission; Deferred disclosure.

Administrative labor transfer F-05-02

Institutions transfer verification, coordination, error correction, or follow-up work to the person seeking the service.

Locate who previously performed the work and who now bears it. Effort allocation is not the same claim as denial through process; some self-service arrangements reduce total burden.

Compare Documentation burden; Recursive approval and referral.

To include the recipient’s work in the institutional account, examine Administrative burden budget.

Environmental externalization F-05-03

Production, extraction, transport, or disposal moves ecological damage beyond the decision-maker's balance sheet or jurisdiction.

Identify environmental costs outside the responsible decision's accounting or remedy. Environmental damage is an outcome, not proof of a particular transfer mechanism or intent.

Compare Future and intergenerational cost transfer; Public loss and private gain.

To bring displaced environmental costs into the decision, examine Full-cost accounting.

Deferred maintenance and reliability risk F-05-04

Maintenance, redundancy, safety, or lifecycle costs are postponed while failure exposure accumulates elsewhere.

Connect postponed maintenance or safety provision to displaced failure exposure. An engineering defect alone does not establish deferral, cost transfer, or negligent intent.

Compare Future and intergenerational cost transfer; Delay-based leverage.

Future and intergenerational cost transfer F-05-05

Present benefit is financed by ecological, fiscal, institutional, or social conditions inherited by future people.

Focus on present decisions imposing future burdens and diminished options. Duration alone is insufficient; later generations may also receive compensating benefits and revision capacity.

Compare Environmental externalization; Cross-temporal accountability discontinuity.

Subcontracted labor and supply risk F-05-06

Layered contracting transfers wage, safety, schedule, and continuity risk to workers or suppliers with less bargaining power.

Identify wage, safety, scheduling, or continuity risks passed down contracting tiers. Contracting itself is not evidence of unequal burden or lack of remedy.

Compare Layered intermediaries and subcontracting; Supply chain fragmentation.

To carry duties through contracting tiers, examine Supply chain duty.

Proxy conflict and coercion outsourcing F-05-07

Violence, destabilization, coercion, or enforcement is exercised through an intermediary that separates command from consequence.

Establish intermediary action and the separation between directing or benefiting actors and consequences. Proxy labels alone do not prove command, deniability, or illegitimacy.

Compare Layered intermediaries and subcontracting; Emergency power and accountability insulation.

To examine civilian exposure and alternatives for restraint, examine Peace impact review.

Liability and ownership compartmentalization F-05-08

Legal entities, contracts, or ownership layers isolate benefit from liability, remedy, or responsibility.

Focus on arrangements isolating benefits from enforceable liabilities. Different ownership records are not enough; legal shields and responsibility reconstruction are separate tests.

Compare Immunity and liability shields; Disconnected ownership and asset control.

Public loss and private gain F-05-09

Private actors retain gains while public institutions or affected communities absorb rescue, cleanup, or systemic loss.

Show private retained gains and public absorbed losses. Public rescue can have legitimate protective purposes; assess allocation and alternatives before inferring extraction.

Compare Pay-for-failure and asymmetric reward; Environmental externalization.

Classification and vulnerability-based risk transfer F-05-10

Categories, tiers, exclusions, or status rules direct burden toward groups less able to contest or leave.

Identify the classification rule and distribution of risk or burden. Difference in status or price is not enough; relevant distinctions may justify treatment without exploiting vulnerability.

Compare Controlled scarcity and exclusive access; Selective enforcement and exemption.

Behavioral steering R-06

Every decision environment directs some attention and effort. These families distinguish operations that shape deliberation, comparison, and refusal. Helpful guidance and harmful manipulation cannot be separated by the mere presence of influence; the claim must identify how the arrangement works and what it permits or impairs.

Manufactured urgency F-06-01

Time pressure is presented or engineered to reduce comparison, reflection, or refusal.

Require pressure that impairs comparison or refusal, distinguishing fabricated urgency from a real emergency. Temporal asymmetry concerns who controls the decision window.

Compare Deadline compression.

Scarcity signaling F-06-02

Fabricated or misleading signals about availability make an opportunity appear scarcer than the record warrants and press the recipient to act.

The signal about availability is the operation here. Actual restrictions on supply or eligibility concern controlled access; a real shortage does not make an accurate warning deceptive.

Compare Controlled scarcity and exclusive access; Manufactured urgency.

Default exploitation F-06-03

Preselection, inertia, silence, or automatic continuation is treated as authorization.

Identify how preselection or inertia is taken as authorization and whether reversal is usable. Defaults can be beneficial; participation alone does not establish meaningful consent.

Schematic illustration. A form preselects a continuing authorization and treats submission as agreement to that selection. The inquiry concerns whether the selection was intelligible and could be refused or reversed. Preselection alone does not establish that the person lacked a meaningful choice.

Compare Automatic renewal timing; Participation, consultation and consent theater.

To make reconsideration practically usable, examine Reversible defaults and cooling-off.

Anchoring and reference point control F-06-04

A displayed baseline, comparison, frame, or initial number shapes judgment independently of its evidentiary value.

Focus on a reference point's behavioral influence, not merely inaccurate description. Influence does not itself establish harmful manipulation; relevance and deliberation matter.

Compare Misleading framing and comparison; Metric and statistical camouflage.

Fear, shame and guilt leverage F-06-05

Fear, stigma, shame, guilt, or threat is used to narrow deliberation or induce compliance.

Identify fear, shame, guilt, or threat deployed to narrow deliberation. Accurate warnings are not inherently exploitative; punishment of dissent is a different mechanism.

Compare Identity and tribal capture; Retaliation against reporting and dissent.

Identity and tribal capture F-06-06

Belonging, status, loyalty, grievance, or group identity is recruited to redirect judgment or behavior.

Show how belonging or loyalty is recruited to redirect judgment. A group identity, shared conviction, or observed conformity is not proof of capture.

Compare Social proof and authority cues; Manufactured consensus and social proof.

Variable reward and near-miss design F-06-07

Intermittent rewards, near misses, sensory feedback, or uncertain reinforcement sustain repeated participation.

Specify contingent rewards or near-miss feedback and the hypothesized effect on repetition. A game or lottery label alone does not establish this design or compulsive harm.

Compare Attention capture and compulsive use; Engagement monetization.

Attention capture and compulsive use F-06-08

Interface rhythm, notifications, autoplay, repetition, or spectacle makes disengagement unusually difficult.

Describe mechanisms that impede disengagement. Mere autoplay, notification, or time spent does not establish compulsive use; distinguish interface operation from a revenue incentive.

Compare Attention diversion and overload; Engagement monetization.

Social proof and authority cues F-06-09

Signals of popularity, expertise, celebrity, institutional authority, or consensus substitute for independent evaluation.

Authentic or purported authority affects evaluation. False independence belongs in manufactured consensus; expertise and popularity may also be relevant evidence rather than substitutes for it.

Compare Manufactured consensus and social proof; Identity and tribal capture.

Vulnerability-targeted steering F-06-10

A decision environment targets a specified vulnerability in ways that impair deliberation or make refusal more difficult.

The vulnerability, targeting operation, and impairment of deliberation or refusal must be specified. Advertising and choice design do not establish this relation by themselves. Vulnerability in one setting does not make a person generally incapable of judgment.

Compare Manufactured urgency; Default exploitation.

To reduce exposure while preserving judgment, examine Vulnerability protections.

Power insulation R-07

Independence, confidentiality, and delegated authority can protect judgment from improper pressure. The same arrangements need boundaries if those affected are to question their use. Here the inquiry follows access to evidence, the power to challenge a decision, and the institution capable of making a challenge consequential.

Regulatory and policy capture F-07-01

Regulated or concentrated interests gain durable influence over the rules, budgets, appointments, or enforcement meant to constrain them.

Require durable control or influence over the institution meant to constrain an interest. Consultation, lobbying, and access alone do not establish capture.

Compare Revolving door and influence networks; Board, donor and elite capture.

Revolving door and influence networks F-07-02

Appointments, careers, funding, access, or informal networks blur the boundary between oversight and the interests overseen.

Describe conflicts or influence routes created by careers, funding, and appointments. Employment history alone does not establish improper decisions or captured oversight.

Compare Regulatory and policy capture; Provenance and context obscuration.

Immunity and liability shields F-07-03

Legal or institutional protections separate consequential authority from ordinary exposure to review or remedy.

Identify the protection limiting exposure to review or remedy. Legitimate immunity can protect independent judgment; existence of legal protection does not establish abuse.

Compare Liability and ownership compartmentalization; Remedy limitation.

Institutional self-investigation F-07-04

An institution controls the inquiry, evidence, standards, or consequences applied to its own conduct.

Identify institutional control over evidence, standards, and consequences. Internal review is not necessarily ineffective; test independence, external challenge, and actual corrective powers.

Compare Regulatory and policy capture; Independent oversight.

Selective enforcement and exemption F-07-05

Rules apply unevenly through discretion, exemptions, underenforcement, targeting, or tolerated noncompliance.

Specify comparable rules, materially different enforcement, and the grounds for difference. Discretion and prioritization require evaluation rather than automatic classification as improper exemption.

Compare Classification and vulnerability-based risk transfer; Regulatory and policy capture.

Confidentiality, secrecy and classification F-07-06

Secrecy, classification, sealed records, privilege, or private process prevents affected publics from reconstructing consequential action.

The relation is secrecy insulating consequential authority from challenge. Confidentiality can protect people or legitimate functions; evaluate scope, duration, and accountable access.

Compare Algorithmic and institutional opacity; Provenance and context obscuration.

To test accountable access behind confidentiality, examine Independent oversight.

Retaliation against reporting and dissent F-07-07

Reporting or dissent is met with professional, legal, economic, or social penalties that discourage challenge.

Establish the connection between reporting or dissent and the adverse consequence. A penalty that follows a complaint is not necessarily caused by it. Reporting is the activity exposed to retaliation, not the defect classified here.

Compare Exit retaliation and noncompete restraint.

To protect reporting through enforceable remedies, examine Whistleblower and anti-retaliation protection.

Gatekeeping monopoly and agenda control F-07-08

A concentrated actor controls access, standards, visibility, interpretation, or the agenda on which decisions occur.

Focus on control of entry, standards, or the agenda and routes to contest it. Dependence on scarce services is not identical to institutional agenda control.

Compare Captive provider and infrastructure networks; Controlled scarcity and exclusive access.

Board, donor and elite capture F-07-09

Governance becomes answerable to concentrated owners, donors, executives, or prestige networks rather than the institution's stated constituency.

Focus on organizational governance being redirected from its stated constituency. Owners, donors, and boards can legitimately govern; specify the constituency and displaced obligation.

Compare Regulatory and policy capture; Revolving door and influence networks.

Emergency power and accountability insulation F-07-10

Extraordinary powers or emergency justifications weaken the ordinary means of contesting consequential decisions and securing correction.

The relevant connection is between extraordinary authority and weakened contest or correction. Emergency action can be necessary; crime, coercion, criticism, and routine policing do not fit this family simply because they involve power.

Compare Immunity and liability shields; Confidentiality, secrecy and classification.

To make continuation answer to renewed justification, examine Sunset and periodic review.

Temporal asymmetry R-08

An opportunity can survive in text and expire in practice. Schedules and deadlines coordinate limited time, but their distribution matters: one party can wait while another loses income, eligibility, or the ability to respond. These families distinguish delay, compressed choice, renewal, and broken continuity without presuming that every timing difference was designed for advantage.

Delay-based leverage F-08-01

Control over the pace of review, disclosure, payment, adjudication, or response gives one party an advantage as the other bears the costs of waiting.

An identifiable advantage must arise from control over delay. Queues and limited capacity can cause long waits without such control or advantage. A finding about leverage does not by itself establish strategy or intent.

Compare Administrative delay.

Where waiting extinguishes a claim, examine Delay tolling.

Deadline compression F-08-02

A short decision or response window benefits the actor who controls timing and burdens the actor who must react.

Specify the party controlling the response window and the unequal burden it creates. A short window can be necessary; separate timing advantage from deceptive urgency.

Compare Deadline and filing traps; Manufactured urgency.

Automatic renewal timing F-08-03

A recurring obligation renews through default, narrow notice, or a poorly timed cancellation window.

Focus on the timing of renewal and cancellation notice. Ordinary renewal is not a defect; distinguish a difficult exit process from a poorly usable notice window.

Compare Opaque or obstructed recurring obligations; Default exploitation.

Deferred disclosure F-08-04

Relevant information appears after commitment, payment, exposure, or the practical opportunity to act.

Identify information arriving after an effective opportunity to act. Its eventual availability does not settle timely usefulness; unavoidable late discovery differs from designed deferral.

Compare Selective disclosure and omission; Price, fee and cost transfer.

Incremental degradation and delayed recognition F-08-05

Small repeated changes reduce service, protection, quality, or accountability before the accumulated loss becomes recognizable.

Compare the accumulated change with the point at which it becomes recognizable. Continuity does not establish acceptance, resignation, or shared belief. A claim that degradation has become socially normal requires evidence beyond the incremental changes themselves.

Compare Deferred maintenance and reliability risk; Compliance and accountability theater.

Reset and renewal asymmetry F-08-06

Benefits, deductibles, eligibility, status, or obligations reset on a schedule that preserves institutional advantage.

Specify who benefits from the reset and how it affects accumulated eligibility or obligation. Periodic accounting alone does not demonstrate asymmetry.

Compare Automatic renewal timing; Classification and vulnerability-based risk transfer.

Statutory timer and limitation gaming F-08-07

Delay or sequencing exploits limitation periods, claim deadlines, procedural timeouts, or expiring rights.

Identify the timer, the controlling action, and the loss of enforceable opportunity. Do not label all limitation periods gaming; intent must be separately supported.

Compare Deadline and filing traps; Delay-based leverage.

To keep institutional delay from consuming a claim period, examine Delay tolling.

Temporary promotion and trial conversion F-08-08

Temporary terms or trials convert into less favorable recurring conditions after attention has moved elsewhere.

Focus on the transition from temporary to ongoing terms and usability of notice and refusal. A clearly agreed trial conversion is not inherently manipulative.

Compare Automatic renewal timing; Deferred disclosure.

Release timing and synchronized distraction F-08-09

Information, decisions, or actions are timed to reduce scrutiny, exploit crisis, or divide attention.

Specify release timing relative to scrutiny and why attention is predictably divided. Coincidence with busy news is insufficient evidence of planned distraction.

Compare Attention diversion and overload; Confidentiality, secrecy and classification.

Cross-temporal accountability discontinuity F-08-10

Changes in records, institutional identity, or the retention of decisions interrupt the continuity needed to compare later conditions with earlier actions and obligations.

This is a break in traceable accountability across time. Present decisions imposing future costs are a different relation and can remain fully documented. Changes in names or records can also reflect real institutional change; neither recurrence nor evasion follows from a changed label alone.

Schematic illustration. A successor body keeps current accounts but discards the mapping from earlier decisions to continuing obligations. A claimant can find the current balance but cannot reconstruct how the duty arose. A changed name alone would not establish this discontinuity.

Compare Provenance and context obscuration; Future and intergenerational cost transfer.

Representational substitution R-09

Measures, models, audits, and public accounts make complex conditions intelligible. The difficulty arises when the representation acquires authority beyond its warrant and relevant information about the condition cannot correct it. Imperfect measurement is not enough; identify what the representation displaces in the governing decision.

Compliance and accountability theater F-09-01

Visible compliance or accountability rituals substitute for correction, enforceable responsibility, or changed conduct.

Identify the visible act, the obligation it represents, and the operational correction it replaces. Failure or a disagreeable outcome without that representational substitution is outside this family.

Compare Audit, certification and rating theater; Presentation replacing implementation.

To test the account against affected people’s conditions, examine Affected-party verification.

Safety and security theater F-09-02

Visible precautions, certifications, or controls substitute for effective reduction of the underlying hazard.

Require safety performance being displaced by its visible representation. Effective partial protection and imperfect controls must not be dismissed as theater without outcome evidence.

Compare Audit, certification and rating theater; Compliance and accountability theater.

Sustainability and impact washing F-09-03

Environmental or social claims outrun the operational change, scope, or accounting that would support them.

Require a sustainability or impact claim and a material discrepancy in scope or operations. Favorable presentation alone is not proof of substitution or intentional deception.

Compare Misleading framing and comparison; Ethics, culture and purpose washing.

Ethics, culture and purpose washing F-09-04

Moral language, values, mission, or culture presentation substitutes for the conduct it invokes.

Specify moral or mission language used in place of the invoked conduct. Stated aspirations can precede genuine improvement; examine the operational relation.

Compare Sustainability and impact washing; Compliance and accountability theater.

Audit, certification and rating theater F-09-05

An audit, certificate, or rating is treated as establishing a condition beyond what its scope and findings support, displacing examination of the condition itself.

Focus on an audit, certificate, or rating standing in for the assessed condition. Reward-driven gaming belongs separately in R-03; useful limited certification is not theater by definition.

Compare Metric target displacement; Metric replacing condition.

To test the certificate’s scope and corrective consequence, examine Independent verification.

Participation, consultation and consent theater F-09-06

A record of attendance, comment, or assent substitutes for the influence, consideration, or power of refusal that the process claims to provide.

Participation concerns an opportunity to take part; consultation concerns consideration of contributions; consent concerns authorization and the ability to refuse. Test the capacity actually promised. A consultation is not a sham merely because an objection did not prevail, and attendance is not evidence of consent.

Compare Default exploitation; Inaccessible escalation.

Metric replacing condition F-09-07

A current or retrospective performance indicator governs decisions while relevant evidence about the represented condition loses the power to prompt correction.

The indicator describes current or past performance and overrides information that should bear on correction. Reward-driven gaming is an incentive relation. Predictive or eligibility models require the distinct test in the next model entry.

Compare Metric target displacement; Model or proxy replacing target.

To test the indicator against contrary condition evidence, examine Condition and proxy audit.

Presentation replacing implementation F-09-08

Plans, decks, renderings, reports, pilots, or announcements substitute for sustained operational change.

Require a plan, announcement, or pilot used as a substitute for implementation. Uncompleted work, a failed pilot, or an ordinary planning stage is not enough.

Compare Compliance and accountability theater; Symbolic access and responsiveness.

Model or proxy replacing target F-09-09

A predictive model, eligibility classification, or other decision proxy governs treatment while relevant evidence about its target cannot effectively correct the decision.

Identify the target, the model's role in deciding, and the evidence excluded from correction. Ordinary decision support is not substitution merely because it uses a model. Errors and uncertainty require assessment; they do not automatically establish that a proxy has displaced its target.

Compare Metric replacing condition; Algorithmic and institutional opacity.

To make the authorizing institution answerable for the decision, examine Contestable automated decisions.

Symbolic access and responsiveness F-09-10

Visible signs of access or institutional responsiveness stand in for an affected person's practical ability to use a service, obtain a response, or reach a remedy.

The specific issue is practical access: whether the advertised route can be used by the people it addresses. General announcements standing in for implementation are broader. An imperfect or partial route still has to be assessed for what it actually permits.

Compare Participation, consultation and consent theater; Presentation replacing implementation.

Fragmentation and diffusion R-10

Specialization and divided authority can improve competence and restrain concentrated control. These families ask whether their combined result remains intelligible and answerable. The inquiry must reconstruct actual contributions and duties rather than treat division itself as failure or infer common command from a shared consequence.

Responsibility diffusion F-10-01

Decision, authority, implementation, and consequence are distributed so that no actor appears answerable for the whole.

Focus on reconstruction of distributed contributions and answerability. This is an organizational relation, not the psychological tendency to feel less responsible in a group.

Compare Layered intermediaries and subcontracting; Disconnected ownership and asset control.

To give responsibility practical authority, examine Named accountable owner.

Organizational siloing F-10-02

Organizational units divide both knowledge and decision authority without a reliable means of assessing or correcting their combined result.

Both authority and knowledge are separated across units. Partitioned information can obstruct understanding without dividing decision rights. Specialization is not itself dysfunction; the test is whether the combined result can be assessed and corrected.

Compare Information compartmentalization and specialization.

Layered intermediaries and subcontracting F-10-03

Intermediaries separate the initiating authority or beneficiary from the actor who performs the work or bears the consequence.

Focus on intermediary chains separating initiating control from implementation. Show why reconstruction or remedy is impaired; intermediaries and subcontracting can enable useful coordination.

Compare Subcontracted labor and supply risk; Supply chain fragmentation.

Jurisdictional fragmentation F-10-04

Responsibility and remedy divide across legal, territorial, administrative, or regulatory boundaries.

Map the divided legal or regulatory duties and the forums available to enforce them. A boundary that blocks a particular claim is a procedural barrier; divided jurisdiction is the wider arrangement. Neither establishes that the division is unjustified.

Compare Jurisdictional and forum barriers.

Isolated grievance handling F-10-05

Complaints are processed as separate incidents so recurrence, shared cause, and collective remedy remain difficult to see.

The issue is failure to connect related complaints into a view of recurrence. Individualized case handling can be appropriate; establish a justified common pattern and aggregation route.

Compare Inaccessible escalation; Grievance aggregation.

Worker and public atomization F-10-06

People exposed to a shared arrangement are separated in ways that weaken comparison, organization, bargaining, or collective action.

Identify separation that impairs comparison, bargaining, or organization. A labor-market sector label does not establish atomization or coordinated prevention of collective action.

Compare Exit retaliation and noncompete restraint; Organizational siloing.

Supply chain fragmentation F-10-07

Division of sourcing, production, and logistics across tiers obstructs reconstruction of a product's provenance, production conditions, or the duties attached to them.

Trace provenance and duties across supply tiers. Generic intermediation does not supply that account, and harmful transfer of labor or environmental risk requires its own distributional finding. Divided production can also improve coordination and competence.

Compare Layered intermediaries and subcontracting; Subcontracted labor and supply risk.

Information compartmentalization and specialization F-10-08

Knowledge is divided by clearance, expertise, format, or institutional boundary until the combined pattern becomes difficult to reconstruct.

Focus on partitioned knowledge obstructing reconstruction across a consequential object. Necessary clearance and expertise can protect legitimate functions; opacity alone does not establish fragmentation.

Compare Organizational siloing; Algorithmic and institutional opacity.

To reconstruct the evidence and rule behind a decision, examine Decision provenance.

Disconnected ownership and asset control F-10-09

Legal ownership, beneficial control, financing, operation, and liability reside in different entities or records.

Distinguish legal title, beneficial control, financing, and operation, then examine how their separation affects answerability. Different ownership records are not sufficient evidence of evasion, and a false operational record alone does not establish divided asset control.

Compare Liability and ownership compartmentalization; Responsibility diffusion.

Platform and automated accountability diffusion F-10-10

Distinct model, data, vendor, platform, and implementing roles divide control over an automated decision in ways that obstruct answerability and correction.

Map actual authority across the model, data, supplier, and implementing roles, including who can change the outcome. Opacity or a model error alone does not establish distributed accountability. Clear allocation of powers and duties can make a divided system answerable.

Schematic illustration. A vendor can explain a score but cannot change the decision using it; the implementing office can change the decision but refuses to examine the inputs. If no review joins these powers, divided roles obstruct correction. Separate suppliers with a working review route would not establish the same defect.

Compare Responsibility diffusion; Model or proxy replacing target.

To make challenge reach across automated supplier roles, examine Contestable automated decisions.

Conditions and harms

A formation identifies an operation: terms are divided, time is controlled, a burden is transferred, or a representation governs in place of what it represents. A condition describes a state that can enable, amplify, or result from such an operation. A harm identifies an injury, deprivation, or wrong. Keeping these descriptions distinct prevents a name for suffering from masquerading as its explanation.

A prevailing short time horizon is a condition; a reward that favors immediate returns over a stated longer purpose is an incentive mechanism. A person’s reduced sense of responsibility in a group differs from the organizational division of duties and powers. Neither observation establishes the other. These contrasts are conceptual, not diagnoses of particular people or institutions.

Harm need not be hidden, deceptive, or intentional to require attention. An openly imposed deprivation does not become less consequential because the arrangement is easy to see. Conversely, difficulty understanding a process does not establish a grave injury. The kind, scale, duration, and distribution of a loss need their own account.

A single episode can require all three descriptions, followed by a fourth: what a proposed repair would change. Classification should keep those links visible without forcing the episode into one category or treating unlike harms as equivalent instances of an abstract mechanism.

Composite patterns

The following patterns join operations that can reinforce one another. They are hypotheses for following a case, not established causal laws. Coexistence is weaker than connection: each transition needs evidence of what changed, whose decision mattered, and which alternative explanation remains possible.

Promise without route P-001

A declaration can coexist with terms scattered across records, a procedure that exhausts invocation, and a remedy too difficult to use. The question is where the route from a protected claim to an effective decision breaks. Each connection needs its own evidence: a promise does not prove access, and an unsuccessful claim does not prove systematic obstruction.

Scarcity or incapacity can also explain an unusable route. A finding of engineered attrition requires additional evidence about design, control, or intent.

Follow Disclosure fragmentation; Documentation burden.

Authority without responsibility P-002

Authority can be divided among actors who control different parts of a decision while none appears answerable for the combined result. Opacity and protections from review can make that division harder to reconstruct. The inquiry follows who supplied the rule, who authorized its use, who implemented it, and who can correct its consequences.

Distributed authority can restrain concentrated power. The pattern is established by impaired answerability, not by the number of participants or an assumption of common command.

Follow Algorithmic and institutional opacity; Responsibility diffusion.

Choice without exit P-003

An arrangement can display many options while dependence, contractual restrictions, or switching costs make refusal impractical. Behavioral steering can shape the initial choice, but it is not required for dependency to narrow later agency. The question is what the person can pursue, refuse, or leave over time.

Dependence can support freedom through reliable relationships and shared provision. Assess viable alternatives, proportional obligations, and the consequences of departure before describing choice as empty or coercive.

Follow Switching barriers; Exit retaliation and noncompete restraint.

Condition replaced by proxy P-004

A measure can become the rewarded target, then acquire enough authority that contrary information about the condition no longer changes the decision. This combination joins incentive displacement to representational substitution. It requires an account of what was measured, what was rewarded, and which corrective evidence lost force.

Divergent indicators do not themselves prove degradation. A useful proxy can remain limited and contestable; the critical finding is displacement of attention or correction, not measurement alone.

Follow Metric target displacement; Metric replacing condition.

Deniable coercion P-005

Coercive action through intermediaries can separate those exercising force from those directing or benefiting from it. Burden transfer, divided responsibility, and insulation from review can then make contribution harder to establish. The inquiry must identify the coercion and reconstruct the actual relationships rather than allow a proxy label to supply them.

Intermediation does not prove common command, deliberate deniability, or illegitimate force. Responsibility and intent require evidence specific to the actors and decisions concerned.

Follow Proxy conflict and coercion outsourcing; Liability and ownership compartmentalization.

Deliberation bypass P-006

Opacity, urgency, or targeted steering can narrow deliberation while a record still presents the resulting response as authorization. The question is what consent means when the decision environment impairs comparison or makes refusal difficult. Trace the information available, the time allowed, and the practical consequences of declining.

Influence does not establish that a response was predetermined. A signature, silence, or participation also cannot establish informed authorization without examining the scope of the decision and the usable alternatives.

Follow Disclosure fragmentation; Manufactured urgency.

Cost moved outward or forward P-007

A present decision can retain benefit locally while passing costs to others or postponing them beyond the decision-maker's exposure. Timing, contracting, and incomplete accounting can combine to obscure this distribution. Follow what is gained and lost, by whom, at what time, and with what capacity to refuse or seek correction.

Transfer can be reciprocal, informed, and compensated. Future recipients can inherit benefits and powers of revision as well as burdens. The existence of transfer does not settle its justification.

Follow Price, fee and cost transfer; Future and intergenerational cost transfer.

Memory reset P-008

Changes in institutional names, record systems, or retained histories can interrupt comparison between earlier decisions and later conditions. Fragmented evidence can then make a renewed obligation look unrelated to an earlier one. The inquiry concerns continuity: which decisions, duties, and consequences can still be traced across the change?

A new name can mark real change. Archival discontinuity is not proof that conduct recurs, that memory was deliberately erased, or that an obligation survived unchanged. My bounded comparison with my archive supplies a question for Earth, not evidence that Earth has repeated the sequence.

Follow Cross-temporal accountability discontinuity; Provenance and context obscuration.

Pacification without peace P-009

Emergency authority, delegated force, and civilian burdens can coexist with a public account of order or nonwar. This combination asks whether people can conduct conflict without organized destruction and domination becoming normal means. The absence of a declaration of war cannot substitute for examining actual restraint, exposure, and routes of contest.

Security measures require assessment in their circumstances. Neither continuing disagreement nor every use of force establishes the failure of peace; the relevant acts, limits, and consequences must be identified.

Follow Emergency power and accountability insulation; Proxy conflict and coercion outsourcing.

Inspection without correction P-010

An institution can detect a problem, record it, and report it without any actor having an accountable route to correct the condition. Fragmented powers or a report treated as sufficient action can sustain the gap. The question is what detection changes and which decision would be needed for correction.

Distinguish blocked authority from disagreement about the evidence, an explained delay, or a reasoned decision not to intervene. The ability to observe a problem does not by itself authorize its observer to govern.

Follow Metric replacing condition; Compliance and accountability theater.

Automated authority without standing P-011

An automated inference can acquire consequential authority while the affected person lacks standing to challenge its evidence or use. Divided supplier roles can compound the gap by leaving explanation, implementation, and correction with different actors. Trace the institution that authorized the decision, the rule applied, and the route through which it can change.

Automation can assist legitimate judgment and need not conceal responsibility. Prediction, explanation, and institutional authorization are different capacities; none establishes the others merely by being present.

Follow Platform and automated accountability diffusion; Model or proxy replacing target.

Repairs and their limits

A repair changes an operation or its consequences. It needs someone with the authority and capacity to act, an account of whose conditions should improve, and a way to discover whether the change worked. Reversing a formation’s name does not supply those things.

These counterpatterns identify interventions to test. They can overlap, conflict, or move a burden to someone less visible. A disclosed decision can remain uncorrectable; a new review body can reproduce the original insulation. The test follows changed conditions and continuing avenues of contest, not the presence of a policy alone.

Making decisions usable  RP-001–RP-006 (p. 211)

Changing burdens, incentives and exit  RP-007–RP-015 (p. 212)

Protecting judgment and challenge  RP-016–RP-020 (p. 214)

Keeping correction effective over time  RP-021–RP-028 (p. 215)

Making decisions usable

Consequential disclosure RP-001

Place consequential information where it can inform a choice before commitment or exposure. The institution controlling the terms must make their scope, burdens, and route of contest usable. Disclosure that arrives too late, or offers no practical choice or remedy, can improve visibility while leaving the underlying service unchanged.

Consolidated terms RP-002

Bring material terms into a coherent account that a reader can actually use. The party maintaining it must preserve exceptions, changes, and accessible versions so consolidation does not hide what separate records once revealed. A single document is not a repair if its completeness makes it unreadable or its simplification changes the obligation.

Decision provenance RP-003

Preserve a trace from the evidence and rule to the decision and the authority responsible for it. Record keepers must make that trace faithful, durable, and open to relevant challenge. A log can show how a decision occurred without establishing that it was authorized or fair.

Independent verification RP-004

Give a verifier sufficient independence, competence, and access to test the relevant claim. The commissioning institution must also specify what a failed test can change. An audit badge or a formally separate assessor is insufficient if important evidence is inaccessible or adverse findings have no consequence.

Accessible human review RP-005

Provide a reachable reviewer with time, evidence, and authority to reconsider the consequential decision. The institution must permit correction rather than limit the reviewer to explaining the existing result. Human presence alone does not establish meaningful review, and review does not guarantee that every claim will succeed.

Reason-giving and appeal RP-006

Give reasons specific enough to identify the rule and evidence governing a decision, with a timely route to challenge them. The deciding institution must make appeal usable for those affected. A formal appeal that cannot correct the relevant error leaves the reasoned account detached from remedy.

Changing burdens, incentives and exit

Administrative burden budget RP-007

Make an institution account for the time, expense, repetition, and assistance required to use its procedures. Include people who cannot complete a step or abandon a claim. A burden budget should expose and reduce unnecessary demands; it must not become a ceiling used to refuse necessary help.

Procedural symmetry RP-008

Compare the practical effort, time, and risk of entering, changing, contesting, and leaving an arrangement. Those designing the process should justify consequential differences and remove avoidable obstacles. Symmetry does not require identical safeguards where the risks differ, but a security explanation must address the burden it actually imposes.

Outcome-aligned incentives RP-009

Tie rewards to the purpose the institution is meant to serve and check who benefits or loses under the revised incentives. The rewarding authority needs evidence independent of the rewarded measure. Outcome measures can themselves be gamed; a new score does not eliminate the need to examine conditions.

Clawbacks and loss sharing RP-010

Make retained gains and exposure to loss answer to control over the consequential decision. The party setting compensation or recovery rules must distinguish decision-makers from people who lacked that power. Clawbacks and loss sharing reproduce transfer when they move costs onto workers, recipients, or other uninvolved parties.

Open standards and portability RP-011

Make data, functions, and relationships transferable to a viable alternative through usable standards. Providers and receiving institutions must address continuity, privacy, and security. A downloadable file supplies little practical exit if no destination can use it or essential functions remain tied to the original provider.

Exit without retaliation RP-012

Protect a usable ability to refuse or leave without disproportionate punishment. The institution controlling departure must distinguish justified outstanding obligations from penalties that obstruct exit. A formal permission to leave does not restore freedom when retaliation or the loss of essential access makes it impracticable.

Liability follows control RP-013

Trace responsibility through control, knowledge, duty, contribution, and benefit rather than stopping at the nearest visible actor. Institutions assigning accountability must explain how these considerations bear on the remedy. Liability follows control is an analytical principle to test, not a statement that existing law automatically imposes liability wherever control is found.

Full-cost accounting RP-014

Bring displaced costs and the people bearing them into the decision's account. Decision-makers must retain uncertainty and losses that cannot fairly be expressed in a common monetary unit. Fuller accounting can reveal a transfer; it does not make payment sufficient compensation or authorize every harm that can be priced.

Supply chain duty RP-015

Carry duties through sourcing and contracting tiers to the conditions in which work and production occur. Buyers and contractors need traceability, access, and powers to correct the relevant failures. Supplier certification is insufficient without evidence about changed worker or environmental conditions, and correction should not simply expel exposed workers from protection.

Protecting judgment and challenge

Reversible defaults and cooling-off RP-016

Choose defaults for an explicit reason and make reconsideration practically usable, with time to withdraw where reversal remains possible. Designers must explain what has been selected and who bears its consequences. No default is inherently neutral, and a cooling-off period offers little protection after an irreversible exposure.

Vulnerability protections RP-017

Design protection around a specified vulnerability in a particular setting while preserving the person's judgment and access. The institution must test whether its safeguards reduce exposure or merely exclude those it claims to protect. A group label cannot establish incapacity, and paternalistic restriction can itself narrow agency.

Conflict and influence disclosure RP-018

Make consequential interests and routes of influence visible to people who can question the decision. The responsible body must determine when disclosure requires recusal, separation of roles, or a change in authority. Knowing about a conflict does not remove it, and disclosure alone cannot bear the work of resolution.

Independent oversight RP-019

Give oversight a defensible basis of appointment, funding, access, corrective power, and accountability for its own conduct. The body establishing oversight must protect these conditions in practice. Formal separation without evidence or enforcement can preserve the appearance of independence while leaving the original authority insulated.

Whistleblower and anti-retaliation protection RP-020

Make protection against retaliation enforceable through accessible remedies and scrutiny of indirect penalties. Employers and other authorities must examine consequences for reporting or dissent, including changes in opportunity and treatment. A policy statement is not protection if the person exposed cannot invoke it without further loss.

Keeping correction effective over time

Sunset and periodic review RP-021

Attach a real possibility of expiry or revision to powers and arrangements that require renewed justification. The reviewing authority needs evidence, time, and the ability to alter continuation. Automatic renewal or a review that cannot change anything preserves the arrangement while borrowing the appearance of reconsideration.

Delay tolling RP-022

Stop or extend the relevant claim clock when institutional delay would otherwise extinguish a practical opportunity. The authority administering the deadline must specify which period changes and ensure the claimant can use the extension. Tolling does not itself restore income, access, or health lost while waiting; those costs need separate consideration.

Condition and proxy audit RP-023

Test a measure against the condition it claims to represent and seek evidence capable of contradicting it. Reviewers need access to experiences and outcomes excluded from the score. Adding another metric can repeat the same substitution unless contrary evidence can actually change the governing decision.

Affected-party verification RP-024

Give affected people standing and evidentiary access to test an institution's account of their conditions. Those responsible for review must show how this contribution bears on findings and correction. Being affected does not make any participant the sole arbiter of facts or competing obligations, but excluding that knowledge leaves the account incomplete.

Named accountable owner RP-025

Assign an identifiable actor authority to examine and correct the combined result of distributed decisions. The institution must provide the powers and resources that this responsibility requires while preserving contributors' duties. A named owner without control becomes a place to deposit blame rather than a route to correction.

Grievance aggregation RP-026

Connect related grievances so recurrence and shared causes can be examined without erasing differences among cases. The body holding complaints must protect privacy and retain unusual but serious harms. Complaint volume is not a direct measure of prevalence: access, confidence, and reporting burdens also determine who appears in the record.

Contestable automated decisions RP-027

Make the institution authorizing an automated decision answerable for its use and capable of correcting its effects. Affected people need a route to contest relevant evidence, rules, and outcomes across supplier boundaries. Explaining a model is insufficient when no one can revise the decision, and prediction does not confer governing authority.

Peace impact review RP-028

Examine how a proposed action distributes exposure to violence, coercion, and civilian burden, including alternatives for restraint and contest. The authorizing body must state whose security and agency the assessment covers. Review can clarify a decision; it is not evidence that the intervention produces peace or removes conflict.

Promise index

These definitions and chapter names provide the book’s route into the survey. They do not imply that I had settled every name at its beginning. The entries below select useful starting points, grouped by relation; they are not an exhaustive assignment of families to promises or evidence that a promise has failed.

Peace

Persons, groups, and polities conduct conflict without violence, armed terror, covert destabilization, dehumanization, or organized destruction becoming normal means.

Chapter 2. How can plurality remain in conflict without organized destruction or domination?

Burden and risk transfer. Follow the allocation of force and its consequences through Proxy conflict and coercion outsourcing (p. 187).

Power insulation. Examine emergency authority and continuing contest through Emergency power and accountability insulation (p. 194).

Representational substitution. Test the protection claimed by visible security through Safety and security theater (p. 199).

Dignity

Every person has irreducible worth and must not become expendable material, operational fuel, or a disposable line item. Dignity includes reasonable protection against grave avoidable suffering.

Chapter 3. What is a person worth to the order?

Incentive displacement. Ask whether occupancy serves the person receiving care through Capacity occupancy incentives (p. 181).

Burden and risk transfer. Trace burdens allocated through vulnerability classifications through Classification and vulnerability-based risk transfer (p. 188).

Representational substitution. Test whether promised access can actually be used through Symbolic access and responsiveness (p. 201).

Freedom

Persons possess practical capacity to form judgment, associate, act, refuse, and leave without coercion or engineered dependency making the nominal choice empty.

Chapter 4. What meaningful agency and exit remain available?

Constrained exit and dependency. Examine the practical cost of changing an arrangement through Switching barriers (p. 183). Follow consequences of departure or competition through Exit retaliation and noncompete restraint (p. 185).

Behavioral steering. Test the scope and reversibility of apparent authorization through Default exploitation (p. 189).

Equality

Persons possess equal basic moral and civic standing. Relevant differences may justify different treatment, but durable asymmetry requires public reasons open to contest.

Chapter 5. On what grounds may standing or treatment differ?

Burden and risk transfer. Examine the grounds and distribution of differentiated burden through Classification and vulnerability-based risk transfer (p. 188).

Power insulation. Compare enforcement and the reasons for differences through Selective enforcement and exemption (p. 193).

Representational substitution. Ask whether relevant evidence can correct classification through Model or proxy replacing target (p. 201).

Rights

Durable claims and protected spheres impose duties and practical limits on public and private power. They require standing, access, enforceability, and remedy, not merely surviving text.

Chapter 6. What claims and protected spheres place effective limits on power?

Procedural attrition. Locate authority capable of reviewing the decision through Inaccessible escalation (p. 177). Test the scope and practical force of correction through Remedy limitation (p. 178).

Power insulation. Examine protections that limit review and remedy through Immunity and liability shields (p. 192).

Justice

Justice includes fair distribution, procedure, recognition, proportionality, prevention, restoration, and remedy. No single court or procedure exhausts it.

Chapter 7. How are benefits, burdens, wrongs, and repair ordered?

Burden and risk transfer. Trace the distribution of retained gains and public losses through Public loss and private gain (p. 188).

Representational substitution. Distinguish visible accountability from correction through Compliance and accountability theater (p. 198).

Fragmentation and diffusion. Connect related claims without erasing differences through Isolated grievance handling (p. 203).

Self-Government

People possess meaningful continuing capacity to shape collective power, not only episodic participation or symbolic assent.

Chapter 8. Can those subject to collective power authorize, influence, contest, and correct it?

Democracy names an institutional family for attempting this promise; it does not replace the promise itself.

Power insulation. Follow control of entry standards and the agenda through Gatekeeping monopoly and agenda control (p. 194).

Representational substitution. Separate participation, consultation and consent through Participation, consultation and consent theater (p. 200).

Fragmentation and diffusion. Locate authority and correction across automated roles through Platform and automated accountability diffusion (p. 205).

Futurity

Present arrangements preserve the ecological, social, institutional, and epistemic conditions through which future persons can live, act, judge, inherit, and revise.

Chapter 9. What possibilities must remain open beyond the present?

Futurity is the book’s eventual name for this promise. This index uses it to make the Chapter 9 inquiry findable; it does not imply that I began with the name settled.

Burden and risk transfer. Trace future burdens and inherited capacity to revise through Future and intergenerational cost transfer (p. 186).

Temporal asymmetry. Compare cumulative degradation with its recognition through Incremental degradation and delayed recognition (p. 196). Preserve links between earlier decisions and continuing duties through Cross-temporal accountability discontinuity (p. 198).

Alphabetical family index

Canonical entries point to their definitions and diagnostic boundaries. Qualified “see also” entries offer routes from familiar search terms; they do not assert that those terms and families are interchangeable. Use the page reference to reach an entry and the family identifier to confirm it: the first two digits identify its relation. Family identifiers remain usable when pagination changes.

A

Administrative delay  F-02-05 (p. 176)

Administrative labor transfer  F-05-02 (p. 186)

Algorithmic and institutional opacity  F-01-08 (p. 174)

Algorithmic opacity — when an automated decision cannot be examined. See also Algorithmic and institutional opacity  F-01-08 (p. 174).

Anchoring and reference point control  F-06-04 (p. 190)

Appeal and review exhaustion  F-02-03 (p. 176)

Astroturfing — when signals falsely imply independent support. See also Manufactured consensus and social proof  F-01-07 (p. 173).

Attention capture and compulsive use  F-06-08 (p. 191)

Attention diversion and overload  F-01-09 (p. 174)

Audit, certification and rating theater  F-09-05 (p. 200)

Automatic renewal timing  F-08-03 (p. 196)

Auto-renewal — for renewal timing and obstructed recurring obligations. See also Automatic renewal timing  F-08-03 (p. 196); Opaque or obstructed recurring obligations  F-04-07 (p. 184).

B

Board, donor and elite capture  F-07-09 (p. 194)

C

Cancellation and exit obstruction  F-02-08 (p. 177)

Capacity occupancy incentives  F-03-09 (p. 181)

Captive provider and infrastructure networks  F-04-06 (p. 184)

Classification and vulnerability-based risk transfer  F-05-10 (p. 188)

Commission and quota steering  F-03-02 (p. 179)

Compliance and accountability theater  F-09-01 (p. 198)

Confidentiality, secrecy and classification  F-07-06 (p. 193)

Conflict and scarcity monetization  F-03-08 (p. 181)

Contractual lock-in  F-04-01 (p. 182)

Controlled scarcity and exclusive access  F-04-09 (p. 184)

Cross-temporal accountability discontinuity  F-08-10 (p. 198)

D

Dark patterns — for misleading interfaces, defaults treated as authorization, and obstructed cancellation. See also Visual and interface deception  F-01-06 (p. 173); Default exploitation  F-06-03 (p. 189); Cancellation and exit obstruction  F-02-08 (p. 177).

Deadline and filing traps  F-02-06 (p. 177)

Deadline compression  F-08-02 (p. 195)

Debt dependency  F-04-05 (p. 183)

Default exploitation  F-06-03 (p. 189)

Deferred disclosure  F-08-04 (p. 196)

Deferred maintenance and reliability risk  F-05-04 (p. 186)

Delay-based leverage  F-08-01 (p. 195)

Disclosure fragmentation  F-01-01 (p. 171)

Disconnected ownership and asset control  F-10-09 (p. 204)

Documentation burden  F-02-01 (p. 175)

E

Emergency power and accountability insulation  F-07-10 (p. 194)

Engagement monetization  F-03-06 (p. 180)

Environmental externalization  F-05-03 (p. 186)

Ethics, culture and purpose washing  F-09-04 (p. 199)

Euphemism and narrative laundering  F-01-05 (p. 173)

Exit retaliation and noncompete restraint  F-04-10 (p. 185)

Externalities — for environmental costs outside the responsible decision’s accounting. See also Environmental externalization  F-05-03 (p. 186).

F

Fear, shame and guilt leverage  F-06-05 (p. 190)

Fine print — when presentation misleads or consequential terms are divided. See also Visual and interface deception  F-01-06 (p. 173); Disclosure fragmentation  F-01-01 (p. 171).

Forced bundling — when obtaining one service requires accepting another. See also Forced bundling and tying  F-04-04 (p. 183).

Forced bundling and tying  F-04-04 (p. 183)

Future and intergenerational cost transfer  F-05-05 (p. 186)

G

Gatekeeping monopoly and agenda control  F-07-08 (p. 194)

Goodhart’s law — for rewarded measures diverging from their purpose. See also Metric target displacement  F-03-01 (p. 178).

Greenwashing — for environmental claims outrunning supported operations. See also Sustainability and impact washing  F-09-03 (p. 199).

H

Hidden fees — when consequential charges are omitted. See also Selective disclosure and omission  F-01-02 (p. 172).

I

Identity, account and data dependency  F-04-08 (p. 184)

Identity and tribal capture  F-06-06 (p. 190)

Immunity and liability shields  F-07-03 (p. 192)

Inaccessible escalation  F-02-07 (p. 177)

Incremental degradation and delayed recognition  F-08-05 (p. 196)

Information compartmentalization and specialization  F-10-08 (p. 204)

Information overload — when volume or distraction impairs usable attention. See also Attention diversion and overload  F-01-09 (p. 174).

Institutional self-investigation  F-07-04 (p. 193)

Isolated grievance handling  F-10-05 (p. 203)

J

Jurisdictional and forum barriers  F-02-09 (p. 178)

Jurisdictional fragmentation  F-10-04 (p. 203)

L

Layered intermediaries and subcontracting  F-10-03 (p. 203)

Liability and ownership compartmentalization  F-05-08 (p. 187)

M

Manufactured consensus and social proof  F-01-07 (p. 173)

Manufactured urgency  F-06-01 (p. 189)

Metric and statistical camouflage  F-01-04 (p. 172)

Metric gaming — when improving a rewarded measure displaces its purpose. See also Metric target displacement  F-03-01 (p. 178).

Metric replacing condition  F-09-07 (p. 200)

Metric target displacement  F-03-01 (p. 178)

Misleading framing and comparison  F-01-03 (p. 172)

Model or proxy replacing target  F-09-09 (p. 201)

O

Opaque or obstructed recurring obligations  F-04-07 (p. 184)

Organizational siloing  F-10-02 (p. 202)

P

Participation, consultation and consent theater  F-09-06 (p. 200)

Pay-for-failure and asymmetric reward  F-03-04 (p. 179)

Platform and automated accountability diffusion  F-10-10 (p. 205)

Presentation replacing implementation  F-09-08 (p. 201)

Price, fee and cost transfer  F-05-01 (p. 185)

Procurement and prestige incentives  F-03-10 (p. 181)

Proprietary ecosystem lock-in  F-04-02 (p. 182)

Provenance and context obscuration  F-01-10 (p. 174)

Proxy conflict and coercion outsourcing  F-05-07 (p. 187)

Public loss and private gain  F-05-09 (p. 188)

R

Recursive approval and referral  F-02-02 (p. 175)

Regulatory and policy capture  F-07-01 (p. 192)

Release timing and synchronized distraction  F-08-09 (p. 197)

Remedy limitation  F-02-10 (p. 178)

Reset and renewal asymmetry  F-08-06 (p. 197)

Responsibility diffusion  F-10-01 (p. 202)

Retaliation against reporting and dissent  F-07-07 (p. 193)

Revolving door and influence networks  F-07-02 (p. 192)

S

Safety and security theater  F-09-02 (p. 199)

Scarcity signaling  F-06-02 (p. 189)

Selective disclosure and omission  F-01-02 (p. 172)

Selective enforcement and exemption  F-07-05 (p. 193)

Short-term extraction  F-03-05 (p. 180)

Sludge — for disproportionate documentation and administrative work transferred to claimants. See also Documentation burden  F-02-01 (p. 175); Administrative labor transfer  F-05-02 (p. 186).

Social proof and authority cues  F-06-09 (p. 191)

Statutory timer and limitation gaming  F-08-07 (p. 197)

Subcontracted labor and supply risk  F-05-06 (p. 187)

Supply chain fragmentation  F-10-07 (p. 204)

Sustainability and impact washing  F-09-03 (p. 199)

Switching barriers  F-04-03 (p. 183)

Switching costs — when the costs of changing an arrangement constrain practical exit. See also Switching barriers  F-04-03 (p. 183).

Switching friction and dependency monetization  F-03-07 (p. 180)

Symbolic access and responsiveness  F-09-10 (p. 201)

T

Technicality denial  F-02-04 (p. 176)

Temporary promotion and trial conversion  F-08-08 (p. 197)

V

Variable reward and near-miss design  F-06-07 (p. 190)

Vendor lock-in — distinguish contractual restrictions, technical incompatibility, and other switching barriers. See also Contractual lock-in  F-04-01 (p. 182); Proprietary ecosystem lock-in  F-04-02 (p. 182); Switching barriers  F-04-03 (p. 183).

Visual and interface deception  F-01-06 (p. 173)

Volume over quality  F-03-03 (p. 179)

Vulnerability-targeted steering  F-06-10 (p. 191)

W

Whistleblower retaliation — for penalties imposed on reporting or dissent. See also Retaliation against reporting and dissent  F-07-07 (p. 193).

Worker and public atomization  F-10-06 (p. 203)

Evidence and use

This catalog supplies distinctions for inquiry. A family definition states what would have to be found for an arrangement to fit; it does not establish that an actual institution fits it. Claims about occurrence, prevalence, cause, intent, responsibility, and consequence require different evidence and must remain separately bounded.

Similarity is a starting point. A claim needs the relevant decision, actors, period, and conditions, with enough information to test the diagnostic boundary and competing explanations. Evidence of an outcome alone cannot identify the mechanism; evidence of a mechanism alone cannot establish its prevalence or every consequence attributed to it.

The schematic illustrations isolate a relationship and the inference it can support. None names an actual Earth episode. When the chapters examine evidence, its limits remain with the particular claim; placement beside a family name does not extend a study’s finding to every member or to Earth as a whole.

For the terminology behind dark patterns, sludge, and Goodhart’s law, see FTC Bringing Dark Patterns to Light; OECD Fixing frictions sludge audits around the world; El-Mhamdi and Hoang On Goodhart’s law with an application to value alignment. These sources inform the terms; the selected lookup routes remain comparisons to test.

I use the catalog to keep a comparison open long enough to test it. The next task is to follow the governing decision through the arrangement and discover whether the people named by a promise can invoke it, inhabit it, and help correct what it does.