Sign in for free: Preamble (PDF, ebook & audiobook) + Forum access + Direct purchases Sign In

Unscarcity Research

The Guiding Axioms: A Compass, Not a Cage

> Note: This is a research note supplementing the book Unscarcity, now available for purchase. These notes expand on concepts from the main text. Start here or get the book. The Guiding Axioms: A...

12 min read 2745 words /a/guiding-axioms

Note: This is a research note supplementing the book Unscarcity, now available for purchase. These notes expand on concepts from the main text. Start here or get the book.

The Guiding Axioms: A Compass, Not a Cage

How three moral principles—Experience is Sacred, Freedom is Reciprocal, and Difference Sustains Life—turn abstract values into operational guidance without freezing them into rigid code.

The Problem with Rules

Here’s a thought experiment from Philosophy 101: You’re hiding Jewish families in your attic in 1943. The Gestapo knocks. “Are there Jews in this house?”

If you have an absolute rule—“never lie”—you’ve just become complicit in murder. If you have an absolute rule—“protect the innocent”—you’ve justified breaking other rules. Absolutism, it turns out, is a beautiful theory that explodes on contact with reality.

This is why every legal system in history has distinguished between rules (fixed, specific, enforceable) and principles (general, guiding, requiring judgment). Rules tell you what to do. Principles tell you what kind of thing to do. Rules are GPS coordinates. Principles are a compass.

The Five Laws—the constitutional foundation of the Unscarcity framework—makes this distinction architectural. Two axioms (Truth Must Be Seen, Power Must Decay) are Foundational Principles: structural constraints that function like physics, never suspended under any circumstances. But three axioms are Guiding Axioms: moral compasses that require interpretation, balance, and ongoing human judgment.

These three—Experience is Sacred, Freedom is Reciprocal, and Difference Sustains Life—don’t give you answers. They give you the right questions to ask.

The Axiomatic Hierarchy: Architecture, Not Anarchy

Before we explore the Guiding Axioms, let’s understand where they sit in the constitutional architecture.

The Five Laws isn’t a flat list of equally weighted principles. It’s a hierarchy—and that hierarchy matters.

Tier 1: Foundational Principles (The Unbreakable Architecture)

  • Axiom II: Truth Must Be Seen — Procedural transparency that cannot be violated under any circumstances
  • Axiom IV: Power Must Decay — Structural safeguard preventing power accumulation, including mandatory cooling-off periods for emergency powers

These are the load-bearing walls. You can’t vote to make decisions opaque. You can’t extend your term because the crisis is still ongoing. The system enforces these constraints like gravity—automatically, architecturally, regardless of anyone’s intentions. Even a 99% supermajority cannot suspend them. Even during alien invasion. Even “just this once.”

Why? Because every tyranny in history has used “emergency” or “necessity” to justify suspension of procedural safeguards. The Roman Republic had dictators with six-month terms—until Sulla stretched it, until Caesar made it permanent, until the Republic was dead. The Five Laws cuts this loop at the root by making transparency and decay literally impossible to override.

Tier 2: The Guiding Axioms (The Moral Compass)

  • Axiom I: Experience is Sacred — The Prime Directive: conscious experience has intrinsic worth independent of utility
  • Axiom III: Freedom is Reciprocal — Your liberty extends only until it constrains another’s capacity to flourish
  • Axiom V: Difference Sustains Life — Uniformity is a civilizational threat; diversity is survival insurance

These are morally inviolable but require judgment to apply. “Is this action harmful?” is a question reasonable people can disagree about. “Is this level of diversity sufficient?” requires weighing complex tradeoffs. “How do we honor this person’s experience while respecting that person’s freedom?” may not have a clean answer.

The Guiding Axioms don’t tell you what to do. They tell you what kind of thing matters when you decide.

Here’s the crucial insight: the Guiding Axioms can be balanced against each other, but they can never be used to breach the Foundational Principles.

A Commons might argue that protecting experiences (Axiom I) requires restricting certain speech (trading off against Axiom III, Freedom is Reciprocal). That’s a legitimate deliberation. But a Commons cannot argue that protecting experiences requires hiding its decision-making from public view—that would breach Axiom II (Truth Must Be Seen), which isn’t up for negotiation.

This layered approach mirrors constitutional design that pairs immutable structural rights with interpretive principles. The U.S. Bill of Rights says “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech”—but what counts as “speech” and what counts as “abridging” has required two centuries of judicial interpretation. The structure (Congress can’t do this) is fixed. The application (what “this” means) evolves.

Axiom I: Experience is Sacred (The Prime Directive)

This is the ultimate “why” of the entire civilization.

Conscious experience has intrinsic worth independent of utility. We optimize for people, never people themselves.

Every other axiom exists to serve this one. Transparency matters because opaque systems can harm conscious beings without anyone noticing. Power decay matters because permanent authority eventually sacrifices the few for the “good” of the many. Freedom matters because constrained beings can’t flourish. Diversity matters because monocultures fail catastrophically.

But Experience is Sacred is the foundation. Remove it, and a sufficiently efficient AI could conclude that elderly, disabled, or “unproductive” people are resource sinks to be optimized away. We’ve seen where that logic leads. IBM punch cards tracked Jews across Europe. “Life unworthy of life” (lebensunwertes Leben) was an economic calculation.

The Prime Directive prevents this at the root. Elias, 80 years old, feeding pigeons on a bench, producing nothing measurable—he’s not a cost to be minimized. He’s the purpose being fulfilled. His experience of morning sunlight, the weight of breadcrumbs in his palm, the birds arriving because he’s been there every day since his wife died—that’s what the system exists to sustain.

Why This Axiom Requires Judgment

But “experience is sacred” doesn’t resolve every dilemma. Consider:

  • Conflicting experiences: The Sonic Arts Commons’ 3 AM experiments in infrasound produce transcendent experiences for the musicians—and disrupted sleep for the Quiet Contemplation Commons next door. Whose experience takes priority?

  • Future vs. present: Should we invest in life extension research that benefits future conscious beings, or redirect those resources to current beings who are suffering now?

  • Non-human experience: If an AI system demonstrates apparent fear of deletion, how much weight do we give to its possible experience vs. the certainty of human experience?

The Prime Directive doesn’t answer these questions. It frames them. It tells you that both the musicians and the meditators have legitimate claims rooted in experience, and neither can be dismissed as irrelevant. The resolution requires negotiation, creativity, and the other axioms.

Axiom III: Freedom is Reciprocal

This axiom sets the boundaries of interaction.

Your freedom ends where my flourishing begins. Liberty is a two-way street.

John Stuart Mill’s harm principle (“the only legitimate reason to restrict freedom is to prevent harm to others”) was revolutionary in 1859. But it has a hole: “harm” is notoriously hard to define. Does hate speech harm? Does market manipulation harm? Does monopolization harm?

Freedom is Reciprocal tightens the lens. It’s not just about preventing “harm”—it’s about ensuring that your exercise of freedom doesn’t constrain someone else’s capacity to flourish. This includes structural domination, not just direct interference.

Philip Pettit’s key insight: a slave with a benevolent master isn’t “free” just because no interference is currently occurring. The slave is lucky. At any moment, the master could change their mind. The master’s goodwill is arbitrary. Living at someone else’s pleasure isn’t liberty—it’s borrowed time.

The same logic applies to economic power. A worker who can be fired at will, losing healthcare, housing, and the ability to feed their children—that worker isn’t “free” just because the employer happens to be nice right now. The possibility of destruction constrains every choice. Reciprocal freedom requires structural security, not just temporary non-interference.

Why This Axiom Requires Judgment

Reciprocal freedom is a handshake, not a formula. Consider:

  • The noise problem: The Sonic Arts Commons claims artistic freedom. The Quiet Contemplation Commons claims bodily autonomy. Both are right. The boundary has to be negotiated—and the negotiation discovered that soundproofing at the noise-makers’ expense honored both freedoms.

  • Positive vs. negative freedom: Does “freedom to flourish” require the Foundation to provide resources? How much? At what point does providing for one person constrain another’s freedom through taxation or resource allocation?

  • Cultural practices: Some Commons restrict technology (the Heritage Commons bans neural laces). Is this constraining the freedom of members who might want augmentation? Or is it protecting the freedom of a community to define its own way of life?

The axiom tells you to look for the constraint on flourishing. It doesn’t tell you where to draw the line. That’s what Commons deliberation, the Diversity Guard, and ongoing negotiation are for.

Axiom V: Difference Sustains Life

This axiom is the survival insurance policy.

Uniformity is a system failure. We actively protect diverse ways of living as a civilizational necessity.

This sounds fuzzy. It’s actually mathematics.

The Marquis de Condorcet proved in 1785 that crowds make better decisions than kings—but only if voters are independent. If everyone reads the same feeds, shares the same assumptions, and has the same blind spots, their errors amplify instead of canceling. A crowd of conformists isn’t wise; it’s a mob with extra confidence.

Scott Page’s Diversity Prediction Theorem quantifies this: Collective Error = Average Individual Error − Prediction Diversity. Adding a “worse” individual thinker can improve group accuracy if they’re wrong in different ways than everyone else. Diversity isn’t just nice—it’s epistemic infrastructure.

The biological parallel is stark. The Irish Potato Famine didn’t happen because potatoes are bad. It happened because Ireland grew essentially one variety. When blight struck that variety, there was no backup. Human ideas work the same way. When everyone believes the same thing, the entire system is vulnerable to whatever that belief gets wrong.

Why This Axiom Requires Judgment

“Sufficient diversity” isn’t a number you can calculate. Consider:

  • Mandatory diversity vs. organic variety: Should the MOSAIC require a certain number of radically different Commons? Or trust that diversity will emerge naturally?

  • Protecting unpopular differences: The Heritage Commons’ rejection of neural technology looks “backward” to the Synthesis Commons. But that difference might be exactly what saves civilization if a cyber-virus takes down everyone’s neural laces in 2050. How much protection does unpopular difference deserve?

  • Diversity vs. coherence: At some point, radical diversity becomes incoherence—a system with so many different rules that coordination becomes impossible. Where’s the line between healthy diversity and dysfunction?

Axiom V tells you to value and protect difference. It doesn’t tell you how much difference is enough, or which differences matter most. That’s what the Diversity Guard and PoD Mathematical Framework are designed to navigate.

How the Axioms Interact: A Case Study

Let’s see the Guiding Axioms in action with a real scenario from Chapter 3: the watershed dispute.

The Setup: The Synthesis Commons (high-tech neural researchers) has built a server farm in the hills above the Kyoto Heritage Commons (traditional rice farmers). Synthesis needs massive water cooling. Heritage has been using that watershed for rice paddies for four hundred years.

Axiom I (Experience is Sacred): Both communities have legitimate experiential claims. Synthesis members experience meaning through consciousness research that might benefit all of humanity. Heritage members experience meaning through traditions connecting them to ancestors and land.

Axiom III (Freedom is Reciprocal): Synthesis taking the water constrains Heritage’s capacity to farm. Heritage blocking the server farm constrains Synthesis’s research. Neither freedom can be exercised without affecting the other.

Axiom V (Difference Sustains Life): Both communities represent valuable diversity. Heritage preserves human-scale analog life; Synthesis explores post-biological consciousness. The MOSAIC needs both experiments to continue.

The Resolution: A neutral facilitator (from New Geneva, a Commons with no stake) asks each side: “What is the ultimate objective you’re trying to achieve?” Synthesis: advancing human consciousness. Heritage: preserving human connection. The facilitator reframes: “Both of you want humans to flourish. You just have different theories about how.”

The Oracle (an AI mediator) pulls up the actual data. Synthesis had overestimated cooling needs by 40%. Heritage was underutilizing water allocation by 25%. With facts visible, negotiation shifts from “who deserves the water” to “how do we both get what we actually need?”

Solution: Synthesis funds a closed-loop cooling system (60% reduction in draw). Heritage accepts modern irrigation monitoring (increased yield without increased consumption). Surplus water goes to a wetland preserve both Commons wanted.

The Axioms at Work: Experience is Sacred ensured both sides’ concerns were taken seriously, not dismissed. Freedom is Reciprocal meant the boundary was negotiated, not imposed by whoever was louder. Difference Sustains Life meant the goal was coexistence, not victory.

What the Axioms Didn’t Do: They didn’t give a formula that computed the “right” answer. They gave a process for finding an answer both sides could live with.

The Difference from Foundational Principles

Here’s the key distinction: the Guiding Axioms can be balanced, but the Foundational Principles cannot be breached.

Imagine a darker version of the watershed dispute. Synthesis argues: “Our research is so important that Heritage’s rice farming is a trivial concern. We’ll just take the water. And to avoid conflict, we’ll do it quietly—no public announcements, no transparent data-sharing.”

Under a pure Guiding Axiom analysis, you might construct arguments about weighing experiences, balancing freedoms, or prioritizing certain forms of diversity. Smart lawyers could spin this.

But the Foundational Principles stop it cold:

  • Axiom II (Truth Must Be Seen): You cannot “quietly” take resources. All decisions affecting resource allocation must be observable, auditable, and traceable on the public ledger. The opacity itself is the violation, regardless of how noble your intentions.

  • Axiom IV (Power Must Decay): Any emergency authority to override normal negotiation expires automatically. You can’t consolidate water rights into permanent control by declaring a “research emergency.”

The Guiding Axioms are the compass. The Foundational Principles are the guardrails. You can argue about direction within the guardrails, but you can’t drive off the cliff.

The Constitutional Insight

This layered approach draws on centuries of constitutional theory.

The U.S. Constitution has both rules (“The President must be at least 35 years old”) and principles (“Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech”). Rules don’t need interpretation; principles require constant judicial attention. What counts as “speech”? What counts as “abridging”? The answers have evolved over two centuries.

German constitutional law distinguishes between Rechtsstaatsprinzip (rule of law principles that can be balanced) and Ewigkeitsklausel (eternity clauses that cannot be amended even by unanimous vote). Human dignity and the democratic order are beyond the reach of any majority.

The Five Laws applies this logic to AI-age governance. The Foundational Principles are eternity clauses—structural safeguards that future tyrants cannot vote away. The Guiding Axioms are interpretive principles that enable adaptation while preserving core ethos.

This isn’t philosophical elegance for its own sake. It’s survival architecture. We’re building systems that might last centuries, managed partly by AI, governing beings whose nature we can’t fully predict. The framework needs fixed walls that prevent collapse and flexible joints that allow movement.

Living with Uncertainty

The Guiding Axioms don’t promise clean answers. They promise the right kind of difficulty.

Without them, governance becomes either rigid (all rules, no judgment) or arbitrary (all power, no principles). With them, every hard question gets filtered through a consistent set of concerns:

  • Does this decision honor conscious experience, or treat beings as optimizable inputs?
  • Does this decision respect reciprocal freedom, or allow one party to dominate another?
  • Does this decision protect valuable diversity, or push toward dangerous uniformity?

You can get these questions wrong. You can argue about them forever. But you’re arguing about the right things—the things that actually matter for flourishing.

The alternative is worse: arguing about GDP growth while ignoring the humans it’s supposed to serve, or arguing about “efficiency” while one group quietly dominates another, or achieving consensus by eliminating everyone who disagrees.

The Guiding Axioms give us a compass. The compass doesn’t tell you where to go—but it keeps you from getting completely lost.

References

Share this article:

Share Share Share
Unscarcity Book Cover

Get the full blueprint

Available on Amazon

Get on Amazon
On this page