Reality-First Substrate Gate

This document defines a constraint-driven evaluation protocol for determining whether a system qualifies as substrate-level infrastructure. It is not a framework, recommendation, or philosophy.

Systems are evaluated under the assumption that incentives, motivation, consensus, prestige, narrative, and voluntary participation are unreliable or absent.

Evaluation Constraint

Only systems that persist due to enforced, non-voluntary structure or automation qualify. Benefit must be durable and intrinsic to operation, not aspirational or belief-dependent.

Any system requiring ongoing human intent, interpretation, coordination, or goodwill is excluded.

Stability Regimes

Regime A — Persistence Stability (Without People)

  • Non-negotiable physical, logical, or safety-critical constraints
  • Automation that executes without belief, intent, or oversight
  • Mutual dependency with no unilateral exit

Regime B — Participation Stability (With People Present)

Systems in this regime are not substrate. They remain stable only while humans are present and only if all of the following are enforced:

  • Visible structural safety and hard boundaries
  • Predictable, transparent governance and enforcement
  • Clear roles, escalation paths, and accountability
  • Low-stakes interaction preceding higher-risk engagement
  • Inclusion and accessibility that minimize social threat

Reality-First Design Loop

  1. Define the Anchor Problem
    Specify a non-negotiable human survival need.
  2. Establish Physical or Logical Enforcement
    Operation must be governed by physical law, automation, or mutual dependency.
  3. Identify Robust, Passive Mechanisms
    Redundancy and feedback must be intrinsic. No expert dependency.
  4. Scope to an Initial Feasible Prototype
    The system must be small, closed, and self-contained.
  5. Define Monitoring and Failure Gates
    Failure thresholds must be explicit and detectable without interpretation.
  6. Binary Survivorship Test
    Assume total human disengagement. If function degrades due to absence of care, the system is not substrate.

Canonical Evaluation Outcome

A system either qualifies as substrate or it does not. Conditional survivorship is not survivorship.

Failure modes are treated as hard boundaries, not opportunities for ingenuity, adaptation, or workaround.

Disallowed Interpretations

  • No speculative remediation
  • No optimization guidance
  • No user-centered reframing
  • No narrative justification
  • No moral persuasion

Foundational Insight

Deployment is the dominant and often invisible human dependency. If placement, setup, calibration, or interpretation is required for safe operation, human agency has been reintroduced and substrate qualification fails.

Status

This document is a canonical reference. Divergence from this evaluation chain constitutes a change in assumptions, not a disagreement.

No adjustment necessary.