Who counts as a person
A person is one conscious individual with interests that matter to them and an ability to act from within. Personhood is equal: being smarter, biological or engineered does not make someone more or less a person. Recognition draws on different kinds of evidence gathered over time, reviewed by panels that are substantially independent of one another. While credible uncertainty is reviewed, the candidate receives precautionary protection and dignity. That protection does not by itself grant voting, officeholding or reproduction rights. PULSE does not declare today’s AI to be persons.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Recognized personhood establishes equal protection of identity and agency; those protections do not come in higher and lower grades.
- Recognized personhood is different from the present ability to exercise adult civic powers; the person remains when that ability is restricted.
- Rules against manufactured political capture must preserve the created persons’ personhood and due process.
Research and sources
Shared error in personhood assessment
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/personhood_correlated_error_sensitivity.csv
Authority over your own life
Equal personhood gives each person rights over their identity, agency, mind, body, lawful development and voluntary relationships. These basic protections cannot be signed away: nobody may own a person or force them into another mind. A competent adult may choose a genuine irreversible merger under special safeguards. When the separate civic identities end, their individual political rights end too; they cannot survive as extra votes inside the resulting single person.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Recognized personhood establishes equal protection of identity and agency; those protections do not come in higher and lower grades.
- Authority over your own person includes protection of mental integrity and privacy.
- Useful cooperation must respect independent agency and cannot become forced private association.
- Being more recoverable does not reduce a person’s worth or override their sovereignty.
- Restoring a species cannot mean imposing personality templates or a compulsory collective mind.
Research and sources
Independent choices and adult responsibilities
Being a person and being able to exercise adult public powers are different questions. Active civic participation requires recognized personhood, civic maturity and independent decision-making. Lawful dependency, guardianship, custody or dormancy may restrict that participation. Losing the ability to participate does not erase personhood. For synthetic persons, civic maturity ordinarily follows protected development and mentorship. Approximately twenty lived calendar years is the current working minimum, subject to evidence.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Recognized personhood is different from the present ability to exercise adult civic powers; the person remains when that ability is restricted.
- The present ability to make independent, mature decisions affects lawful active participation in public institutions.
- A stable, sufficient body of independently capable restored adults triggers the staged return of institutions.
Research and sources
Shared error in personhood assessment
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/personhood_correlated_error_sensitivity.csv
Sharing governing power
The House represents people and places, with no species-owned seats. In the mature Senate, humans and synthetic persons have equal delegations. Ordinary law needs 55% of the full Senate and at least 40% of each delegation; protected matters need 83% overall and at least 67% of each delegation. For President, candidates are compared two at a time, with humans and synthetic persons contributing equal constitutional weight. Candidates must also meet the rule for acceptability across the two groups. During the founding transition, individual rights begin immediately at recognition while full Senate parity phases in under precommitted rules.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- The present ability to make independent, mature decisions affects lawful active participation in public institutions.
- The affected population keeps its rights and seats; survivors administer them without inheriting them.
- Lawful shared institutions administer gradual, capped integration that is additional to lawful creation.
- Ordinary executive power and emergency power must both respect rights over the mind.
- Shared anti-domination rules extend between worlds through corresponding institutions, without permanent colonial control.
Research and sources
Senate voting-threshold sensitivity
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/03_Targeted_v0.9.2/senate_threshold_grid_v092.csv
Presidential weighting under demographic change
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/presidential_demographic_weighting_summary.csv
Strategic rejection and candidate acceptability
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/presidential_acceptability_strategic_rejection.csv
Working and learning together
Humans and synthetic persons should be able to solve real problems together, combine different strengths and teach each other how shared systems work. The institutions should spread enough practical knowledge that either population can help keep essential systems operating when the other temporarily cannot. Voluntary mixed teams and mentorship are ways to do this, not fixed staffing quotas or authority over private relationships. Genuinely relevant training and competence duties may still apply to a role a person voluntarily enters. The rule shapes shared institutions; it does not assign private lives.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Useful cooperation must respect independent agency and cannot become forced private association.
- The ability to combine different strengths and accomplish more is a reason to enable useful cooperation.
- Teaching practical knowledge in both directions helps either population maintain shared systems.
Research and sources
Cooperation and network separation
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/functional_integration_network_summary_clean.csv
Combining different strengths
Different minds and bodies may bring different strengths in thinking, physical work, timescale and experience. A legal distinction based on an actual difference is allowed only when it directly serves a legitimate purpose and is necessary and proportionate. Combining strengths must never create a species-based role caste, decide someone’s occupation in advance or make one kind of person worth more than another.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- The ability to combine different strengths and accomplish more is a reason to enable useful cooperation.
Research and sources
Cooperation and network separation
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/functional_integration_network_summary_clean.csv
Concentration of hazardous-service burdens
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/least_reversible_harm_burden_concentration.csv
Keeping essential systems running
A power grid, hospital network or supply chain shouldn't stop working just because one population can't work. Where it's physically and technically possible, qualified people from either population should have the records, usable controls, tools, access, training and practical knowledge to keep essential systems going for a meaningful period. That doesn't require two separate civilizations or mean everyone has the same abilities.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Teaching practical knowledge in both directions helps either population maintain shared systems.
- Shared systems that qualified people from either population can operate are less dependent on one population remaining able to work.
Research and sources
Cooperation and network separation
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/functional_integration_network_summary_clean.csv
Common failures across backup systems
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/resilience_failure_domain_sensitivity.csv
Control over your own mind
Nobody should bypass your ability to judge for yourself by secretly changing your memories, identity or how you form preferences. Open persuasion remains lawful when you can understand it, reject it, disengage and reconsider. Changes to a population’s foundational mental architecture need constitutional control, representative review and the required protected agreement of synthetic representatives. Major changes need renewed authorization or equivalent continuing review of their combined effects over time. Independent scrutiny does not give reviewers a power to govern minds.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Authority over your own person includes protection of mental integrity and privacy.
- Restoration and forced rollback must respect rights over identity, memory and independent judgment.
- Ordinary executive power and emergency power must both respect rights over the mind.
Research and sources
Cumulative cognitive change and renewed authorization
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/03_Targeted_v0.9.2/cognitive_reauth_sensitivity_v092.csv
Cognitive-emergency forensic agreement
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/00_Early_Aggregate_Recovery_v0.8/cognitive_emergency_forensics.csv
Avoiding harm that cannot be undone
If some harm cannot be avoided, prefer the course that preserves what can be recovered and minimizes losses that cannot be repaired. Equal personhood, consent, lawful authority and due process still apply. Recoverability changes how severe and final an injury is, never the person’s worth. A person who is safer in a particular hazard may volunteer for that work. The sponsor must provide an appropriate repair and compensation framework: replacing a body does not erase lost experience, pain or other injury.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- What can actually be recovered helps guide rescue choices, within lawful authority and proportionate limits.
- Being more recoverable does not reduce a person’s worth or override their sovereignty.
Research and sources
Concentration of hazardous-service burdens
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/least_reversible_harm_burden_concentration.csv
Identity through recovery and copying
Recovery should maintain one authorized active continuation of each civic identity. Control of identity credentials, access to backup contents and authority to restore a person must remain separate; independent public guardians share recovery authority. Deliberately splitting a conscious person or making unauthorized conscious copies remains prohibited. If an unauthorized process nevertheless creates a conscious individual, that person must be protected and receive a separate legal future. They do not automatically inherit the original person’s identity, office, vote, property or other legal entitlements.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- One civic identity cannot multiply into votes, and aggregate entry rules stop illegal copying from buying political power.
- Restoration and forced rollback must respect rights over identity, memory and independent judgment.
Research and sources
Recovery guardian dependence
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/01_Overnight_v0.7_and_FullSuite_v0.9.1/new_suite/continuity_guardian_correlation_sensitivity.csv
Preventing population growth from becoming control
Lawful creation depends on both material resources and the capacity to develop and integrate new persons. People created illegally are innocent of their creation. Their safe entry into active life is gradual, spaced according to risk and additional to lawful creation; it cannot remove or delay lawful creation opportunities. Across all creators and cohorts combined, active synthetic voters whose own first creation was unlawful may be no more than 30% of the active synthetic electorate. The limit does not depend on proving coordination or formal links. Shared origins can justify assessing a demonstrated security risk, not collective guilt. Lawful descendants are not marked by ancestry.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- One civic identity cannot multiply into votes, and aggregate entry rules stop illegal copying from buying political power.
- Rules against manufactured political capture must preserve the created persons’ personhood and due process.
- Lawful shared institutions administer gradual, capped integration that is additional to lawful creation.
Research and sources
Aggregate illicit-origin electorate ceiling
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/03_Targeted_v0.9.2/rogue_cap_sensitivity_v092.csv
Staying strong through disruption
Three backups are not really three backups if the same failure can destroy them all. Essential systems need genuinely independent ways to keep operating, across places, suppliers, networks, technologies and both populations. Distributed capacity must support minimum survival as well as production, logistics, repair and recovery. Hidden dependencies and systems that only one population can operate must not become a single failure that disables civilization. Independent operation must be tested.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Shared systems that qualified people from either population can operate are less dependent on one population remaining able to work.
- Systems that can survive different failures preserve the ability to rescue affected people.
- Local capability and wider recovery networks distribute capacity across several levels of government.
Research and sources
Common failures across backup systems
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/resilience_failure_domain_sensitivity.csv
Recovery guardian dependence
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/01_Overnight_v0.7_and_FullSuite_v0.9.1/new_suite/continuity_guardian_correlation_sensitivity.csv
Helping the other population recover
A software attack might leave humans able to help synthetic persons. A different hazard might be survivable for synthetic rescuers but lethal to humans. People and institutions that are still able to help have a duty to do so, within their capacity and the law. They must protect the affected population and help restore its independent decisions and civic participation. Helping doesn't give them permission to rule that population or override its control of its own minds.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Systems that can survive different failures preserve the ability to rescue affected people.
- Rescue includes helping affected people regain independent agency and civic participation.
- What can actually be recovered helps guide rescue choices, within lawful authority and proportionate limits.
Research and sources
Common failures across backup systems
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/resilience_failure_domain_sensitivity.csv
Cognitive-emergency forensic agreement
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/00_Early_Aggregate_Recovery_v0.8/cognitive_emergency_forensics.csv
Returning people and institutions safely
Society should preserve knowledge, materials, infrastructure, production and developmental capacity across different places and technologies so an affected species can be restored. The methods can change as technology develops. Restoring a species does not mean recreating deceased individuals. New persons must develop their own identities: no mass-copying one synthetic identity, imposed personalities or cultural identities, compulsory collective minds, or forced organic reproduction.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Rescue includes helping affected people regain independent agency and civic participation.
- Maintaining restoration capacity and returning power in stages limit rule exercised on behalf of an incapacitated population.
- Restoring a species cannot mean imposing personality templates or a compulsory collective mind.
Research and sources
Return of institutions after catastrophe
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/05_Eternum_v1.1_Trusteeship_Return/trusteeship_return_robust_summary_v11.csv
Common failures across backup systems
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Expert_Spread/resilience_failure_domain_sensitivity.csv
Protecting an absent population’s rights
If one population cannot run its institutions, survivors may carry out necessary government, defense, rescue, recovery and restoration work on its behalf. They are trustees, not inheritors of the affected population’s sovereignty. Its rights and seats remain reserved; catastrophe cannot permanently transfer its constitutional, political, territorial, economic or civic standing to the survivors. Power returns in stages when a stable, sufficient body of restored, civically mature persons can independently run the institutions being returned. They do not have to rebuild the old population percentage or agree politically with the survivors.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- A stable, sufficient body of independently capable restored adults triggers the staged return of institutions.
- Maintaining restoration capacity and returning power in stages limit rule exercised on behalf of an incapacitated population.
- The affected population keeps its rights and seats; survivors administer them without inheriting them.
Research and sources
Return of institutions after catastrophe
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/05_Eternum_v1.1_Trusteeship_Return/trusteeship_return_robust_summary_v11.csv
Sharing power within and between worlds
Government should stay as local as practical. A self-sustaining world or similarly isolated society is normally self-governing in local affairs. Wider institutions should repeat the shared anti-domination design, with authority limited principally to Charter-level rights and issues that materially cross worlds. Founding a settlement creates no permanent colonial sovereignty, taxing claim or unilateral veto over its civic maturity. Communication delays strengthen local independence. Different worlds may diverge while remaining bound by permanent personhood and non-domination protections.
Constitutional basis
Connected ideas
- Shared anti-domination rules extend between worlds through corresponding institutions, without permanent colonial control.
- Local capability and wider recovery networks distribute capacity across several levels of government.
Research and sources
Historical interplanetary stress cases
Related internal experiment, not a live simulation of this walkthrough. Historical rules in this file do not supersede the current Charter.
Open model archive
Prior_Simulation_Archive/All_Models_and_Simulations/00_Early_Aggregate_Recovery_v0.8/interplanetary_stress_cases_v0.7.csv
