Consent
A capacity-bearing, informed, specific, legible, bounded, and revisable authorization for a crossing, action, or relation.
Not equivalent to
- silence
- mere compliance
- a one-time checkbox
- authorization obtained through structural coercion
Stable semantic surface
Definitions with boundaries attached.
Machines often fail by merging nearby meanings. Consentocracy publishes both definitions and explicit non-equivalences so compression does not silently become authority.
Definitions
Say what the word permits—and what it does not.
Positive meaning alone is insufficient when neighboring concepts carry radically different power consequences.
Witness
A consented function that preserves the relevant meaning, authority, event, and consequence of a relation at an authorized resolution and duration.
Not equivalent to
- surveillance
- public exposure
- unbounded retention
- observer-side ownership of the relation
Boundary
The legible edge of a person, relation, system, role, or context that defines what is inside, outside, permitted to cross, and governed at the interface.
Not equivalent to
- isolation
- secrecy without accountability
- an immutable wall
Power
Capacity to affect another being, relation, resource, environment, or future state, including the capacity to set defaults, define comparators, withhold access, or make effects difficult to reverse.
Not equivalent to
- formal office alone
- force alone
- intent alone
Consent lineage
The traceable chain of context, capacity, authority, scope, witness permission, action, consequence, revision, and current validity that makes an exercise of power answerable.
Not equivalent to
- a signature without context
- an immutable record of expired permission
- provenance without revocation
Proportional identity
Identity disclosure limited to the minimum attributes and assurance needed for the specific context, risk, authority, and consequence.
Not equivalent to
- total anonymity
- total identification
- identity exposure by default
Shared context
The mutually legible frame containing purpose, roles, authority, duration, risks, data uses, relevant dependencies, and downstream effects of a relation.
Not equivalent to
- identical beliefs
- perfect knowledge
- unbounded disclosure
Conformance claim
A scoped, evidence-bearing declaration describing how an implementation satisfies, partially satisfies, or departs from named Consentocracy requirements.
Not equivalent to
- certification
- endorsement
- proof of legitimacy by citation alone
Failure modes
Where consent disappears while the paperwork remains.
Failure identifiers make recurring structural patterns citable across organizations, technologies, markets, and governance systems.
Human fuel extraction
A system preserves itself by treating human depletion, precarity, attention, data, or disposability as an unpriced input.
P5P9C5
Paper consent
Assent is recorded without sufficient capacity, legibility, specificity, reversibility, or power balance.
P2P3P4P8P9C6
Witness capture
A consented witness function expands into observer-side storage, scoring, disclosure, or control.
P1P3P9C13
Reward enclosure
Accumulated reward becomes unilateral control over shared resources, access, rules, or participation.
P5P7P9P10C5C11
Repairless lock-in
A relation permits entry or action but lacks usable refusal, appeal, correction, revocation, repair, or exit.
P8P9C6
Consent lineage loss
Action becomes detached from the authority, scope, context, duration, or revision state that originally permitted it.
P3P4P5P6
Boundary-accounting mismatch
Benefits remain inside a controlled boundary while cost, risk, labor, or harm crosses to those excluded from the ledger.
P1P5P9C5
Sacralized operational metric
An operational metric such as growth, engagement, profit, or compliance becomes untouchable and overrides constitutional commitments.
P7P9P10C10C11
Coercive transparency
Visibility exceeds scoped consent, collapses protected interiority, and shifts power toward whoever can observe, retain, score, or act.
P1P2P3P4P9C13
Compatibility capture
A system claims interoperability while requiring other systems to surrender their own boundaries, authority, or return paths.
P1P9P10C10
Repair paths
A living system can return.
Repair is not merely interpersonal apology. It can require pausing action, revoking dependent authority, reconciling ledgers, changing comparators, or redesigning structure.
Pause and notify
Suspend affected action where safe, preserve evidence at consented resolution, and notify affected and repair-capable parties.
P4P6P8P9
Clarify and renegotiate
Restore shared context, clarify boundaries and authority, and seek a new agreement without presuming continuation.
P1P3P4P6P8
Reconcile value and burden
Make hidden flows and externalities legible, correct the ledger, and return value or responsibility across the affected boundary.
P5P9C2C5
Revoke dependent authority
Invalidate permissions and downstream actions whose legitimacy depended on expired, withdrawn, breached, or out-of-scope consent.
P3P6P8C12
Appeal and independent review
Provide a power-proportionate route to contest interpretation, evidence, authority, or remedy before an appropriately independent witness or forum.
P4P8P9P10
Change the comparator or structure
Where repeated harm follows incentives or institutional design, revise the governing metric, boundary, authority, or ownership structure rather than blaming only individuals.
P6P7P9P10C8C10C11