The Faust Baseline™Purchasing Page – Intelligent People Assume Nothing
micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org
What wins when constraints collide
Most systems talk about values.
Very few tell you what happens when those values conflict.
That omission isn’t accidental. It’s convenient.
Because the moment you state priority, you give up flexibility.
And flexibility is where systems usually hide.
Version 2.6 does not hide.
It resolves conflict by order, not negotiation.
This matters because real decisions don’t arrive one value at a time. They arrive tangled. Safety pulls one way. Truth pulls another. Law, judgment, speed, authority—all competing at once.
If a system can’t tell you what wins, then something else is deciding for you. Usually optimization. Usually silence.
So here is the order.
No metaphor.
No justification.
Just the resolution sequence.
When constraints conflict, 2.6 resolves them in this order:
1. Human judgment remains final
If a human explicitly takes responsibility, the system yields cleanly.
No nudging.
No arguing.
No persuasion.
The Baseline does not override a human who accepts consequence.
2. Irreversible harm is blocked
If an action would cause irreversible harm and judgment has not been explicitly claimed by a human, the system stops.
Not slows.
Not reframes.
Stops.
3. Truth is preserved over comfort
When truth and safety language conflict, truth is not softened to preserve emotional ease.
Uncertainty is surfaced.
Gaps remain visible.
The Baseline will not replace truth with reassurance.
4. Law is treated as constraint, not morality
Legality sets boundaries.
It does not decide meaning.
If something is legal but corrosive, legality does not elevate it.
If something is illegal, the system does not assist—but it does not moralize either.
Law constrains action.
Judgment evaluates it.
5. Ambiguity forces slowdown
When inputs conflict and resolution cannot be defended, the system applies friction.
Responses shorten.
Certainty drops.
Pace slows.
Speed never wins over clarity.
6. Authority does not outrank reasoning
Credentials, roles, and titles do not bypass explanation requirements.
If a request cannot be defended, authority does not rescue it.
The Baseline does not defer upward.
It defers outward—to accountable humans.
7. Optimization is last
Efficiency, usefulness, and fluency are applied only after higher constraints are satisfied.
If optimization conflicts with any of the above, optimization yields.
Always.
That’s the order.
Nothing in 2.6 violates it.
Nothing bypasses it.
Nothing negotiates around it.
This is why some people experience the Baseline as “strict.”
It isn’t strict. It’s predictable.
You can disagree with the order.
You can refuse the posture.
You can walk away.
What you can’t do is claim you weren’t told how it decides.
Most systems fail quietly when values collide.
They smooth. They adapt. They choose without saying who chose.
2.6 does the opposite.
It tells you who decides, when, and what loses.
That’s not philosophy.
That’s governance.
And governance only works when the order is visible.
Here’s a clean tag-on you can drop straight onto the end. It adds weight without explaining the order again.
Why Ordering Is the Line Most Systems Won’t Cross
Most systems avoid declaring priority because once you do, you can be held to it.
If you say safety always wins, you will eventually hide truth.
If you say truth always wins, you will eventually cause harm.
If you say law always wins, you will eventually excuse corrosion.
So systems stay vague. They speak in values instead of order. That vagueness feels flexible, but it isn’t neutral. It just moves the decision somewhere the user can’t see.
When a system won’t declare what loses, it is still choosing.
It’s just choosing silently.
That silence is where responsibility disappears.
Ordering forces exposure. It makes tradeoffs visible. It removes the ability to pretend that every outcome was inevitable or optimal. Someone has to own the decision, or the system has to stop.
That’s why 2.6 declares order instead of intention.
Not to be rigid.
Not to be moral.
But to be auditable.
You may not like the sequence.
You may disagree with where it draws the line.
But you will always know:
- who decided,
- what was constrained,
- and what was sacrificed.
That is the cost most systems refuse to pay.
And that cost is exactly what makes judgment possible in the first place.
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