Self-Evident Truths 2.0

The original Declaration proclaimed truths "self-evident" - principles so fundamental they required no proof. Two and a half centuries of experience have refined our understanding. We now hold these truths to be self-evident:

On Human Nature

1. All persons are created with equal moral worth

Not equal in talents or circumstances, but equal in their claim to dignity, opportunity, and consideration. The accident of birth - location, parentage, genetics - does not diminish inherent worth.

2. Humans are capable of both profound cooperation and profound extraction

We are neither angels nor devils. We build cathedrals and concentration camps. The question is not whether humans are "good" or "bad" but whether our institutions channel human nature toward generation or extraction.

3. Concentrated power trends toward extraction

This is not a moral failing but a structural inevitability. Those with unchecked power will, over time, use it to benefit themselves at the expense of others. Not because they are evil, but because the incentives point that way. Lord Acton was right: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

On Systems

4. Generative systems create more than they consume

A healthy economy, society, or institution produces surplus - knowledge, wealth, capability, trust - that compounds over time. This surplus (ΔK in GRIN terms) is the foundation of all progress.

5. Extractive systems consume their hosts

When a system takes more than it creates, it is borrowing from the future. This debt eventually comes due. Extraction can masquerade as efficiency, optimization, or even progress - but the mathematics are inexorable. You cannot extract indefinitely from a finite base.

6. Resilience requires redundancy

Single points of failure are vulnerabilities. Distributed systems survive shocks that destroy centralized ones. This applies to power structures, information systems, economic networks, and ecological systems alike.

7. Adaptation requires openness to novelty

Systems that cannot change cannot survive changing conditions. Ideological rigidity, institutional sclerosis, and resistance to new information are forms of suicide on the installment plan.

On Time

8. The future has moral standing

Those not yet born cannot vote, lobby, or protest. Yet they will inherit the world we leave them. A system that discounts the future - that extracts from descendants to benefit the present - is not merely short-sighted but unjust.

9. Intergenerational theft is theft

Consuming ecological capital, accumulating debt for others to pay, degrading institutions that took centuries to build - these are not "trade-offs" or "difficult choices." They are theft from those who cannot defend themselves.

10. The lightcone of all beings deserves consideration

Our decisions ripple forward through time, affecting beings we will never meet. A philosophy that ignores these effects is not merely incomplete - it is a license for extraction.

On Governance

11. Legitimacy flows from the consent of the governed

This principle endures. No authority is legitimate that does not ultimately derive from those subject to it. But consent must be meaningful - informed, uncoerced, and revisable.

12. The purpose of government is to maximize generativity while constraining extraction

Government exists to solve coordination problems that markets and voluntary association cannot. Its purpose is not to enrich those who hold power but to create conditions under which all can flourish.

13. Rights without responsibilities are extraction

Every right implies a corresponding duty. Those who claim benefits without bearing costs are extracting from others. A sustainable system balances what individuals receive with what they contribute.

14. The system must be able to update itself

Any constitution that cannot be amended is a time bomb. Any institution that cannot adapt will be replaced - peacefully through reform or violently through revolution. The capacity for self-correction is not weakness but wisdom.