Compare two futures
Who governs, who benefits, and which terms remain open?
Compare any two entries. Their differences are editorial descriptions, not distances on a common scale.
Life and institutions
Decisions about production and land use must account for living systems that do not vote or own property. Some projects attractive to present humans are limited on that basis.
Research continues within negotiated boundaries. Citizens can contest the restrictions, but inspections impose costs and some promising projects remain unavailable.
Practical authority
A revisable human mandate with institutions representing nonhuman interests.
Human institutions with genuinely revisable mandates.
Benefits and costs
Nonhuman life can constrain development rather than relying on voluntary restraint. Reduced human consumption or development and disputes over representation.
Risk constraints that can be publicly reconsidered. Inspections, foregone capabilities and incentives to defect.
Practical human governing authority
Humans retain practical final authority
Additional project hypothetical. The authored compact explicitly operates under a human mandate.
Humans retain practical final authority
Additional project hypothetical. Human institutions retain authority in this authored arrangement.
Revisable governing mandates
People can effectively revise governing mandates
Additional project hypothetical. The authored human mandate is explicitly revisable.
People can effectively revise governing mandates
Additional project hypothetical. Citizens can actually contest and revise the restrictions under the authored premise.
A practical right to leave
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people have a usable right to leave.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people have a usable right to leave.
Several self-governing communitiesDifferent or incomplete terms
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether several communities govern themselves.
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. The limits may operate across independent polities or within one common authority.
A guaranteed material floorDifferent or incomplete terms
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. Provision can vary with the settlement; a universal material floor is not guaranteed.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether everyone receives a guaranteed material floor.
Private ownership of productive resources
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. The economic settlement may use private or common productive ownership.
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. The economic settlement may use private or common productive ownership.
Continuing biological humanity
Biological humanity continues
Additional project hypothetical. Biological humanity continues alongside represented nonhuman life.
Biological humanity continues
Additional project hypothetical. Biological humanity continues in the authored world.
Others’ choice to transform themselvesDifferent or incomplete terms
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether feasible substantial transformation is legally permitted.
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. Transformation rules depend on the settlement; neither permission nor prohibition is guaranteed.
Standing for artificial persons
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether artificial persons have institutional standing.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether artificial persons have institutional standing.
Enforced limits on selected capabilities
Selected capabilities face enforced limits
Project editorial inference. The project treats enforceable ecological constraints on selected technological projects as capability limits. The ecological reason for those limits is not itself elicited by the questionnaire.
Selected capabilities face enforced limits
Additional project hypothetical. Selected dangerous capabilities face enforced institutional limits.
Visible exercise of governing power
People know who exercises governing power
Additional project hypothetical. The authored ecological mandate is public.
People know who exercises governing power
Additional project hypothetical. The authored restrictions and authority to impose them are public.
Practical independence from a technical provider
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. Infrastructure may offer practical alternatives or create an indispensable provider; the settlement does not fix this.
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. Infrastructure may offer practical alternatives or create an indispensable provider; the settlement does not fix this.
Open questions
Who speaks for ecosystems and resolves conflicts among present and future interests.
The boundary of restricted research, distribution and cross-border enforcement.
These are authored descriptors. An unresolved feature is not evidence of a guarantee, a conflict or equivalence. Consult Planetary Restoration Compact sources or Negotiated Ceiling sources.