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

A person may experience ordinary choice without seeing the interventions shaping its consequences. The political problem is whether an unobservable protector can ever be held to account.

People delegate difficult administrative work while retaining usable ways to change the mandate and run alternatives. Deliberation, review and maintaining those alternatives consume resources.

Practical authority

Concealed AI intervention; a feeling of control is not practical governing authority.

Human public institutions retain practical final authority.

Benefits and costs

Protection and happiness within the scenario’s premise. People cannot knowingly authorize or contest the concealed arrangement.

Delegation with effective public contestability. Oversight and alternative capacity slow decisions and require effort.

Practical human governing authorityExplicit difference

Absent

Humans do not retain practical final authority

Project editorial inference. The linked Protective God premise gives humans a feeling of control beneath superior hidden intervention; the project distinguishes that from final authority.

Present

Humans retain practical final authority

Additional project hypothetical. The authored mandate explicitly retains practical human final authority.

Revisable governing mandatesExplicit difference

Absent

Governing mandates cannot be effectively revised

Project editorial inference. People cannot knowingly replace a governing intervention whose existence is concealed from them.

Present

People can effectively revise governing mandates

Additional project hypothetical. The authored mandate can genuinely be revised, beyond a paper right.

A practical right to leave

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people have a usable right to leave.

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people have a usable right to leave.

Several self-governing communities

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether several communities govern themselves.

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether several communities govern themselves.

A guaranteed material floorDifferent or incomplete terms

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether everyone receives a guaranteed material floor.

Variant-dependent

Depends on the variant; no single answer

Unresolved. Provision can vary with the settlement; a universal material floor is not guaranteed.

Private ownership of productive resourcesDifferent or incomplete terms

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether private ownership organizes productive resources.

Variant-dependent

Depends on the variant; no single answer

Unresolved. The economic settlement may use private or common productive ownership.

Continuing biological humanity

Present

Biological humanity continues

Linked source premise. The linked premise retains humans whose happiness the protector seeks.

Present

Biological humanity continues

Additional project hypothetical. The authored society retains humans as citizens and decision-makers.

Others’ choice to transform themselves

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether feasible substantial transformation is legally permitted.

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether feasible substantial transformation is legally permitted.

Standing for artificial persons

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether artificial persons have institutional standing.

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether artificial persons have institutional standing.

Enforced limits on selected capabilitiesDifferent or incomplete terms

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether institutions enforce a ceiling on selected capabilities.

Variant-dependent

Depends on the variant; no single answer

Unresolved. Capability restrictions depend on the governing settlement; no uniform ceiling or absence of a ceiling is guaranteed.

Visible exercise of governing powerExplicit difference

Absent

Governing intervention is concealed

Linked source premise. Concealment of the protector is explicit in the linked premise.

Present

People know who exercises governing power

Additional project hypothetical. The authored administrative mandate is public.

Practical independence from a technical providerDifferent or incomplete terms

Unspecified

The scenario leaves this condition unspecified

Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether communities can operate without an indispensable technical provider.

Present

Communities can operate without one indispensable provider

Additional project hypothetical. The authored society can maintain and operate practical alternatives to its AI administration.

Open questions

The intervention boundary, exit, property and digital status.

Exit rights, distribution and the status of artificial administrators.

These are authored descriptors. An unresolved feature is not evidence of a guarantee, a conflict or equivalence. Consult Protector God sources or Constitutional Delegation sources.