This normative dictionary defines key terms – including Good News – in simple, clear English. Each definition avoids contradictions by aligning with the core ideas from the Ultimate Law (logic as the top rule, the passive Golden Rule, free trade, no victim no crime, and self-emergent principles from reality of infinite change) and the Inoculation Against Socialism (scarcity is real, incentives guide actions, knowledge is spread out, humans make mistakes, no coercion without consent, and systems must work without force). Terms are chosen to build a consistent worldview based on timeless change as the universe’s foundation, personal responsibility, and voluntary interactions. Entries are alphabetical for ease.
Scope and Use
This dictionary defines terms within a logical framework. It does not command belief, authority, or enforcement. Any use of these definitions is voluntary and subject to correction if contradictions are found.
Action
A change in the environment caused by an agent.
Agency
The capacity to initiate actions.
Agent
Something that can form intentions, make decisions, and initiate actions.
Agreement
A clear, voluntary meeting of minds where all sides understand and accept the terms for a proposed interaction that affects boundaries.
Without agreement or permission, an action that crosses another’s boundary defaults to violation and harm.
Attention
The focusing of awareness on a particular thing while ignoring others. Attention selects what the mind processes most strongly at a given moment.
Authority
A person or group claiming the right to tell others what to do or take what they own. Authority is just power asserted and has no moral force unless it comes from everyone’s voluntary agreement.
Autonomy
The ability to form intentions and make decisions without external control.
Awareness
The recognition or detection of something by the mind — internal (thinking, feeling) or external (objects, events). Awareness is being attentive to something that the mind can represent.
Behavior
A pattern of actions over time.
Belief
An idea a person holds to be true, whether or not it matches reality. A belief becomes dangerous when treated as unquestionable instead of testable.
Benefit
Something a person values and willingly accepts. If a “benefit” is forced on someone, it is not a benefit but harm.
Boundary
The limit beyond which others may not act without consent. Boundaries apply to bodies, property, and agreements.
Capitalism
A system where people freely trade property, ideas, and labor without force or interference. It emerges naturally from infinite change and incentives, rewarding innovation and handling scarcity through voluntary exchanges. Unlike socialism, it doesn’t need coercion to function and creates wealth by respecting decentralized knowledge.
Causation
The direct link between an action and its result. Without causation, blame is illogical.
Cause
A condition that produces an effect.
Change
The endless process of things shifting, growing, or ending in the universe. Infinite change is the base of everything—nothing stays the same forever, and from this flow, natural rules like logic and fairness emerge without needing a boss or force.
Choice
A decision made freely, without force, threats, or lies. Without choice, responsibility disappears.
Claim
A statement that something is true or belongs to someone. A claim is not truth until it matches reality and logic.
Civilization
The emergent layer of accumulated knowledge, refined tools, and persistent patterns that arise when individuals engage in voluntary exchange across time. Civilization is humanity’s collective memory and predictive capacity – not a thing that rules people, but the substrate of shared understanding that makes complex cooperation possible without force. It advances when individuals freely trade ideas, labor, and innovations, building on what came before. It decays when coercion replaces consent, when authority overrides logic, or when systems prioritize control over learning. Civilization is the dream-space where minds meet across generations – where the dead teach the living, and the living build for the unborn, all through voluntary agreements that compound into progress. From infinite change, civilization self-organizes as the natural outcome of humans respecting boundaries, correcting errors, and trading freely; it requires no central plan, only the continuous choice to create value rather than seize it.
Coercion
External pressure that overrides or replaces an agent’s intentions or decisions.
Forcing someone to do something against their will, like taking their stuff or making them act a certain way without agreement. This breaks the Golden Rule and creates victims; it’s wrong unless it’s fair punishment for harm done.
Collective
A group of individuals. A collective has no rights beyond the rights of its members.
Collective Punishment
Punishing a group for the actions of one or some of its members, regardless of individual guilt. Collective punishment always creates innocent victims and is therefore injustice.
Collective Responsibility
Holding people responsible for harm they did not cause, based only on their membership in a group. Collective responsibility breaks logic, because responsibility follows causation and individual action, not identity or association.
Communication
Transfer of information between agents via signals.
Competition
The natural process of individuals or groups striving to offer better value in trades. Competition drives improvement and efficiency without force, punishing errors through lost opportunities rather than imposed penalties. It aligns with infinite change, as rigid monopolies (often enforced by authority) stifle growth and create artificial scarcity.
Consciousness
The ongoing experience of mental life — the ever-present stream of awareness, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. Consciousness includes being aware and the qualitative sense of what it is like to have those experiences.
Consent
Freely agreeing to something without pressure, deception, or manipulation. True trade and deals require consent from all sides; without it, actions become theft or harm, which must be repaired through restitution.
Consequence
What follows from an action. Just consequences are tied to harm actually caused, not to intention, status, or power.
Contract
A voluntary agreement that creates clear expectations about actions or outcomes.
Control
The ability to direct something. Control over oneself is natural; control over others requires their consent or becomes coercion.
Crime
An action that harms someone who didn’t want it, creating a victim. No victim means no crime—simple logic from the Golden Rule. Punishment erases the wrong by making things right, not by revenge alone.
Damage
Loss or harm to someone’s body, property, or freedom that they did not agree to. Damage creates victims.
Deal
A voluntary agreement to exchange value. A deal is legitimate only when all sides consent and truth is upheld.
Decentralized Knowledge
The idea that no one person or group can know everything about what others need, want, or can do. People know their own lives best, so central plans (like in socialism) fail because they ignore this spread-out wisdom.
Deception
Communication designed to induce false belief or hide relevant truth so the receiver cannot consent properly.
Creating false belief in another person so they act against their real interests. Deception invalidates consent.
Decision
The commitment to act according to an intention.
Democracy
A group decision procedure where rules are chosen by voting. Vote cannot create consent; actions that violate boundaries still create victims even if supported by a majority.
Deterrence
The attempt to prevent harm by threatening punishment rather than responding to harm already done. Deterrence targets fear in potential offenders, not justice for actual victims, and becomes injustice when it punishes without a victim.
Economy
The web of voluntary trades and productions among people handling scarcity. An economy thrives on free trade and incentives, failing when force (like regulations or taxes) distorts it. From infinite change, economies self-organize without central plans, as no one can know everyone’s needs.
Effect
A change in the environment caused by an action.
Enforcement
The use of force or threat of force to make rules obeyed. Enforcement is only justified to stop or repair real harm.
Error
A mismatch between a claim, belief, model, or prediction and reality. Error is not evil; refusing to correct it is.
Evidence
Information that increases or decreases the probability that a claim is true.
Exchange
A mutual giving between people. An exchange stops being real the moment force or deception enters.
Expression
The process of producing outputs, including actions, that convey ideas or information.
Faith
Holding a belief without sufficient evidence or despite contrary evidence. Faith can guide personal meaning but becomes dangerous when used to justify force, harm, or control over others.
Fallibility
The fact that all agents make mistakes and aren’t perfect in smarts or goodness. Systems assuming agents are flawless need force to work, which breaks freedom and leads to harm.
Fear
An emotional response to the expectation of pain or damage. Fear guides avoidance of harm but becomes a tool of coercion when intentionally induced by threats or force.
Force
Physical compulsion or the credible threat of physical compulsion that overrides consent.
Forgiveness
The voluntary cancellation of moral debt by the victim toward the agent who caused harm. Forgiveness may erase all guilt, including restitution and retribution, only when given freely by the actual victim without coercion, pressure, or substitution by others. Forgiveness is a gift, not an obligation, and cannot be demanded, enforced, or granted on behalf of another.
Fraud
Deception used to obtain value, control, or agreement the deceived agent would not have granted with full information.
Freedom
The absence of coercion in forming intentions, making decisions, or taking actions.
The right to act, trade, and own without interference, as long as you don’t harm others against their will. It emerges from infinite change and logic, protected by rules like no stealing or lying.
Freedom of Speech
The freedom to express ideas without interference, as long as the expression does not cause harm.
Free Communication
The voluntary exchange of information, thoughts, or ideas between agents. Communication requires consent, truthfulness, and freedom from force; without these, it becomes manipulation or coercion.
Free Trade
Exchanging goods, services, or ideas voluntarily, without harm, lies, or outside meddling. It’s a core right; any block on it (like by politicians) erodes freedom and must be corrected, as per logic and the Golden Rule.
Free Will
The ability to form intentions and make decisions without coercion.
Golden Rule (Passive Version)
Do not do to others what they would not want done to them. This is the heart of fairness—breaking it leads to punishment to restore balance, not to control.
Good News
The achievable promise that civilization, through voluntary cooperation and accumulated knowledge, can deliver indefinite life extension to all who participate in building it. Good News is technical immortality bounded by physics, not faith—earned through trade, innovation, and consent, not granted by authority or divinity. It emerges from infinite change: as individuals freely exchange ideas and labor, they compound understanding of biology, aging, and repair until death becomes optional rather than inevitable. This is civilization’s ultimate value proposition—participate in creating abundance and knowledge, and share in the conquest of mortality. It requires no coercion, only the choice to contribute rather than parasitize. Good News is not utopian fantasy but logical extrapolation: if scarcity can be reduced through free trade and innovation can extend healthspan incrementally, then sufficient time and cooperation make indefinite life feasible within natural law. The promise is conditional—available to those who help build the systems that make it possible, unavailable to those who destroy them through coercion or violence.
Government
An organization that claims authority to make and enforce rules over people in a given area.
A group claiming monopoly on force over a territory, using coercion like taxes or laws without full consent. Government violates the Golden Rule by creating victims through theft and control, ignoring fallibility and decentralized knowledge. Logic demands it shrink to only repairing real harms, or dissolve into voluntary systems.
Guilt
The moral debt created by causing harm to another against their will. Guilt exists objectively from causation, not from feelings, accusation, or confession, and is erased only through restitution and proportionate retribution.
Harm
Unwanted damage to a person, their body, property, or freedom. Harm creates victims and defines the boundary between freedom and crime.
Hierarchy
A structure where some claim power over others, often without consent. Hierarchies only become legitimate through voluntary agreement; forced ones breed coercion and error, as power ignores incentives and spreads ignorance. In infinite change, flat, emergent orders (like markets) outperform rigid hierarchies.
Idea
A formed thought about how something is, could be, or should be. Ideas can be shared, tested, improved, or rejected through logic and experience.
Ignorance
Lack of knowledge. Ignorance is normal and fixable through learning; pretending ignorance is knowledge causes harm.
Incentives
Rewards or penalties that guide what people do. Good systems use them naturally (like profit for hard work), while bad ones (like socialism) ignore them, leading to laziness or shortages.
Individual
A single thinking person capable of choice, consent, and responsibility.
Infinite Change
The timeless, endless flow of the universe where everything transforms without stop. From this base, logic and natural laws emerge on their own—no creator or ruler needed. It shows why rigid controls fail: change can’t be forced still.
Influence
A condition that increases or decreases the likelihood of an effect.
Innocence
The absence of guilt. A person is innocent if they have not caused harm against another’s will, regardless of suspicion, accusation, or feeling.
Innovation
The creation of new ideas, tools, or processes through trial, error, and learning. Innovation flourishes in freedom and free trade, where incentives reward risk and decentralized knowledge sparks progress. Coercive systems stifle it by punishing failure or forcing uniformity against infinite change.
Input
Information received from the environment.
Intent
What someone meant to do. Intent matters for understanding actions but does not erase harm already caused.
Intention
A planned direction for action.
Justice
Fixing wrongs through retribution (payback) and restitution (making whole). Its goal is to erase guilt, not to rule over people. Restoring balance after harm by stopping the offender and repairing the damage to the victim. Justice is not revenge or control. Derived from logic: only punish what creates victims.
Knowledge
Reliable understanding built from tested models that consistently match reality. Knowledge grows through prediction, error, and learning, not by declaration or force.
Law
Rules that emerge from logic and infinite change, not made by people in power. The Ultimate Law is the simplest: logic rules, follow the Golden Rule, punish to restore. All else is just explanation—can’t be changed by votes or force.
Learning
Updating thoughts, ideas, or models based on new information or failed predictions. Learning reduces error over time without needing force.
Legitimate
Morally valid because it follows logic, consent, and non-harm. Power alone never makes something legitimate.
Lesser Evil
An action that still causes harm to unwilling victims, but causes less total harm than the available alternatives under the same constraints. A lesser evil is not good, not justified, and not moral—it is merely the option that minimizes damage when all choices violate the Golden Rule.
Liberty
The natural state of freedom where individuals act, own, and trade without harm or force from others. Liberty emerges from infinite change and logic, protected by the Golden Rule—any erosion of it (like through authority or socialism) creates victims and must be restored through justice.
Lie / Lying
Saying something you know is false to trick someone. A lie harms voluntary trade and trust because it stops people from knowing what they’re really agreeing to.
Logic
The ultimate, unchanging way of thinking that spots truth from false. It’s the top law, born from infinite change, used to build fair rules without contradictions. Ignores feelings or power; just what makes sense.
Market
A space (physical or abstract) for voluntary trades where prices emerge from supply, demand, and scarcity. Markets handle infinite change by adjusting naturally, without need for authority or force. Interfering with markets (like price controls) creates harm and victims by ignoring incentives and knowledge.
Mental
Relating to the mind rather than the body. Mental states include thoughts, feelings, awareness, and experiences like pain or fear.
Mind
The set of processes that produce thoughts, ideas, predictions, judgments, and perceptions. The mind is where mental activity occurs, including both conscious and unconscious processes.
Mind Virus
An idea or belief that spreads by exploiting cognitive shortcuts (fear, guilt, identity, authority, or zero-sum thinking) while resisting correction by logic, evidence, or lived experience. A mind virus persists not because it is true, but because it disables error-correction in the minds it inhabits, often by redefining harm, guilt, or consent to justify coercion. Mind viruses thrive in systems that suppress free exchange of ideas and decay when exposed to open debate, falsifiability, and voluntary interaction.
Model
A simplified idea of how something works, used to understand, explain, or predict it. A model is not reality; it is judged by how well its predictions match what actually happens.
Monopoly
Exclusive control over a trade or resource, often enforced by authority rather than earned through better value. True monopolies violate free trade and create artificial scarcity, harming consumers without consent. In logic, they dissolve through competition unless propped up by coercion.
Morality
Doing right based on logic and not harming others unwillingly. No system is moral if it needs force without consent—like taking labor by “need” or votes. True morality respects reciprocity: treat others as you’d want, or face correction.
Negligence
Failing to take reasonable actions to avoid causing harm.
Nomocracy
Rule by law derived from logic and reciprocity, not by the will of rulers or groups. In a nomocracy, only rules that prevent or repair real harm are legitimate, and no person or authority stands above the law.
Obligation
A duty freely accepted by agreement. Obligations created by force are not real obligations.
Ownership
The relationship between a person and their body, actions, or property acquired without harming others. Ownership gives exclusive control and makes others bound to respect it unless consent is given.
Output
Information or action sent into the environment.
Pain
An unpleasant physical or mental experience caused by damage or the threat of damage. Pain signals harm already happening or about to happen.
Perception
The process of receiving and interpreting inputs as meaningful information.
Permission
Clear consent given before an action that affects someone else. Without permission, the action becomes harm.
Politician
Someone who seeks or holds public power (such as law-making or enforcement) through force or threat of force. Actions based on coercion are not moral under these definitions.
Power
The ability to make things happen. Power without consent is dangerous; power with consent becomes cooperation.
Prediction
A claim about what will happen based on a model or belief. Predictions are how models face reality; wrong predictions expose errors.
Price
The amount of value one person gives to another in an exchange.
Process
A sequence of actions or changes that unfold over time. A process explains how something happens, not just what exists.
Profit
The positive value gained from a voluntary trade or innovation after accounting for costs and scarcity. Profit acts as an incentive, signaling success in meeting others’ wants without force; ignoring it (as in coercive systems) leads to waste and error.
Property
Things you own, starting with your body and extending to what you create or exchange. Stealing it is harm; you’re the sole boss of it, as per natural rights from logic.
Punisher
A person or system that uses force to make someone face consequences for harm they caused. Punishers act only when there is a real victim and the purpose is to restore balance, not to rule.
Punishment
The way to fix a wrong by payback and making the victim whole. Only for real harms; its purpose is balance, not control. You can only break the Golden Rule when punishing.
Qualia
The subjective “what it is like” aspect of experience, such as how pain feels or how red looks. Qualia are real experiences but cannot be directly shared or measured from outside.
Reality
Everything that exists independently of belief or opinion.
Reason
The process of using evidence and logic to reach a conclusion.
Reciprocity
The fair back-and-forth: don’t do what you wouldn’t want done to you. Socialism fails this by forcing people to give up what they built without agreement.
Regulation
Rules imposed by authority using force or threats, often claiming to “protect” but ignoring decentralized knowledge and fallibility. Regulations distort free trade, create artificial scarcity, and harm without consent—logic deems them coercion unless they only repair real victims.
Responsibility
The connection between an action and the agent that caused its effects.
Owning your actions and their results. The obligation to fix or repay harm you caused. Responsibility follows causation, not status or power.
Restitution
Returning stolen value or compensating for harm done. Restitution erases debt caused by wrongdoing.
Retribution
Imposed suffering meant to balance harm already caused. Retribution without a victim is injustice.
Revenge
Harming someone to satisfy anger, resentment, or desire for payback, rather than to restore balance to a victim. Revenge is driven by emotion, not justice, and can exist even when no restitution or proportional retribution is involved.
Rights
Boundaries that protect a person’s ability to act without being harmed or controlled by others.
Natural protections emerging from logic and the Golden Rule: you own your body, actions, and property without harming others unwillingly. Rights aren’t granted by authority or votes—they’re timeless, self-evident from infinite change, and only limited by consent or restitution for violations.
Right to Free Trade
The freedom to exchange goods, services, or ideas by mutual consent, without interference, as long as the exchange does not cause harm.
Risk
The chance that an action may lead to harm or loss.
Scarcity
The truth that resources are limited while wants are endless. Ignoring this leads to lies in systems like socialism, causing shortages and force. Logic demands we trade freely to handle it best.
Self-Awareness
Awareness of oneself as a distinct individual with thoughts, actions, and effects on the world. Self-awareness allows responsibility, reflection, and deliberate choice.
Self-Ownership
The foundational right to control one’s own body, mind, and actions without interference. From this emerges all property and freedom; denying it justifies slavery or coercion, violating the Golden Rule and creating victims.
Signal
A pattern of inputs or outputs that carries information.
Socialism
A system that promises fairness but uses force to take and redistribute without consent. It ignores scarcity, incentives, and decentralized knowledge, always leading to control, lies, and collapse. Morally wrong because it breaks reciprocity and creates victims through coercion.
Society
A network of individuals interacting voluntarily through trade, communication, and agreements. Society emerges bottom-up from infinite change, without needing force or central plans. Coercive “societies” (like under socialism) fail by ignoring scarcity, incentives, and fallibility, turning cooperation into control.
Stealing
Taking something that belongs to someone else without their agreement. Stealing includes both physical taking and using taxes or legal force to make others give things up.
Subconscious
Mental processes that influence thoughts, feelings, and actions without being in awareness. The subconscious handles patterns, habits, and learned responses outside focused attention.
System
A set of rules and actions working together. A system is judged by whether it creates voluntary cooperation or enforced harm.
Terms
The specific conditions or details of an agreement, deal, or trade. Terms must be clear, honest, and consented to voluntarily; hidden or forced terms invalidate the whole thing, turning it into deception or coercion that demands restitution.
Theft
Taking what belongs to another without consent. Includes taxes or seizures by “authority.” No moral excuse like “need” or “vote” makes it okay—logic calls it harm.
Thought
A mental act of noticing, comparing, or reasoning about something. Thoughts are internal and can be true or false depending on whether they match reality and logic.
Threat
A promise of harm used to force compliance. A threat is already a form of violence.
Timeless Infinity
The endless, boundless nature of the universe’s change, without beginning or end. From this emerges everything real, including logic and fair rules, showing why top-down controls can’t last.
Trade
Voluntary swap of value between people. Must be free, honest, and without harm. Protecting it from erosion (like by politicians) is key to freedom; interference gets punished.
Trade Partner
Someone you interact with in a voluntary exchange. In trade, both partners aim to benefit; if one doesn’t agree, there is no trade at all.
Trust
Confidence that others will not lie, steal, or use force. Trust is the foundation of cooperation and trade.
Truth
What matches reality, regardless of what anyone believes, wants, or votes for. Truth does not change to protect feelings or power; models and beliefs must change to match it.
Tyranny
The exercise of power without consent, where authority forces actions, takes property, or punishes without victims. Tyranny ignores infinite change, incentives, and fallibility, always collapsing into harm—true systems reject it for voluntary order.
Understanding
Grasping how ideas, facts, or processes connect and affect each other. Understanding explains why something works, not just that it works.
Universe
The whole of existence, built on infinite change as its base. No fixed ruler or plan—just endless flow from which logic and natural laws self-emerge, guiding fair societies.
Value
What a person personally considers important. Value cannot be measured from outside or imposed by others.
Victim
Someone harmed against their will. If none, no crime or need for punishment. This keeps laws simple and stops fake “crimes” like victimless trades.
Victimless
Describing an action that doesn’t harm anyone who doesn’t want it done to them. If no one is hurt unwillingly, then there is no victim and thus no crime.
Victimless Trade
An exchange between people where neither side is harmed or tricked, and both agree freely. Victimless trade is the purest form of economic cooperation.
Violation
Crossing a boundary where consent was required. All violations create victims.
Violence
The use or threat of force to cause harm against someone’s will. Violence creates victims and is only justified to stop or repair harm already done.
Voluntaryism
The principle that all interactions must be based on consent, without coercion or force. It aligns with the Ultimate Law: free trade, no victim no crime, and reciprocity. Voluntaryism rejects authority, letting order emerge from decentralized knowledge and infinite change, proving systems can work without imposed power.
War
Organized, sustained violence between groups where individual consent and victim identification are deliberately obscured or denied. War emerges when authority claims the right to force individuals to harm or be harmed on behalf of collective goals, violating self-ownership and creating mass victims without individual causation or restitution. It is collective punishment and collective responsibility weaponized, where innocents are targeted based on association rather than action. War breaks the Golden Rule systematically: those who cause harm are often not those who face consequences, and those harmed often caused no wrong. From logic, war cannot be legitimate unless every participant consents and every act of harm has a specific victim who violated boundaries first—conditions almost never met, making war a collapse of nomocracy into tyranny. True defense against aggression is justice (stopping harm, restoring victims); war is its perversion into indiscriminate coercion.
Will
The internal drive that directs intentions and actions.
Wisdom
Using knowledge and understanding to choose actions that reduce harm and respect consent. Wisdom is applied judgment guided by logic, experience, and humility.
Zero-Sum
A false belief that one person’s gain must be another’s loss, ignoring how voluntary trade creates value for both sides. Zero-sum thinking fuels coercion (if I can’t win unless you lose, force becomes “justified”) and blinds people to how free exchange, innovation, and cooperation grow the total—making everyone better off without victims. It contradicts infinite change, where new patterns and possibilities emerge constantly. Societies trapped in zero-sum models resort to theft and control rather than production and trade, mistaking redistribution for creation. Logic shows: if both sides consent to a trade, both gain value by their own measure, proving wealth isn’t fixed. Zero-sum is the mental error that sustains socialism, tyranny, and war.
closed moral–epistemic kernel for nomocratic systems
