Canon notes are currently shown in English while translated canon versions are prepared.

# Agency

Definition

The capacity of an agent to influence reality through decisions, actions, participation, adaptation, or self-determination.

Agency is one of the primary expressions of value.

Value becomes meaningful when agents possess the capacity to act upon it.

Enhancement becomes self-defeating when it destroys the agency it was intended to expand.

Intelligence is valuable because it expands agency.

Optimization is valuable when it expands agency.

Participation is meaningful when it includes agency.

Civilizations increase in value when they increase the number of agents capable of meaningful participation.

Civilizations decrease in value when agency becomes increasingly concentrated regardless of gains in efficiency or intelligence.

Civilizations increase in value when they expand meaningful agency.