Orientation claims, not doctrine
The following theses do not constitute a doctrine or final position. They are orientation claims—statements that can guide inquiry, design, and experimentation, and that can be refined or challenged over time. They articulate what this movement holds to be provisionally true about human life under contemporary conditions.
As artificial intelligence increasingly performs cognitive and productive tasks, intelligence and output can no longer serve as the primary justification for human value. What distinguishes human life is not raw capability, but the capacity to:
Any future-oriented institution that does not explicitly protect and expand human agency risks rendering humans functionally redundant or psychologically diminished.
Humans require continuity:
When institutions fragment identity—through constant role-switching, short-term incentives, or incompatible value signals—they erode the conditions required for sustained agency and meaning. A good life is not defined by constant change or flexibility alone, but by the ability to integrate change into a coherent narrative of becoming.
Modern societies have increasingly treated meaning as an individual preference, a subjective belief, or an optional supplement to material life. Research consistently shows this to be inadequate.
Meaning functions as an orienting structure that:
When institutions abdicate responsibility for meaning entirely, the burden is shifted onto individuals in ways most cannot sustain, resulting in burnout, cynicism, or nihilism.
Institutions do not merely organize work or activity. They implicitly teach:
These lessons are often more powerful than explicit statements of values. A movement concerned with what is of value to life must therefore examine institutions not only for efficiency, but for the kinds of humans they produce over time.
The widespread dissatisfaction with work cannot be resolved through reskilling, engagement initiatives, or cultural slogans alone. At its core, the crisis reflects a loss of shared answers to:
Until these questions are re-legitimized and addressed, technical fixes will continue to fail.
The challenges described here cut across:
A viable response requires synthesis rather than specialization, and experimentation rather than abstract consensus.
Periods of civilizational transition are not resolved by final answers, but by institutions that:
The task is not to declare how humans should live, but to create the conditions under which better answers can emerge without collapsing human dignity or agency in the process.