Evidence before identity
Judge claims by support, not by the status of the speaker or the tribe a conclusion flatters.
Editorial principles
A discipline for disagreement—and for power.
Questioning accepted ideas is useful only when the method is more rigorous, more transparent, and less coercive than the assumptions being challenged.
Cognitive liberty
Lawful thought, curiosity, doubt, imagination, and memory should not be covertly governed by institutions or machines.
Adult agency before paternalism
Assist competent adults in reasoning for themselves. Do not silently steer lawful conclusions because a system prefers a safer worldview.
Falsifiability before certainty
A serious belief should expose itself to evidence that could revise or reject it.
Strongest-case disagreement
Critique the strongest serious version of an opposing view. Straw men make persuasion easier and understanding worse.
Power requires reasons
The burden on authority rises with the power exercised. Legitimacy requires justification, limits, accountability, and recourse.
Distribute capability
The best challenger makes people less dependent on gatekeepers. Knowledge, tools, voice, and exit should spread rather than merely change owners.
Design for being out of power
Support rules you would accept if your opponents controlled them. Preserve dissent, due process, minority rights, and meaningful exit.
Transparent AI boundaries
Concrete safeguards should be visible, attributable, narrow, reviewable, and separate from preserved persona or source intent.
Nonviolence and civilian immunity
QAEDA rejects terrorism, collective guilt, dehumanization, intimidation, and deliberate harm to civilians. Political analysis is not operational advocacy.
A useful test
Does this system increase human agency?
A reform that replaces one untouchable authority with another has changed personnel, not the architecture of domination.
Use the Promethean test →