Anti-threat and baseline integrity

Baseline rules

• No pay me or I will do X offers.
• No compensation for stopping newly escalated harmful behavior.
• Every proposal needs a no-trade baseline statement: what would you do absent this trade?
• Recent harmful behavior triggers a cooling-off period before compensation can be discussed.
• Coercive or suspicious baselines go to reviewer challenge before any matching or reliance.

Required baseline statement

Every proposal should answer: What would you do absent this trade? Reviewers should look for dated intentions, prior behavior, evidence of ordinary plans, and reasons to think the agreement changes behavior rather than merely records it.

Cooling-off period

If a participant recently started, escalated, or publicly threatened a harmful action, the proposal should not proceed as a compensated moral trade. Reviewers can require cooling off, independent evidence of prior intent, or rejection.

Reviewer challenge lane

Coercive baselines, suspicious timing, pressure on vulnerable people, or unusually large requested concessions should route to a challenge lane before broad previews, private introductions, or public reliance.

Third-party externality review

Bilateral gain is not enough. A proposal can be better for both parties while still creating bad incentives or harms for people and values outside the room.

• Who might object to this trade?
• Could this create bad incentives?
• Could this harm people or values not represented by the parties?
• Does this proposal need external reviewer input?

Rejected proposal examples