Propose: Dignity in Commerce

On-behalf-of: Ben Stull <ben.stull>

rfcs/agencyantimanipulation.md

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+slug: agencyantimanipulation
+title: Agency & Anti-Manipulation
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- ethics
+---
+
+A Human's Agency is only real if the platform refrains from manipulating the choices it presents. This RFC draws the line between legitimate persuasion and manipulation — no dark patterns, no drip pricing, no manufactured urgency, no lock-in disguised as a reward — as a first-class commitment derived from RFC-0001's Agency. It is the most direct expression of building for humans rather than for extraction.
+

rfcs/commercial-relationship.md

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+---
+slug: commercial-relationship
+title: Commercial Relationship
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- commerce
+---
+
+Commerce in OHM begins not with a transaction but with a relationship between two Humans exchanging value, with the platform standing between them as a steward rather than a party that extracts. This RFC defines that relationship as the root commerce concept, so that Orders, Listings, and Payments are understood as moments within a human relationship rather than as isolated conversions. It serves Relationality and frames the platform's core duty as stewardship of the people on both sides of the exchange.
+

rfcs/dignitycommerce.md

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+---
+slug: dignitycommerce
+title: Dignity in Commerce
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- ethics
+---
+
+Buyers and merchants alike can be treated by a platform as means rather than as people — in collections, in disputes, in fees, in failure states. This RFC establishes the floor of Dignity below which no commerce mechanic may push any Human. It is the baseline that the other ethical concepts refine and that every mechanic must clear.
+

rfcs/epistemicauthority.md

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+---
+slug: epistemicauthority
+title: Epistemic Authority
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- governance
+---
+
+When the system and a Human disagree about reality — did the payment settle, was the item as described, who is right in a dispute — whose account counts? This RFC applies OHM's commitment to the Human as the authority on their own life to commerce, including the deliberate, argued exceptions where a human claim is demoted (for example, 'shown is not settled' demotes a buyer's claim to have paid). Those exceptions must be principled and narrow, not a general license to override the person.
+

rfcs/flourishing.md

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+---
+slug: flourishing
+title: Human Flourishing (The Optimization Target)
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- ethics
+---
+
+Every platform optimizes for something; when that target is left implicit it silently becomes engagement, GMV, or time-on-site, and the mechanics follow it into harm. This RFC makes the optimization target explicit and contestable: what does this platform actually steer toward for the Humans in it? It is the affirmative answer the other ethical concepts are in service of, and every ranking, default, and notification cadence should be traceable back to it.
+

rfcs/non-human-entities.md

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+---
+slug: non-human-entities
+title: Non-Human Entities in OHM
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- foundations
+---
+
+OHM is the Open *Human* Model, yet any real platform must also model things that are not humans — commerce nouns, instruments, systems. This RFC establishes how OHM may define a non-human entity at all: always in relation to the Human it serves, never as a free-standing abstraction. It is the conscious hinge on which the model broadens to hold commerce vocabulary without losing its human center, and it gives every later commerce concept a rule to be defined against.
+

rfcs/participants.md

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+---
+slug: participants
+title: 'Participants: Customer, Merchant, Operator'
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- commerce
+---
+
+Every commerce interaction involves Humans in distinct roles — the Customer, the Merchant, and the Operator who runs the platform — and the power between them is unequal. This RFC defines these roles as Humans-in-role (a legal entity such as an LLC is not a Human but is controlled by one), and names the power asymmetry plainly: the Operator holds deploy, data, and float power over everyone else. Naming that asymmetry is what lets later RFCs constrain it; the concept serves Agency and Dignity.
+

rfcs/privacydataminimization.md

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+---
+slug: privacydataminimization
+title: Privacy & Data Minimization
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- ethics
+---
+
+A Human has an interior life and the standing to keep most of it private; a platform that hoovers up data treats the person as a resource to be mined. This RFC commits the platform to knowing only what the exchange genuinely requires and no more — surveillance is not the business model. It serves Interiority and Dignity, and sets the default against which every data-collecting mechanic must justify itself.
+

rfcs/stored-value.md

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+---
+slug: stored-value
+title: Stored Value / Credit
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- payments
+---
+
+Stored Value is the root money concept the ecommerce platform's credit model hangs on: value a Human has loaded and now holds on the platform, deliberately constrained — not cashable, not transferable out, and explicitly not a stablecoin. The constraint is not incidental; it *is* the definition, and it must be defined in relation to the Human whose money it is. Removing cash-out closes the redemption-fraud vector and the money-transmission trigger — but it also removes an exit the Human would otherwise have, so the concept must hold that tension in the open rather than hide it behind 'store credit.'
+
+Establishing Stored Value as a first-class OHM entity lets every downstream mechanic — Load, Settlement, Discount, Breakage, Float — cite one contestable definition of 'what the balance is' instead of each re-deriving it. It serves Agency (the Human's own money, with its exit deliberately removed) and Temporality (a balance persists, and a person's relationship to it changes over time). It is also where OHM broadens to hold a commerce noun, defined in service of the Human rather than the ledger.
+

rfcs/wisespeechcommerce.md

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+---
+slug: wisespeechcommerce
+title: Wise Speech in Commerce
+state: super-draft
+id: null
+repo: null
+proposed_by: ben.stull@wiggleverse.org
+proposed_at: '2026-06-01'
+graduated_at: null
+graduated_by: null
+owners:
+- ben.stull
+arbiters: []
+tags:
+- ethics
+---
+
+Listings, prices, and reviews are speech the platform either keeps honest or lets deceive. This RFC applies OHM's foundational Wise Speech value to commerce: descriptions that are truthful, prices that do not mislead, and a platform that does not amplify deceptive speech for its own gain. It protects a Human's ability to choose on the basis of true information.
+