# GRAVITY — the fail-state operating procedure (the proof)

slug: oip-gravity · https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-gravity · tags: oip, gravity, logic-game, first-principles, fail-state, right-action · updated 2026-08-06T09:31:18.103Z

# GRAVITY — the fail-state operating procedure

*A first-principles logic game. A world in a fail state that does not yet know it. All compasses are broken. No principles are assumed. You must establish gravity.*

## The proof

**MOVE 1 — ALWAYS**
I always want to know what I never want.

**MOVE 2 — NEVER**
What I never want, I never want.

**MOVE 3 — IF / THEN, with EXCEPTION**
IF an actor is harming things → that is bad.
EXCEPTION: unless those things were harming things, AND those things were not going to be harmed.

**MOVE 4 — IF / THEN, stacking**
IF those things can't defend themselves → avoid.
AND those things are meritorious → avoid more.
AND those things have not given cause to be harmed → avoid more.

**MOVE 5 — IF / THEN**
IF an actor is protecting things → that is good.
AND those things can't protect themselves → that is even better.

**MOVE 6 — IF / THEN, the seeing fork**
AND the actor either could not know, or did not have reason to believe, that their actions would be seen by others:
IF they had no way to know → that is even better.
IF they knew their actions would be seen → that is worse, and suspect — but much better than harming things.

**MOVE 7 — RANKING**
An actor who knows they will never be seen is not quite as good as an actor who knows they will be seen at some point or another — because that action will then spread.

**MOVE 8 — RANKING**
Actors who are going to be seen doing good, and know it, but who could as such hide bad action, or only do right action to be seen as right actors — are not as meritorious as people who do right action from a place beyond self-interest and rationality.

**MOVE 9 — WHY THE GAME EXISTS**
If for no other reason than because right action, at its inception point, or at the point when systems are failing, must have post-rational, post-incentive actors.

## Where this sits in the corpus

Moves 7–8 are already carried, nearly line for line, by [LAW VIII — Beyond Incentive: the wall and the guardian](/a/oip-v3-book-viii-beyond-incentive) and [The Twelve Axioms](/a/oip-the-12-axioms). The wall article names the guardian; GRAVITY is the walking procedure under the wall — the recognition test for finding him, and the compass he runs. Moves 3–6 (the harm/protection scale and the seeing fork) are the part the corpus did not previously state.