Perspectives

People can agree about a simulation result and disagree about the future they want. A Perspective records what matters to someone, why it matters, and, where a concern can be measured, how it connects to something a simulation measures. It gives people a way to make their own point of view part of the analysis. A Perspective is a point of view, not evidence: reading a result through one never makes that result more certain than it was.

Democratizing simulation means opening up the purposes of analysis as well as access to the calculations. People need to be able to question whose priorities shaped a proposal, bring their own knowledge into it, and develop a different idea of what would count as an improvement.

The same street, different lives

A bridge closes for repairs. Traffic takes a detour through the side streets. A delivery driver, a wheelchair user and a shopkeeper can agree about where those cars will go and ask very different questions.

One result, three readings

The platform's worked example reads one imagined bridge closure through three Perspectives. Here is what each one brings into view.

For the delivery driver: “Can I still finish my deliveries?” Extra driving time matters. So does having somewhere to stop and unload. Getting the van to the right street is only half the job.

For the wheelchair user: “Can I still get to the pharmacy and the clinic?” A short trip is useful only if the crossings are usable. The number of cars passing a crossing tells part of the story; their speed, whether drivers stop and whether there is a curb in the way matter too.

For the shopkeeper: “Will people still be able to reach my door?” More cars passing the shop and more people walking past it are different things. Cars backed up outside can make the entrance harder to reach. The owner also wants the repairs finished before the holiday season.

All three agree that the closure sends traffic onto the side streets. The wheelchair user and the shopkeeper set different limits on how much traffic they consider acceptable. The result has not changed. What each person needs from it has.

In the example, more cars pass the crossing than the wheelchair user can accept. Under that Perspective, the closure fails a requirement that is not up for trade. The same count stays within the shopkeeper's limit. The result says nothing about the curbs on the way to the pharmacy, so the platform reports that it could not check them. It never treats an unchecked requirement as met.

The result

• The busiest street runs at 0.95 of its capacity.
• Each delivery round loses 14 minutes.
• 610 vehicles an hour pass the crossing.
• The route to the clinic takes 1,100 seconds.

The result, and the label the Epistemic Protocol Machine (EPM) gave it, are the same in every reading. A Perspective changes what is checked, never the result.

• Over the limit
• Within the limit
• Could not check
• Not part of this reading

Delivery driver Their Perspective: Deliveries on time

“Can I still finish my deliveries?”

Nothing rules it out The closure goes over two of the driver's limits. Both are preferences rather than requirements, so nothing in this Perspective rules the closure out.

• Over the limitMinutes added to each delivery roundEach round loses 14 minutes. Their limit is 10.
• Over the limitThe side streets taking the diverted tripsThe busiest street runs at 0.95 of its capacity. Their limit is 0.9.
• Could not checkSomewhere to stop outside each doorThe result does not measure places to stop and unload.
• Within the limitShared by all three: the closure sends traffic onto the side streetsHow full the busiest street is: 0.95 of its capacity, within the shared limit of 1.0.

Wheelchair user Their Perspective: Step-free crossings

“Can I still get to the pharmacy and the clinic?”

Fails a requirement More cars pass the crossing than the wheelchair user can accept, so the closure fails a requirement that is not up for trade. The curbs could not be checked, so that requirement is flagged for people to decide, never treated as met.

• Could not checkA route to the pharmacy with no stepsThe result says nothing about the curbs on the way, so this requirement is not counted as met.
• Over the limitTraffic on the one crossing they can use610 vehicles an hour pass the crossing. Their limit is 600, and it is not up for trade.A count of vehicles stands in for the danger of crossing. It leaves out their speed and how their drivers behave.
• Within the limitReaching the clinic within twenty minutesThe trip takes 1,100 seconds, a little over 18 minutes.
• Within the limitShared by all three: the closure sends traffic onto the side streetsHow full the busiest street is: 0.95 of its capacity, within the shared limit of 1.0.

Shopkeeper Their Perspective: Trade at the door

“Will people still be able to reach my door?”

Nothing rules it out The same count of vehicles stays within the shopkeeper's limit. Foot traffic past the shop could not be checked, but it is a preference, not a requirement, so nothing in this Perspective rules the closure out.

• Could not checkPeople walking past the shopThe result does not count people on foot.
• Within the limitVehicles lined up outside the shopThe same 610 vehicles an hour. Their limit is 900.A count of vehicles stands in for cars backed up outside. It leaves out whether they are stopped or moving.
• Not measuredThe closure ending before the holiday seasonNothing measures this. It stays on the record in the shopkeeper's own words.
• Within the limitShared by all three: the closure sends traffic onto the side streetsHow full the busiest street is: 0.95 of its capacity, within the shared limit of 1.0.

Someone is missing from all three: the people who live on those side streets. Perspectives make it possible to see whose concerns shaped a comparison, and whose are missing from it. Residents can add a point of view of their own, then explore an arrangement that addresses it.

Keep what matters in view

A Perspective keeps three things connected: what matters to someone and why, what the simulation can tell us about it, and what would count as an improvement. That connection lets people question the way their needs have been translated into numbers.

Someone might say, “I need to reach the clinic without exhausting myself.” Distance captures part of that concern. Steps, slopes, places to rest and the person's circumstances can matter too. Keeping their words beside the measure lets them point out what it misses and suggest a better way to compare.

A story can remain a story. A right can remain a requirement. What cannot be reduced to a number retains its place in the record and in the conversation. People can examine how their concerns were understood, as well as how the numbers were calculated.

Some concerns should never be measured at all, such as a sacred place beneath a street. A Perspective can mark a concern that way. The platform then never measures or scores it, and anyone who can read the Perspective can read the concern in its own words.

Your assistant drafts, you decide

Tell your assistant what matters to you and why. It can draft a Perspective for you, but it cannot adopt, sign or publish one. You review the draft in your browser. First come your concerns, in your own words. Then comes one row for each concern: the measure it uses, a stand-in and what that stand-in leaves out, or nothing at all. You accept, change or reject each row. Last comes what a reading could check and what it could not, with the reason. You choose who may see or copy the Perspective, then adopt it or reject it. You can place its reading side by side with another, save it or share it.

Before you publish a Perspective, you sign it with a key that stays in your browser. A reading you publish carries your signature too, so no one can publish a Perspective or a reading under your name. Once published, that version cannot be changed. Using your Perspective to rank the options in a decision takes a separate approval. That approval applies your priorities to those options. It does not make the evidence stronger.

Your assistant can read a result through any Perspective you can see, without asking you first. Such a reading changes nothing in the result it reads.

Find the disagreement that matters

“Your numbers are wrong” and “your numbers leave out what matters to me” call for different responses. One might need another observation or a revised simulation. The other might need a different way to describe success. Perspectives help people find the disagreement they actually need to address.

Comparing Perspectives reveals shared concerns as well as differences. People can develop a Perspective together, fork one to propose a change, or apply competing Perspectives to the same result. The history keeps the connection between the Perspectives visible, along with who authored them.

There is no official Perspective that every person must adopt. A person can use Whathappensify without creating one. When people choose to make their criteria explicit, others gain a clearer basis for understanding, questioning and responding to them.

Explore alternatives on your own terms

Reading a result through a different Perspective can change which consequences stand out and whether an option meets your needs. What happened in the simulation, and the evidence behind it, stay the same. If a concern calls for a consequence the model has not examined, it can lead to another question and another simulation.

That connection matters for democratic participation. A community can ask whether a proposal serves its priorities, identify what has been left out and develop an alternative. People can discuss a result without having to accept the values used to judge it.

Some priorities can be traded against others; some are non-negotiable. Perspectives make those choices explicit. If several measures are combined into one score, people can see what counted most and why. Measures in different units, such as minutes and money, are combined only at an exchange rate someone has stated on the record, along with who set it. Concerns that remain unresolved stay visible to the people deciding what to do.

Follow benefits and burdens through time

A plan can improve the total and still harm a particular group. A shorter average journey can hide a longer trip for someone who needs step-free access. A shade scheme can reduce total exposure while leaving the longest wait in the sun unchanged. Perspectives keep the population, period and measure behind each reading explicit.

You can read one retained experiment through several Perspectives without changing its results. Compare immediate effects, later consequences and uncertainty under the same criteria, then examine where people agree, where priorities differ and which concern calls for another observation or model.

Meaning that can travel without disappearing

With their authors' permission, Perspectives can be shared, compared, combined and adapted. A community need not start from a blank page each time it confronts a familiar problem. It can carry forward its concerns and what it has learned about bringing them into a comparison, while another community can change what does not fit its circumstances.

Perspectives draw inspiration from Nora Bateson's concept of warm data. Their role in Whathappensify is to keep context, relationships and human meaning connected to computational analysis.

Where Perspectives and EPM meet

The Epistemic Protocol Machine keeps conclusions connected to their evidence. Perspectives make the purposes and points of view shaping an evaluation explicit. The two stay separate: the EPM grades the evidence without looking at any Perspective, so no Perspective can make a result look stronger. People can share a basis for reasoning while retaining different priorities, then use the differences to develop and examine further possibilities.

The worked example shows how the platform puts these ideas into practice. Examine the detailed Perspective reference to inspect the rules and calculations, or follow Rosa's question to see how the capabilities fit into someone's work.