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NV-18 — Collapse of Regenerative Memory: Knowledge Not Surviving People (Role Extinction → Capability Loss) (Almost-Code Canonical) v1.0

When knowledge doesn’t survive people, civilisation loses organs.

Summary (Canonical)

Civilisations collapse by losing regenerative memory: durable knowledge, rules, and skill-transfer pathways that outlive individuals.
When competence is person-bound, role continuity breaks. Roles go extinct. Pipelines thin.
This is a direct mechanism for Civλ (capability decay constant): irreversible loss of regenerative organs and pipelines.

1) The Root Error (Negative Void)

The absent function

Missing: durable memory and transfer protocols.

Minimum viable regeneration requires:

  • durable knowledge records
  • stable procedures (SOP)
  • training pipelines
  • replacement continuity
  • rules that outlive individuals

Without these, every departure deletes capability.

2) Core Mechanism (Role Extinction)

Let:

  • (M_{dur}) = durable memory stock (documents, standards, training, culture)
  • (R_{cont}) = role continuity probability
  • (E_{role}) = role extinction rate

If (M_{dur}\downarrow), then:
[
R_{cont}\downarrow \Rightarrow E_{role}\uparrow
]

Role extinction increases civilisation decay:
[
Civ\lambda \uparrow
]

This is irreversible unless regeneration pipelines are rebuilt.

3) Observable Signs

Z0 (student)

  • cannot reproduce skills without tutor present
  • “understands” only in one setting
  • no independent corridor execution

Z2 (school/company)

  • a few people “know everything”
  • turnover causes major regression
  • onboarding depends on mentorship, not system

Z4 (nation)

  • institutional knowledge loss
  • declining competence in critical services
  • repeated “reinventing the wheel”
  • inability to execute complex projects consistently

4) The Collapse Corridor (Regenerative Memory Loss)

  1. Knowledge remains informal (in heads)
  2. Turnover or disruption deletes memory
  3. Replacement cannot restore capability
  4. Errors increase; repair latency rises
  5. More people leave (burnout spiral)
  6. Roles go extinct
  7. Capability stock declines permanently
  8. Civλ rises → Mode II attrition drift
  9. Shock triggers Mode III cascade

5) Hidden Fragility (Why it looks fine early)

Early on:

  • hero nodes compensate
  • institutional reputation masks internal decay
  • failures are patched by overtime

But this increases brittleness and accelerates memory loss when heroes leave.

6) Failure Mode Trace (Required)

Knowledge person-bound → departures delete competence → replacement fails → role continuity breaks → role extinction increases → Civλ rises → regeneration falls below decay → Mode II drift → shock → Mode III cascade.

7) Safety Conditions (Prevent NV-18)

To prevent regenerative memory loss:

  1. Durable memory (write it down; version it; keep it searchable)
  2. Training pipelines (onboarding is a system, not mentorship luck)
  3. Transfer tests (new person must demonstrate competence under load)
  4. Role redundancy (no hero nodes; cross-training)
  5. Succession routing (who replaces whom; when; with what prerequisites)
  6. Directory + registry architecture (your CivOS directory logic)

This is the backbone of civilisation continuity.

Almost-Code Spec Block (Copyable)

NegativeVoid.NV18.RegenerativeMemoryLoss.RoleExtinction.v1.0

Negative Void:
  Knowledge does not survive people (person-bound competence)
  Missing: durable memory + training pipelines + transfer gates + redundancy + succession routing
Model:
  M_dur := durable memory stock
  R_cont := role continuity probability
  E_role := role extinction rate
  if M_dur decreases -> R_cont decreases -> E_role increases -> Civλ increases
Failure Mode Trace:
  person-bound knowledge -> departures delete competence -> replacement fails ->
  role continuity breaks -> role extinction -> Civλ rises ->
  Ġ < Ḋ -> Mode II drift -> shock -> Mode III cascade
Safety Conditions:
  durable memory + versioning + onboarding pipelines + transfer tests +
  redundancy + succession routing + directory/registry architecture

FAQ (Short)

Q1: Is documentation enough?
No. Documentation without training + transfer tests is dead text. You need a pipeline that turns memory into competence.

Q2: What’s the simplest detector?
“Bus factor” near 1: if one person leaving collapses the function, regenerative memory is missing.

Q3: Why is this civilisation-level?
Because repeated role extinctions accumulate into irreversible loss of organs/pipelines—exactly what Civλ measures.

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