Concept
Authority
Authority is operational coordination power—the recognized right to steer, allocate, or constrain action—always in tension with legitimacy and with whether consequence stays visible enough under scale for coordination to remain contestable rather than brittle.
Incoming relationships
Outgoing relationships
Neighboring terrain
concept
Legitimacy
Legitimacy is justified recognition of authority—whether power reads as earned and contestable enough that coordination holds under stress instead of collapsing into cynicism, performative compliance, or hidden veto by drift.
concept
Circulation
Circulation is transmission and reproduction through systems: how norms, habits, and design choices move, repeat, and amplify—what spreads without being re-owned locally, and what keeps learning alive as coordination widens.
book
Coupling