Glossary

Stock — something accumulated and carried forward, such as food progress, gold, loyalty, experience, or atmospheric carbon.

Flow — a recurring addition to or subtraction from a stock.

Conversion — the institution or process that turns an input into another form of capability.

Threshold — a boundary at which gradual change produces a different rule or state.

Reinforcing feedback — an effect that increases the process that produced it.

Balancing feedback — an effect that resists growth or pushes a system back toward a range.

Bottleneck — the binding constraint in a chain; increasing nonbinding inputs does not solve it.

Path dependence — a condition in which prior choices alter the cost or availability of later choices.

Externality — a cost or benefit imposed outside the decision boundary used by the actor choosing.

Analytical rule — a bounded hypothesis derived from multiple mechanics, with explicit limits and evidence requirements.