Problems
A problem is a first-class record: one named thing wrong with society that the movement intends to fix. Not a topic, not a mood, not a hashtag — an entity with a frozen key, a severity, a set of root causes, a named social-contract violation, and a description of what "fixed" would look like.
Some of what is in the catalog today
- Files withheld from the public in matters of significant public interest — several distinct records
- Congress exempt from laws it applies to everyone else
- Congressional settlements paid from public funds and hidden
- No penalty for agency stonewalling
- Foreign access to classified systems
- The economy rigged against ordinary participants
- Assassination-records releases still incomplete decades past their statutory deadlines
Each is a file in the public record with its sources attached.
What makes a problem record different from a complaint
Root causes are broken out separately. A problem is not one grievance; it is a set of separable harms, each with its own id. This is what makes a fix bill auditable later — coverage is measured against numbered causes, so a bill that closes four of seven shows a visible gap rather than claiming a win.
It names the social-contract violation. Which structural commitment is breached, specifically.
It says what fixed looks like. A problem you cannot describe the resolution of is not yet a problem record.
It carries a status lifecycle. Problems move; the record shows where each one is.
Joins, not arrays
A problem's relationship to the laws that would fix it, and to the decisions that evidence it, is stored as its own row naming both ends — never as a list hanging off either side.
If each side kept its own list, the two would drift, and the day they disagreed there would be no way to tell which was lying. One row, named on both ends, cannot disagree with itself.
Pages in this area
- What is a problem record — the anatomy of one.
- How problems are ranked — severity, priority, and what citizens move.
- The current catalog — what is in it, and how to read an entry.
Where to go next
- The Social Contract — the area before this one.
- Laws — the area after this one.
- Open the app — do this for real, on your own seats.