What breaksOpaque Decision · Provenance Loss · Context loss · Legitimacy Gap
SCN-025Decisions lose their why
Make the Unpopular Decision Reconstructible.
A difficult decision may remain controversial; it should not become impossible to understand.
ScaleNational
UrgencyHigh
Coordination gapMedium
StakesTrust · Rights · Money
Opaque DecisionProvenance LossContext lossLegitimacy Gap
What Koali changes
← Back to the full MosaicKoali publishes a decision record that links options, criteria, evidence, dissent, authority, final choice and implementation consequences. Public summaries remain connected to source material.
Who holds part of the picture
citizens • experts • decision-makers
Koali response
Koali publishes a decision record that links options, criteria, evidence, dissent, authority, final choice and implementation consequences. Public summaries remain connected to source material.
Real-world parallels
- Space Shuttle Columbia accident — Investigation Board report
- CASA/SAAQclic — Auditor General of Québec
What success looks like
The relevant state remains visible across handoffs and time. • Responsibilities, unresolved questions and escalation paths are explicit.
Documented parallels show that the failure mechanism is real; they do not claim Koali would have changed a specific outcome.
Make the Unpopular Decision Reconstructible.
A difficult decision may remain controversial; it should not become impossible to understand.
The problem
Institutions sometimes must choose between bad options. A later controversy can reduce the history to a slogan: who voted for what. The evidence available at the time, legal constraints, rejected alternatives and dissent disappear.
What breaks
- Opaque Decision
- Provenance Loss
- Context Loss
- Legitimacy Gap
Who holds part of the picture
- citizens
- experts
- decision-makers
- affected groups
With Koali
Koali publishes a decision record that links options, criteria, evidence, dissent, authority, final choice and implementation consequences. Public summaries remain connected to source material.
Human authority
Authorized humans and institutions retain their existing legal, professional and democratic authority. Koali structures knowledge, coordination and traceability; it does not take sovereign or professional decisions.
What success looks like
- The relevant state remains visible across handoffs and time.
- Responsibilities, unresolved questions and escalation paths are explicit.
- The outcome produces reusable memory for the next comparable case.
Real-world parallels
Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report
The CAIB found ineffective communication, three independent imagery requests, reliance on informal channels and inadequate discussion of assumptions and uncertainty.
Relation to scenario: STRONG ANALOGUE
Source: https://history2.nasa.gov/columbia/reports/CAIBreportv1.pdf
Vérificateur général du Québec — CASA/SAAQclic
The Auditor General reported major cost growth not clearly communicated to decision-makers and weaknesses around project readiness and testing.
Relation to scenario: STRONG ANALOGUE
Source: https://www.vgq.qc.ca/Fichiers/Publications/rapport-annuel/212/25.02_VGQ_Fiche_descriptive%20-%20CASA-SAAQclic.pdf
Boundary
The documented cases illustrate analogous failure mechanisms. They do not establish that Koali would have prevented the event or guaranteed a different outcome.
Koali loop
signals → shared meaning → evidence → choice → responsibility → action → verification → memory → better knowledge