AIM Framework glossary
Bounded M
Canonical definition
Bounded M is a visibility and signalling regime in which social observation, metrics, and Status cues are deliberately constrained so that Mimetic Desire can still coordinate, inform, and support Positive Mimesis, but cannot dominate the motivational mix or determine access to Appetitive sufficiency or Intrinsic domains.
Explanation
The target is not the removal of M, which the architecture does not permit and which would cost the coordination and learning that M supplies. The target is a ceiling. Status competition continues, and continues to carry real information about who is worth learning from; what it stops doing is deciding whether you can eat, or whether the work you would find absorbing is open to you. The test of whether M is bounded in a given domain is therefore not how much comparison occurs there, but whether losing the comparison costs you an Appetitive necessity or an Intrinsic opportunity.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct. Design goal of the Four Dimensions of M-Management.