AIM Framework glossary
Levelling-Up Principle
Canonical definition
Canonical Definition. The architecturally sound response to Mimetic Premium extraction is not to withdraw regard from high-Status-PM Individuals (levelling down) but to extend genuine attention, engagement, and respect universally (levelling up). Because the Mimetic Premium is constituted by the differential between two parties' reciprocal PM-valuations, not by the absolute level of regard, raising the floor of treatment across a population shrinks the PM-differential without imposing A-I withdrawal costs on any party. Levelling down reduces the differential at the cost of degrading A-security and I-engagement across the population. Levelling up reduces the differential while preserving and strengthening A-I valuation. The behaviours currently experienced as "high-Status treatment" (sustained attention, genuine listening, crediting contributions on their merits) are A-I behaviours whose differential distribution has been contaminated by PM. Universal distribution eliminates the contamination, not the behaviours. Framework-Specific Principle.
Explanation
When you learn that deference and attention are the channels through which the Mimetic Premium is extracted, the instinctive response is to stop giving deference to people at the top. But the same behaviours that carry PM (listening, respect, engaging with someone's ideas) also carry genuine functional recognition and relational depth. You cannot surgically remove the status component without also removing the parts that help people feel safe, valued, and engaged. Treating people poorly to equalise the gap produces equality at the cost of making everyone worse off. The alternative is simpler: treat everyone the way we currently treat only high-Status people. Give the junior clerk the same quality of attention you give the CEO. Listen to the apprentice the way you listen to the senior partner. When everyone receives that treatment, no one is extracting a positional premium from the gap, because there is no gap. What felt like "high-Status treatment" turns out to have been ordinary human regard that was being rationed by the hierarchy. Distribute it universally and the hierarchy loses its extractive power without anyone being diminished.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Principle.