AIM Framework glossary
Relatedness Floor
Canonical definition
The Relatedness Floor is the lowest position on the Relatedness axis at which an Individual holds any other Individual of whom the Individual's Belief Register holds a reading. Relatedness and Salience are the two axes on which the Agent-Type Vector lies, and each runs from approach to avoidance: Relatedness from Collaborator-weight at the approach end to Rival-weight at the avoid end, Salience from Prey-weight at the approach end to Predator-weight at the avoid end. The scapegoat holds the incoherent position of avoidance on the Relatedness axis and approach on the Salience axis, which Ground-Resolution resolves as Dual-Role Confabulation. Where the Relatedness Floor stands above zero, no Individual is held at the avoid end of the Relatedness axis, approach on the Salience axis is not read as extraction, and the position the scapegoat occupies is not available toward anyone. Like the A-Floor, the Relatedness Floor is assessed per Individual, and a population's position with respect to the Relatedness Floor is read off the Individual the population holds lowest rather than off the mean. Unlike the A-Floor, the Relatedness Floor is a level of Belief, held only by Evidence: that another Individual's gain is the Individual's loss only where an Object can be named whose holding by the other forecloses the Individual's own; that every Individual's Well-Being bears on every other's through the field; and that every other Individual runs the same architecture under Source Opacity. Canonical reference: Appendix A, Section A.2.1.
Explanation
Everyone you know of sits somewhere on a scale that runs from counting their good as yours to counting their good as your loss. The bottom of that scale is where trouble starts. A crowd can turn on someone it holds at the bottom while still being drawn toward them, and the only way the mind can explain being drawn toward someone it holds in aversion is to decide that they are a threat. The Relatedness Floor is how low that bottom goes. Raising the floor does not mean loving everyone, which no one can do, and it does not mean pretending there are no rivals. It means that no one is held at the bottom. What raises the floor is knowing true things: that a stranger's gain costs you only where you can name something they would take from you, that everyone's wellbeing feeds the same social world you live in, and that every other person runs on the same machinery as you, wanting what they want for reasons they cannot see either. The floor has to be in place before a crisis, because this kind of belief changes slowly and fear changes fast.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct. Derived from Relatedness and Salience as the two axes of the Agent-Type Vector (Appendix A, Section A.2.1), the scapegoat's position on them (Chapter 4, Section 4.4.7), the Positional Object, the Relational Subcriticality Principle and the A-Floor.
Derivation
Also in the entry
Distinction from the A-Floor. The A-Floor is a level of provision, held by what institutions supply. The Relatedness Floor is a level of Belief, held by Evidence and not by supply. The A-Floor is a precondition of the Relatedness Floor: beneath the A-Floor the weight on exogenous evidence falls and copied negative Relatedness takes its place, and scarce Appetitive provision makes another Individual's gain a real loss with no Positional Object involved. Distinction from Relatedness. Relatedness is the position on the Relatedness axis at which an Individual holds one other Individual. The Relatedness Floor is the lowest of those positions across every Individual, so raising the Relatedness Floor raises the positions at the bottom of the axis and leaves the high end, where Love is held about one Individual and no other, untouched.