AIM Framework glossary
Salience Substitution Principle
Canonical definition
The Salience Substitution Principle is the result that an Individual's emission of salience-attracting signals is governed on magnitude rather than sign, and that given emission the Individual emits on whichever of two channels that Individual's means will reach. The Observer's reading of any Object is signed, positive where the Object is worth approaching, negative where it is worth avoiding, and zero where it is neither. Emission spends the Individual's own effort and resources. What licenses spending them is the size of the reading, not its direction, because what is returned for being Salient does not vary with the sign of whatever made the Individual Salient (Valence-Neutral Status). An Individual therefore emits more as the reading grows in either direction and stays silent near zero, so the distribution of voluntarily emitted evaluations is concentrated at both extremes with a sparse middle. Given that an Individual emits, two channels are available and they do not cost the same. Being Salient through contribution is an ongoing intrinsically driven emission. It spends the Individual's own effort and resources: practice, craft, materials, tools, and the work those take, which are what Intrinsic Motivation runs on. Being Salient through transgression requires performing a single act that draws attention to the Individual. One such act draws maximum Salience and does not spend those resources. Valence neutrality ensures both deliver Mimetic Premium once integrated. An Individual therefore emits on whichever channel that Individual's means will reach, and the transgressive channel is within every Individual's means. The cases differ in means rather than in the law: a child or an Individual of near-zero standing cannot enter the contributive channel, and a public figure with ample means takes the transgressive channel regardless, because one transgressive act draws maximum Salience. A response that supplies attention to a transgressive act pays the Individual on that channel whatever the response intends. Punishment of a transgressive emission is a return on it. What changes the output is bringing the contributive channel within an Individual's means, which is the Levelling-Up Principle read from the emission side.
Explanation
People speak up, show off, or act out when something matters a lot to them, for or against, and stay quiet when they barely care. That is why public ratings pile up at the extremes. Once someone does speak, there are two ways to get noticed. One is to make something that takes practice, materials, tools and craft, the things a person actually works with when they care about the work. The other is to do one thing that forces people to look. The second costs far less of the person's own effort and resources and draws as much notice, or more, because being hated registers the same as being admired once the notice arrives. A child who cannot yet make anything, a person nobody sees, and a celebrity who can make anything they want all use the cheap route when they need to be seen. Punishing the cheap route still pays it, because the punishment is more notice. The way to change what people emit is to put the costly route within their reach.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Named Result.