Third-Person Status Diagnostic

Canonical definition

The Two-Question Diagnostic applied third-person: the identical two-question structure (A-test, then I-test via the Audience-Removal logic), with observable behavioural markers substituted for the inaccessible introspection of the observed party. It is more robust to Source Opacity than the first-person form, because it never relied on the target's introspective report (which Source Opacity renders Confabulatory) but on behavioural evidence, exactly the basis the Knowledge Patch privileges. Stage 1, Observable A-test: does the person display markers of bodily deficit (irritability, fatigue, apparent illness, pain, signs of hunger)? If yes, deficit-repair cannot be excluded and the M-inference is unwarranted; if no, A is not leading. Stage 2, Observable I-test via the privacy structure: genuine I-pursuit persists in private, but observation entails non-privacy, so the audience-dependent channel is necessarily live; the discriminator is therefore directional, does the content track an internal craft-logic (I-leading), or does it track relative position (M-leading): calculating one's own standing, discussing others relative to oneself, tracking reaction rather than craft? Weights, not switch: a public, non-deficit pursuit is not pure M (sharing and connection are genuine I and persist in attenuated form) so the diagnostic estimates which source leads, never binary-classifies. Type/token and the launder tell: the silence attaches to the token, not the type. The method may be taught and discussed openly, because teaching names no target and seeks no positional advantage; what is not voiced is the applied verdict on a specific individual, because externalising it makes an audience-dependent bid that trips the very signature the diagnostic detects. In practice, voiced status-lowering rarely appears as open positional talk; it is laundered through orthogonal, ostensibly descriptive vocabulary ("irrational," "unwell," "stupid," "they've lost their mind") which presents as neutral judgement while functioning to lower another's rank for the speaker's or coalition's benefit. Recognising this launder is part of the Stage-2 tell; refusing it is part of valid application.