Cognitive Maturity Curves and the Cost of Reactive Decision-Making
Each reactive decision compounds. The cognitive maturity curve traces how decisions made under low Strategic Equilibrium ratchet up future costs — in time, attention, and recoverability. This paper introduces the curve and the points along it where intervention is still cheap.
The curve
A decision made today does not stay there. It propagates as a constraint into every future decision adjacent to it. The cognitive maturity curve plots when those constraints become structural — and when they can still be undone.
This paper is in active development.