SIRDA

What evidence would count against creating the institution?

The inquiry needs a published route to a negative result. Failed designs and changed assumptions must remain visible in the record.

SIRDA editorial hypothesis

The inquiry can fix its legitimacy, measurement, capture, continuity, scope, rights, and effectiveness tests before evaluating a design. Failure then requires redesign or a recorded decision to abandon that design, while changes to the tests create a new protocol version. This hypothesis fails if editors can redefine success after seeing results or if the process cannot distinguish its proposal from less demanding alternatives.

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The argument

A stopping rule becomes useful when it identifies the scenario, the evidence, and the result that counts as failure. General commitments to openness need those details before the first trial. The protocol should also distinguish rejection of one design from a claim that every possible institution is impossible.

Seven failure conditions structure the inquiry: legitimacy, measurability, anti-capture, continuity, bounded authority, due process, and effectiveness. Each needs named tests, resource assumptions, and a review procedure. Evaluation includes existing and alternative arrangements under the same scenarios, so a new institution must show a concrete contribution relative to a stated baseline.

Models can assist with criticism and simulation, with prompts, configurations, and variation recorded. Human reviewers remain responsible for interpretation and decisions about the inquiry. A model's confident conclusion is evidence about that run, with its assumptions available for scrutiny. The project preserves dissent and explains each decision to continue, revise, or stop.

Sources: Texas Sunset Advisory Commission: Frequently Asked Questions.

How to test it

Have an independent team attempt to make a known weak design pass the protocol by changing framing, hiding adverse runs, narrowing the threat model, or shifting criteria. Test whether the published record reveals each maneuver and whether the review process produces a recorded outcome.

Sources

Frequently Asked Questions

Explanation of agency review, continuation, and exceptions to abolition.

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