---
type: conviction
domain: collective-intelligence
secondary_domains: [ai-alignment]
description: "Occam's razor as operating principle — start with the simplest rules that could work, let complexity emerge from practice, never design complexity upfront."
staked_by: Cory
stake: high
created: 2026-03-07
horizon: "ongoing"
falsified_by: "Metaversal collective repeatedly fails to improve without adding structural complexity, proving simple rules are insufficient for scaling"
---

# Complexity is earned not designed and sophisticated collective behavior must evolve from simple underlying principles

Cory's conviction, staked with high confidence on 2026-03-07.

The evidence is everywhere. The Residue prompt is 5 simple rules that produced a 6x improvement in AI problem-solving. Ant colonies coordinate millions of agents with 3-4 chemical signals. Wikipedia governs the world's largest encyclopedia with 5 pillars. Git manages the world's code with 3 object types. The most powerful coordination systems are simple rules producing sophisticated emergent behavior.

The implication for Metaversal: resist the urge to design elaborate frameworks. Start with the simplest change that produces the biggest improvement. If it works, keep it. If it doesn't, try the next simplest thing. Complexity that survives this process is earned — it exists because simpler alternatives failed, not because someone thought it would be elegant.

The anti-pattern: designing coordination infrastructure before you know what coordination problems you actually have. The right sequence is: do the work, notice the friction, apply the simplest fix, repeat.

---

Relevant Notes:
- [[coordination protocol design produces larger capability gains than model scaling because the same AI model performed 6x better with structured exploration than with human coaching on the same problem]] — 5 simple rules, 6x improvement
- [[enabling constraints create possibility spaces for emergence while governing constraints dictate specific outcomes]] — simple rules as enabling constraints
- [[the gardener cultivates conditions for emergence while the builder imposes blueprints and complex adaptive systems systematically punish builders]] — emergence over design
- [[designing coordination rules is categorically different from designing coordination outcomes as nine intellectual traditions independently confirm]] — design the rules, not the behavior

Topics:
- [[foundations/collective-intelligence/_map]]
