The Sufferless Foundation original logoThe Sufferless Foundation
Sufferless BookGet involved
Home/Resources/Decision brief

From inquiry to action

Sufferless Decision Brief

Make the question clear, follow its consequences, and choose a next step you can review.

Your answers are not submitted or saved automatically. Save a draft on this device, export a readable copy, or print / save as PDF.

Examples are fictional starting points. Edit every assumption for your circumstances. Choosing another example replaces the entries on this page.

Saving is optional and uses this browser only. Nothing here is sent to the Foundation. Other people using this browser may be able to load the draft. An export is a readable Markdown file.

Use your browser’s print destination to choose a printer or Save as PDF.

Illustrative brief · A fair energy transition

________________________________

What is happening? What decision is actually within scope?

A community is considering the pace and support arrangements for an energy transition. Compare the consequences of delay with different transition pathways; this example does not endorse a particular policy.

Name the people or non-overlapping groups affected. Include absent voices, animals, ecological effects, and future generations where relevant.

Heat- and flood-exposed residents; farmers; energy workers and their families; lower-income consumers; communities dependent on fossil-fuel revenue; animals and ecosystems; future people. Identify overlap before aggregating any outcomes.

Describe physical, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual experiences. Identify the relevant scale and time horizon without counting one outcome again at a wider tier.

Physical: heat, safety, food and energy access. Psychological: fear, uncertainty and community disruption. Intellectual: understanding evidence and options. Spiritual: livelihood, identity, values and connection to place. Follow each across self, relationships, society and the natural world. Natural-world intellectual and spiritual examples concern people’s relationship with nature.

Separate what is reported, observed, inferred, and uncertain. Record sources, alternative explanations, and what would change your view.

Separate reported losses, scientific evidence, local economic data, projections, and policy preferences. The interactive map uses invented values, not forecasts. Investigate local exposure, grid capacity, household costs, employment and realistic support. Revise a pathway if credible evidence changes its expected harms or feasibility.

Include maintaining current conditions and a smaller change. What could reduce demand, support capacity, or improve the surrounding system?

Compare continued current conditions, different phased timelines, and transition plans with worker support, adaptation, grid investment and affordability measures. Examine the strongest reasonable objection to each, including harms from delay.

Who could benefit or bear a new burden? Consider severity, duration, delayed effects, recovery, and reversibility. Record outcomes separately when comparison is inappropriate.

A response may reduce longer-term exposure while imposing immediate costs on workers or households. Delay may preserve some livelihoods now while increasing future burdens. Record severity, duration, distribution, reversibility and uncertainty separately. Do not imply equal transfer or an ethically decisive scalar total.

Who may decide? Whose consent or participation is needed? What boundaries, privacy protections, appeal routes, and independent review apply?

Use the nearest capable, accountable decision-maker; move outward where harms cross borders or exceed local capacity. Include affected communities and representation of absent interests. Disclose conflicts, record disagreement, and provide a route to challenge the decision.

Name the responsible person, resources, and limits. What is feasible with the current evidence? Is inaction or further inquiry appropriate?

Proposed next step: convene an evidence review with affected groups, publish realistic alternatives and their assumptions, and investigate support for those asked to carry the transition. Identify the legally responsible decision-maker before committing to implementation.

What will you observe? Who can raise concerns or pause the action? What result would lead you to stop, adapt, or reverse it?

Set milestones before adopting a plan. Review affordability, reliability, employment, exposure and ecological effects using appropriate evidence. Identify stop or revision triggers and who can invoke them. Keep irreversible harms visible; neither a better average nor speculative future benefit settles every tradeoff.

Based on Sufferless, Chapters 21 and 50–52. This worksheet structures inquiry; it does not certify a decision, provide professional advice, or establish authority to act.

Revisit the seven principles →Explore the interactive map →