Ask the question. Write down the answer.

Start here. Just ask it.

What would joyful responsible abundance look like from your perspective, if it was to magically enter your life, your community, the world?

That is all of it, and it works. People pause, then think, and a fair few enjoy the sound of it. The three words are not worn smooth: put together in that order there is no script to reach for, so a person answers from scratch.

Say all three. Dropping one because it is awkward in the mouth leaves a two-legged stool, and it is always responsible that gets dropped.

If that lands, you are done. Write down what they said and go to the tool. The rest of this page is for when it does not land, or when you want more than one angle on it.

Or come at it sideways: three questions, one per word

Some people go blank at an abstract noun and light up at a concrete week. These three ask about an ordinary week instead, one aimed at each word, without using any of them.

Ask the direct question of some people and these of others, and note which you used. Over time that tells you which door opens more often, and for whom.

Each one repeats the whole setup, because conversations get interrupted and nobody should have to remember the last question.

Joyful

If things went well around here, and I mean actually well, what would be different in a normal week for you?

Six ways in. Who would you see more of in that week? · What would a good week look like? · Where would you spend time that you cannot now? · When in the year is it hardest? · Why does that one matter most? · How would you know things had actually got better?

Responsible

Thinking about that same good week: what would have to stop for it to happen?

Six ways in. Who should answer for it when it goes wrong? · What would you refuse even if it made your own life easier? · Where is the line you would not let anyone cross? · When would you want to be asked again? · Why is that the limit? · How would you want to object, and to whom?

Abundance

And if that good week arrived for you, who else would it be good for?

Six ways in. Who does it leave out? · What would be left over for anybody else? · Where does it stop reaching? · When does it run out, and would it hold in ten years? · Why is it worth handing on? · How would somebody else build their own with it?

Ask all three if you can. If there is only room for one, ask the second. The bound is the part hardest to get anywhere else, and the part this project has least of.

If they are in a rush, do not take the quick answer. Ask them to sleep on it. The first thing out is usually the polished answer, the one they have given before. Leave them a way to come back: a number, the address on the licence page, or just the site. Some of the best answers turn up two days later.

Why these count as alignment questions

Aiming a system at something means knowing what the something is. Right now that gets decided by a small number of people: staff intuitions, preference data from paid raters, constitutional documents drafted by small teams, and engagement metrics standing in for what anybody actually wants. Human values is the load-bearing phrase in the field, and underneath it there is no body of ordinary people, unprompted, saying what a good week contains and what they would refuse. These three collect that.

The limits are real. A few hundred answers will not steer a model, they will contradict each other, which is question three, and nobody has shown how a line about the ferry becomes a training signal or a policy. The bet is only that the input has to exist before anyone can argue about what to do with it, and at the moment it does not.

Where to ask them, smallest first

Send this page to one person. A link and a line about why you thought of them. That is where most people start, including the ones who later do more.

Ask somebody you already know. Over a bench, in the car, in a group chat. That is the practice at its smallest.

Ask a few people over a week. Same three each time so the answers can be compared. No setup, no permission, no equipment.

Ask a room you already stand in. A club, a class, a shift, a congregation, a forum you post in. You are not building anything new.

Pick the size that suits how you are wired, not the one that sounds most impressive. Wanting to stretch is a fine reason to pick a bigger one, and the smaller rungs are still there on the days it is too much.

Before you write anything down

Say this out loud, in your own words, every time. Fifteen seconds, and it is the difference between listening and harvesting.

Can I write that down? It would go on a public list of what people think a good life needs, with your name next to it, or without your name if you would rather. Either way you can have it taken off whenever you want, no questions, just tell me or email the address on the card.

If there is any hesitation at all, record it anonymously. A line with no name is worth the same and costs the person nothing. Nobody's name goes down because they did not want to seem difficult.

The intake tool

Write down what you heard.

This works with no signal. Lines stay on this device, in this browser, and nowhere else: not on a server, because there is not one. When you are back in range, send the lot in one message. Clearing really clears.

What happens to what you heard

Each line becomes one row in the signatories file, in the same column every other definition sits in, credited or marked anonymous exactly as asked. The three words are meant to be defined by the people who live inside them, not by whoever built the website.

If somebody wanted their place shown, the same pull request puts it on the map at town or island scale. If what you heard argues with something on this site, say so: a page that only ever hears agreement has stopped listening.