---
slug: stress_absence_capacity_erosion
name: Stress-Absence Capacity Erosion
one_liner: "A positive feedback in which prolonged absence of a stressor endogenously erodes the very response capacity that the stressor would keep exercised — so calm silently disarms the system against the load it was built to bear."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [structural, biological]
origin_domain: complex_systems
alternate_origin_domains: [immunology, physiology, ecology_and_disturbance_regimes]
aliases: [disuse_atrophy, use_it_or_lose_it_dynamics, understress_decay, unexercised_capacity_decay, calm_induced_deconditioning]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-05 generalization) — the proposed GENUS of `stability_induced_fragility` (lift: strip the risk-perception/volatility frame, keeping only the bare structure 'absence of exercising stress causes endogenous decay of the response capacity that stress would exercise'). Discovered in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep 2026-07-03. Tier B candidate (B-rest). ADJACENCY RISK: sits near antifragility/robustness and near stability_induced_fragility itself — boundary must be drawn deliberately. STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `stability_induced_fragility` and any antifragility / robustness / homeostasis / hormesis prime; confirm it is a genuine genus (covers `stability_induced_fragility` AND the named siblings — hygiene hypothesis, muscle atrophy, fire-suppression fuel buildup) and not a restatement of the input or an alias of antifragility; draw a subsumption edge stability_induced_fragility→candidate + sibling edges at incorporation; sync one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 4
  reasoning: 'The bare structure — a maintained response capacity, an exercising stressor that normally keeps it maintained, and a positive feedback whereby prolonged absence of the stressor lets the capacity decay — is a clean dynamical form and lifts cleanly above the financial/risk-perception content of the input. It scores well above stability_induced_fragility on substrate-independence: the input carries value-laden content about perceived risk, leverage, and volatility signalling, whereas the genus is a pure disuse-decay feedback that instantiates in physiology (muscle atrophy), immunology (under-exposure weakening immune calibration), ecology (fire-suppression fuel accumulation), and engineered/organizational readiness alike. Transfer evidence is comparatively strong because the biological instances (atrophy, hygiene hypothesis) are independently well-attested, not merely asserted. Held just below 5 because the pattern presupposes an *adaptive/trainable* capacity — a system whose components strengthen or persist under load and decay without it — which is a substantive dynamical premise, not a universal one.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: stability_induced_fragility
  similarity: 0.68
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.20
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.9, evaluative_weight: 0.1, institutional_origin: 0.1, human_practice_bound: 0.1, import_vs_recognize: 0.9}
  rationale: 'Stripped of the input''s risk-perception framing, this is a paradigm structural pattern: a disuse-decay positive feedback whose vocabulary (capacity, stressor, exercise, decay, feedback) travels freely across physiology, immunology, and ecology with no institutional origin and almost no evaluative content — it is a recognized dynamic, not an imported doctrine. It reads clearly structural; the only reason it is not at the floor is the mild residue that "response capacity" and "stress" are most vivid in living/adaptive systems.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Stress-Absence Capacity Erosion

## Core Idea

The genus is a positive-feedback structure with three parts: (1) a *response capacity* — a stock of ability to withstand or answer some load — that is maintained only by being periodically exercised; (2) a *stressor* whose intermittent arrival is what exercises and thereby sustains that capacity; and (3) a *decay coupling* whereby prolonged absence of the stressor lets the capacity atrophy, so that when the stressor eventually returns the system is disarmed against it. The single constraint stripped from the input `stability_induced_fragility` is the *risk-perception / volatility frame*: the input runs the loop specifically through agents who, observing low volatility, lower their perceived cost of risk-taking and so build up hidden exposure. Remove that agent-and-perception content and what remains is a substrate-neutral disuse-decay loop — no perception, no risk-pricing, no "stability appeared safe" narrative required; a capacity simply erodes for lack of the load that keeps it honed.

The load-bearing anatomy is the *inversion of the naive safety inference*. Intuitively, a long calm certifies robustness — nothing has gone wrong, so the system must be sound. The structure says the opposite can hold: the calm is not merely failing to test the capacity, it is *actively eroding* it, because the very mechanism that maintains the capacity is its exercise under stress. The characteristic payoff of the calm period is real but shallow (efficiency, comfort, the reallocation of resources away from an unexercised function). The characteristic cost/failure is a delayed, non-linear collapse: the capacity is quietly hollowed out during the quiet, and the deficit is revealed only when the stressor returns and meets a response that is no longer there — often catastrophically, because the return of the stressor and the discovery of the erosion coincide.

Read across domains, the input is one species among structurally-unlike others. In *immunology*, the hygiene hypothesis: under-exposure to microbes and antigens leaves the immune system's regulatory calibration un-exercised, and mis-set responses (allergy, autoimmunity) emerge — the "stressor" is pathogen exposure and its absence degrades immune fitness. In *physiology*, muscle and bone atrophy under disuse: without mechanical loading the tissue is resorbed, so the very rest that feels protective erodes the capacity to bear load. In *ecology*, fire suppression: decades without the exercising disturbance of small fires let fuel accumulate, so the eventual fire is far more destructive than the frequent small ones would have been. Immune calibration, tissue loading, and fuel dynamics are structurally-unlike settings, yet each runs the same skeleton: a capacity maintained only by intermittent stress, decaying endogenously in the stress's absence.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by **operator 05 (generalization / lift)** as the proposed *genus* of the input prime `stability_induced_fragility`, by stripping the risk-perception/volatility frame to leave the bare "disuse of exercising stress erodes the capacity stress would exercise" positive-feedback structure. Surfaced in the **op-05 remaining-strata sweep on 2026-07-03**; manifest **tier B (B-rest)**. Claimed siblings: the immune hygiene hypothesis; muscle/bone atrophy from disuse; forest-fire-suppression fuel buildup.

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: this is the strongest of the batch on substrate-independence. The lift is clean — it drops the input's agent-perception machinery and keeps only a well-attested dynamical loop — and the biological siblings (atrophy, hygiene hypothesis) are *independently established* science, not proposer inventions, which is exactly the transfer evidence a genuine genus wants. The genus is genuinely broader than `stability_induced_fragility`, which is one (perception-mediated, human/economic) species of it. The RISKS Kurt should weigh: (1) **Antifragility adjacency** — this is the *mechanism* that antifragility exploits and robustness resists; the boundary must be drawn so the candidate reads as "disuse-decay of an exercised capacity" and not as a re-labelling of the antifragile/robust axis. If the corpus has an antifragility or hormesis prime, decide their relation deliberately (this genus is the failure-side dynamic; antifragility is the design response to it). (2) **Restatement vs. its own input** — because the input is so evocative, verify the genus is not merely stability_induced_fragility with the finance words removed; the atrophy and fire siblings, which have no perception step at all, are the proof that it is not. (3) **Coinage-name risk** — the specific compound name is a coinage; note that "disuse atrophy" / "use-it-or-lose-it" is the vernacular gloss, which actually *supports* keep (it is a recognized folk-structure, not a bespoke fit). The sharp keep/cut question: *is this the general disuse-decay feedback that antifragility presupposes as its adversary — worth a standalone prime — or is it adequately covered by an antifragility/robustness prime plus stability_induced_fragility?*

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `stability_induced_fragility` (should sit clearly below merge threshold) and against any antifragility / robustness / homeostasis / hormesis / feedback prime to rule out alias collapse and to site the parent correctly. If kept, draw a subsumption edge `stability_induced_fragility → stress_absence_capacity_erosion` and sibling edges to whichever atrophy / hygiene-hypothesis / fire-suppression instances are drafted; flag a missing-edge note to `positive_feedback` (or the corpus's feedback prime) as a likely ancestor. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
