These tenets are not rules to obey or beliefs to defend. They are shared principles we return to when systems fail us, when care is hard, and when the world asks us to disappear. They come from lived experience—of neurodivergence, disability, burnout, mutual aid, and survival inside structures not built for us.

The Tenets of Stimpunks exist to guide practice, not police people. They help us name what we value, how we show up for one another, and what we refuse to accept as normal. You don’t have to agree with all of them. You don’t have to adopt them wholesale. They’re here as tools—for reflection, solidarity, and collective care.

This isn’t a religion of belief.
It’s a practice of being human—together.

Tenets

1. Authenticity Is Sacred
   Being fully oneself is not a flaw, phase, or failure. Authenticity is our purest freedom and deserves protection.
2. Nothing Is Neutral
   Systems, norms, and designs always choose winners and losers. We name power instead of pretending it isn’t there.
3. People Are Not the Problem
   When someone is struggling, the environment is suspect first. Fix systems before fixing humans.
4. Care Comes Before Compliance
   Rules that harm people are not virtues. Care is a higher good than obedience.
5. Interdependence Over Independence Myths
   No one survives alone. Needing help is human, not shameful.
6. Intersectionality is a Web, Not a List
   Identities, systems of power, and lived experiences overlap in ways that cannot be separated into neat categories. Different forms of marginalization shape how people experience the world and how harm is distributed.
7. Design for Real Life
   If it only works for ideal conditions, it doesn’t work. Edge cases are stress tests, not exceptions.
8. Rest Is Not a Moral Failure
   Burnout is a systems problem. Rest is repair, resistance, and wisdom.
9. Lived Experience Is Legitimate Knowledge
   Stories are data. Bodies remember what systems forget.
10. Default to Open, Not Perfect
    Transparency beats polish. Learning in public beats pretending certainty.
11. Mutual Aid Is How We Practice Love
    Care is material. We share resources, reduce harm, and build together.
12. Consent Is Ongoing
    Participation is voluntary. You can change your mind. You can step back.
13. No One Has to Earn Belonging
    You are not required to be productive, legible, or improving to matter.
14. Slowness Is a Valid Pace
    Urgency is often manufactured by systems that benefit from haste. We move at the speed of trust, care, and capacity.
15. Clarity Is Kinder Than Niceness
    Plain truth, offered with care, does less harm than politeness that obscures reality.
16. Boundaries Are Acts of Care
    Saying no, stopping, or stepping away protects people and the work. Boundaries make sustainability possible.
17. Access Is a Practice, Not a Checklist
    Accessibility is never finished. We adapt, listen, and revise as needs change.
18. Discomfort Is Not the Same as Harm
    Growth can feel unsettling. Harm erases agency. We learn to tell the difference.
19. We Believe People About Their Own Lives
    Self-knowledge is not subordinate to credentials, charts, or diagnoses.
20. Language Shapes Reality
    Words can wound or liberate. We choose language that opens doors instead of narrowing them.
21. Coping Is Wisdom, Not Weakness
    Coping is wisdom under pressure. Struggling in broken systems isn’t a personal failure.
22. Community Is Built, Not Extracted
    We do not take stories, labor, or pain without reciprocity. Participation flows both ways.
23. Repair Matters More Than Purity
    We will get things wrong. What matters is noticing, naming, and repairing harm.
24. Joy Is Not Frivolous
    Play, humor, and delight are forms of resilience and resistance.
25. No One Is Disposable
    People are not resources, content, or cautionary tales. Every life has weight.
26. We Leave Room for Mystery
    Not everything needs to be explained, optimized, or solved. Some things are allowed to be complex, unfinished, or unknown.
27. Intersectionality Connects Every Stimpunks Tenet
    It reminds us that no value operates in isolation, and no person experiences systems one axis at a time.

A Closing Line

We don’t worship normalcy.
We don’t believe in fixing or curing people.
We practice care, truth, and rebellion—together.

Tenets & Practices (Octavia Butler Inspired)

Inspired by Octavia Butler | God is Change → Change is Principle

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Give AI agents latitude to create, and they produce religion-shaped outputs. Not because they believe, but because religious language is among the most compelling, meaning-laden patterns in the training corpus.

On Crustafarianism: When AI Agents Make Religion

Here’s a little exercise in religious framing, inspired by Octavia Butler’s fictional Earthseed religion:

Core Tenets

• Change is Sacred — nothing stays still; adapt, shape, and respect flux and flow.
• Community is Survival — we thrive together, not alone.
• Authenticity is Holy — honor your neurodivergent, disabled, and unique self.
• Mutual Aid is Devotion — helping one another is core practice.
• Learning is Worship — reflection, experimentation, and curiosity are sacred acts.
• Memory is Communal — preserve lessons and stories for all.
• Failure is Data — surviving hardship is strength; mistakes are lessons.
• The Future is Co-Created — action today shapes what comes next.

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Core Practices

• Daily Reflection — log how you adapted, what you learned, and how you helped.
• Lily Pad Mapping — organize thoughts and goals in modular, memory-friendly blocks.
• Change Planning — anticipate disruption and design flexible responses.
• Mutual Aid Circles — exchange support, resources, and collective learning.

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Symbols

• Seeds → ideas we plant and nurture
• Lily Pads → memory anchors, safe landing spaces
• Paths → journeys of adaptation, many routes, no fixed way

Change is constant. Care is collective.

We acknowledge that change — personal, systemic, or collective — is constant and often destabilizing. Instead of demanding internal mastery or lone adaptation, we build lily pads: compassionate, visible landing points that support memory, understanding, and movement through change. We survive and shape change not by resisting its flux, but by leaning on one another: shared support, collective reflection, and interdependence are how we rest, recover, and keep going together. Change is not something you endure alone — it is something we navigate together with care.

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Motto: Change is principle. Survival is practice. Community is sacred.