HUMAN SYSTEMS:

In HSA, the term 'cheapest' is used with a specific definition:

Cheapest: the option where the most remains after all costs and benefits have been accounted for.

That remaining amount can be a gain, or it can be the smallest available loss. Putting yourself in harm's way to protect someone you love has an enormous cost — but the value of protecting them can outweigh it. That is still the cheapest option available to that system, in that moment.

Most of those costs are invisible to outside observers. Many are invisible to the system itself. That's what makes the calculation so hard to read from the outside — and so easy to misread as irrational, lazy, or weak.

What HSA is

Human Systems Accounting is a structured lens for understanding why systems — people, relationships, teams, organisations — behave the way they do.

It works by making the decision ledger visible. Every choice a system makes is the output of a calculation. HSA is the tool for reading that calculation.

Purpose

To identify the visible and invisible drivers behind behaviour — enabling a clearer understanding of why current behaviour makes sense, and where the conditions for different behaviour actually live.

What goes on the ledger

The ledger isn't a fixed checklist. Each calculation draws from whichever accounts are relevant to that specific decision. The ledger can include — but is not limited to:

Time, money, effort, energy, trust, relational connections, moral considerations, personal satisfaction, hope or despair, spiritual or religious value, cognitive load, impact on others we care about, risk — and the asymmetry between the value of winning and the cost of losing.

Most of these are invisible to outside observers. Many are invisible to the system itself.

The mechanism

• Observe behaviour and signals
• Identify relevant ledger items
• Infer weightings
• Model the perceived cheapest option
• Test against reality and refine
• Identify and test levers

Signals have their own architecture in the framework — how the system detects and communicates what matters is a layer that sits beneath the ledger itself.

What it changes

When the full ledger becomes visible, behaviour that looked irrational begins to make sense. Choices that seemed self-defeating reveal their logic. The question shifts from why won't they just change to what would need to change on the ledger for different behaviour to become the cheapest option.

That shift is where leverage lives.

The core claim

Systems choose the cheapest option — the option where the most remains after all costs and benefits have been accounted for.

Sometimes that's a genuine gain. Sometimes every option costs something, and the system is choosing the smallest available loss.

Not the most logical option. Not the healthiest option. Not the option an outside observer would choose.

The cheapest one.