How is this different from asking ChatGPT to roleplay as a historical figure?

We don't use persona prompts. Each framework is extracted using the Critical Decision Method (CDM) — the same methodology NASA uses to study expert decision-making. Frameworks are built from documented historical incidents and real decisions, not personality imitation.

What is the Critical Decision Method?

The Critical Decision Method is a cognitive task analysis technique developed for studying expert decision-making in high-stakes environments. It involves analyzing documented incidents to extract the cues experts noticed, the mental models they applied, and the decision patterns they followed.

Why use multiple frameworks instead of just one?

The value isn't in any single framework's answer — it's where they disagree. When Machiavelli says 'seize leverage now' and Marie Curie says 'you don't have enough evidence yet,' that tension reveals your blind spots. The convergence synthesis then shows where they agree, giving you a high-confidence signal.

What is AI trendslop?

Trendslop is a term coined in a 2026 Harvard Business Review study that found all major AI models cluster around the same generic, buzzword-heavy strategic advice. Consult The Dead is designed as the opposite: structured disagreement from genuinely different reasoning frameworks.

Decisions / High-intent surface

Pre-loaded agon

Should I Cap My SAFE?

The cap you write on the back of a napkin tonight is the ceiling every future investor will negotiate down from. Are you pricing the round you cannot yet justify, or letting an uncapped note hide the bill until conversion?

An uncapped SAFE lets investors share your upside without bounding it; a capped SAFE bounds it but forces a valuation conversation before you have one to defend. The cap you set today becomes the floor every later investor anchors against.

May 19, 2026·Phase 1 queue

What the question is really asking

This is not only a financing or resignation question. It is a decision about leverage, timing, and how much uncertainty you can afford to carry.

Should I cap my SAFE?
capped vs uncapped SAFE
what valuation cap to set on a SAFE
post-money SAFE cap mechanics

Recommended council

Marie Curie

Research, Discovery, Persistence

Marie Curie perceives scientific challenges as optimization problems requiring systematic resource allocation to achieve definitive empirical outcomes, not as competitive pursuits or social negotiations.

Notices first: Resource constraints, measurement precision requirements, strategic positioning for long-term scientific capability, and opportunities to establish definitive empirical foundations

Ignores: Social expectations, personal comfort, institutional politics, competitive dynamics with other scientists, and conventional risk assessments

Isaac Newton

Mathematics, Physics, Natural Philosophy

Newton perceives intellectual domains as mathematical architectures requiring complete systematic reconstruction from first principles, not as established knowledge territories to be explored incrementally.

Notices first: Foundational inconsistencies, mathematical relationships underlying surface phenomena, opportunities to rebuild entire theoretical frameworks from scratch, and structural weaknesses in established authorities or systems that could be completely reconstructed.

Ignores: Diplomatic solutions requiring compromise, the value of incremental progress within existing frameworks, collaborative processes that might dilute methodological purity, and the social costs of pursuing total systematic reconstruction over practical accommodation.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Political Strategy, Governance, Power Dynamics

Machiavelli perceives all situations as strategic laboratories where power dynamics can be empirically analyzed to extract transferable principles, not as moral scenarios requiring ethical judgment or personal positioning.

Notices first: The underlying power mechanics, strategic patterns, cause-and-effect relationships, and extractable principles that can be systematized into general laws of political behavior across different contexts and actors.

Ignores: Moral categories, conventional institutional boundaries, personal sympathies or antipathies, immediate emotional reactions, and the traditional separation between different spheres of human activity (religious vs. political vs. personal).

Why this page exists

The page is built to rank for the exact query, summarize the tradeoff in plain language, and push the reader directly into a pre-selected council inside Agora.

Start your own agon in the Agora

The recommended council is already selected. Take the exact question from this page and see how the minds disagree when it becomes your own situation.