The case
The commitment remains present and endorsed while email and minor tasks win. Later the writer installs a precommitment device that removes the tempting option.
What it can show
Behaviour changing while preferences stay put — the individual-scale line of support for CLAIM-027, independent of Northstar (ARG-005). The audit asked for this side to be developed further: meta-regulatory dimensions such as jurisdiction have only institutional examples.
Note of 2026-10-13: re-derived as procrastination
The exchange of 2026-10-13 re-derived this case without citing it. A5 §4: “Procrastination could then be a stable organizational regime in which long-term goals remain explicitly endorsed but lack sufficient local authority to govern task initiation”, and “This explains how someone can sincerely value an action while repeatedly failing to perform it”. That is this case and CLAIM-047. What A5 added is a mechanism: the avoidance coalition works by “increasing salience for uncertainties, recruiting alternative activities, or destabilizing confidence in the task’s value”, that is, on the conditions of influence and not by overpowering the goal. Blocking the websites is A6’s commitment, “an arrangement in which a present configuration of operators constrains the authority allocations available to their future configurations” (CLAIM-122). Workbench entry of 2026-10-13, 21:29.
Note of 2026-10-18: three freedoms, and a manuscript that opens with this case
A11 §4 of the exchange of 2026-10-17 re-derived the second half of this case: “A person who restricts access to a distraction might reduce immediate behavioral flexibility while increasing their ability to pursue an endorsed project.” It split it in three, freedom to commit, freedom under commitment and freedom to revise: “None can replace the others.” Blocking the websites uses the first and narrows the second, and whether the writer keeps the third is open. So a precommitment shrinks what is reachable while making the endorsed project realizable, and reachable-set size is not monotone with autonomy (CLAIM-354, CLAIM-352).
The manuscript proposal of that exchange opens with this case and does not cite it. A12 §1: “Begin with a familiar case: an agent reflectively endorses completing a difficult project but repeatedly acts otherwise.” A15 §1 opens with three agents, the first of whom “endorses an action but finds it prohibitively difficult to perform”, and the second “reliably acts on an endorsed commitment but cannot reconsider it effectively” (CLAIM-099). See the note of 2026-10-18 on CLAIM-027. CASE-112 models the case: the volition moves the balance of authority without moving the regime, and a change in the structure of the competition switches it.