Substantive changes and the reasons for them are recorded here. Historical source documents remain distinguishable from later interpretation.
28 October 2026 • Responsibility and the home-page language
The home-page wording now makes responsibility explicit alongside agency, flourishing, and human experience. The aspiration remains “Live the life you want and be glad you did.” It is accompanied by a clearer statement of our responsibility toward other people.
The clarification
The historical HOS formulation speaks of respecting “the equal dignity, freedom, agency, responsibility, and opportunity for flourishing of others.” In the revised home-page wording, responsibility becomes the obligation that connects these commitments: “the responsibility to respect the equal dignity, freedom, agency, and opportunity for flourishing of others.”
This shifts responsibility from one of the things expressly respected in others to the responsibility we exercise toward them. It is a clarification of how the broader inquiry presents its aspiration. It is not identical to the historical formulation and does not amend the frozen HOS Second Coherent Edition or change quotations from it.
What remains open
The home page now says, “That is what I mean by responsibility here. What it asks of us in practice remains part of the inquiry.” This states the Founder’s commitment without claiming an exhaustive or universal definition. How responsibility develops, how it is understood in different contexts, and how its demands relate to other values remain questions for investigation.
Information and the development of the work
The founder account retains the judgment that better information can help, while questioning how far information alone can take us, particularly in developing responsibility. This is a personal interpretation guiding the inquiry, not a report of a research finding or a demonstrated failure of HOS.
The earlier wording and the account of this clarification belong in the development record. The home page itself states the revised aspiration directly, so visitors can understand it without first reading its editorial history.