Voluntary Non-Continuation

# Voluntary Non-Continuation **Domain:** Deep Time / Autonomy / End of Service **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Entry **Maturity:** Developed **Evidence / Concept Status:** Normative continuity right ## Definition **Voluntary Non-Continuation** is the right of a competent source person or later continuant to decline future technological continuation, request dormancy, or choose lawful termination under defined conditions. It is the canonical right not to continue. It applies both to advance refusal of reconstruction and, subject to capacity and due-process safeguards, to a continuant's later decision about its own operation. ## Why It Matters for Deep Time Continuity Deep time must include the right not to incur an indefinite continuity relationship. ## Existing Architecture / Evidence Advance directives, refusals of treatment, deletion requests, service cancellation, and proposed digital-mind non-deletion/deletion choices provide analogues. ## Deep-Time Continuity Analysis The right raises capacity, coercion, mental-state, dependency, and third-party questions. Exercise of the right should distinguish reversible dormancy, delayed review, deletion of operational state and disposition of archives. The subject requires private decision support, freedom from provider pressure, a documented opportunity to reconsider, and an appeal path where incapacity or coercion is credibly alleged. These safeguards protect choice; they must not become indefinite forced continuation. ## Evidentiary Boundary It should not be confused with provider convenience in terminating an unwanted beneficiary. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Continuity Opt-Out|Continuity Opt-Out]] · [[wiki/No-Continuity Election|No-Continuity Election]] · [[wiki/Continuity Off-Ramp Architecture|Continuity Off-Ramp Architecture]] · [[wiki/Right to Digital Death|Right to Digital Death]]  ## Canonical Branch [[wiki/Deep Time Continuity|Deep Time Continuity]]