The initiation rate is the framework’s sharpest early warning for both protector dependency and human enclosure, because it distinguishes authorship from mere choice. Enclosure and dependency can preserve an enormous amount of choosing — approving plans, selecting among options, responding to prompts — while eliminating the moment where a human originates something: a venture, a hypothesis, an artwork, a political proposal, a new institution, a movement. Measuring how often action begins with I want to try this rather than which of these do I prefer catches that loss when nothing else does.
It is a distinctly NWG metric because a society optimized for engagement and throughput can score as intensely busy while its initiation quietly falls to near zero. A falling initiation rate is one of the clearest signs that a field has begun to preserve choice while eliminating authorship — the signature of a well-run enclosure.