Continuation is the absence of a decision

Stopping an initiative is a decision. It needs a reason, someone to make the call, and a moment to make it in. Continuing needs none of that. Left alone, work simply carries on.

Two biases keep it that way. The first is a preference for the existing state, simply because it already exists: status-quo bias. The second is that people accept harm from doing nothing more easily than harm from acting: omission bias. Stopping is an act, and one that draws attention. Continuation is an omission that no one has to defend. So the question is never asked. The initiative stays, because nothing forces anyone to check whether it still earns its place.

But the same research that named these biases also points to the way out. People hold on to the status quo only as long as keeping it takes no action. When continuing has to be actively chosen, they let go far more easily. That is what the Existence Review is built to do: it turns continuation from a default into a decision, made at a fixed moment, on the record.