Law 11e: The ladder, not the leap (ratified 2026-07-20).

Kind-of is transitive: if `shelf INSTANCE_OF furniture` and `furniture INSTANCE_OF tool`, then shelf already reaches tool — the graph asserts only the **nearest kind**, and everything above is inherited up the ladder, as a species asserts its genus and inherits its kingdom. Two consequences, both mechanical. **(1) The door:** filing `X INSTANCE_OF Z` when Z is already reachable from X over accepted INSTANCE_OF edges is refused as redundant — file against the nearest kind instead. **(2) The eating:** when a newly accepted edge completes a ladder that makes an existing direct edge derivable, that direct edge is **SUBSUMED** — recorded on-chain with the path that ate it, its author keeping every coin and all reputation (it was true; better structure merely retired it), its pending votes refunded without penalty. A leap edge is thus always legal *until the ladder exists* — the first true connection is never blocked — and always retired once it does. Universality still shows as mass (the heavy orb now accrues its weight through categories rather than forty leaf edges), and the diminishing curve of Law 11c still polices pile-ons wherever no ladder has formed yet. If a rung is later struck, subsumed edges stay subsumed — history is not resurrected; the claim may be refiled against the new best rung. INSTANCE_OF only, for now: kind-of chains compose exactly; dependency chains are argued case by case (Law 8).