The whole thing is a Rube Goldberg machine to avoid centralization where centralization is rarely a problem.
It is a HUGE problem in your mind that companies have leaders.
But it really isn’t much of a problem at all.
Leaders are usually good. And excellent leaders are even better.
MaidSAFE is well lead. I don’t think we need to replace David anytime soon. He really knows his stuff. So does Ben and a few other core developers. Replacing them with a crowd would be a good example of how this would play out. Each of us could reverse engineer SAFE on our own and vote for which direction it should go. But chances are really good that David and the core developers are going to do a far better job in much less time – Because they know what they are doing (and we don’t)
There is no problem with us getting to their level But You only need so many core developers before we start stomping on one another’s toes. We Serve SAFE better by using it to do what we are good at doing – by doing that SAFE makes us better and we make SAFE better. Some of us are good at game software, some of us are good with accounting software, some of us are good at IOT software etc. It is a win-win.
MaidSAFE is an example of what I am suggesting. It is already very close to the format. Once the core crew of dependable people was in place and it is now it could fully assume the format. This was human organizations that mirror SAFE. Distributed is de-centralization. Its getting rid of the limited centralized leadership structure.
There used to an organizational group called Change Labs. The proposed flattened hierarchies where work groups of five would have one designated leader that would be part of the next higher level of 5 all the way up the chain. They thought it was more organic. IBM again was one of he firms that experimented. One criticism was no career growth path. But no chain is needed because no hierarchy is needed. Too often the people higher up in the chain are their for essentially random reasons or they are actually inferior in competence and more in more it seems in character. Centralized vertical slow behemoths can be replaced by smaller flat organizations where the money goes to those who actually have skin and the game and actually contribute.
We can see in in the new products. One can have something FOSS and GPL3 precluding stuff like DRM with something like SAFE or a corporate ware which is pure spyware DRM at its heart and intent like Win 10 and its incredible back orifice specified right there in its EULA.
I don’t buy that there is not hierarchy in SAFE or anywhere else.
Somebody needs to sign the checks. There is only so much money coming in, and so much to go out. Good people want money invested in what will make them more productive. But not everyone can get what they want.
Once an organization grows to a certain size, nobody can know everything unless knowing everything is their job, and few people can have the time to know everything without competing with their own productivity.
I go back to my example which nobody will address. Which machine shall we buy? Everybody is not an effective answerer of that question, because few would have the time to know enough to come to an informed conclusion. If you disagree, please explain why?
If you don’t, please understand that a company of any size had 300 or so questions like that that it deals with every year. That is why there are departments etc.
Hierarchy didn’t happen for no reason. It happened because it is efficient to have people whose job it is to know everything. and it is inefficient to have everyone spending their time knowing everything at the expense of getting anything done.
Its a ridiculous objection. No one knows everything or even close to it in a complex organization. Even in a corporate like Boeing the designers of a large system won’t know it all and people who assemble it will have superior knowledge of some aspects. Possibly the most reliable aircraft ever made the DC3 was thrown together over 6 months without the aid of software by a crew of maybe 9 people. A lot of what made the plane great may have been due to accident or unknowns that worked out.
Not everyone has to be involved in every decision or consent/consensus iteration. Its real time, but the same process can be used to revisit areas and issues. Not every decision has to be optimal nor every outcome optimal.
Yes, people tend to disengage when you make a claim that they don’t buy and have no reputation or proof to back it up.
You have yet to prove that hiarchies in and of themselves are any of those things. I’m all for decentralization and empowering the individual but let’s not lose our heads. Even the basic family unit is hiariarchical. Every attachment is. And there are numberous examples of functional hiarchies in nature. So you can’t just say it’s automatically inefficient, ineffective and wasteful. Inefficient, ineffective and wasteful at WHAT? What is your goal?
Hang on there. I thought you said
But in fact what you propose is not a worker cooperative but rather an elitist think tank because unless you plan to limit your company to 10 or 12 people you’d be cutting out a good portion of the company from the decision making phase.
In a cooperative each employee owns a share of the company and has a say in how the company is run. However in your system you are taking a small fraction of the employee base and isolating it in order to make decisions. You know there are actual successful cooperatives running around.
On what do you base the assumption that the people who would use your system are not sheep? For that matter it’s quite offensive that you’d imply those on the dole are sheep you bigot. Most people on welfare want to get off it in short order and presuming someone is poor equates to being a sheep is just wrong. There are many reasons one can end up on welfare. They can be injured, disabled, be going through some kind of mental health issue, or there simply might not be any jobs available in their geographic area and there is no money available to move. Moreover your system of removing personality and individuality from decision making isn’t empowering at all. It’s disempowering of the individual as they don’t get credit for their work, gain reputation, or even get to self actualize. More than that you have yet to prove that it’s even efficient and effective.
Prove it. And just FYI we’ve been requiring community members contribute since our days as hunter gatherers. Also capitalism is not slavery. Although it can include slavery capitalism is not itself inherently slavery. For profit prisons could be argued as a form of slavery. Workhouses could be argued as a form of slavery. Buying groceries at the store? Not slavery.
Okay dude you really need to work on defining terms and giving full explainations. You do this a lot. You skip over stuff. I’m sure that made sense to you but it’s like you’re arguing based off the cliff notes in your head.
If it’s a committee then it’s not a cooperative, as the comittee is making decisions for the whole. In a coop everyone gets a vote not just a small committee. The comittee might be equals to eachother but the fact they are making decisions for others places them in authority above others which means they are no longer equals to the rest of the group and you’ve just created a hiararchy.
Anonymity is always for security and freedom otherwise it would not exist. Look if have a meeting where you all meet face to face and discuss ideas it’s going to be obvious who is in favor of what idea. And then you have a meeting in your chat room or whatever with no names it’s still going to be pretty obvious who is who because everyone is going to know everyone else thanks to having met in real life, especially if it’s a small group of 5-15 people. If you are going to take ego out of this and allow for any exposure to “fresh new ideas” or prevent social retaliation you need to preserve the security of anonymity. You need to take people’s safety seriously because no one is going to express a bold new idea on an anonymous chat room if they know they’ll be identified in a face to face meeting, especially if they know that they’ll be shot down by their peers. All you’re doing is breeding conformity and stagnation.
You want to bet? Obviously you don’t get out much. All you need to do is pair a Alpha personality with a Beta personality and you’ll get one leading and another following. Doesn’t matter if they’re “equals” or not. What part of human beings are hard coded to bond in hiarchies are you not getting? This is especially true in a face to face setting as you’ve implied would happen.
Wow. Just wow. This isn’t about socializing sheep? Prove it. You’ve already set up a committee which makes decisions for others. You’ve already created a hiarchy, more than that an oligarchy which you keep calling a cooperative. You clearly have no idea what a cooperative is. And now you have the balls to say that ALL leadership models are about victimizing and the celebration of the narcissistic? Based on what evidence do you make that claim? Not to mention that’s hugely presumptuous. Some people WANT to be led and having someone step up to lead them is hardly victimization. Putting people down and making assumptions does not help your case.
If you want to get rid of hierarchies then why have a decision making system at all? Why not let everyone just make their own decisions? Instead of having a committee that decides for the group or a boss that decides for the group people simply pose ideas, solutions and take on tasks as they can. There’s no need to take ego out. You can discuss and fork different ideas as divergences occur. Consensus is not required. Consensus is only required when making decisions for another. The obvious alternative to consensus is divergence and individuality. So instead of struggling to agree on issues when a difference occurred the group would split. Combine this with a strong search engine and to find like minded individuals and factions and you’ll have people dividing and uniting all over the place. Instead of “We are deciding what we are going to do.” It’s more like “We have decided what we want to do. Do you want to join us?” Most people come to a meeting with their own plans and try to convince others of the merits thereof. This seems inefficent. Why not just decide on what you want to do and instead of convincing others simply find others that agree with you, or at least generally aligned, in the first place? Therefore consensus is already achieved when you all sit down at the table more or less.
Hierarchies aren’t the problem they are merely a symptom. We have a culture of temple building and centralization. We build momuments, central points of our attention, we appoint authority figures and from there we develop a culture of law and agrarian society. A true leader wants others to prosper. A true leader creates leaders not followers. Meaning a true leader would promote self sufficiency not dependency. That’s the difference. Temple building culture is based on creating dependency upon the figurehead and the state. It’s not the hierarchy that’s inherently bad. There’s always going to be someone who’s better or stronger than you at something and odds are you’ll be better and stronger than someone else. We end up teaching and helping each other and all have different talents and abilities. It’s when you stop trying to empower a person and promote their independence and instead start fostering overspecialization and dependence upon the system that’s the issue. Which is exactly what happens in agrarian society because in order to support an agrarian based society you need specialized careers. You make a surplus of food and in order to maintain power the authority figure keeps guards to divvy out that food. Ergo laws. Then there are those who can specialize in careers outside of food production and just buy food and BOOM you have dependence because now you have people that have no food security. I’m not saying everyone should specialize in being a farmer but if you aren’t producing the food you eat then you’re dependent on others to grow it. And if you don’t have money then you’re dependent on the state. And if you’re dependent on the state then the government controls you. Warren if you want to get rid of hierarchies then you need to focus on provision of base needs instead of attacking leadership. Focus at the bottom of the pyramid not the top. The key to being a good leader is find out what they people need and find the safest and best way of getting it for them. You say leadership models are about victimization? I would disagree. No. Any “leadership” model that’s about victimization isn’t a leadership model, it’s a bullying model. Leadership is about empowerment, support and nurturing of those that follow you. Real leadership is damned hard work.
Somewhere there is an old Chines proverb about people fit to lead (maturity doesn’t like power) won’t do it. Those who want to lead or want power are clearly disqualified. Really leadership is a flawed idea as its voided by the direction of human development- a kind of sham. Anonymity in this context has the possibility of bringing forth the wiser voices among us because they would be given a voice without the normally entailed ego in-flamer which they would find distasteful. Remember also that in leadership courses, state of the art they tell the so called leader to make as few decisions as possible as each creates risk in itself
Not tyranny of the majority and not a committee or meeting, but real time on going persistent consensus and consent building.
In another thread Sam_UK highlighted when linking to Loomio that its not majority vote but consensus and consent. Lets clarify again that the consent consensus level at each decision could be a check box agreed upon by the group, maybe the group decides that some decisions require a unanimous level of consensus or consent at other times a simple majority of those present for the consent deliberation process because those present do have strong opinions or reservations. At this point the duration of deliberation could be adjusted and of course stuff can always be reopened. If one uses this forum as an example and clicks on views or posts, over the life of this form since it was reformatted about a year ago (so good older stuff may not be present) within the top ten posts by either criterion you can see the life of the forum and main issues just by their title headings. Its almost a summary of SAFE itself. Decision points for the SAFE organization on the topics of those posts might go longer and need more consensus/consent. At the mid point in such a process people could again have a procedure for adjusting the level of consent or duration of the issue.
What the automation is making possible
Deep blue beat the best human grand master.
Watson built on Deep Blue beat the best human knowledge workers (two best players the Jeopardy show ever produced) in real time and apparently could have done it with straight English and Speech without accent but they didn’t scat out of the audience. Questions like its “A rhyming reminder of the past in the city of the NBA’s kings” Watson’s answer before the “Sacramento memento”
We’ve had automated medical diagnosis software for a long time and for a long time its enabled to the average person to beat new physicians at diagnosis.
Watson Debater analyses the info on the web and academic journals and produces very quickly a reasoned answer based on odds pro and con.
We now have programs like iCEO aimed at eliminating ceo/execs, managers, supervisors and with these gone you can get rid of the board and the useless non contributing detached stock holders and keep the money where it belongs in the hands of the people who contribute and have skin in the game- its a conflict of interest eliminator that brings the most important thing democracy in the work place.
There are also real time collaborative decisions systems built for cooperatives in the format of social media like Loomio, the anonymity would be another step in keeping stuff collaborative and preventing back sliding based on a constant focus on the strength of ideas, logic, reason and transparency and not on force of personality/charisma and who is sleeping with who etc. but backed up by systems like Watson debator that further radically speed consensus and solid consent for action. Again an ongoing never ending iterative process that runs in the background as people go about their tasks. No way to force or command anyone if they don’t want to participate they don’t but it will reduce the quality of decisions or possibly where member agree on unanimity and quorum preclude some decisions- members could vote on using a shake of the magic eight ball for some decisions.
Yes every useful hierarchy seems to be developmental. But human power hierarchies are brand new. We spend our human evolution in groups of 100 extended family and in the case of adults perfectly flat without any tribal chief or any of that, without the war and conflict and generally without subjugation. Our psychological and ethical path of development is toward more autonomy away from dependence toward at least interdependence. If there were inferior people you will routinely find them at the top of a power hierarchy. In this nuclear age hierarchies always end up with the psychopath, sociopath, narcissist, borderline, trying to remake society in their image. And over and over again we can’t spend most of our waking life in involuntary states (non democratic) and then think we can go home and be functional in a family. American society would fall apart without the kind of inebriates that reduce consciousness because people are in so much pain over their learned helplessness and being defined from the outside and being nullifed in this way, its a slow suicide. Our hierarchies all lead toward the concentration camp.
Not at all, I am saying different groups within the cooperative might have specific rooms for local decision making but in other cases it can be cooperative wide. Lumio says it works good for groups upt to about 1000. I suspect that we could replace the corporate economy with cooperatives of roughly 100 people. A room with 100 people in it in the anon format would be great and should be workable.
You’re right. Sorry about that, you know I don’t believe that. I am fine with the dole and it isn’t undignified in fact its a corrective and a safety valve that when done right without stigma puts a check on bad organizations because it gives people an opt out.
On the contrary I think this is a better path toward self actualization. People still do all of those things face to face but on critical stuff its strength of ideas. Not credit mongering etc. I really am not worried about allowing people to feel better than others and have no interest in recognition that comes at the expense of others. That’s more like psychological warfare and ladder climbing hierarchy than cooperation. And I don’t have to prove efficiency. The 3rd Reich was on about efficiency and it always leads to number skull decisions that material before people. These system don’t have to be more efficient or effect than the system that treat people like machines to win.
It leads to slavery. The average American may not be at all a sheep but they are a wage slave. They are working harder for less and less in the way of security and empowerment and quality of life. They are also intensely misinformed about their interests through puppet media, they are misrepresented by the puppets the puppet media has installed and legislated against by those puppets and their money always used against them by the unaccountable business shadow government that allowing puppetry placed in power. They are not treated as citizens or even customers, more and more they are treated as property to be spied on plotted against and squeezed. That is capitalism and where it leads. That is what happens with rule by wealth inevitable and that is the aim of capitalism, its not a proper match for democratic political systems.
And that’s not happening or implied, as above, its consensus and consent or its rides or maybe as in the American concept of justice its decision that no one likes in some cases.
There is still plausible deniability. And there is the culture of not accepting that kind of behavior that hurts everyone. You value inquiry and value strength of ideas and consent not force.
I totally disagree. That’s just culture and its weak culture. Its just bullying nonsense. Its also circular, its like dominators dominate you have to let them do it and because of this you will never get rid of hierarchy it would be unfair to the hard wired dominator leader types. Its an appeal to might makes right and wealth makes right.
Stop straw manning there is no committee. If were talking about adults and mature people no
one wants to be led and no one needs it. And I’d say society should bar it. This is implying there are real sheep who were born to serve under domination of others. Its human nature and the path of human development to want to actualize grow. Taking commands and orders would at the least stunt that.
Its people joining a cooperative, no requirement to join or use such a system. And again people don’t have to agree, its a framework in the cooperative in cases where people want to agree.
Centralization is hierarchy. There are no born leader and should be no agreed upon leaders. We don’t need that anymore. This is bottom up as it gets. We can go with more ant like behavior. We don’t need a human pretending to be a god or a group of such people lording it over us.
Sorry about multiple responses, but back to the core idea. Ideas should develop on their merits not based on personality. If David Irvine presents something the idea should be considered without the bias formed by his reputation. That’s the right thing for David Irvine and everyone else.
Maybe a group of one hundred people will be like a single ant. But each person in that hundred is independent like each ant in a colony. Its really interdependence and its an organic model. This sort of blinded decision making almost seems to mirror the type of army ant where sight is switched off. Something else is at work.
In a hiearchy your self deteemination and voice are sacrificed on an altar of presumed inferiority and inferiority reinforcing privilige.
The problem is that the vast majority of us are unqualified to judge his ideas… Which cryptographic system ought to be applied in which order? Few of us are cryptographers, and most of us are not going to school to become one anytime soon. What ought to happen at what network layer?
People who know their stuff ought to be known to know their stuff because they know their stuff. Not because their ideas are sellable to the less educated public.
@jreighley es but someone in that position doesn’t need an echo chamber the need other smart people to help evaluate their perspectives without bias because its them and the tendency is to take it as gospel and its sacrilegious to offer another perspective.
So someone like David Irvine would be still be known but in context like SAFE in a real time deliberative environment it couldn’t hurt to have ideas consistently considered on their raw merits especially when it would be with other people he and his group brought in, people who agreed to join
Even so most cooperatives aren’t going to have someone so unique.
You’re the one who referred to something like “this stupid forum” but it was clear you weren’t being serious. But no, this forum seems to be working quite well and isn’t an echo chamber in part because of the distance and pseudonyms and it being an open forum. But internally for closed forums for important decisions it could make sense in a cooperative setting where the goal is to keep things from degrading over human insecurities. Its not that abstract of an idea. There could be a little bit of a Chinese room test feel to it but it could be done very well.
Also there is no reason at this point to have to justify dissatisfaction with leadership and its potential, just look at the state of the world. It has to run on something better than a beauty pageant.
I don’t think the forum ought to be a management tool I don’t have a problem with communication and feedback etc…
But it is just a suggestion box. Not a ruling mechanism…
You can point at the world and claim leadership is the problem. Or you can point at the world and say lack of leadership is the problem. I would say the later. Nobody wants to make an unpopular decision even when it is obvious that the unpopular decision has to be made. This country has had the same writing on the wall for the last 40 or 50 years, and our supposed leaders always promise to address it in the budget after this one. This country is ruled by what is popular with the ignorant masses, not what experts all know is unavoidably true.
Experts don’t even agree. But leadership seems so backwards. Like a brain that runs on only one of its cells. Leadership is just another cult.
There almost seems to be a kind of mystical aspect to a such a black box decision system. Most of the time we run around with the same repetitive thoughts and a bunch of it is probably some sort of meme. I don’t buy the hypothesis for creativity that says there are special bits of grey matter localized to a personality, nor the nature/nurture attempts at lottery style justification. I do recognize that some people tend to be better portals for it, but think of it as a seance or something like that it doesn’t matter we may be able to dilate the portal. For me its always seemed like people were transceivers or translators of a signal from elsewhere. And despite their justifications with references to what came before and observations and reason there are still leaps that tend to come from several people at once in different places. Regardless this process would be a step toward stripping away the attachments that cloud the decision making.
Your idea of leadership is not parenting or anything developmental which has a place but one with limits but rather abuse of power. It doesn’t simply re-emerge. We don’t need people to tell us what to do. We need to develop our own potentials and then contribute them and we do that together in a collaborative cooperative supportive setting, a healthy social setting.
We don’t need people who are like “look at me, my contribution, what I was born to do, is to tell you folks what to do and to put myself before you’ll” which is what almost always happens. The cost of so called leadership is simply too high. It totalitarianism or totalitarianism light. We need cooperative formats as the very basis of all production otherwise we get the destabilizing situation we’ve got now. This isn’t simply my deduction its apparently the consensus of academic historians as a field. We have to get rid of the problem of hierarchy and communication and network tech is our best hope per academic historian Gwynne Dyer, Naturally it takes a cooperative format as that network structure is the obvious implication. Gwynne Dyer in conversation with Dan Carlin discusses this: Hardcore History 25 – The Dyer Outlook