A side bar regarding governance, meaning who makes decisions, what decisions they get to make, and how they make decisions.
I was a management consultant and workplace trainer for 40+ years with a focus in conflict management. I have some experience working with smart people attempting to create different ways to manage organizational structures, from participatory democracy to complicated ranking systems, including conventional methods involving versions of Roberts Rules and various spiritual practices (think Quakers and Buddhists) as well as networked confederations. And people working in existing hierarchical institutions including the elected and appointed officials of oversight groups - city councils, county and state commissions, academic faculty senates, association memberships, et al. And...family-owned businesses, homeowner associations, unions, and three old friends trying to buy and manage a plot of land together. (That one ended up in court.)
Regardless of the structure and intent of the group, and how cool the design looked on paper, I soon learned that most of the problems I was asked to help address came from one simple mistake: There were no simple agreed-upon guidelines for dealing with disagreements, mistakes, misunderstandings, bad behaviors, bottlenecks, and stalemates in place.
Some people won't make out a will or discuss end-of-life issues with family. For some it is conflict avoidance. "Don't want to open up a can of worms," they say. Others are superstitious about discussing death, because they think they are tempting Fate - likely the same people who won't buy insurance. In the case of managing enterprise relationships (business, workplace, government at al) they would tell me that they didn't need to talk about conflict because everyone in the group was smart and nice and in agreement, and it was insulting to suggest otherwise.
Smart people paid our mortgage, etc., for years.
So, whatever amazing ideas you come up with regarding decentralization, I would urge you to make, as one of the very first items on the agenda, discussions, decisions, and actions regarding...disagreements, mistakes, misunderstandings, bad behaviors, bottlenecks, and stalemates.
Good topic, and very timely. And also, incentives! I find that a lot of these ongoing conversations offer some hinting or beating around the bush about core requirements for "opt-in". But at the end of the day, we're still not talking nearly enough about what's needed to get people to honestly go there. Meaning what incentives are we talking about, and literally surveying people with, "What would it take to get you to do A, B, or C?" And therein lies the challenge, once we realize that when there is no good alignment with incentives to do something, people rarely do, as evidenced by the huge number of failed business transformations across many industries to serve as social proof. People tend to dig their heels in and refuse to budge unless you've figured out a way to align with their incentives. And also, the influence of legacy, (or rotting) systems that we've been clinging to for so long must be dealt with in a constructive manner as a pre-req in many cases. And, to Pat's point, improve decision quality to remove biases, conflicts of interest, etc., and push forward. Decentralization is the right thinking, for sure.
To your question as to the "where" could be resolved here in the U.S., by simply focusing on a red state county with relatively low population, ample infrastructure, close to a major metro, and ask people to move there as an experiment, and then gradually replace their local planning boards through local elections, and scale your ideas from there. The urge to move "somewhere" with a relatively low barrier to entry, or low trade-offs, to try such a thing is regularly demonstrated by the organizers of Burning Man, which could be a natural partner if you can agree on a location. So the demand and the audience is there to focus on a local experiment. I don't believe that Americans on the whole are well-suited for the trade-offs associated with places like Honduras. The archetypes often associated with what's already out there in the expat world are a part of an extremely thin and unreliable audience that tends to be very flaky, oddball, and transient, which makes scalability a problem.
FWIW, here's what I've written about concerning our current playing field leading up to December:
A side bar regarding governance, meaning who makes decisions, what decisions they get to make, and how they make decisions.
I was a management consultant and workplace trainer for 40+ years with a focus in conflict management. I have some experience working with smart people attempting to create different ways to manage organizational structures, from participatory democracy to complicated ranking systems, including conventional methods involving versions of Roberts Rules and various spiritual practices (think Quakers and Buddhists) as well as networked confederations. And people working in existing hierarchical institutions including the elected and appointed officials of oversight groups - city councils, county and state commissions, academic faculty senates, association memberships, et al. And...family-owned businesses, homeowner associations, unions, and three old friends trying to buy and manage a plot of land together. (That one ended up in court.)
Regardless of the structure and intent of the group, and how cool the design looked on paper, I soon learned that most of the problems I was asked to help address came from one simple mistake: There were no simple agreed-upon guidelines for dealing with disagreements, mistakes, misunderstandings, bad behaviors, bottlenecks, and stalemates in place.
Some people won't make out a will or discuss end-of-life issues with family. For some it is conflict avoidance. "Don't want to open up a can of worms," they say. Others are superstitious about discussing death, because they think they are tempting Fate - likely the same people who won't buy insurance. In the case of managing enterprise relationships (business, workplace, government at al) they would tell me that they didn't need to talk about conflict because everyone in the group was smart and nice and in agreement, and it was insulting to suggest otherwise.
Smart people paid our mortgage, etc., for years.
So, whatever amazing ideas you come up with regarding decentralization, I would urge you to make, as one of the very first items on the agenda, discussions, decisions, and actions regarding...disagreements, mistakes, misunderstandings, bad behaviors, bottlenecks, and stalemates.
Only half way through, but can't help to take a pause and come here to say: Brilliant! Very helpful for learning how to message with the exterior.
Good topic, and very timely. And also, incentives! I find that a lot of these ongoing conversations offer some hinting or beating around the bush about core requirements for "opt-in". But at the end of the day, we're still not talking nearly enough about what's needed to get people to honestly go there. Meaning what incentives are we talking about, and literally surveying people with, "What would it take to get you to do A, B, or C?" And therein lies the challenge, once we realize that when there is no good alignment with incentives to do something, people rarely do, as evidenced by the huge number of failed business transformations across many industries to serve as social proof. People tend to dig their heels in and refuse to budge unless you've figured out a way to align with their incentives. And also, the influence of legacy, (or rotting) systems that we've been clinging to for so long must be dealt with in a constructive manner as a pre-req in many cases. And, to Pat's point, improve decision quality to remove biases, conflicts of interest, etc., and push forward. Decentralization is the right thinking, for sure.
To your question as to the "where" could be resolved here in the U.S., by simply focusing on a red state county with relatively low population, ample infrastructure, close to a major metro, and ask people to move there as an experiment, and then gradually replace their local planning boards through local elections, and scale your ideas from there. The urge to move "somewhere" with a relatively low barrier to entry, or low trade-offs, to try such a thing is regularly demonstrated by the organizers of Burning Man, which could be a natural partner if you can agree on a location. So the demand and the audience is there to focus on a local experiment. I don't believe that Americans on the whole are well-suited for the trade-offs associated with places like Honduras. The archetypes often associated with what's already out there in the expat world are a part of an extremely thin and unreliable audience that tends to be very flaky, oddball, and transient, which makes scalability a problem.
FWIW, here's what I've written about concerning our current playing field leading up to December:
https://theendandafterward.substack.com/p/nothing-is-working-and-nothing-is