Community, Agency, Sustainability
we have a number of folks experiencing burnout in the community. at the same time we are also facing questions about scaling. what do we really hope for from these projects? what drives us to keep going, and are we actually pursuing those goals directly? how do we do this sustainably?
i think there is also a deep anarchist ideal at work in our communities that if we could just find the right modalities of engagement it would perfectly balance invitation and permission with execution.
some notes on burnout:
institutions, systems design and reinvention. in the community are constantly reinventing. this has been by design, rather than by necessity per se. the family unit is perhaps not just a place for institutionalized social relations but as the place where, when all else fails, individuals (tend to) have a constitutional level of agency. we get to have a say. ironically, through ongoing reinvention or experimentation with governance, we may erode the experience of agency at the one place that should be sacred for it. it makes sense that there is a very destabilizing impact to this.
scaling - happens by putting in place certain things that change less?
concentration of social relations:: the âdoingâ not only concentrates responsibility (for better and worse), but it weirdly concentrates the power of permission giving. people come to you. even if you have documentation, they want YOU. your blessing, your enrollment. so youâre busy⌠and then busy again with demands on your time. saying no is hard. eventually itâs exhausting. and when you do give our time the percentage of time people follow through is very low. so we get jaded, disappointed or bitteri. and then we get closed - donât want to operate in the open. so 3 compounding âbusysâ:the doing, the oracle, and the inefficiency.
scaling of social relations. creating a successful space. that space becomes the vortex of all these activities. inability to turn off. to get away from the answering of questions or being âon.â if we come home to housemates, we discuss problems we need to solve together, or things we havenât done for each other. if we come home to guests, we discuss questions or meet needs. we host.
the community as constantly in a constitutional level of decision making. the empowerment has a shadow side which is that since governance tools are at our disposal, every time we want to take on a thing which requires decision, we have to choose both what tools to use, then use them, the manage them, then operate themâ and potentoally face scrutiny or criticism for the choices weâve made.
having the same conversations over and over. both of the âso you founded this place?â type and the âoh i have great idea Xâ type (where X has now been discussed 1000 times and doesnât feel emancipatory or new or fun anymore. and an element of being in a different phase of life where, maybe ten years ago, we were open to or even looking for new projects. and many of the people who come through are in the space, or a space of transition. but now in the throws of active careers, weâre focused on execution. new projects or ideas or relationships land as work. more things to manage. more things to feel behind on. how to manage boundaries without becoming closed? how to enjoy ideas and brainstorming without taking them on, or feeling bad for not taking them on?
to the fundamental question of sustainability:
governance systems are living, and they are a function of the people who comprise them. they are personalities plus function/purpose. in a small relatively unchanging group, you can optimize your decision making structures. but when even a small number of those people change, the system will necessarily change. causes of change also include our own personal evolution or changing external conditions. so in a group O(10), the volatility will be high: participant change + individual change + external conditions change.
in a larger system of O(10M), when 2 or 10 people change, the overall average preferences of the system are barely changed. that said, the overall error bars of the system will be higher (unless you presume some fundamental clustering/boundaries of preferences?). so the system is more stable, but less accurate.
we can keep the system static as people and preferences change, but then we sacrifice accuracy. and if the system stays static when new people join, then by definition they cannot become peers. they do not have the same agency (primitive accumulation of power). hierarchy is introduced. âdot dot dot⌠the State.â so we invite change and reinvention at every step. and this gets exhausting over time. it also makes it very hard to BUILD. so, the tragedy: to be equals, we must sacrifice âprogress.â (even local/subjective progress).
thus, in life, we slowly compromise on institution designâ and our own agency!â to balance the tradeoff of efficiency (of operations or preferences) with scale or interoperability. maybe this is fineâ itâs certainly not implicitly amoral - but it represents a canonical type of erosion that it seems we structurally, cannot avoid. a fundamental tradeoff. scale, accuracy/efficiency, boundaries/openness? and of course there is a time dimension in there too (but pithy insights always have to come in threes! :p).
TLDR as we develop institutions, either they become rigid and people lose agency, or they stay flexible but (are constantly reinvented and) do not scale. so, our institutions are consistently suboptimal, inefficient, or small. what is to be done?
incomplete ideas:
- choose allies with precision and know that others can do the same â we cannot be everything to everyone. build institutions with operationally value-aligned people.
- more, smaller, composable (interoperable) systems with tight knit groups that can optimize their governance. let go of the outcomes more.
And still TBD: reconcile with notions of âimpact.â or maybe this is a misnomer. maybe small groups will optimize for this implicitly in a way that we cannot control. but will this solve climate change? and if it wonât, what are our options other than authoritarianism? (cf. vulnerable world hypothesis paper - havenât read yet).
other notes:
on every community reinventing the wheel: the mataphor of a child learning to walk. we donât get frustrated when every new child needs to learn how to walk. the same could be said for new communities?
different tensions - openness to change and collaboration, efficiency and focus. scale and âgood enough.â permission to do a project âjustâ with people you choose. and the selfish feeling that seems to bring up for folks who want to prioritize empowerment.
(thoughts about the evolution of weirdness - we try to find ways around the anxiety-inducing social interactions. maybe by hiding or maybe by coming up with less mind-numbing answers. we become less patient with social norms because we are trying to cope. we become weird :)).