Inclusive organizing isn't just about organizations; it's about culture and coordination between autonomous agents. It's about community and intercommunity.

Crucial missing links in scalable prosocial decision-making and activism. More pertinent to Bsky than x-Twitter. x.com/sotonWSI/sta...

Explaining to my Canadian wife that Americans celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursdays because Thanksgiving is the Thursday of holidays

My microwave sings a little song when my Hot Pocket is done. Should it have the right to vote?

I'm losing interest in discussing digital tech subjects other than linked data structures which interoperate clearly and scalably across the boundaries of diverse projects & networks. Not because other tech subjects are uninteresting, but because we desperately need stable sensemaking foundations.

I'm not a pessimist, but humanity is surely doomed if we don't get serious about how we share power and creative responsibility.

We might be running out of time for anything to be ahead of its time.

I've completed my first major updating of Parts 1 & 2 of Foundations by streamlining & simplifying with an increased emphasis on Governance Primitives. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Most cultural & political ills align closely with two premises: 1. People insist that the world is much simpler than it is. 2. People disregard the relatively few and precious, although inconvenient, things which should be relatively simple and clear.

Joint Statement from Goodlander, Slotkin, Kelly, Crow, Deluzio, and Houlahan

To govern is to determine and effectively enforce rules regarding resources, events or agents. Governance requires agency. Governance turns agency into authority. That isn't inherently good or bad, because authority can be prosocial or antisocial, healthy or toxic, etc.

Moral judgment, which is unnecessary (and often counterproductive) for developing social responsibility, is the typical excuse for domination culture.

The most harmful idea in the world is that people deserve to suffer when they do bad things. It's a confusion of correlation which leads people away from true justice, which is restorative and transformative, into fearful and performative factionalism of victims, villains, leaders and followers.

When's the last time you convinced someone of anything by treating them like shit?

The list is great. I'm a Tolkien fan although I wouldn't say he was critical of most bureaucracies or supposedly "benevolent tyrannies", nor would I generally expect that of 20th century thinkers. He clearly saw the Ring for what it was.

Just as power corrupts gradually, we can gradually bring people back toward healthy relationships and partnerships . However, that requires healthy communities and networks in which people don't benefit from dominating behaviors.

The fact that everything matters, forever, can be terrifying but also increasingly deeply inspiring.

Surrounded by late stage social media polarization. Engage rarely and strategically.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Js... My #1 video recommendation! Mr. Kemp's book "Goliath's Curse" is probably worthwhile too. In the interview, Kemp describes the repeating curse of domination hierarchies and failing states, but has the hopefulness of a patient with a clearly treatable disease.

Humanity's greatest challenge has always been how to share power. We learned many prosocial ways to do that at small scales (family & tribe) millennia ago, but almost none of the ways to do it at massive scales. Instead we submitted to doomed domination hierarchies. It's not too late to change that.

One of the most terrible side effects of coercive (such as majoritarian) voting systems is that they inculcate a fixation on voting "outcomes" instead of helping us to see all decisions as provisional.

"The great lie is that it is civilization. It's not civilized. It has been, literally, the most bloodthirsty, brutalizing system ever imposed upon this planet. That is not civilization. That's the great lie—is that it represents civilization." - John Trudell

The Creative Spiral is manifesting more clearly as a "4d" tri-torus of inclusive doing, discussing, designing and deciding. This replaces previous visual representations of Inclusive Action Framework.

I'm always inspired by vibrant indigenous life entwined with natural cycles and seasons. Some indigenous societies did explore the dark road of domination hierarchies, but fell far short of developing the runaway colonial forces which have ensnared us all. We can look back to reimagine our futures.

"Power corrupts" is mostly true, but oversimplified. It's more accurate to say that *power over* corrupts. The true problem is when a person or group holds power over anything far from their center, or which affects others more than themselves. That's it. It's not complicated, but slightly subtle.

We can use this vast upwelling of ugly American behavior as a force for revelation and transformation without othering and vilification.

I imagine that if I received the Medal of Honor for any honorable deed, I'd work hard to get the Wounded Knee Massacre medals revoked.

Just because half of social media is juvenile antics doesn't mean you gotta get swept up in it.

Set people aside without writing them off forever. It's fine to gently decline to trust aggressive people. Someday, things could be very different-- but healthy boundaries, and sustainable socialization, mean safety (and time management) here and now.

Especially don't waste time arguing with anyone who seems (consciously or not) fixed on domination. It's fine not to trust them. Let it go! Suppose that they'd lie cheat and steal, if they had to, to win. Hold them socially accountable, yes that's crucial but WE CAN'T DO THAT BY ARGUING WITH THEM.

Wee epiphany: it's so pragmatic to say that our key social toxins are violence and confusion. It's fine that that doesn't explain the whole universe! We can recognize that toxic behaviors are violent AND/OR confused AND that it's rarely important to distinguish them further.

This should be obvious but debate culture is a zero sum spectacle organized around a collective humiliation ritual. The point of a debate isn’t to produce a new, intersubjective understanding. It’s to decide who wins. Anyone demanding you participate in it does not have your best interest in mind.

“We have fought hard and long for integration, as I believe we should have, and I know that we will win. But I've come to believe we're integrating into a burning house."..

After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

One nice thing about early stage apocalypse is how many people reveal the depths of their double standards and hypocrisy. Very revelatory.

I know some people are caught up in vicious cycles of mutual outrage and whataboutism, but hope that even they can appreciate the central point here, without disregarding their own valid concerns.

People who want civil war, and others who disregard the possibility, are oblivious to how fragile our bubble of modern luxury has become. It could pop anytime. POP welcome to apocalypse and long slow painful deaths for countless people; perhaps later, a new stone age.

It is, as always, the right time to seek transformative justice instead of vengeance. At some unknowable and irreversible point, this becomes utter necessity.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore. When you swim in the sea and an eel bites your knee, that's a moray.

Many aspects of modern society are at best a slippery slope toward the celebration of wasteful excess.

Experience is a broad stream of many simultaneous forces; in contrast, conscious thinking and verbalization are linear, unitary, centralizing forces. Thinking, verbalizing and writing aren't bad things, as long as we keep experiencing.

Whenever you want to say something mean or mocking, it's helpful to ask yourself "How does this help?" (Spoiler alert: it doesn't.)

The thing I don't get about RFK Jr. is how anyone could see him speak without thinking that he's very physically and mentally sick.

Capitalism is an immense problem, but bureaucracy and domination systems are deeper, older problems. Focusing on capitalism isn't enough.

Reiterating that I'm an American standing against the doomed dictatorship which is developing in Washington. I would not willingly collaborate with anyone who supports that dictatorship.

It's increasingly important to realize that the value of the US dollar is mostly based on confidence in the US government, and monetary wealth is merely an agreement.

I debated writing this. It can feel tempting, upon encountering yet another instance of this administration’s racism, to let it be. How many ways can you say the same thing over and over again? And yet we have to write it down, if for nothing else, so those who come after us know we were against it.

Our key potential in life may be to realize that wherever we are right now is more beautiful, in its own very particular way, than anywhere else could possibly be.