Most technology that is out there to help facilitate community either mimic social media (posting! commenting! liking!) or seem to be about ‘how to make decisions as a group.’ I’m definitely not a fan of the former category and I also wonder if we are bypassing something fundamental with decision-making tooling.
When we look at our individual decision-making, we can observe that “making a decision” really is a meta-layer on top of something else, usually avoiding an emotion. When we’re agonizing over a decision, it’s usually because there’s something we don’t want to feel. For example, we might not want to feel the grief of giving up on a possibility of some kind of pleasure, we might not want to feel the judgement of other people, we might not want to feel like we’re disappointing someone, we might not want to feel fear or uncertainty, or any number of other things. When we’re not avoiding these feelings, there aren’t so much decisions as choices, there’s not so much of a story about the ‘importance’ of one choice versus another. (h/t Joe Hudson).
It’s always interesting how rare it is in retrospect for something that feels like “a big decision” to actually have the kind of impact I was projecting on the choice, whereas some things that didn’t feel like ‘major decisions’ have turned out to have big impacts later.
When I can open myself to the feelings and trust that I’m able to feel them without losing myself, I no longer find myself worrying about the outcome of a choice.
What I’ve seen with groups is similar.
We start thinking decisions need to made and mitigated by fair systems and technology mostly because we’re operating outside of trust, partly as a function of size and partly as a function of skipping over trust-building. I’m coming to believe that the gold standard for larger group decision making is really about fractal nesting, building trust and structures where trust is delegated up. Working in groups where the trust is embodied, so that representatives are largely in relationship with one another, and there’s nesting of these bodies of trust.
Groups where trust has been built, which tend to start very small and max out around 30-50 people, are typically able to make decisions about their own group without much technology (simple hand-counts are usually sufficient). When there’s a network involved, then groups can designate someone trusted to participate in a trust-building and decision-making body of up to 30 other such trustees, and up the chain it can go. This works without a bunch of zero-knowledge or anonymous votes as long as we centre trust-building and connection.
Trust is integral. As soon as we try to create organizations or networks or movements without beginning small and involving shared witness, we’re not operating collectively. We’re just a bunch of individuals.
Don’t misunderstand- the fundamental idea here is that we ARE individuals. We do come with our own unique experiences, and as soon as we put boundaries on how much of you we want in the space, we’re eroding belonging, we’re eroding a sense of each person’s responsibility for their own experience.
Trust results from spaces in which we are invited to be seen and heard and we’re acknowledging our own tendencies to look for safety or our temptations to help, manage, or solve. And it results from people voluntarily seeking each other out in pairs or smaller groups beyond the held spaces of the group to be in community and fellowship. And it results from clearly recognising and defining a common purpose.
Trust-building isn’t easy, which may be why there are so many people looking for shortcuts. Many people are out of practice when it comes to trusting. I am seeing in myself that when I am out of trust with others, I’m sometimes out of trust with myself, and sometimes I’m just picking up on other people’s lack of self-trust.
We really are swimming in the “water, what’s that?” of the structures necessary to support extraction and suppress freedom, so it’s not surprising that the tools we think we need reflect the idea that decision-making for groups needs bureaucracy. We all know our follower counts and associate our impact with metrics. That way of thinking is true when we’re measuring and comparing and rating. Leaving this water will require evolution and time. It’s not a returning to the past, it’s not trying to live on the land as hunter-gatherers as before the flood. It’s instead being here, being in relationship, practicing, opening ourselves to amphibious mutations.