Historical Overview & Mission Statement[]
Leaders' Forum has its origin in online gaming and the community of North American climate refugees. Its members include top rank forecast/RTS/resource management game players and the primary decision-makers of Generation Exile communities. This superstruct is about mutual aid among peers, planning, and information.
Discussion topics:[]
Please add in topics of concern for your community
Community thresholds:[]
How many people can be self governing?
In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the Rule of One Hundred and Fifty, suggesting that the ideal workgroup size for humans is about 150 people. This is about as many people and relationships as humans can track instinctively without requiring specialists. As a modern example of this principle in action, Gladwell sites the Gore-tex company, which operates in distributed centers of about 150 people, where each center is responsible for the entire operations of a particular division, rather than a top-down corporate structure.
This reflects a kind of corporate clan structure, in which extended "family" groups--in the case of Gore-Tex, a clan/family is a division responsible for one product--maximize efficiency and, incidentally, morale. The people who work there just feel comfortable. There is a minimum of negative internal competition, factionalism, and power-hoarding. This is also the standard size for divisions within many military structures.
I have found that, at about 150 people, internal cooperation happens naturally and without much need for management specialists and authoritarian figures. People fall into roles as planners, inspirers, workers, or some combination thereof, according to their inclination and ability, and it works. I've also found that the operational challenges of managing larger groups leads to wasteful competition, accumulation of personal power, and the development of goals beneficial to subgroups but harmful to the whole. In other words, groups larger than about 150 people will naturally destabilize and seek another, smaller group.
user:Hector Valentine
What is the threshold of communication that can create consensus?
In small groups of about 150 people with minimal authority structures, this happens naturally with little conflict, and consensus as such is not really necessary. Someone has an idea, other people see that it's a good one and help, or don't like it and don't help.User:Hector Valentine
What is your process of group division if numbers go beyond these levels?
Unknown. The Gore-Tex company splits a division when their market analysis identifies a need for growth.
Animal care and community guidelines
Keeping a peaceful presence:[]
Structures of security and vigilance
beyond an elite: keeping security teams equitable
music and its use as a palliative while working teams.
Hygenic security: keeping it clean
Structures of sharing and distribution:[]
Is your community nested into a structure of larger cooperatives?
Not really.
Do you have ways of settling disputes between citizens?
"Citizens" implies a level of civic development that is not necessary on the clan/family level. Conflict resolution depends on community norms and evolutionary pressures. For instance, a person who can't or won't work will feel an enormous amount of pressure to work or leave, but so far it has never been necessary to make such a person leave.
How do you share out your surplus beyond your immediate local area?
Our surplus is very meager! But it is traded either locally, or through grey market contacts, usually for money or specific goods.
Beyond your bioregional councils and commonsteads what are your alliances?
Beyond the credit/gold system:[]
Creating an environment of contribution
Medicines and local cures
Commonstead alliances and barter services
Individual contribution to overall outcome:[]
how many hours a day is enough to expect
how are off work activities directed or encouraged
controlling disease exposure and quarantine
How much food, fiber, medicine and fuel is enough?
Open Strategizing[]
An Open Letter for Collaboration
Rtgarden 10:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)rtgarden2019
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