Discussion from the live cafe:
- Online organizing is a type of constraint (access, time zones, tolerance for online spaces)
- Constraint: the obstacle stopping vs. boundaries (more fluid)
- Loose collective visionary project → culture shift toward being more business-like, structured, etc.
- Self-imposed constraints: who is going to see this and judge me / be embarrased by me?
- Starting a 501c3 - grappling with a corporate structure that serves a beautiful purpose
- Structure, boundaries, using money is the ultimate constraint
- Boundaries not fully rigid, what do you need to let in & expel out? Cellular boundaries as metaphor. Need ALIVE structures, not dead ones.
- “How does this want to structure itself?” Help the latent structure come into form.
- Too many constraints suffocates liveliness/creativity. Pendulum swing towards total openness, but then total openness often leads to nothing in particular getting done.
- Deadline is the greatest constraint!
- Goals that the whole community of Cosmos can strive towards: gives structure.
- Depression can arise from lack of structure. Purpose in life = accomplishing some thing every day, on different levels: practical, spiritual, relational, creative.
- Business cannot exist nor succeed without structures.
- Inorganic, imposed structure may be needed as scaffolding in the early stages, which can be later composted & iterated.
- This platform LIMITS us in unfortunate ways for the kinds of interactions & participation we may authentically want to engage in.
- Business needs restraint of making revenue. Perhaps we pick certain projects, designed for market attraction, deliberately designed to be money-makers for Cosmos, which can support the other projects that serve other purposes. ADAPTing the creative project for economic returns if it’s on purpose, with integrity.
- Money as electricity, it flows, it’s not good nor bad. CRAFTing the structures: boundaries, dollars and sense, best practices, so it can flow well and do work for us.
- The broader world is used to very user-friendly sites, efficient, accessible. The friction of Cosmos’ tech must be addressed.
- Finding a balance between what we can receive from Cosmos and what we give. Unclear what purposes membership serves in the overall experience. Arranging the norms & structures around membership, how does it feed into publishing, promotions, etc. Fair/equitable.
- Disabled experience means physical constraints every day.
- Navigating constraints on the site, takes a long route to understand how to do things on the platform. Experience as a maintenance worker: using tools, procedures, clear.
- Thinking of a Cosmos Cafe or some kind of assimilation of HOW to navigate the platform. Interactive & recorded. That’s a better way to learn.
- Working with the politics of where we live, how resources are available to & flow to us. Dealing with medical systems.
- Human-centered systems. Everyone I interact with is a living system, and we need to be careful not to interact with them as a mechanical system.
- Struggle with in-person versus online thing. Where I live, LOTS of amazing humans working together to live in a values-aligned paradigm. How do I bring Cosmos to them/that? How does the big picture
- Achievers, Socializers, Explorers… what about Killers? Perhaps killers as critics—those whose critique constrains the possible paths & outcomes.
- Shift “killer” to “bouncer”. Somebody who’s informed about the norms and can enforce them. Sacred warriors who hold sadness in their hearts but hold boundaries firmly.
- Training ourselves to handle critique & feedback—edge of growth!
- Conflict literacy, the dark archetype at ICON, trickster there to point out the B.S… cutting things off, you have to have somebody who plays that role. Curtailing, expelling, all organisms have a need for this function.
- Writers group: we exist to support by critiquing each other! We have to learn how to critique, and how to receive critiques. We need clear guidelines of what the group is here to do, and how we conduct ourselves. Designing intentionally for disruption in social spaces.
- Creating templates for our Writers Group, Readers Group… constrains the way it’ll be held by others, establishing Cosmos norms.
- How porous can we afford to be, as a culture?
- Letting negative energy go BY us, not resisting it. Conserving our energy, “don’t feed the trolls.” Converting confrontations into humorous/light-hearted situations. The in-between space.
- Redirecting the energy embodied in conflict, sensing into the choices/options around us, rather than engaging in direct oppositional conflict.
- Historic Cosmos Cafes as open to dialogue of intense subject matter, but mutual respect of listening and responding. Cafes were not without conflict, and where conflict boiled over, we had to adapt and constrain and evolve.
- This framework of sociocracy we’re using in Cosmos — how do we involve multiple perspectives. Whereas the game theory piece was limited to the forum/platform.
- Internalized constraints: people who grew up under capitalism may have dysfunctional behaviors and beliefs when operating in a cooperative space. Inability to perform automatically in a co-op context, need to model/expose/experience alternatives. How do we deprogram and re-condition people for effective cooperation?
- Freedom does come with constraints. The U.S. doesn’t seem to understand that. Religious ideals also come with a lot of baggage. Developing capacity for difference.
- U.S. cultural context: “rugged individuals” taken to the extreme. Now we have to integrate that collectively.
- Independence taken to the extreme: isolation. Never asking for help.
- Cosmos as a valuable space for people dealing with in-person/social limitations. Bridging between social in-person and online & the mutual augmentation of these interactions.
- Being on the bridge while building the bridge is tricky. The co-op way of doing business, the equitable way of being, we are essentially “training” this into the socio-cultural fabric.
- We are enacting alternatives with every participatory contribution here!! Cooperatives encourage consciousness of the environmental & social systems around us, along with, how we best serve our members. That holism is key.
- Co-ops as curving the hierarchy, circle as symbol for human tribes, differentiation within the community of who holds which roles, developing diverse leadership & in diverse domains is key. Filmmaking is one of the most amazing cooperative endeavors: come together to create something bigger than ourselves.
- Ilya Prigogine, said about chemical systems but meant fractally: “in a complex system that is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence have the power to shift the entire system.” This is what Cosmos is embodying. We’re a mid-sized island.
- Solidarity with other co-ops & with the broader system, this is important. Part of many groups who want to create good things in the world, but they don’t have power to shift systems. If we work together we can string together our initiatives into bigger islands. The change has to come from below in this historical moment.
- Game theory is a formal science, doesn’t just apply to games. Business executives study game theory. Can apply to our participatory aims in Cosmos.
- Fractal as descriptor: I like that. In business world used the terms chunking up and chunking down. “How does it affect the big picture” vs. “what are the details going wrong that need fixing?” Zooming up or down depending on the needs of the conversation.
- Crystals as metaphor, structure & life, growth & the transformation of substrate as relevant metaphors.
? I missed the first
