Journey Into Fractally - #6: Cooperative Independence

Cooperative Independence

During our weekly consensus ranking meeting, Hive account@markstair asked Hive account@dan what is the one moral concept that the fractally community can rally around? The idea of having 'one moral concept' that network communities align themselves with is from the book Network State by Balaji Srinivasan. Hive account@dan eventually ended his longer reply with the idea of: 'cooperative independence.'

The idea of 'cooperative independence' may seem contradictory, but does capture the essence of what we need to advocate for to bring people from the left & right & all ideologies together. From a conservative/classical liberal/libertarian/anarchist perspective many would prefer to be independent, self-sufficient and left alone. However, when living in society it is extremely difficult for anyone to just be left alone unless those in the community and society agree to leave you alone. Getting taxed is not the idea of being left alone. City/state/federal statutes won't allow you to just be left alone. Hence the one major compromise for those who want to just be left alone is to be proactive in cooperation and build consensus precisely so they can be left alone as much as possible. On the other hand, those who have a collectivist/socialist/communist/modern liberal mindset may not value independence as much, but are more receptive to group cooperation and consensus building. The supermajority of people generally recognize the value of both cooperation and independence despite not having any strong ideologies or conditioning one way or the other. Hence, consensus building around the idea of 'cooperative independence' seems like the enlightened middle-path to bring everyone together and make progress.

During this week's (9/3/22) consensus meeting Hive account@dan also discussed the importance of working with lawyers to create a system that is resilient to the inevitabilities of lawsuits within the community as well as externally from regulators. Fractally should be presented to the public in a way that is based on the most favorable legal theories to minimize potential legal disputes in nation-state legal jurisdictions.

I asked Hive account@dan about the idea of private clubs and organizations because I am personally exploring legal theories around private vs public orgs for my startup. During the COVID lockdowns, I was intrigued by the story of a business that got around mask restrictions after turning its cafe into a private club. Hive account@dan mentioned that any blockchain network organization will likely be considered either a general partnership or a non-profit association.

Our consensus meeting was efficient this week so there was not much to report, but it's always great to have discussions and learn more about what others are working on. In the pre-meeting there was some discussion around the idea of 'double-dipping' from fractally employees who often get the most respect in the meetings. I've briefly thought about how to value fractally team contributions, but it is an important to keep the discussion going. Hive account@dan had a good response and mentioned there are various subjective ways to evaluate fractally team employee contributions and that perhaps some of the respect they earn should eventually go to the investors who funded their fractally work.

Another question I have is about the transferability of Respect tokens. From the fractally whitepaper, tokens are liquid and you can buy/sell/transfer Respect tokens, but how will people view Respect earned vs Respect bought? Should there be some element of soul-bound tokens with Respect?

The Why...

In last week's pre-meeting (8/27/22) Hive account@dan asked everyone to think about why we are here and that fractally governance is a way to fight against tyranny. He wanted everyone to recognize the value of consensus building and independence and that 1+1 can equal 3 when working together. Fractally is a path for a peaceful revolution. A narrower vision is that it's a smart contract platform to build businesses and form an economy. We are not doing governance for governance's sake. We have to find out how this benefits the group because we are all sacrificing time for a cause and should expect a return.

Felix wanted to apply fractally to creating self-sufficient communities, food production and the essentials for life. That sounds great. Someone mentioned it was hard to explain these concepts to anarchists and libertarians. It's likely that we have to bring the independent ones to focus on the importance of cooperation. Eric made a good point about meeting people where they are and from their perspectives and with their existing groups. Hive account@dan made a point that we should have fun in the process. Perhaps we should have other consensus activities to build things together and that might get people engaged.

Perhaps we can build consensus around controversial topics like vaccines & mandates and try to 1) build consensus on the truth of the topic 2) build an educational resource based on everyone's consensus and 3) create local policy proposals. Right now it seems building consensus around ideas is easier than trying to build consensus around building roads.

Cultural Differences Using fractally

Hive account@shakruz mentioned in our contribution ranking meeting that his Russian speaking fractal is described as 'small group communication' in the Russian language. He also mentioned many Russians want privacy and won’t use cameras fearing they could be threatened by police for crypto. One person who attended a meeting previously lost 2000 BTC being raided by police and had to have plastic surgery to hide himself. Hive account@fractallymike also mentioned that he found that in some of the spanish-speaking cultures many people just deferred to authority so it may be more challenging to conduct fractal meetings in those cultures.

That's all I got for the last couple weeks... see you guys next time.