Story

Memories long past

Correction/commenting

• Thought of a better example of why Nations fails
• Canada ruined Beaver population
  • Hudson Bay company
  • Country was rules by a company / capital / based on extraction
    • Set the stage for other extractive industries
    • Colonial model
    • Creates debt for the people - makes you slave of the machine
      • Banks/big box stores/car dealership replaces trading posts
  • People could not resist
    • Attraction new technology
    • Social pressure
    • Weakened communities

Intro

What did we talk about

• Humanity is on a big boat
  • The boat is heading toward something dangerous
  • Cities on this boat that are the cause of the problems
  • Leaving the city to build a settlement

Before heading out, let's look at each other

• People want to change that system
  • More and more obvious that it needs to change
    • More and more of us
  • We feel helpless, alone
    • Where to start? What to do?
      • We're really good at talking (particularly complaining), but not at doing
  • We cannot do alone
• We look at
  • Governance - who are supposed to help do not. We're disconnected from them
  • Nature - answer in nature. no understanding because no exposure. Disconnected
  • Ourselves - don't know what we want - no vision. How to stay motivated then? Screens and social media pulling us away
  • Other people - no community. Feels like previous generations had much stronger communities.
• Communities is how you gain power to create change
  • You can't act alone. We need collective action
  • We need to organize ourselves to claim that power

Best way to get power?

• Standard, easiest way to organize?
  • Look at Hitler - one great Tyrant of the recent age
  • Reduce the cost of organization
    • Organize only around a few ideas
      • Too many ideas = loose your identity
        • Economic recovery
        • National humiliation
        • Anti-Semitism
    • You create uniformity
      • direct people to think a certain way
        • Propaganda machine
        • Mass rallies
        • Indoctrination, especially the youth
      • Brand your movements
        • Swastika as a logo
        • Uniform
    • Low barrier to participation
      • Local party branches
    • Identify an enemy
      • Use existing anger and redirect it toward an enemy
      • People angry about the economy -> redirected to the jews who tended to be rich
• But this is based on anger
  • Counter-productive in the long-term
    • By naming enemies, you create enemies yourself
      • Then it's a fight to stay in power. Silence or kill your enemies or your get overthrown like how you gained power
    • Anger only brings more anger. The way the system is created is as important as the system itself, because it carries that history. It carries the values.
• Instead, need to be based on love
  • Way heathier - but more effort, more time

Analogy

Organization

• Infinite number of successful way to organize
  • Many ways in which it can fail - or lead to a worse place
• If unhappy with current system, why not go in the woods? Become an hermit in a cave.
  • Free of the system
  • It's not a way of life. Whatever you build will end with you
  • Life is about the people in your life that you love
    • That's how you organize from a place of love
      • With the people you love
• People you love are also part of the system
  • How to convince them to join?

Like I mentioned in the first episode

• With a shared vision
  • What does that vision look like?
    • It's the Way of life that you want for you and others.
      • We want that Way of Life to be sustainable, because without, we'll heading toward an iceberg
        • But it also need to be a Way of Life that leads to a good life.
          • We can't go back and live off the land like our ancestors
• No, but the idea can be expanded
  • What if we use current technology but we organize ourselves like our ancestors did?
    • Another analogy. The analogy of the tribe
      • How humans organized themselves for millennia
        • That's how we should organize ourselves

Analogy of the tribe

• Imagine you are part of a tribe that wants to build a settlement
  • What does that tribe look like for you?
  • Instinctual idea of what a tribe looks like
  • Let's look at characteristics of that tribe

Size

• Limited size
  • You need to know your tribe's members, otherwise not a tribe
  • You don't want outsiders
• Why?
  • You would think more people = more power
    • But that's not true
  • If you have more people, but people don't contribute and just reap the benefits
    • Free-riders
    • Liability for the tribe - so you want them out
    • The tribe is as strong as the people within
    • Needs to be clear who's part of the tribe and who isn't (Clearly defined boundaries)
    • When the group grows too big, of when it becomes too diverse, it becomes latent
      • There are too many opinions and agreeing on what to do becomes too costly
        • Imagine trying to find a restaurant that pleases everyone for a group of 4 vs a group of 40.
      • Same for the cost of organizing
        • Invite 4 friends over vs 40
    • Idea of cost is useful for thinking about organization
      • Lower the cost = easier to organize
  • Can expand to cost and benefit
    • Higher the benefit = easier to organize
      • Invite 4 friends to clean a park of litter
        • Unlikely to happen because that's way too much work
      • Invite 40 people, and now it's more likely
      • More likely that people will join if they use the park often, if they see more benefits than the personal cost that they put in
  • What increases that cost?
    • When there's low trust between individuals
    • Everything takes more effort because you're always on your guard as to what the other really wants vs what he says
  • Why having social norms and shared values within your tribe is important
    • That's why you don't want outsiders
      • You want people that get what you mean without having to explain everything from scratch.
• That's why strong movements start with only a few people
  • Doesn't need to go viral
    • Start small, grow slowly, but well
• So who do you start with?

Who

• Need the right people
  • Start with people you trust
    • People who can share the same vision as you
    • People that share your values
  • People who are interested
    • Don't invite people who aren't, they will drag you down
      • Invest in the people that invest you
        • Or in this case, the tribe
  • Start with builders, do-ers
    • People that don't complain about the city, but are excited about the settlement. People that focus on solutions, not problems
      • You can't fight a system while trying to build a new one
• You need people take roles
  • Support each other
    • You can't do everything
  • Need leaders - People that inspire
    • Not the leaders that tell people what to do
  • Good leadership = reflect - understand where people come from and where they want to go. They are servants.
    • Leadership shifts with context
      • Hunter leads a hunt
      • Healer leads a ritual
      • Based on skill and experience
• All that require to maintain good relationships

Relationships

• Only need one word = respect
  • But then, need to define what respect mean
    • Based on social norms
      • Very effective to keep good relationships
• Social norms are based on rules
  • People should have a say in making or modifying these rules
    • Make sure people will follow them
      • Make sure they make sense - based on local context
    • Legitimate (collective-choice arrangements)
• Rules will be broken
  • Intentional or not
    • Needs monitoring
      • By tribe members
• Sanctions
  • Depends on many factors
    • Depends on severity
    • Repetition
    • Context
      • Not fixed, it's graduated
        • Starts with warning, penalty, eventually be banished
        • Focus is on correction of behaviour, not punishment
• What about decision-making? People will disagree
  • Decision-making based on consensus
    • Where everyone is listened to
      • So even if you disagree, at least you are heard
      • Means that you need to accept decisions you don't agree with
        • That requires humility
          • Like I said before, humility is a sharing of power
• Inevitable, conflicts will always arise
  • Need conflict-resolution mechanism
    • Must be low-cost, easy and quick
    • Because if it drags on, it's likely to escalate and erode trust
      • What happens when trust is lost?
        • People don't work together. They don't cooperate
• So relationships are based on respect and trust
  • You know what builds trust?
    • Clear communication

Communication

• !!! Same dictionary
  • New words like Navision
  • To describe things - using system's thinking - employ words like feedback
  • Banalize words that have power over us by turning them into swear words (Quebec slang)
  • Pejorative words like doomscrolling
• In fact, do you know the best indicator of success for communities to achieve their goal?
  • Discipline
    • Consistency and predictability
  • Why?
    • It builds trust
• If you have the same vision, or mission for decades, people will not doubt that you are committed
  • That's being consistent - staying true to your values or direction over time
• If you know how someone will respond when you open up with them - kindly, calmly and without judgement
  • You are more likely to open to that person
  • Or when you say you'll meet once a week, then you do meet once a week
    • That's being predictable
• Good communication is key
  • Within the tribe, but also with other tribes

Tribe with tribe

• Based on respect too
  • Means accept them to be different
    • May have a different structure
• Must be a mix of competition and cooperation
  • To help each other out when they help you out
  • Not help them when they don't help you
  • An eye for an eye
• That is true with the city we're leaving
  • If we try to fight it, it will fight back
  • And the tribe will be a threat, so it will try remove that tribe
  • But if we're not a threat, the tribe can grow in peace

How to grow

• Nested
  • Clans form within a tribe as it grows
  • One clan leaves to form a new tribe
  • Outside the current system
• It needs to evolve and adapt
  • Start small
    • Not everyone in - gatekeeping
• Every tribe should take care of itself
  • Where the benefit is
  • Being part of the tribe can be inconvenient
    • You may giving more than you receive
    • It's showing up when you're needed even if you don't feel like it
    • Inconvenience will be the price that some pay to be a member of the tribe
      • How many beautiful things did we loose to convenience?
        • We've lost local markets, craftsman
          • Those were the backbone of local communities
            • Those are the things that we're missing

Get people on board

• 1st step = awareness
  • Source of their dissatisfaction
    • Is the system
• WOT's purpose is twofold
  • Build that awareness
  • Create common WOT that reduces the cost of organization
    • If everyone understands first principles, complex systems, the importance of the narrative and spiritual, scientific and lean thinking, then it's easier to understand each other
• Easier to understand the vision

What is the vision?

• It's a way of life
  • Sustainable
    • Future in mind
  • Fulfilling
    • Work doesn't feel like work because you do what you want
  • Reconnect people with
    • Nature
    • Other people
    • Themselves
    • Decisions that impacts them
• Being part of the tribe
  • Small
  • Place-based
  • Trust, respect and humility
  • Reciprocity
• Building a settlement
  • Built by the tribe, for the tribe
    • Collaboration exercise
  • Community agreement
    • Rules, norms and values
      • Consistent and predictable. Safe
• But you're not alone
  • There are other tribes doing the same
    • Collaborate together
      • Similar vision, values and ways of thinking
• Good, honest and proactive communication
  • Technology allows for new ways of communication
    • A platform
      • Transparent
        • Maybe open-source
      • A small piece on land in the digital world
        • Not plagued by advertisement
    • Build by the people, for the people
  • Share ideas
  • Respectful debates

Exercise

• Time you felt you belonged to a tribe
  • What was the things that held you together?
    • Spending a lot of time together
    • Shared history
• Notice how that's related to your good life you wrote about last episode
• How to nurture a sense of tribe?
  • Can be simple
• Can think of people that you would want in your tribe

Poem
We're awake now and want to build anew
But we're alone, unable to do
It's time to organize as a tribe
To plant our seeds where hope's alive

Project, The Book of Whys