And finally, the least imaginative response is to turn it into a normative question. Whether decentralized polities are good or bad is entirely secondary to me.
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The question is whether they are even possible in a meaningful way. As in, examples can be created that persist and function as long as other comparable mechanisms of organization, with comparable levels of non-degenerate output.
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Non-degeneracy is the key criterion for me. It is trivial to produce a "decentralized community" that nominally checks off the feature list, but produces nothing more complex than online conversations. The question is can it do more? Can it wage wars or launch space programs?
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I do think several examples come close for brief periods, both positive and negative. Like periods in open-source projects or guerrilla wars or festivals. But it's not a well-developed or fully-theorized form of organization compared to say corporations, markets, or republics.
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I mean, come on, starlings are stupid swarming little feathered rats, but don’t you think there’s some intriguing possibility here?
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This is an earnestpost thread version of a more satirical take I did back in 2015
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Is “vision” really so useless?
I can think of a couple relatively long-term projects in my actual work, that I’m confident should be done. And the ability to consistently make incremental progress on a long-term project requires something I was calling “vision”.
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“Vision” as I understand it is simply the ability to imagine a future state better than the present state and map out a plausible way of getting there. It sounds really basic, and it feels really basic, but in my experience few people can do it?!
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Or at any rate, I observe hardly anyone making plans, and people act really impressed when they see a plan.
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It turns into leadering when you consciously try to dazzle others into doing stuff in service of a vision but you don’t really care if it gets done so long as you make bank while others are trying.

