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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I suppose the alternate explanation is that plans never work, so people know better than to plan new initiatives, and when they act impressed, it’s flattery.
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But I don’t buy it. Sure, *grand* plans like “create a research institute to cure cancer” might fail. But there are simple plans like “launch a new product” or “implement a new system” that are totally feasible, and companies do all the time.
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And weirdly...most people seem to be missing a “decide what is best to do” skill, even when they have impressive skills at *doing* it, and the deciding/planning doesn’t require anything but common knowledge, Google, and a few concepts like “compare pros and cons”
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best = caring enough to optimize. Mostly people mediocratize and solve for good enough.

