Representations of commons organisation

@michelbauwens1 Would you be able to meet up when you're in England for Open2018 in July? I'm convening a reading group 'Making the civil economy' and in that context too am coming up against questions of modelling/representing commoning - much broader than pattern language and pictures! And would be glad to discuss.

Reading group is picking up threads from economist/cooperator Robin Murray who died last year - you worked with him in the 2015 Democratic Money deep dive. Pat Conaty is in the group, Hilary Wainwright also.

As Loomio coordinator can you see a link in my profile to email me? DM me https://social.coop/@mike_hales in Mastodon? Best wishes

PS Remove double brackets in Mastodon address, Loomio put them there.

we can meet the 25th, but as the details of my invitation are not fully solid, we'll have to wait before confirming,

Michel

excellent. I'll await further planning. thank you

ok,

my email is michelsub2004 at gmail,

Michel

Beyond wiki

@michelbauwens1 A request for some contacts in the www/linked data/data analytics/pattern recognition field, if you can?

I'm still chewing on the issue of a pattern language for commoning - not commons organis*ation* (structure) but commons organis*ing* - a dynamic theory-of-practice. It'll be a little while yet before ready to start offering a framework but I'm beginning to understand what kind of architecture it needs to have. Not like Chris Alexander's (which is hierarchical - it needs to be dialectical) and not like Rob Hopkins' 'language' for Transition (which is a group organisers' to-do list, not a pattern language of reflective evolving everyday networked 'group mind' P2P practice and institutions).

I'm thinking about the representational form for this kind of conceptualising tool. It's something like a wiki (ie a hyperdocument). But even though a wiki evolves, the 'knowledge model' of a hyper*text* wiki is too didactic, universalist, uncontextualised. Something else is needed. My hunch is that the tool needs a #LinkedData back end, which will hold many diverse instances of historical/sectoral/regional practice, tagged with a dialectical lexicon (neural net?) of constructs. A specific enquiry would be conducted through a pattern-recognition front end of data-analytic algorithms that learn. The 'answer' is grounded in all the relavant instances. It's akin to the 'grounded theory' approach (Anselm Strauss) in anthropology. Sounds very Tim Berners-Lee to me :nerd: D'you have any connections in that area of science, who could get started on this problem? This kind of dynamic medium is where the future of wikis and platformed group mind must lie, I suspect. Global resources, local knowing. Resource globally, build locally.

Any ideas out there? @staccotroncoso @asimong @strypey @richarddbartlett @olisb

perhaps Helene Finidori can help, I don't think I can

here some resources from our wiki section on the topic, https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Category:Patterns

I also have 30 refs in my tag in diigo, see https://www.diigo.com/user/mbauwens/?query=%23Pattern-Languages

Pattern Languages for Social Change

Examples[edit ( https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/index.php?title=Pattern_Languages_for_Social_Change&action=edit&section=1 )]

Provided by George Por:

• http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/
• http://socialchangepatterns.wikia.com/wiki/Pattern_Language_of_Social_Change_Wiki

• http://www.reliableprosperity.net/explore.html
  *

• Article: PATTERNS THAT CONNECT: EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL OF PATTERNS AND PATTERN LANGUAGES IN SYSTEMIC INTERVENTIONS TOWARDS REALIZING SUSTAINABLE FUTURES. Helene Finidori. ISSS Journal – 60th meeting (upcoming).

URL = https://www.academia.edu/27465412/Patterns_that_Connect_Exploring_The_Potential_of_Patterns_and_Pattern_Languages_in_Systemic_Interventions_Towards_Realizing_Sustainable_Futures

Advanced Author Paper presented at the 60th Annual Meeting of the International Society for the Systems Sciences - "Realizing Sustainable Futures" - University of Colorado – 23 - 30 July 2016

• Book: Patterns in Network Architecture: A Return to Fundamentals, by John Day, ISBN-10: 0132252422, ISBN-13: 9780132252423, Prentice Hall, 2007.

URL = http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0132252422

@mikeh8 I coukdnt totally understand you post about wikis and pattern language, but it made me think about federated wikis, which amusingly I also dont totally understand.
Perhaps you want to check them out?
Maybe this is a good place to start.
-http://makecommoningwork.federated.wiki/view/welcome-visitors/view/federated-wiki-introduction

@darren4 thanks for this - it's a great place to start. Especially as the authors are Bollier & Helfrich. What I'm puzzling about in 'Beyond wiki' is something else, but I don't yet understand enough to pitch it properly. I think two things are involved, which may be contradictory. One is the semantic web. The other is the armoury of data-analytic pattern-recognition processing that is used in the back office in FaceBook, Google, etc. The former is about enabling 'us' to explicitly name, connect and share stuff, P2P. Great! Original free internet ideology. The latter is part of what the Tech Oligarchs (and psyops in the military) have innovated, to enclose the internet and 'farm' it. But the technology needs to be brought out into 'the front office' in apps that enable us (the public) to 'see' patterns in our own networking and relating which are tacit, complex and invisible to ourselves, adding to our collective capacity for knowing our collective Self.

I don't know how these join up. Or whether they're quite distinct. Anybody with leads (especially, who's doing what in the fediverse) . . . please chip in! @strypey @olisb

I would love to connect the p2p wiki with a select few other wiki's similarly focused on the commons, like Remix the Commons and a few others,

actually Remix the Commons is the only time I have semantic applications that are actually useful ... and to not lead to an overabundance of links

Michel

Over-abundance of links is definitely something I can do without ;-) Brain-ache!

yes, sometimes too much is worse than not enough

I am told this oftentimes for my own curation

but then again, for those that complain that 2 items per day on a blog is too much, the reality is that the popular blogs have all more than 10 per day ...

I would never complain about your curating! It's very valuable to have all these sources. But the labour of developing workable beneficial order in the world is considerable! Perhaps the work of learning not to strive too hard for order is even more important ;-)

we work on consolidating the knowledge through our wiki sections, our regular research syntheses, and our books,

but intermediary solutions like a structured newsletter would really be useful, however, I don't have to time anymore to do more ...

Michel

I'm still chewing on the issue of a pattern language for commoning - not commons organis*ation* (structure) but commons organis*ing*

Hadn't followed this thread; @mikeh8 sorry... FYI one of my main work-in-progress models is a general P2PCI Modular Organizing Framework. I could describe this as a generic framework for "commons organising", because it's all about p2p organizing & developing communities which support commons.

That diagram is heavily hyperlinked & related to many other complex models. I haven't actively requested feedback on it yet from anyone other than my direct collaborators... however, it's open-sourced & publicly linked on big networks. (twitter and fb... Also Patchwork, though frankly I don't find time to engage with Patchwork community yet.)

Feel free to check out the open source diagram & links, to ask questions and use or adapt anything.

thanks!!

Thanks for making this connection Greg. I'm reading your schema as a map of data tools and systems. Maybe social media too. With many hooks into open protocols. Is that right?

On that basis - although I find the schema hard to read - I get the relevance of what it represents. I'm aware of work-in-progress on ValueFlows/OpenApps etc, over in the Open Apps Loomio group and I see how these kinds of tools and distributed data systems form part of basic infrastructure for a use-value economy . . thus, a commons-based non-extractive economy and a future of commoning.

What I find harder to get my head round is the relationship between analysis at the data/systems/apps/protocols level and practical insight into development at the level of what it is that people are doing when they are commoning - as distinct from what the tool-systems are doing that may help them in this.I guess I'm saying that the challenge I find myself taken up with is to do with the culture dimensions of commoning - and within this, the feel (the way the heart moves, in the dance of commoning, in the face of extractive norms, temptations to take an easy route, etc) - as distinct from the tool apparatus? Being a melancholic person, I just can't take it for granted that it's 'natural' for folks to do the right thing! There are lots of cheapskate delusionary shortcuts, blindspots and temptations, and folks take them all the time?

I'm exploring this relationship in a work in progress website FoP RoP - forces of production, relations of production. Pattern language comes under the 'commoning' tab. The distinction I'm drawing above is present there in the framing of three (interwoven) spheres of practice: material economy (tools, thermodynamics, space, bodies, etc etc), capability economy (skills, conceptualisations, narratives etc), moral economy (motivations, fixations, copycat reflexes, emotional literacy, equanimity, etc etc). Commoning calls for development across all three spheres? thus pattern language embraces patterns of differently cultivated feeling, radical cultural formations, etc. All of which call for other kinds of skill and 'building'. It's a complex dance and a complex language? Do comment on the above distinction (and the broader project) if it makes sense to you . . . or especially if it doesn't ;-)

The above distinction makes sense yes, although it's somewhat different (differently-factored) than any of the frameworks which I use. Thanks for sharing so much.

I'll comment here on the deep importance of culture and feelings, although I doubt that my quick reply will deeply address your concerns.

I think that what people are doing when they're commoning is, simply, creating and supporting community. And unfortunately I think we're all practically beginners in that, and all suffering badly (especially in large-scale processes) from our dependence on insufficient and deformed tools and techniques.

I develop tools and techniques, but everything in my conception is based on building community. This requires inclusive discussion of everyone's thoughts and feelings. Such human dimensions are deeply implicit in key models such as the Resource Development and Support System and Inclusive Design System linked in my model above. Such models can, I believe, help communities to identify pain points, and to focus together on resolving or transforming them.

Of course I'm (painfully!) aware tha most people don't want to consider most other people's pains, and I guess that p2p coordination & collaboration-- and collective intelligence-- will develop very slowly at first, as people learn to align their shared goals/ projects with the wants and needs of larger communities.

it's long slow work. i'm already way overworked with my clear and obvious design imperatives, plus all of the small-group co-authorship and conflict resolution processes which I inevitably seem to get caught up in. (So I really don't have much time to study approaches outside of my existing projects, which I'm always falling behind in.)

"Aligning shared goals/projects with the wants and needs of larger communities" . . "long slow work" . . "small-group co-authorship and conflict resolution" . . "considering other people's pains" . . etcetera. Yes, this is a long haul and a full day's work, for sure! I do get a little dismayed that there are so many ways that we (all of us) adopt for addressing 'feelings', and that there are so many ways of having feelings, which many folks tend to gloss over, I feel, unwilling to acknowledge and engage the degree of diversity that exists among people. No slick solutions, and a long march across cultures and generations?

Whatever . . it seems to me that patterns of emotion/affect/wanting/avoiding/etc etc are an essential part of a pattern language for any practice that intends to be liberating. Our species has a long way to evolve yet, from behaviours that may have made us dominant, but haven't yet made us wise. My best guess at a frame for this evolutionary labour is the dhamma of buddhist traditions - not as spirituality or religious faith, but as very shrewd and time-tested theory-of-mind.

Thanks for responding at length Greg. Best wishes

FYI I've identified directly with what I'd call "core Buddhist principles" since I was 16 (32 years ago). I've perceived those principles as the foundations for my later premises, theories and (hopefully, most of) my practices.

I think there is space for more deep, and for more shallow organizational forms, between those who favour long inclusive processing, with the clear risk of going nowhere but in circles, and those that favour efficiency, with the risk of non-inclusive meritocracies ...

personally, I tend to the latter, as we are not just doing what we desire, but need to survive in a hostile environment, which sometimes require bold and fast action (ask the celts about the roman armies ), and I get occassionally quite disheartened by the 'therapy crowd' (probably because I've done my own a long time ago, outside of activism)

Michel

Michel I'm aware of your expectation of "more deep and more shallow organizational forms" and appreciate this as both a cultural frame and a frame for infrastructure/tools. A difficulty I personally find I must address is "crowds" - of any kind, therapy-addicted or whatever - and whether "a crowd" can ever be trusted to act in a beneficial way. Your case of bold and fast action needed by the Celts is a good one . . . Freedom is based at some level in fiat - the capacity and willingness to 'just do it', trusting the heart without any more consultation or dialogue, and see what happens - and then, take moral and material consequences as they come. Taking and holding of territory, denial of territory, ostracising, banishing, whatever - grim stuff. Aware that "the actor who makes half a revolution digs their own grave"!

What I hope for and work toward is the capacity of equanimity (dhamma term) that might enable a 'crowd' action on a mass scale to be wise rather than arising from adrenaline- and cortisol-powered, ‘Othering’, tribal "moral economy of the crowd" (C18 English term for riots and civil unrest in the face of agrarian capitalism). Bcos dhamma practice is skilful doing as distinct from talking, and a self 'therapy' rather than an other-dependent therapy, I find it fosters capabilities that typical therapies are unlikely to - facing up to the fiat issue and the cortisol issue, right-here and now, in this person, in this action.

Whatever the frame (the dhamma isn't the only one that works this way - serious question mark) I begin to wonder whether the potential world of #OpenApps - and perhaps especially emergent #holo infrastructure - may give us tool-based means for constructing feedbacks of "people's data-analytics" which enable us - individually and in mutually-recognising collectives - to see tacit pattern-consequence of actions in chaotic systems, and evolve wiser 'emotional institutions' and courses of action. This is why I feel that patterns of the heart-mind belong in a pattern language of commoning, and thence may inform the constructing of a material-cultural ecosystem of openapps that tool-up processes of open-hearted community self-development, as distinct from the bubbles and narrowcasting of tribal social media. Call me a dumb optimist. I'll answer to "skill-oriented literacy-cultivating infrastructuring pessimist"!

One organization can be bold and fast in some contexts and very slow, inclusive and indecisive in others, @michelbauwens1 , depending on how it's organized. (Indeed, even our standard modern governments such as USA intentionally built slow and fast features into their infrastructure-- but of course, based on 18th century technology and issues.)

I'm not implying that all big organizations or projects should include both features. I would however guess that it's the ultimate emergent result for any complexly adaptive organization which includes many people and multiple goals.

that is a very good point, and from some anthropological reading, I have learned that this was a feature of indigenous societies, i.e in times of war or raids, the war chief would take over, but once the campaign was over, he would return to his ordinary status and to the authority of the elders and village chief,

class societies emerge once the war chiefs refuse to hand power back at the end of conflicts,

Michel

"in times of war or raid . . once the campaign was over . . return to the authority of elders/village chief." Now, that would be a GOOD trick to learn!

Guy Dauncey has a story about these as evolutionary traits . . . "the non-alphas resented being dominated". But seems to me he tells it like a fairy story, in which the silent non-alpha majority rides up on a white horse and everybody lives comfortably ever after. IMHO alphas (and subservient others) are not leaving the planet for some time yet, so Michel's sense of surviving in a hostile environment (possibly within our own communities and organisation) is appropriate? So yes, the 'temporary chief' turnaround would be a great trick to learn.

an interesting book to read is 'the hierarchy of the forest' which says that hunter-gathering egalitarianism was a reverse hierarchy, a alliance between beta males and women, against the power grabbing of alpha males; it represented a revolution against animality; equality requires constant protection against concentration

I'm heading of on another tangent here - but this seems to be a thread of tangents . . . In the past couple of months I've opened up a website of work in progress, in which a 'pattern language' of commoning is one of the central threads (sadly, not moving as fast as I would wish it to). Hence, this comment in this thread here. But other work has triggered slightly tangential thoughts on how the movement for P2P-commons sits, in relation to a couple of generations of 'radical science' activism. I'm mentioning this here - rather than starting another thread - because it seems to me that the development of Fordism/post-Fordism since WWII underlies these movements, and this in turn needs to be part of the historical patterning that a pattern language for commoning must digest, if it's to be truly useful as a support for contextualised, epoch-making activism. There's a blog post on this here which I hope seems interesting? Given the orientation to 'organising' maybe @staccotroncoso and @annmarie would be interested, along with the usual suspects in this thread?

will check out your suggested links, dear Mike!

Not sure if this is what you want. But the hEOP project is a reference implementation example for a new method of commons production and organization. It's pretty far outside the box and might not be recognizable as what you expect, but it works to achieve the goals of a new form of production, organization, and distribution. The hOEP project has some diagrams, but mostly it's an example of crowdsourced production that doesn't get into detail about how it works with diagrams and just works as a functional example. The basic idea for the project, from your perspective is that it functions by allowing buyers and sellers in a free market to crowdsource the price of things similar to how the free market works to crowsource the price of things using purchased with money using supply and demand economics. The hOEP project helps people crowdsource and purchase things with their personal time or the community reputation or other things of that nature besides dollars. So if you think dollars function to crowdsource building of a large thing like a bridge or human genome project, then hOEP does the same thing only better because it uses personal time contributed as a metric in addition to personal dollars contributed to a cause or project. I guess as a diagram you would show a venn diagram with the dollar economy in one circle and several other non-dollar economies trading in units of time or social credit, or other units overlapping the free market economic circle. The point being that this is an integration technology that combines shopping and price setting with commons production or other social credit system. If you're interested in this more, my website is at https://sites.google.com/view/the-hoep-project and here's a relevant quote.

"hOEP♥ (hOEP < 3, hOEP Heart, hOurs Equals Price ) is a novel price discount system and human value exchange communications protocol for sellers and consumers to love and profit from. hOEP♥ allows any retailer or seller to make more profit by giving poor, and wonderful, and deserving people price discounts. The more sellers discount price for deserving, poor, or wonderful customers, then the more profit a retailer can make. hOEP Heart is expected to produce an exponential increase to the productive efficiency and distribution efficiency of any market place or market economy. With repeated use by consumers and retailers, it will produce a fractal patterned egalitarian distribution of wealth and resources in the customer demand base. Inequality will be drained from the market places by sellers seeking profit first. hOEP♥ technology, designs, and research is offered freely to all.

MOAP>3 (Multi-factor Open Access Price, more then free) is a novel price discount communications protocol system for sellers and consumers to love and profit from. MOAP>3 allows any retailer to enable convenient and negotiable group purchasing and provisional purchasing. MOAP>3 is ideally suited for profitably purchasing large and extremely large ticket sale items such as a new home, city infrastructure or HyperLoop, or civilization scale projects such as an artificial magnetic shield for Mars or Human Genome Project. New Features include changes to encourage rapid and extremely rapid mobilization of very large scale resource and human time intensive multi-disciplinary research and development projects of a civilization scale price and value. Also added is extensible architecture with wisdom compartmentalization features for Pluralist Economies and more robust Universal Continuity of market operations in unusually diverse or adverse environments. Focused use of economic nudge price formula convert panic, discontent, unrest, and other powerful motivational metric factors such as love and hope into positive actions with verifiable results at a large profit for all. MOAP>3 envisions a system of price discounts for whatever behavior results in net benefits to others. Whatever behavior or person who generates the greatest net benefits (benefits minus harms) gets the greatest price discounts. Government can profitably transition into a smaller role of being the dominant and default price tag formulae and solutions provider for purchase of national security products and in geopolitical security related market places. Geo-political inequality will be drained from the market places by sellers and buyers seeking profit first and demand for a price formula that outcompetes and out performs status quo government solutions. "MOAP, more then free" delivers on the promise of smart discount coupon and price tag technology AI and is being developed by affiliates and expected to be offered freely to poor and wonderful and deserving people and business and governments on a sliding price scale."

Thanks for your time and interests. hope what I contributed helps. If not let me know and I can delete it or go away.

Thanks for these details. I will create a wiki entry for the project already,

Michel