> Thing is, I recall Zack's first posts regarding this "vision" on the > coffeehouse list. He was carrying on about decentralized organic > networks and reeds law and so forth... I could hear the eyes roll. > But he got my attention because I see the cosmos as an "organic", > adaptive, interconnected thing. A complex open self-organizing system > so to speak. And > the thing about open systems is that you start with some very > simple ground > rules and then you get out of the way. It'll make it's own rules from > then on and if you try constrain it with boxes, or walls or straight > lines it'll > either overwhelm you or it'll die. But what it won't be is the same.
As Zack and I have already discussed, I've been carrying a similar vision for a while. I've thought about it enough by now to realize that we get there, not with something overnight/revolutionary, but with small steps. Yes, in helping Dean we have to adapt to the practical issues of a transitional campaign (i.e. transitional between traditional politics and our stake in something more like the "emergent democracy" that Joi et al have been trying to describe and work through). So I say we do what we have to for Dean, and that might mean compromises, but we also think about a more (inherently) independent set of initiatives as well, which can be spun off from the same vision. There are already some other initiatives where these kinds of tools would be a good fit, but first things first? best, Jon
