At 09:07 PM 4/21/2010, Duane Johnson wrote:
This sounds quite interesting, Abd ul-Rahman. Where can I learn about your FA/DP idea? Your discussion here is helpful, but I feel like I am missing out the important prerequisite pieces in order to make sense of it. (I know about delegable proxy, but haven't heard about FA/DP specifically).
My recent comments assumed some undertanding of the background. FA = Free Association. The short of it is that FAs are organizations that follow a generalization of the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Traditions, and the AA Twelve Concepts for World Service, as they apply to general-purpose organizations designed for stability and success without creating central control, as AA was designed. FAs are, roughly, how many informal peer associations start, but, particularly as they become successful, they normally move away from these informal traditions and take on common structures that seem to be necessary for success when the scale is larger. AA formalized the principles, based on study by Bill Wilson of what made prior temperance organizations eventually fail.
DP is, of course, delegable proxy, which isn't strictly necessary in the beginning, but the earlier it is implemented, the safer the organization is, in the sense of being protected from the Iron Law of Oligarchy, and in becoming persistent even when many members drift away due to the rising of other interests. Those members become "permanent" through proxy representation, remaining connected to the organization through a filter, a proxy left behind.
There is a wiki linked from http://beyondpolitics.org. There was an older wiki that still has files, but that is not directly accessible, I need to port the material from the old wiki. There isn't much at the new wiki yet.
You can find a lot of stuff by googling "FA/DP."
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