rings of intentional society

One of the first questions that people have about (codename) "intentional society" is, "what kind of thing is it, really?" By that, people tend to mean "what do people actually do to be in it?" This is a very practical question! And it's a hard question for me to outline, because it can start very small and also grow to constitute a whole society, so it's not really defined by a particular activity at a particular scale.

I'll illustrate a fairly large-scale structure here, from the outside moving inward through the concentric "rings" of increasing depth of engagement. (This post supersedes some of the prior "attributes" post.) This isn't how things will start by any means, but is meant to illustrate the space of possibilities that might come online at different times if-and-as intentional society grows.

Here's a loose vision of a full set of rings of engagement with Intentional Society:

7. Passively informed curious fans

They subscribe to an informational newsletter that gives regular progress updates and glimpses into what's happening on the inside.

6. Actively informed members

They join the internal social network, can see other individual's self-reflections, and can access some learning resources. This requires registration as a "member" of intentional society by declaring their alignment with the intentional values and code of conduct. They can start some personal awareness and growth practices on their own, or join a supportive community structure.

5. Congregational attendance

They join a large group "congregation" that may be region-based which meets regularly (maybe every 2-4 weeks, with a bigger gathering every 6 months). These would be about Dunbar-sized, and form a community container for a bunch of small groups.

4. Small group membership

They join one or more small groups within their congregation that meet on a weekly cadence. These are personal development groups supporting their own growth with practices, encouragement, and peer coaching.

3. Serving/volunteering towards collective efforts

They have some bandwidth and energy towards service, beyond (or because of) their self-development work, and so contribute towards projects either internal (small group leadership, leadership coaching, member services) or external (social impact projects, politics, commercial ventures) efforts that are both useful to the society and stimulating towards further personal growth.

2. Revenue-generating employment with a contained company

They get hired by a small company that is owned/associated/aligned with intentional society and is operating by its same cultural code. These companies use self-management, radical feedback and transparency, and have some strong connections to the ecosystem of all aligned companies. Some may be open to part-time and flexible employment for society members, not just full-time.

1. Non-profit employment in society administration and support

They go deep into internal service and get hired by the society itself (using the revenue stream flowing from its commercial ventures) to anchor and support the network of volunteers that are

0. Authors of the societal constructs

They steer the definition of the key societal containers and intentions, serving as the nexus of awareness and sense-making on behalf of the society as a collective. The author circle would have some amount of self-control of its membership, but also be semi-permeable from the outside - e.g. there might be a representational system via liquid democracy. Authored proposals/changes would be visible and open to input from all members.

Looking back on the various feelings of experiencing intentional society, you may be able to spot the mapping from the feelings to the various rings.

Obviously this is not all going to spring into existence all at once - and maybe half of it is wrong and never looks like the above. Lightly-considered ordering thoughts: The place to start bootstrapping would be just a bit of 4 and 3, would be my guess. An implicit 0 becomes explicit as soon as relevant, while 2 and 5 might take some time to gather enough momentum to come into being. 2 enables 1, but 1 might (or might not) be required to get 5 really scaling horizontally. The numbers don't mean much: maybe 2 and 1 should be "A and B sides" of employment. It's unclear whether the tech platform support of 6 would come from 2 or 1, but 3 could get some basics in place and evolve a while via the OSS model. 7 could start as soon as 3 (and the whole system) gets enough bandwidth to want any marketing beyond word-of-mouth.