Source: October 6, 2013: Online Work Bee and Funds Discussion
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BenSibelman
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== Agenda ==
* Check In
* Review WWWs
* Weekly Events Logistics
* Review Agenda
* Newsletter
* Funds discussion
* Evaluation
== Check In ==
* Brandon: Happy Birthday to Ben ... I'm okay
* Shelley: Celebrating Rainier's birth and death tomorrow ... we are going to Mt. Rainier that is closed because of the government shutdown ... we have to sneak in with our bikes ... 19 miles straight up hill to Paradise where we can hike .9 miles super steep uphill to Glacier Vista where Rainier's ashes are buried ... I'm feeling sober ... I always feel put out this time of year (wonderful family and life but still feel sorry for myself this time of year)
* Ben: I'm sick, it hurts to swallow and my head feels like it is stuffed with cotton ... been reading in bed most of the morning
* Eric: I'm feeling pissed off with myself for blowing yesterday's service ... I want to apologize, I feel bad for having done that ... on the other hand I feel like I'm onto something with the UU Fellowship of Ottawa ... mixed feelings ... my feelings are with you (my sister died on October 7)
== WWWs from last time ==
* <s>Ben ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
* Ben ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
* Ben ... write a draft of the summer newsletter ... by next call
* Brandon ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
* Brandon ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
* Brandon ... finish the visitor cookies and logging including google analytics, FOR REAL THIS TIME :-) ... by next week
* Brandon ... send PSAS media to Ben ... by Monday
* Brandon ... start scheduling conversation about when to continue funds chat ... by next call</s>
* Eric ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
* Eric ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
* Eric ... start fleshing out Galaxia ... by next call
* Eric ... Extract issues from Commentary on commentary and add to Git ... by next call
== WWWs ==
* Ben ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
* Ben ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
* Brandon ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
* Brandon ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
* Eric ... follow your topical community protocol for this week ... ongoing
* Eric ... meditate and keep track of which days ... ongoing
* Eric ... start fleshing out Galaxia ... by next call
* Eric ... Extract issues from Commentary on commentary and add to Git ... by next call
== Weekly Events Logistics ==
Service rotation: Eric, Shelley, Brandon, Ben
* October 12 Service: 9:00 am PDT (12:00 EDT) (Eric) ... Ben and Brandon out
* October 19 Service: 9:00 am PDT (12:00 EDT) (Shelley)
* October 20 Work-Bee: 1:30 pm PDT 16:30 EDT ... Eric out
* October 20 Seeing Nature Readings and Practices (Ottawa): 13:00 EST
== Newsletter ==
The SolSeed movement has been partially "on summer vacation" for the past three months. Eric has been busy laying a new foundation for the boathouse at the cottage where we held Sol 2013; the Sanders family has frequently taken weekends off to be with family and friends for various special occasions; and I've been involved with various activist pursuits. We did manage to get at least two of the core members together for work bee calls almost every week, though, resulting in the following accomplishments:
We helped sponsor a Portland State Aerospace Society rocket launch [wiki link?], and got the SolSeed Emblem stamped on a tail fin! Brandon headed out to the remote desert town of Brothers, Oregon with the PSAS team on June 30th for the launch of their 3.7-meter-tall rocket. Video of the launch, including some rather dizzying footage from the rocket's two onboard cameras, can be found on the PSAS wiki.
We developed a new set of rituals for the SolSeed Services to help us map the story of the universe, past, present and future, onto the cycle of the year. (Eric had this idea before joining the SolSeed Movement, and we've adopted it enthusiastically.) Since the Fall Equinox, we've started using the new ritual for the seventh half-season, known as Viventibus Mundos (Living Worlds), which describes the near future when we start sending life to other planets, moons, and asteroids throughout the Solar System.
Speaking of the Equinox, this year the Sanders and I celebrated the change of seasons with a lovely hike and picnic dinner at Bridal Veil Falls [wiki link?] in the Columbia Gorge (after they picked me up from one of those activist events in Portland). The following day, we joined Eric on Skype to begin a discussion [wiki link?] about what to do with the funds we're all contributing to a virtual SolSeed account. Eric finished out the weekend with a dinner where each food item combined dark and light colors to represent the balance of day and night on the Equinox.
We've also been talking about two sets of experiments we want to run, one for online ads to draw kindred spirits to our website, and one for transcendent experiences, which we're planning to measure using a questionnaire. We haven't started gathering actual data yet, but we're getting close. I'm also almost ready to start on the next music video for "The Seed," and recent discussions with eco-theologian Michael Dowd and Living Universe Foundation member Keith Dauzat suggest we're getting close to growing our membership. Lots to look forward to in the coming months!
== Funding ==
Shelley: I feel impatience with aiming for perfection about how we are going to spend it ... I want to just spend it ... realizing there are thousands of needs and that we need to just not be indifferent to those needs
Ben: I think we also need to not be indifferent to issues of how much we spend of each other's money can create tension ... acknowledge that money is a form of power and power dynamics are important to get right if we want to remain friends (Shelley "Well Said")
Shelley: What if we return to the meditation that Carol wrote for us
Eric: I think we should try to nail something down (a budget) ... first acknowledging each other's ideas and discussing what we like and don't like, then discuss which ones we want to implement
Brandon: We can work at different levels, values at one end of the spectrum, specific "how we spend every dollar for the next year" at the other end ... I'm not sure that we're aligned on the values, and I'm not even sure whether I'm clear on my own values ... on the other hand, talking about the specifics may help us tease out the values
Eric: What we're not sure of is whether we agree on what priority the different values would have ... that kind of thing would definitely get teased out in a budget scenario, which tells us what things different people prioritize highly
Shelley: Can we just commit to noticing the values?
Brandon: there are values and meta-values ... I'm thinking about meta-values, e.g. autonomy in decision-making vs. aggregated larger-group decisions ... these create strong traditions and precedents
Eric: A budget can include contingency funds and discretionary funds
Brandon: Shelley and I have "bring life" money that's not SolSeed, and we can each make autonomous decisions on how to use it up to a certain level ... these customs aren't the same as a budget, and they're close to what we've been doing with SolSeed ... what part of the spectrum (between autonomous decisions and a formal budget approved by the group) do you like most?
Eric: I worry about how small an amount I'm giving and how I don't feel I have a right to tell you guys how to spend your money
Shelley: I trust you to spend our money, Eric ... of course, that may not apply to newer members
Ben: my immediate instinct is to say that decisions should be made by the group as much as possible, to avoid people being upset by someone making unilateral decisions that they don't approve of ... or at least people should have a chance to say they don't like your idea before you implement it
Shelley: how would that feel with Eric?
Eric: I'm pretty much okay with whatever people come up with ... it isn't my money so I don't really feel like I can tell people how to spend it ... I gain so much with how much can be done in the group than on my own that I really can't argue with anything
Ben: I think you shouldn't feel that way, just because you are the newest you shouldn't feel like the least powerful
Eric: It isn't the newest, it is that I am the least financially free (monthly contribution rate)
Ben: What matters is how much we contribute intellectually and emotionally ... it shouldn't be the case that someone says "I'm poor so I don't have any say in what SolSeed does"
Eric: Worries about people who may join in the future ... let's stick with the tradition of a one-year period where new contributing members don't get decision-making power yet ... at the end of that year, SolSeed could evolve into something different ... if it evolves too far in a direction we don't like, we can pull out and start over
Brandon: I'm deeply suspicious of equality ... any time you choose equality over reality, you end up with upset and unstable dynamics ... the value of equality implies a sense of entitlement that I abhor ... you can get to the results you desire through the value of generosity instead
Eric: The point of pooling our funds is to achieve something together that we can't achieve apart
Brandon: I disagree; the best way to make a lot of money is to focus on my own individual funding sources ... I do this because I want to be with people who call me forward to be who I want to be ... there's something intrinsically rewarding about pooling our resources
Ben: The problem with my proposal is that you can't easily measure what people are contributing non-monetarily to the group and therefore can't determine whether people are taking more decision making power than they are entitled to
=== Some models to discuss that have known history ===
* Kickstarter or crowdfunding ... people float ideas and try to attract resources from others, usually in small quantities from each contributor, and the contributors don't control the result
* Traditional capital ... people with large amounts of money decide, and expect to control what they're paying for
* Open Source Projects ... where there is a "God King" and their "Core Group" and then a lot of minions ... in reality the "God King" must serve the minions or they will fork (you try to make the cost of forking as small as possible) ... as a minion you earn your way into the Core Group (who has commit rights) by contributing enough value
** Ben: Do people really use the term "God King"??
** Brandon: Absolutely ... it is somewhat tongue-in-cheek and often has a negative timbre
* Socialism ... people pay taxes and trust the State to do the right thing (if democratic, they can at least vote the bums out if they don't do the right thing)
* Anarcho-syndicalism ... something about unions and "direct action" ... the Wikipedia article is unclear about decision-making mechanisms
* Consensus ... everyone in the group votes on everything, and everyone has veto power (can be modified to require more than one person to block an action, sometimes requiring as little as an 80% majority to proceed)
*Traditional Church offering - oligarchy where people contribute funds to the group and then decide if they want to get deeply involved in committees. Committees make the decsions and use the money.
* Do-ocracy, Meritocracy, Ad-hocracy - various shades of "the people doing the work make the decisions"
Brandon: I think traditional capital is the most closely aligned with the "forces of reality", but doesn't provide the greatest "spiritual satisfaction" for the participants. In fact it often sucks the life right out of everyone.
Eric: Traditional Church Offering/Oligarchy also is aligned with reality but it is the reality of people wanting to contribute to something larger while not necessarily feeling entitled to control that larger thing.
Brandon: Consensus can often be held hostage by a single obstinate individual. Creates the expectation that everyone will always be happy with every decision and that it is a failure if someone is not happy with a decision.
Eric: Consensus fails to distinguish between what is important and what is administrative. Is it necessary to have consensus on the brand of pencil that we buy if we decide we need pencils for a conference? No. That is an extreme example but the point is that most people will be happy if the group gets things done and unhappy if they have to sit through endless meetings trying to achieve consensus.
Ben: I'm dubious about how easy it could be to "fork" an open-source religion ... even if the technical cost is low, the social cost would almost certainly be very high, especially when the contributing memebership is as small as we currently have
Eric: I know what you mean Ben. There were a couple of people who didn't quite like the Unitarian Universalist religion. So they started their own religion (forked) and they are still just about 4 people after years of effort. I think they are called 'SolSeed'.
Shelley: I would like to see us try something and see how it goes. We're bound to learn from what we are doing, and we can always changes things in the future. Let's be agile (we only have four people!)
Brandon: Nominations for what we try?
Eric: Traditional Offering/Oligarchy
Brandon: I'm game ... but what would that look like in practice for us?
Eric: Each of us offers what we feel we can safely offer to a group that will decide what to do with it by committee. (At first we are likely to be one committee, but as we grow, a top committee may dedicate funds to sub-committees working on particular projects/goals) The point is that we pool money and then decide what to do with it separate from who contributed.
Brandon: So how about the funds committee is composed of all "contributing members" until we get too big (say more than 6 people) at which point we have elections or some other mechanism for selecting the committee?
Ben: So this really looks like "consensus at first, but then we plan to switch to (possibly democratic) oligarchy later" ... if we're 7 people and 6 of them are on the committee, that probably won't work
Brandon: We would probably need to go back down to 3 on the committee or something like that. I can imagine being on the committee is a bit like being the chair of an academic department ... not really something that research oriented professors aspire to ... more of a duty they perform for a limited period of time.
Shelley: It's fine with me
Eric: I think we will need to evolve over time. What will work for 4 people will not work for 400 or 400 000. We should keep trying to look ahead and adjust to the number of people we are approaching before we get there. But I thought the same thing as Brandon. Once the committee gets to big we will plan to shrink it so that one person doesn't feel left out. In fact we will only let the 5th and 6th members in so that they do not feel left out. (Brandon: exactly) The ideal size of a committee is 3 or 4.
Brandon: I'm good with trying the oligarchy that looks like consensus and evaluating it at the end of this year.
Ben: It's 2:30 and we're no closer to actually making any decisions about what to do with our money.
Brandon: We are much closer, we're almost done deciding how we make the decisions :p
Brandon: Lets require a written proposal presented to the committee in order to allocate funds for something. I'm going to bring one or two proposals next time. If someone on the committee wants to start a budget or thinking about a budget they can bring that too.
Eric: Luckily we aren't like the American Government in that we have on-going commitments that need to be met in order for us to function. If we get a deadlock we won't have to shut down. But if there are on-going commitments that need to be met in order for us to function (like Premium Skype (or given today; Extra Premium Better than skype!) Then we should ensure that that gets covvered well ahead so that we do not end up shutting down for a deadlock :)
=== Evaluation ===
* Brandon: feeling optimistic, I like that we are trying something and have confidence we will adjust it as necessary. The precedent of evolving our process sounds like something worth creating :-)
* Shelley: I think we should spend 100% of this year's budget on better video conferencing technology :p I was impressed with the perseverance and flexibility we showed in the face of technological adversity
* Ben: The idea of us turning into a traditional church hierarchy with no accountability to the overall membership makes me feel sick(er). I hope we do go with voting at least for selecting the "top committee."
* Eric: I feel good about the discussion. We are making baby steps but they are important ones.