When it comes to getting things done quickly and efficiently, nothing beats a highly motivated and empowered entrepreneur. The key to the success of any entrepreneur over larger organizations is their agility in decision making. An entrepreneur is highly focused on delivering value to the market as quickly as possible and has the personal power and authority to pivot as necessary to quickly find the product market fit.
Decentralized organizations like the EOS community face a decision making paralysis due to the language barriers and lack of clear political processes that lead to decision making. Like a deer caught in the headlights, it is often better to do something than nothing. The more people involved in a decision making process the longer it takes. The more ambiguous the process, the harder it is to get everyone involved to agree that a consensus has been reached and to follow through with it.
Over the past 6 months I have been promoting a new form of governance based upon my book, “More Equal Animals — The subtle art of true democracy”. In this book I outline a process by which a group of people can reach consensus on leaders while maximizing the power and independence of the individual members of the group. The core principle of the governance model is that it should be truly representative of the people involved and not easily captured by incumbency nor corrupted by vote buying and media influence. Lastly it should be robust against adversely selecting the most corrupt and instead favor those who build consensus rather than division. If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend buying a copy.
More Equal Animals — The Subtle Art of True DemocracyThe concepts from my book are embodied in the EdenOS governance software built on EOSIO and as utilized by the Eden On EOS community. All communities must start out with a centralized vision which people voluntarily join. Successful communities institute rules, procedures, and governance structures that maintain the vision long after the founder is gone. Unsuccessful communities are captured by individuals seeking power and money without regard to the vision that brought everyone together in the first place.
When a community loses its way a strong leader is required to restore a unified vision and establish a new governance structure which embodies that vision. If a community chooses a philosopher king, then he can provide greatly needed decisiveness and rapidly get things done that would be difficult to achieve any other way. If a community chooses a self-serving king, then he can quickly drain significant value from the community and scatter the people.
Many people have asked me to take on the role of the philosopher king, but I am more of a philosopher and technologist than an organizational operator. I prefer to be an advisor to the community and rule by influence and respect rather than position. In fact, I have intentionally designed Eden On EOS so that even popular demand cannot secure my or anyone else’s incumbent position of power in the community.
The EOS community needs a transitional leader to navigate the journey from stake-weighted decision making toward fractal democracy (aka true democracy). There is one individual who has consistently been leading the consensus building process on EOS, Yves La Rose, formerly of EOS Nation. He has taken it upon himself to lead a path forward for EOS and has committed to funding Eden communities while they grow.
I believe that a temporary leader of the EOS community empowered by inflation and checked by transparency can help us navigate the complex decisions that need to be made to ensure the success of EOS.
So long as Yves and his Foundation supports Eden and the move toward true fractal democracy I will support him as the interim chief ambassador for the EOS block producers. The foundation can be appointed by the block producers to facilitate the allocation of inflation to Eden communities and the block producers can revoke this at any time. All power remains with the block producers, but is delegated through the foundation until Eden is sufficiently mature to deprecate its need for the Foundation to allocate the funding it requires.
We must build systems that mature toward decentralization and maximize the independence of individuals involved. Let’s get things done and light a fire under the EOS community with renewed purpose and clear direction.