Throughout my career I have been seeking a model for collaboration among software developers to interact productively without the need for governance beyond how each individual governs themselves. I have always believed that such a model existed, but could not find it anywhere and struggled to figure out the method on my own. Little did I know that what I was seeking was the plan of God itself, the model for interaction among free and independent intelligences so that once each understands the model and the need for it, and the reasons that alternatives do not work, then each independent intelligence will interact with others in a way such that all will coexist in peace and prosperity.
The principles to achieve this model exist. They are simple enough that the mind of mortal people is far more than adequate to understand every nuance. This world and our suffering in it is designed to help us understand the need for each part of these principles. With that yearning for solutions comes the solution to the original problem: an intelligence not able to understand why this and that part of the pattern for interaction are critically important.
There are two other principles that enable the model of open collaboration: Stand Your Ground and Pairs of Accountability
Approach each conflict by standing your ground. If a conflict can be ended with both sides maintaining a stand your ground social posture, it is always the best ending. The alternatives are social postures of fight, flight, and hide as the other combinations of confrontation vs avoidance and active vs passive behavior. As long and often as possible, in all circumstances, maintain a stand your ground posture of passive confrontation. From such a posture it is more clear when the posture must be broken to act with intent for a purpose in another way.
The requirement: increase love and trust The design: stand your ground
Standing your ground is passive confrontation. The alternatives are all reactions to fear:
- fight is active confrontation
- flight is active avoidance
- freeze/hide is passive avoidance
Any strategy that is a reaction to fear also provokes fear in others, constrained only by their level of trust. No other strategy in response to a conflict between people will calm fear in others because every other combination of confrontation vs avoidance and active vs passive may result in increased fear and distrust in others.
Fear is the mind killer because in a state of fear one's entire focus is on the things feared. One is blind to the fear itself. Every other consideration about anything social or physical is lost to the focus on what is feared. One outward behavior of fear is distrust. Active distrust escalated by the cycle of fear during interactions between people where both choose fear-based strategies is the problem covered thoroughly in "Talking to Strangers" by Malcolm Gladwell.
Stand your ground is the only universally applicable social stance to reduce fear, tension, and distrust.
It is speaking instead of acting. It is then listening instead of talking.
It is the only stance that incorporates love: the benefit of the doubt and deferral of judgment.
It is the only stance that incorporates awareness: an ability to gather information needed for judgment if and when it is needed in the future.
For those who fear and those who are feared: stand your ground.
When in doubt: stand your ground. When in danger: stand your ground. When in fear: stand your ground.
To heal the fear and distrust in our communities and societies: simply approach every conflict by standing your ground with passive confrontation and let the power of love and awareness heal the rift.
An intelligence acting completely independently can never maintain self-accountability. At least one other intelligence in a pair of accountability is required. Both sides of the pair must understand the principles of open collaboration and stand your ground in order to operate effectively as a pair. When they do, there is a slightly different characteristic of each half of the pair that emerges.
The model is easiest to understand with an analogy of the veiled face of a woman. When a women removes her veil and uncovers her mouth, the man sees the truth. When a man sees the truth, he can communicate it to the women and then repeat to refine. Gender and marriage in our mortal lives is an analogy of the accountability pairs that we must operate as to be effective independent intelligences, in pairs, with one intelligence playing the role of the see-er another playing the role of the revealer. Each of us as intelligences has different characteristics that allow us to operate more or less effectively in each role in the pair.
We as people naturally take on these roles with each other all the time, one lowering the veil so the other might see the truth, and then the truth is spoken by the other so that the person who revealed it can understand it. This is the interplay of intelligences. We pair and group informally in this way all the way time, and there is one part of the pattern of effective independence of intelligences that always requires at least two. For this reason, we choose to build a bond with one other intelligence and pair together long term to keep each other accountable. The attachments need not be permanent, but long term and public so all know who has accepted a long term role in keeping who accountable in an interplay of truth so that all know that all are held accountable.
This provides a check for each intelligence.
In the pattern of technology, the see-er (the man figure in the veil analogy) specifies the requirements and the revealer or moderator (the woman in the veil analogy) specifies the designs. In the veil analogy, the revealer wears a veil to prevent the communication of the design. The interaction between see-er (specify requirements) and revealer (specify designs) continues until the design satisfies the see-er.
The same pattern of Pairs of Accountability applies to all intelligences at large to provide accountability for the whole. The principle leads us to a pattern of not rulers but watchers, carriers of the principle and not of the sword, with horns like a deer for use only when their ground is invaded. In the pattern of revealer and see-er, the deer is the revealer.
The group of deer operate by a pattern of moderation, maintaining a single central repository of the principle by the head of the order and a separate repository for each member of the order. Any intelligence may submit a request for changes to a moderator. The moderators then review and make decisions before passing vetted changes to the head moderator who moderates the central repository for all intelligences.
The validity and power of the central repository of the head of the order of moderators likewise rests only on the strength of the principle it contains. If a majority of intelligences choose to follow a different repository among the moderators, that is the new moderator by vote of affiliation, by adopting the name of the moderator followed.
The power of a moderator is limited to that of moderation. This is the solution to: who watches the watchers? Moderation in all things.
The repository of the head moderator is the rule of all, determined by a majority choice of moderator affiliation. The head moderator (deer) may be overridden by a council (aka committee, board) of the seers voting unanimously, up to and including revoking the keys of a moderator so they can no longer submit changes to the code. The council or board of seers is responsible for assigning, and re-assigning, moderator (deer) positions.