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SOCIAL_ORGAN
October 15, 2013
Without having much conscious interest
in the subject, I feel like over the years
I've gradually absorbed a lot of knowledge
about different modes of social organization-- A brief resume:
and I'm beginning to feel like a lot of the large family (6 kids)
people around me are complete beginners, in mid-sized houses;
falling into the same traps over-and-over campus housing, a
without knowing that they're there... suite of 6 guys
sharing 3 bedrooms;
I've seen nearly every variant of large corporation on a
command-and-control, majority rules navy contract; small
democracy, consensus; plus multiple architectural firm;
management styles, and different university level
attitudes toward ad-hoc rules... graduate department;
group housing
off-campus, once again
with 6 people; large
corporation running
research labs;
mid-sized software
Plus a number of startups; large
different online software companies in
social forums full flail; university
from usenet on... clubs; volunteer
arts organizations;
and so on...
Some bits:
The idea of "consensus" is
an idealistic dream beyond mere
democracy, a realm where no one It typically turns out that
feels left out, all are listened arriving at a consensus is such
to, and all work together in an exhausting process that few
harmony. are willing to put up with this
for any length of time-- the
I interviewed at a company consensus becomes a yearning
recently where I only for fascism to save from
belatedly realized that interminable meetings
the hiring decision was re-hashing the same disputes.
going to require a
consensus of 7 guys. I'm CONSENUS_ILLUSION
not the kind of person who
can make it through a
gauntlet like that... if
I'd known in advance I
might not have bothered.
That's the sort of thing
where I felt like the Further: the situation at that
group manager needed some company reminded me of a group
wider experience... housing situation I know of
anyone who'd worked with (not one of my own), where one
some left-wing political person kept having trouble
groups or volunteer arts with different succeeding
organization would know housemates... at first this
that consensus has it's person could make it look like
problems. it was the other's fault, but
after one was driven off,
strangely enough something
similar happened with the
next replacement...
At this company there had been
personal conflicts between two
developers, and they wanted to
make sure they didn't get another
"bad one" again, but the thing
about those conflicts it can
be hard to say who exactly was
at fault.
BURDEN_OF_SKIN
The problem with majority-rules
is that they can leave large chunks
of the group feeling disenfranchised.
In a group house of 6, a 4-2 split
leaves a third of the household An interesting issue is how
feeling stuck. If the same split does the vote get framed?
happens on succeeding votes, "Shall we bring this into
they may just decide to leave, the house" and "I just
to live somewhere they have some brought this in, should we
control. get rid of it?" has a
different option winning
on a tie.
COUCH
In corporate hierarchies:
A tough guy at the top with
more sympathetic mid-level
managers is often workable:
they can play good-cop/
bad-cop games.
This works best if the tough
guy doesn't insist too much
on *everyone* being tough.
It ruins the effect if the
lower ranked don't feel
grateful that the mid-level
is acting as a shield.
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