Richard Bartlett
Entrepreneur | Writer | Decentralized Organizations | Self-Management | Bottom-up Politics
Entrepreneur | Writer | Decentralized Organizations | Self-Management | Bottom-up Politics
OverviewBooksInterviewsVideosBlog PostsMedium PostsTweets
From the About section on LeanPub:
Richard Bartlett is one of the co-founders of Loomio, an open-source software tool for collaborative decision-making. He’s also a Catalyst at Enspiral: a network of self-organising companies who have been working without bosses since 2010. Most recently he co-founded The Hum, a small consulting company to share practical guidance for decentralised organisations.
He’s passionate about co-ownership, self-management, collaborative governance, and other ways of sneaking anarchism into respectable places.
He is the author of the (work-in-progress) book Patterns for Decentralised Organising
Organizations
EnSpiral
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To support people who want to spend their lives changing the world
Working on stuff that matters
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Description:
Enspiral started with a vision to support more people to spend their lives working to solve the greatest challenges of our time.
Since inception, we’ve been testing ways of working together with trust and respect to share money, information and control as openly as possible. As a community, we’ve supported hundreds of people
to launch and build all sorts of initiatives, projects and world-changing ventures.
We’re committed to continuing to learn and grow our positive impact together.
The Enspiral Foundation is a charitable company co-owned by the Enspiral Members. Its mission is to support the network as a whole, facilitate collaboration between the people and ventures, and further the overall social mission of Enspiral.
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Loomio
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Helps your group make better decisions together
Free your organization from tedious meetings and endless email chains
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Description:
A place for your organization’s serious discussions
With Loomio, people participate on the web, email or mobile, in their own time. Discussions stay on topic, and Loomio suits a variety of discussion formats and styles.
When you’re ready to make a decision, get feedback, or move from talk to action, Loomio’s polling tools are at your fingertips.
Get the best out of your team with Loomio’s effective decision tools
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Microsolidarity
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Mutual aid communities for personal development, in good company, for social benefit.
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Description:
In late 2018, Richard D. Bartlett published a proposal to start a “microsolidarity” group — a small mutual aid community for people to do a kind of personal development, in good company, for social benefit.
Since then, an open research network has been gradually self-organising around this concept and these practices.
This website is the central hub to collect resources for the co-development of multiple such communities. Read through the articles to understand the project. You’ll find methods for cultivating Crews for peer-to-peer support in tiny groups.
The fifth Microsolidarity Practice Program is happening in September 2020, register here if you would like to join the next practice group.
You can check out some recorded conversations on this YouTube playlist or this podcast feed and be sure to join the Loomio group if you want to connect with other practitioners. Join Rich’s newsletter for occasional updates on this project.
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The Hum
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Practical guidance for self-organising teams
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Description:
From The Hum website:
If you are trying to organise in a collaborative team, you may be asking yourself:
- “How do we include people in decisions without spending so much time in meetings?”
- “How do we set priorities, distribute tasks and stay aligned on shared goals?”
- “If we don’t have managers, how do we get feedback, resolve conflict and stay accountable?”
You are not alone! We’ve faced these dilemmas in our own decentralised organisations, and we can help you get unstuck.
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Web Properties
Recent Content
Last 50 posts on own channels (YouTube, Podcast, Medium or Website/Blog):
how it feels being a mammal
Published on: 8 Jul 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
trauma is part of the plan
Published on: 3 Jul 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
In Over My Head
Published on: 29 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
wise words
Published on: 24 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
sample this
Published on: 23 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
22 June 2025
Published on: 22 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
19 June 2025
Published on: 19 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
repeat after me..
Published on: 18 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
repeat after me..
Published on: 18 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
wisdom bombs incoming… https://youtu.be/DoyJmUNWBMI
Published on: 17 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
wisdom bombs incoming… https://youtu.be/DoyJmUNWBMI
Published on: 17 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
16 June 2025
Published on: 16 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
16 June 2025
Published on: 16 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
meet my forest friends
Published on: 15 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
meet my forest friends
Published on: 15 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
good day to get re-enchanted with your life
Published on: 14 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
good day to get re-enchanted with your life
Published on: 14 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
how to touch grass
Published on: 13 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
how to touch grass
Published on: 13 Jun 25 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
Towards A Post-Woke Synthesis
Published on: 19 Feb 25 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
2025: the Year of Good Company
Published on: 10 Jan 25 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Richard Bartlett Live Stream
Published on: 30 Oct 24 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
Fight Wise: interpersonal courage training
Published on: 26 Sep 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Ketamine & The Self I Made By Deleting
Published on: 15 Sep 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Inflating the Bubble of Trust
Published on: 9 Aug 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
How To Have A Great Time With Richard D. Bartlett
Published on: 29 Jul 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
A Dream of Sacred Anger ❤️🔥
Published on: 11 Jul 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
When God Winks at You
Published on: 9 Apr 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Sound at the Speed of Sunset
Published on: 29 Mar 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
What we learned from a 3-month co-living experiment
Published on: 5 Mar 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
The Spiritual Ecology of Microsolidarity
Published on: 13 Feb 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Why I’m hosting a leadership retreat this week
Published on: 9 Jan 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Use this Map to Self-Evaluate your Level of Agency
Published on: 3 Jan 24 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Designing For Discomfort
Published on: 9 Dec 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Running a local lodge for your internet friends
Published on: 7 Dec 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
How Growing Up Should Be I Think
Published on: 5 Nov 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Seeing Like a Superorganism
Published on: 28 Oct 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Perceptive or Invasive – Where’s The Line?
Published on: 14 Oct 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
That time I met a cool bird
Published on: 13 Oct 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Fridges Fridgerating Faithfully
Published on: 25 Sep 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Berlin Microsolidarity Project – Nicki Endres & Richard D. Bartlett
Published on: 19 Sep 23 in Richard Bartlett – YouTube
by Richard Bartlett
Our Prototype Retreat Centre
Published on: 19 Sep 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Meaning Legos
Published on: 3 Sep 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Notes from Jesscamp2
Published on: 25 Aug 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Conversations with Nati
Published on: 20 Aug 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
As Pants The Hart
Published on: 11 Aug 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Hospitality is a Two Player Game
Published on: 7 May 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Budgeting for Event Organisers
Published on: 5 May 23 in Richard Bartlett – Medium
by Richard D. Bartlett
Ostrom’s Kitchen
Published on: 13 Apr 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Liminal Village
Published on: 19 Mar 23 in Richard Bartlett – Blog
by Richard D. Bartlett
Practical guidance for teams, organisations and networks to manage without hierarchy
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This is a book about working in groups, based on 8 years experience in community projects and startups.
I’m not so interested in what you’re working on together, I’m just going to focus on how you do it. To my way of thinking, it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to build a better electric vehicle, or develop government policy, or blockade a pipeline; whenever you work with a group of people on a shared objective, there’s some stuff you’re going to deal with, some challenges. How do we decide what we’re working on? who does what? who can join our team? what are our expectations for each other? what happens when someone doesn’t fulfil those expectations? what do we do with disagreement? how do decisions get made?
I’m convinced there is not a “one size fits all” recipe, a management structure that you can take off the shelf and install in your collective or your company. But my hypothesis is that there are patterns: common design elements you can draw on as you construct a recipe that’s right for you. Each pattern in this book names a challenge that you are likely to face, and offers tools and techniques you can try in response to that challenge.
This is a book for community organisers, leaders, managers, consultants, coaches, facilitators, founders… if you work with groups of humans, these patterns apply to you.
Why publishing a work in progress?
This book is not 100% complete yet. My intention is to release it early, so I can improve it with your feedback. I’m eager to hear any comments you have after reading the book: do you have unanswered questions? are there any parts where the writing could be improved? do you want to share an insight with me? Join the conversation in our discussion group on Loomio: patterns.loomio.org
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Recent Videos and Podcasts where Richard Bartlett has been interviewed
To participate live, RSP here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqceCqqTsvGtYiwkpajBkryI1Jfl7HM7xY
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Jim talks with Richard Bartlett about the ideas in his essay “What we learned from a 3-month co-living experiment.” They discuss Jim’s visit to a co-living house, community & its recent decline,
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Jared Janes and Jason Snyder talk with Richard Bartlett about what led to his interest in group dynamics, quarantine in Italy, local vs digital collaboration, social enterprise, metamodernism & an action-oriented critique, rivalrous dynamics,
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Rich, co-founder of The Hum (a non-heirarchical business consultancy), is back to talk about the differences, both positive and negative, with virtual and physical relationships. We talk about how geographical
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In this episode, Rich, the co-creator of Enspiral and Loomio(complex collaborative systems) and I talk about about why people have such a hard time working together, from how we were
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In this conversation, I speak with Richard Dennis Bartlett. Richard is an author, organizational consultant, and founder of Loomio and The Hum, as well as a member of Enspiral network.
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Here’s the invitation Nicki, Jocelyn & Karl developed for the Berlin Microsolidarity Project: https://gardenlove.notion.site/Berlin-Microsolidarity-Project-f294d1f05a9a4a3dbcc45ebe66bfed48
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There’s no tidy way to write this, so I’m going to write it messy. I’m in two worlds at once. I’ve taken on a “dream come true” project. With one
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Have you heard? There’s a vibe shift.We’re at a fork in the road, two roads marked “anti-woke” and “post-woke”. I’m hoping we can avoid the reactionary trap and find the
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It’s Friday afternoon. The winter sun has me scrunching up half my face. I’m caffeinated, drum and bass in my headphones, sitting at my laptop writing an update for my
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The last few months I’ve been working with Gabe Broussard (@VividVoid_), training habitual people-pleasers to be more confrontational. It’s been so fascinating to learn the logic of conflict-avoidant people and
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👆 you can listen to me read this articleI took a medium-high dose of ketamine last night and got a rare chance to observe a specific mental process that my
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You live in a bubble of trust. There’s a small group of people in your life that have a special status in your mental rolodex: you can count on them
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Photo credit: Mikkel StormYesterday we left the Borderland, the Swedish regional Burning Man event. I found the event surprisingly unenjoyable. As we drove away, I composed this blog post in
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I just woke up from one of those dreams that are so completely literal, utterly lacking in any symbolism, just a straightforward display of my subconscious fears & preoccupations.We were
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Just now I remembered a story I want to tell: the most magical / divine intervention / storybook perfect moment of my life. I was invited as a guest at
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Sound at the Speed of Sunset is my new ambient music project. Conceptually, the album was conceived over a three month period during which I sat each day to observe
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The Andalusian mountains are so beautifulNati & I just wrapped up a 3-month experiment: we rented a big house in the south of Spain for co-living & community-building events. For
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I share here the transcript of a short monologue I recently gave, speaking about the spiritual undercurrents of our community-building project, Microsolidarity. Thank you to Abhay for opening the conversation.The
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A few years ago I never would have guessed I would end up running a leadership retreat. But here I am, sitting in this lovely big farm house in the
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I drew this diagram to illustrate a lot of related insights about agency, hosting, community-building, collaborative leadership & social change.It’s all coming out in a bit of a rush so
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I picked up Ivan at the airport, glad to have an hour together in the car before we join the group at the house. A chance to catch up and
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Nati and I have just started a 3-month experiment: we’ve rented a big house in Spain to host our friends & clients. We moved in two weeks ago, and just
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You’re very little. Some feelings are overwhelming. You call for help. Here’s Mum. She syncs her nervous system with yours. You feel slightly bigger. She shows you that she can
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On the surface, microsolidarity is a community-building framework, an engineer’s attempt to invent a cure for loneliness. But beneath the waterline, there’s a deeper project.If I’m honest, I am trying
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I feel like my capacity to subtly influence people keeps growing, but my ethical framework is not necessarily keeping up.esoteric beings influence each other with subtle psychic energies, by DALL-E
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Photo by Lars Falkdalen LindahlAs I’m sitting here writing at my window seat, there are a couple of wagtails walking the grounds outside. Literally early birds getting the worm. I
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We’ve spent a bunch of time in these industrial parks lately, working on the camper. I can feel my memories being erased even while I’m sitting here looking at the
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Nati & I just signed a short term lease on a lovely villa in the south of Spain. We’ll be living here until the end of February:For years we’ve dreamed
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This week I started a new class at the School For Social Design. They’re teaching me how to be more articulate about my values, so I can design social systems
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Earlier this summer I spent a week in a Black Forest hotel with 75 tenderhearted nerds from Twitter. I had an extremely good time. I’ve spent the last 6 weeks
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Sharing my Spreadsheet For Calculating Ticket PricesPhoto by StellrWeb on UnsplashOne of the challenging things about running community events is how to manage the finances. If you’re hosting an event with an
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Yesterday I was scrolling twitter, and saw someone shared a clip from your Roseland NYC video. I didn’t even have the sound on, just recognised the picture, and immediately my
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OpenCollective is a financial & legal toolkit for grassroots communities. It’s awesome! We’re using it to transparently collect & spend money in the Microsolidarity Network.Anyone who contributes to our fundraising
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The making of an amazing online courseNati and I are putting the finishing touches on the course design for our guided learning program: Patterns for Decentralised Organising. I’m feeling totally jazzed
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How to take care of people at an event that could kill themStock photo by Cristina CerdaHosting events is a big part of how I earn my livelihood and how I do
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How to take care of people at an event that could kill themStock photo by Cristina CerdaHosting events is a big part of how I earn my livelihood and how I do
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Running the Finances for our Freelancers Collective with One Awesome SpreadsheetThis is partly a tutorial about how to make awesome spreadsheets, and it is partly about how we manage a
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Running the Finances for our Freelancers Collective with One Awesome SpreadsheetThis is partly a tutorial about how to make awesome spreadsheets, and it is partly about how we manage a
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Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense. Stuff and nonesense.
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I’m growing a bigger audience on Twitter, which is fun for me because I am just being a friendly loudmouth nerd. From there I can promote content that is hosted
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I have fallen out of love with Medium. It is a good place to write, and some kinds of content get discovered here. But I don’t like that my audience
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How to: record great-sounding podcasts over ZoomI’ve been experimenting with different methods for improving the audio quality of my videocalls, both for meetings and for recorded conversations like podcasts. So I
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How to: record great-sounding podcasts over ZoomI’ve been experimenting with different methods for improving the audio quality of my videocalls, both for meetings and for recorded conversations like podcasts. So I
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Photo by Will H McMahan on UnsplashEngaging volunteers; learning loops; decision-making; care; celebrationToday I had a call with Manu Alzuru from Fight Pandemics, a brand new volunteer project enabling peer-to-peer mutual
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Yah the link is in the blogpost. Reshared here. Data format will be out of date now tho so you might have to mess around with it. I don’t have
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Updated March 21stI’ve been producing my own charts to understand the Johns Hopkins coronavirus data. Here’s the situation on March 21st.Reported DeathsHere’s all the countries with 100+ reported deaths. I have zoomed
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Updated March 21stI’ve been producing my own charts to understand the Johns Hopkins coronavirus data. Here’s the situation on March 21st.Reported DeathsHere’s all the countries with 100+ reported deaths. I have zoomed
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Thanks Andrew, for now it is easiest to follow me on Twitter for latest updates. If I get a chance over the next few days I may make a better
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A practical guide for the aspiring DIY data scientistLiving in Italy is intense right now.It took only 17 days to go from first noticing the COVID-19 outbreak, to having to refuse
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A practical guide for the aspiring DIY data scientistLiving in Italy is intense right now.It took only 17 days to go from first noticing the COVID-19 outbreak, to having to refuse
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A Simple Structure to Hold a New Microsolidarity CommunityLast week I published the latest story in my Microsolidarity series, explaining how to start a new mutual aid community (a “Congregation”).
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3 Essential Pillars For a New Mutual Aid CommunityWeaving image by Wei-Cheng Wu on UnsplashI published the Microsolidarity proposal a year ago and really struck a chord with people. I’m overdue
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Really coherent groups can maintain their harmony despite holding divergent mental models. See: neighbourhoods with a strong local culture but low political alignment.
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Good work! This reminds me a lot of Aaron Swarz’s parpolity proposal from 2012. For what it’s worth, here’s my view.
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has anyone written about group facilitation as a commons management problem or do I have to
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you just know those fuckers who leave their dishes stacked up without rinsing would’ve failed the marshmallow test
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there’s a reason you won’t find a hermitage at the beach
I have effortless courage where others tremble and I’m utterly feeble in front of challenges too small for many others to even notice… this experience of being a queer fit with the world makes me sometimes hesitant to seek external support
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this but for your traumatised parts https://twitter.com/_B___S/status/1643317003287949312
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moooorning
my generation keeps flipping out over new X risks the way my grandparents generation flipped out over new beatles records
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oh! I just noticed my unconscious reactions are re-actions, repeating past actions that are no longer fit for context
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thanks so much for retweeting that basic partisan take onto my feed that’s really helpful thanks again
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LLM-SEO: You Won’t Believe This One Weird Trick to Get Your Content at the Top of AI Results
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I’m helping launch a new coaching org if you’re interested in the overlap between “inner work” and “outer work” join this free event tomorrow afternoonio: https://dandelion.earth/events/63fa6e9087af880002db0e6d
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oh no I’ve been encouraging people to be authentic but it turns out a lot of them are quite annoying
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Microsolidarity Summer Camp, July 2023 Two locations (US & EU) Register your interest here: https://microsolidarity.substack.com/p/save-the-date-microsolidarity-summer
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me n who
beautiful irony that the age of the nerds ended with the nerds automating themselves out of existence
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