this is basically talk about how to
magician and we're gonna describe the
the ideas behind it and then maybe a
little bit about the history and
philosophy of it so this is something
that's been on my mind lately
and it's not exactly relevant to this
topic but I think I think it's it's in
the theme and this is something we need
to think about when we say governance
what are we gonna do more governing a
resource it could be a technical
resource it could be financial it could
be something that that that a community
needs to come together and work on and
and and allocate and it's a necessary
evil
and those resources need to be directed
and the thing is when you're involved
resources it's almost like heat or
something it's like an off it exudes
power it just it's nearby it accumulates
and anything is power attracts certain
personalities it attracts more power it
agglomerates and in this is a truism and
actually I really think it's true and I
think a lot of people would agree with
me is that power ultimately corrupts you
and it is very difficult to be some as
part of an organization or an individual
who's looking after resources that
offset or give off power and not be
messed up about that because we all have
goals and power is it's it's alluring
that we can see we can do what we want
to do and and that that drives people
crazy
so I wanted to go through a bunch of
different slides about how people manage
manage this and sometimes they'll define
laws they'll use laws to try to
constrain people and the in in our case
we've we've tried to decentralize so we
don't have capture because when you have
laws you have potential capture it's
inflexible
so you decentralize prom with
decentralization and this whole notion
it's very vague but they really the
promise it's it's difficult organize
people in a decentralized scenario
it's hard to operate and so this is
something that the magicians has been
developing inside you have
self-organization and the key to
organizing is that it's I think it's
very expensive it's very difficult to
train people on and I think it takes a
lot of brainpower and effort to
coordinate people and one key thing
about it is it required oh sorry
go I was gonna say another piece of this
in fact is a challenge when you say
requires taking responsibility a lot of
people say I would like to help tell me
what to do so what you're doing is
you're then reflecting and you are in
fact accumulating power and a person and
you're putting responsibility on another
person who has to do work to think about
a problem to tell you what to do never
mind about power dynamics or anything
else so all of these are our loops that
are hard to get out of because we're
naturally wired for some of these things
on both sides a recognition that that is
even happening if you find yourself
saying tell me what to do think first
what you would assign yourself to do
even exposing things that you think
should get done is a useful thing even
if you aren't gonna do it however one of
the things that Kevin oh exede in the
council of prague is his new favorite
phrase is rather than saying the phrase
we should do this is saying i am doing
as something to think about on this
topic
yeah and that's critical and that and
that takes because many of us may have
been used to either not having any
authority govern over us at all we're in
totally total indy or we've worked in
corporations we expect that structure
and so those contrasts make it difficult
for people to perhaps learn how to
socially coordinate which is a very
expensive activity and essentially the
magician's formed and and early when
when Greg and I were discussing it and
in Greg I gotta have to say you were
though I see you as a very much primary
driver on it but Greg has a lot of
experience organizing in a political
sense
organizing and disorganized I will dare
to call it organizing but um but yeah I
yeah that's and I would like you to
speak to that a bit about where that
what that's about and how that can be
used in in technology and any issue
really yeah I would call it and it's
generally called a non organization
rather than a dis organization cuz dis
organization you know applies
what is it Boltzmann law yeah is they
see image of a whole bunch of atoms just
bouncing around off of each other a non
organization can still be organized part
of the motivation for a non organization
which includes the IETF which I'm
surprised to know that many many people
didn't know what it was so internet
industry task force is what that stands
for and they are the people who defined
initially the tcp/ip protocol without
which we wouldn't be here and continue
to maintain various standards and they
are a non organization one of the
reasons they are a non organization is
so that there is nobody to sue and in
this world that's important you know
there are there's no list of members
there are no voting on anything things
work by rough consensus and running code
is there saying then that can go wrong
in many many ways just as anything else
can go wrong
my personal experiences with it started
with participating in in civil
disobedience against an atom bomb
factory near my hometown and in
organizing for though is simply voting
on what we were going to
- wasn't going to make it because we
were going to be purposely breaking the
law and going up against heavily armed
people whose job it was to prevent us
from doing that so we needed to have a
pretty high level of agreement as to
what we were going to do are we just
going to sit down on the road are we
going to attempt to climb over the fence
are we actually going to assault the
policeman if the policeman assault us
what are we going to do about it and
watching that process of enough
organization to pull it off
but not so much organization than
anybody became you know a leader who
could be you know the day after the
revolution they became a conservative
and you know nobody completely succeeds
at that because there will always be
certain people currently Boris does a
great job of facilitating meetings and
getting things organized and if he
hadn't shown up
magicians wouldn't be what they are
because he's just good at getting up in
the room and saying okay it's time to do
this and the recent meeting I was
calling him my keeper because I just
youth of staff that he was my keeper I
could not keep track of where did I need
to be when what's happening in this in
this big big old building over there
like where where the hell is the room
that I'm supposed to be in right down
then Boris would be oh you need to be up
there and don't worry just take the
staircase that's right and there's
there's a bathroom on the left so I'm
going too far on that
[Music]
I don't know where the bathrooms in this
building are yeah it was a mystery
sometimes but but but the motivations
were pretty personal at first I'd done
[Music]
months of work on a proposal that
somehow got cancelled I didn't really
know why it had been canceled but you
know my con you know my contract with
the foundation we couldn't agree on and
I moved on and I'm thinking if I want to
do a whole lot of work and then have my
project cancelled by a middle manager
for no apparent reason I should go back
to corporations and get paid a hell of a
lot of money for that so I I think one
of the things that I learned about the
magician's was that it it I was really
impressed by Aya's presentation this
morning talking about the galaxies in
the universe not once did she claim the
etherium foundation of being etherium
but being part of the galaxy and
Hudson's List ordered by length of name
I love it
it's not alphabetical it's just length
of letters and so that is sort of a
signaling mechanism that there are some
entities that are appearing twinkling in
the universe and I think part of the eat
magicians what I'm seeing the non
organization is still emerging in what
its joint goals are or individual
subgroups or other things like that but
definitely some of the principles are
things like transparency so whenever we
see decisions of the ecosystem being
made in closed forums we pointed out
when we say how do we how does this
decision get made right we're not
attacking we're asking a question we're
not saying why were we not consulted
which is the classic internet thing oh
yes
but if we're saying okay how does this
work how do people get involved what is
the open model for this if we believe so
we're a force I believe and again I
can't speak for it this is my particular
point of view of the elephant that I see
and as of other people grow come in eat
itself will evolve of what the shared
culture goals and values are the other
thing I was observing was everything
seemed to be happening on things like
jitter channels reddit there were no
open forums where people came together
to work not to sit as currently we are
you're sitting down and we're talking at
you and I knew by the time I finished
graduate school I can hardly stand that
anymore I to sit in the chair and that
people talk at me I just want to run and
I knew from years of work on the antsy
c++ committee just the power of doing
that that the people that online
appeared to be you know hostile
people who appeared to hate each other
when you actually put them in a room to
work together things get much more
civilized that's where you you build the
trust and one another and that's a key
component of this because you can
organize online but you need to have
these in person meetings like what we're
about to do here essentially and so I
guess I'll start to close it but in
terms of how does help organize I think
a key piece of it is declare your goals
like finder goals find your principles
as a small group you know if you think
you know like you're reaching out you
see you see a problem domain you want it
you want to take it on you have some
somebody or want to work with find find
your principles together find your
values together and that process could
be difficult because you might find your
differences but the key is to set them
down before you start creating your
operation that will guide you that
that is a mistake I think a lot of
organizations make or non organizations
make is they have a goal they want to do
this goal they're really interested in
this go there you're on the same page
about the goal but they haven't defined
the principles so they don't have
anything to fall back on when they reach
a potential conflict and so early on in
the magician's and this is something
Gregg really helped with and he took it
from the ietf was to define these
principles openness and is it in person
meeting no that's not is that a
principle no that's a practice we don't
you get that deep into it yeah we're not
going to dig into it but we have these
set of principles that we follow and
it's every time we we come in and
essentially it's in the back of our
minds and I think that's a really big
piece of it
and I think there's a lot of
organizations in the community that have
not declared that and committed
themselves that have read it maybe have
not reached consensus on that so when
they have a difficulty in their
operation they were they might resort to
two rules but they might resort to
Authority right so I think that's the
that's a lesson I'd like to convey and
if you give a or anyone out here as a
lesson to convey other than that oh yeah
just I think that's exactly some of the
closing things that Sarah pointed out
basically being vigilant about looking
out for centralizing forces and fighting
back against that using different
techniques using principles to lie
against it right and always try and self
check yourself with that partly that was
possible because we're a community but
were not like a nation where you have a
border and a whole bunch of people who
simply have to get along one way or
another and so the magician started
simply as an invitation and I'm actually
you know just amazed that it worked out
at all as far as I knew the invitation
would be you know you give a party and
nobody shows up
and for personal family reasons shortly
after that happened I had almost no time
to devote to it and people like Boris
Danny other people just stood up and
said oh we need to have a meeting in
Paris will will take care of it you know
someone who was it stood up and said Oh
web three can do this I don't know who
actually yeah I wasn't much involved so
but people just did it and what I tend
to say here is that in this sort of
decentralized community people just
stand up to do a job that they think
needs to be done and the community
either accepts that yes they're doing
that job and will let them do it or they
say no they're not doing that job and
we're going to ignore them so the core
devs the community could just say we
don't care what you say
and sometimes you wind up with a hard
fork the IP editors um we just started
doing it people are going yeah somebody
needs to maintain a repository and
establish some basic standards for what
a document should look like and give
them numbers and simple stuff like that
but the community could have just said
yeah we don't need that who are you guys
and how long how long we can keep that
up better it scales I don't know but I
hope it scales for a fair way one of our
things thank you great so
you