Dear all:  off the top of my head as I prepare a light lunch, I offer a 
few thoughts:

In Visions of Heaven and Hell, Channel 4 (1994), William Gibson makes 
the observation that the autonomously organized and peaceful people of 
Singapore (at the time) "have the policeman inside." His observation has 
to do with societal governance, and is relevant to the current 
discussion because it highlights the idea of "locus of control" 
regarding our choices and actions, in turn based on how our principles 
and moral compasses guide us.

Gibson was not making a point about authoritarian governments (where the 
"police" are external to the individual) that are in the business of 
crushing independent thought, or about extremist beliefs underpinning a 
punitive and repressive social order achieved by disempowering and 
destroying the individual's moral compass. We have plenty of examples 
both historically and currently of different forms of such "external 
governance" that, it seems, the vast majority of people do not wish to 
have and would not rationally choose as their "world framework".

Instead, GIbson was talking about "collaborative alignments" among 
people's moral compasses (internal and unique to each individual, but 
contextually and carefully shared, as in a web), predicated on loosely 
coupled but more or less common understandings linked through 
communications that are kept relatively clear. Such conditions of 
"collaborative alignment" allow all social members to "police" (govern) 
themselves in accord with overarching principles and actions that 
everyone collectively determines are, over time, in the best interests 
of all, given evolving circumstances. Such an approach to governance 
both allows and expects all members, again over time and especially with 
careful deliberation, to continuously examine and re-examine those 
principles and their decision consequences, and gradually and 
reflectively (not reflexively) adjust them as they see fit. We have many 
examples both historically and currently of "collaborative alignment 
governance" that, it seems, large numbers of people strongly prefer and 
rationally work towards as their "world framework".

I am happy to say that I see our list in this latter way. This means: if 
as members we know and understand what the list is for, and why we share 
the goals of sustaining its functions and continuing to create its many 
valuable knowledge products -- and if we also know (more or less]) why 
we have each agreed to participate collaboratively to accomplish this -- 
then the list will continue. It is defined by principles of and 
operationalized through actions of "governance through collaborative 
alignment."

This formative process of governance reminds me of the guiding 
principles and collective actions shared by members of a complex and 
vibrant ecology. If the ecology is successful -- if it sustains itself 
and adapts flexibly and well to changing circumstances -- then, over 
time, all its niches and members benefit. If they could reflectively 
report in to an external observer about the state of affairs there, the 
members might consistently say something like: "This is a pretty good 
place to be." There might be "ups and downs", perturbations of different 
intensities and at different scales having impacts and effects here and 
there and from time to time, but overall, the members would agree -- 
it's survivable, sustainable, and it's good. The very fact that an 
ecology exists over time is evidence that it is more successful in terms 
of its persistence, adaptability and diversity than not. We can 
reductively parse the extents and natures of that success by drilling 
down into whatever it is we care to examine about it, ranging all the 
way from overarching environmental and climate trends to increasingly 
fine-grained local weather patterns, from chemistries and materials and 
energy flows to dynamical food webs, from speciation to competition to 
selfish DNA, and perhaps all the way "down" to quantum effects and 
mathematical modelling of any and all of the above.

Having said all of that, if we think about our list as a multi-scale 
complex adaptive learning system -- in our case as an ecology that 
consistently generates valuable knowledge products in and relevant to 
the evolving realm of design -- then I suspect that each list member 
playing their role(s) in this ecology would wish, reflectively, to do 
the best job possible in accord with a sound moral compass aligned in 
the common interest, and would likely wish to do so through the best 
principles of "governance through collaborative alignment."

So, those are my thoughts at the moment, for what they're worth -- I am 
going to have my light lunch now.

Best wishes to all,

Bob Este, Ph.D / VectorRDI Ltd. / Cochrane, Alberta, Canada


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