Tag: Atlee

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Tom Atlee: Understanding Occupy Wall Street

Blog Wisdom
Tom Atlee

Robert Steele to Tom Atlee:

From a very smart, very senior observer who is trying to understand how I see what I see. This is a problem. The movement needs some clarity for the externals.

—-

One of us is wrong on what they want. You have been there and I have not. No matter what you say, I believe most, not all, are advocating a free ride. I do not buy the idea that everything being written is misinformation. Who is paying to support the people staying there. If they are students they are missing school. How many are engineers, scientists, and business majors? There is still opportunity in this country. Jobs are going unfilled because qualified candidates are unvavailable, mainly in the technical areas. I fail to see what these folks want. I can agree that there are too many people in Wall Street making obscene amounts of money on questionable trading practices. Do the protesters want these people tried and sent to jail or do they just want their money? They need to be specific.

For most, electoral reform means making sure the candidate they want wins. No corporate donations should also mean no union contributions, and the unions are supporting the rallies. Everyone should be entitled to support who they want. One person's corruption is another's bread and butter. Is bailing out banks any worse that spending money on energy projects that make no economic sense? I don't think so and I don't like either.

Almost everyone is upset with the state of the economy. I have not heard of any ideas from the protesters on how to improve the situation. They think government is the answer, mainly government spending.

TOM ATLEE RESPONDS

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Tom Atlee: Dawning Realizations re Occupy Wall Street

Advanced Cyber/IO, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
Tom Atlee

Dawning realizations re Occupy Wall Street

It is slowly dawning on me that I've seen events very similar to Occupy Wall Street.

The first time was on the Great Peace March in 1986 which started out from Los Angeles as a hierarchical mega-PR event with 1200 people and tons of equipment. It suddenly and traumatically went bankrupt in the Mojave Desert two weeks later. 800 marchers went home. 400 marchers didn't. It took them (us) two weeks sitting around an BMX track in Barstow to reorganize with no formal leaders (but tons of ambient leadership) and little support (but tons of vulnerability that soon attracted grassroots support). As we re-started our 3000-mile trek with 400 people, it turned into a 9 month miracle of self-organization (I mean, where DO you put 400 people each night 15 or so miles further down the road?!!), out of which came my first experiences of and ideas about collective intelligence, which led to my life work today. The lives of hundreds of other people were transformed by that March, whose emergent troubadours sang “echoes of our care will last forever..”. The folks at Occupy Wall Street are doing a similar experiment in passion-driven self-organization.

The other comparable events I've seen were run by Open Space and World Cafe – especially Open Space.

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Tom Atlee: Occupation Catalytic Butterfly

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Tom Atlee

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Random Communications from an Evolutionary Edge

Occupation Catalytic Butterfly

Along with a lot of other people, I've been wondering what's going on with Occupy Wall Street. Although it obviously shares energy with the Wisconsin occupation and Arab Spring, its mix of persistence and lack of demands makes it a puzzle, dragging it right out of the usual boxes we think with. It gets under the skin like a disturbingly peaceful ongoing Stonewall riot or something…

I've been trying to sort it out because Occupy Wall Street's sibling, the October2011DC occupation, is imminent. Should I go there? Will it be a watershed “trigger event” I shouldn't miss if I want to weave my ideas, visions, and life energy into its impact on the world?

About a week ago I decided not to go. I'm trying to focus on writing a book on empowered public wisdom. But every day I feel more ironic. I mean, isn't that what I'm seeing?! How old fashioned is it to focus on a book when exuberant Transformational Aliveness is exploding before my very eyes! Nevertheless, I'm sticking to my decision. At least I think I am.

I've read a few brilliant articles about Occupy Wall Street that dig deeper than the usual commentaries from the Left, Right, Center and Alpha Centauri. Two this morning – here and here – stimulated the bloggy response you are currently reading. But I don't know whether any of these analyses – including my own – are correct. But then again, is “correct” what's going on here?

My own tentative take is that Occupy Wall Street – and perhaps each of its offsprings and siblings – is a catalytic butterfly. “Catalytic” because a catalyst makes big things possible, easier, and faster without, itself, seeming to do or change much. “Butterfly” because the “butterfly effect” arises in complex, chaotic systems like 21st century global civilization – and any given small flap may (unpredictably, depending on circumstances) generate hurricane-stimulating power. My own suspicion is that important things will happen because Occupy Wall Street is happening. But they probably won't be anything that Occupy Wall Street is trying to make happen.

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Tom Atlee: Whole System Conversations – Voice of the Whole

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Tom Atlee

Whole System Conversations – and the Voice of the Whole

WHO PARTICIPATES IN “WHOLE SYSTEM” CONVERSATIONS? – PARTISANS, STAKEHOLDERS, DOMAINS, AND CITIZENS

by Tom Atlee

Consciously convened conversations have many functions. Many seek simply to get people talking with each other. Others try to bring together what they call “the whole system” to address that system's collective issues or dreams. Who is involved in these “whole system” conversations?

A “whole system”, in this case, involves all the parties who play – or could play – roles in some social unit or situation. The social unit could be a family or relationship, a group or organization, a community or a whole society. A situation might be, on the one hand, an issue, a problem, or a conflict – or, on the other hand, an inquiry, an opportunity, a shift, or simply a periodic reflection about what's happening. We can convene conversations around any of these things.

So how do we decide who the parties or players are? How do we “cut the pie” of the whole system? And, if we're ambitious, how do we elicit a “voice of the whole”?

I see four different approaches to defining who “a whole system” includes. Each approach has its own rationale and appropriate usages. They are not mutually exclusive, but are usually used more or less separately. Perhaps being aware of them and building synergies between them would enhance the power and wisdom of our conversations. These approaches include:

Read full essay.

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Tom Atlee, The Co-Intelligence Institute, POB 493, Eugene, OR 97440
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Tom Atlee: Citizen Deliberations – Chart and Options

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, InfoOps (IO), Methods & Process, Open Government, Policies, Real Time, Threats
Tom Atlee

Dear Friends

I am quite excited about the progress that has been made in various citizen political participation proposals. All of these clearly have tremendous potential and the articulations of their rationales are becoming quite compelling.

With such innovative deliberative democracy proposals, I want them to be thought through well beforehand, engaging a variety of authorities and perspectives in a search of answers that can embrace that diversity with greater wisdom than otherwise. I am especially interested in finding out people's concerns and what solutions appear when we seriously seek to understand and address those concerns (this being a basic principle of creative consensus processes and of collective wisdom in general). I consider this vital if we seek to inject sane, powerful initiatives into the kind of toxic political environment that exists today. There is just too much at stake to fail simply because we didn't explore our design issues sufficiently ahead of time.

With that intention in mind, I have the following twelve thoughts and inquiries to offer. I would love to be part of a serious inquiry into questions like these, both in person and online.

Coheartedly,
Tom

Observations

Comparison Chart

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Tom Atlee: Making Wise Decisions on Public Issues

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Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

I have worked for several months to develop the ideas in this article and to articulate them in an accessible way.  They are fundamental understandings underlying the co-intelligence vision of a wiser democracy.

If the ideas intrigue you, you can find a longer version with more detailed guidelines and references online.  I wrote the abstract below to make it easier for you to see the whole pattern at once.  I hope you find both versions interesting and useful.

Coheartedly,
Tom

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GUIDELINES FOR MAKING WISER DECISIONS ON PUBLIC ISSUES

by Tom Atlee

As a civilization we have tremendous collective power, but we don't always use it wisely.  We can make good decisions, but we face messy, entangled, rapidly growing problems with complex, debatable causes.  Efforts to solve one problem often generate new ones.  We need more than problem-solving smarts here.  We need wisdom.

A good definition for wisdom here is

the capacity to take into account
what needs to be taken into account
to produce long term, inclusive benefits.

To the extent we fail to take something important into account, it will come back to haunt us.  But often we only realize we overlooked something long after our decision has been implemented.  Certain practices – because they lead us to include more of what's important – can help us meet this challenge.  Here are eight complementary ways to do this.  The more of them we do, and the better we do them, the wiser our collective decisions will be.
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Tom Atlee: Citizens Panel Cuts 2.2 Trillion in One Hour

Advanced Cyber/IO, Analysis, Budgets & Funding, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Government, IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Military, Policies
Tom Atlee

Dear friends,

The 160-person British Columbian Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform took every other weekend for a year to research and reach consensus on the best method for their province's election process.

The fourteen citizens in a Danish Consensus Conference take several weekends over several months to learn about their assigned technical issue and come up with shared recommendations for Parliament and the public.

A 24-person Citizen Initiative Review of the kind now institutionalized in Oregon takes a week to figure out how to best advise voters on a given ballot initiative.

Similar Citizens Juries on all kinds of subjects also take about a week.

The dozen citizens selected for MACLEAN'S magazine's 1991 “People's Verdict” deliberations took just three days to come up with a lengthy vision for Canada's future direction.

A Wisdom Council often takes just two days to come up with a consensus statement sharing their concerns and dreams for their community.

Hundreds or thousands of people in a 21st Century Town Meeting take one day to make decisions on the issue that they have been assigned.

And now ABC News gave five citizens of diverse political beliefs one hour to solve the deficit crisis that Washington can't seem to resolve in months.  This small group's success is the special feature of this e-mailing, so check out ABC's very short video (2:43) about it

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