This is a wildly ambitious and generative proposal, and honestly, I think it carries a lot of resonance with some of the key ideas I've been working on around coordination as power. The emphasis on decentralization, swarm intelligence, transparency, and shared economic infrastructure definitely feels like a real attempt to shift from centralized, coercive structures toward more participatory, emergent forms of collective agency. I really appreciate how it sees trust not just as a soft virtue but as a concrete infrastructure that can be cultivated, protected, and rewarded. That’s very aligned with how I think about Power With and Power Through emerging from sustained patterns of coordination.
However, I also found myself sitting with some structural questions. The first one is about the substrate of coordination. Even though the game decentralizes control, it still seems to treat capital (the $25 monthly contribution) as the fundamental unit of participation. I wonder what happens to people who can’t contribute financially (because that $25 might be the only thing keeping them from being homeless, or starving, or having enough medication to last the month), or whose contributions come in the form of care, insight, emotional labor, or cultural grounding. Does the system have room to recognize those as real threads of power, or does it risk reinforcing the same logic of capital but with a more democratic interface?
Another thing I’m curious about is how much weight the system places on metrics, tokens, and scores. While these can provide accountability and gamified engagement, they might also lead to something I think of as constraint inversion: where the metric ends up shaping the coordination more than the other way around. Is there space for ambiguity, for intuition, for slow trust-building that doesn’t register on a leaderboard?
I also wonder how disagreement is handled. Swarm intelligence is powerful, but what happens when there are deep, unresolvable value differences? Does the system encourage branching and divergence, or does it lean toward consensus as the default? I’d love to hear how you imagine pluralism operating in a game that still needs coherence to function.
And finally, there’s a question of internal transformation. So much of what enables lasting coordination, in my view, comes from how people align their desires, motivations, and actions (what I call volitional clarity). Does the game support that kind of inner work? Are there ways people can grow in trust and influence not just by performing tasks, but by deepening their presence, emotional grounding, or capacity to hold complexity?
I really love the spirit of this project. It feels like something that could reshape the way people relate to power, responsibility, and shared infrastructure. At the same time, I’d love to see it stretch even further toward a model that centers threads of care, designs for divergence, and includes the unseen dimensions of coordination that emerge through resonance, healing, and shared sense-making.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply! You always have big, interesting, and thoughtful questions and insights!
Overall it seems like you are asking questions about whole societies here, and we are focused on just regaining control of the buisiness systems first, and then a lot of the questions and issues you have can be shaped and answered by the swarms themselves. As the saying goes, start off with the end in mind, but first things first. A plan needs an easy first step. One that people can see and understand. Some of your concepts require deep dives to grasp, and we are unclear on what the first steps would be in the current state of everything. We see the world as we are under attack. It is not a peaceful utopia where we can risk not being clear when it comes to "how to" for the mass majority of people.
Your first question about homeless people being able to contribute, etc seems like it would be more geared towards if this system was designed for political governance. This is another reason we chose to come at the problem trying to solve the business side of it first. When it comes to voting and self governance, all people should be allowed to participate (everyone who lives in a society has skin in the game). But that is a problem for later stages of the project where the swarm itself will decide that. The early stages require trust building and thus skin in the game. Trust is what is broken first. "Care, insight, emotional labor, or cultural grounding" are neither vulnerabilities nor skin in the game. They could - and should - be baked into our codes of conduct or constitution as a business model. But their role in fixing our corrupt systems seem rather trivial as a starting point. Our system would hire people and provide jobs in a transparent way, which should solve some of the problems you mentioned. But those threads of power you mentioned don't come first in trying to fix our corrupted systems. The solutions must be systemic and clearly defined, not vague. So if you want to play, yeah, you need skin in the game. It seems reasonable for trust building.
As for the weight of trust tokens, you don't think that the metric of trust should shape coordination? If people don't trust their systems, then there is no coordination, right? If the group is picking someone to be the CEO of one of our new businesses the most important metric is trust, right? All systems of people use metrics to shape coordination to some degree. That metric could (and likely should) be "wellness" in the long run. But how do you get there from here? The problem is that trust has so many facets to it. Even with the tokens and badges there automatically has to be space for ambiguity, for intuition, for slow trust-building that doesn’t register on a leaderboard. In fact each situation requires this. While we can measure some trust, it always requires vulnerability, and thus those things. It also requires a form of forgiveness, and "penance" to build trust again. The leaderboard is really how many systems does the swarm control and what good are we doing with those systems. Trust will give you opportunities within the game.
As for disputes, you would need to give specific examples. Also consensus is not how decisions are made in a good swarm. Confidence scores are. And consensus is not the goal, results are. This is why all decisions should be tied to metrics. The system absolutely would encourage branching and divergence - creating new business, systems, etc. A good system should always be looking for divergence, as that is what improvement is - divergent from the norm. If you didn't like our business network, what would be stopping you from creating your own? But you will see that diverse groups in swarms actually seem to get the best answers and the ones with the highest confidence score of the group. When a group uses collective intelligence to make an answer, it doesn't need to stop there. You can ask swarms to criticize their own answers, make them better, and if the confidence score isn't high enough, then keep working until it is. But the real goal is measurable results. Even in a pure Wellness Economy, without metrics there can be no goals or error correction.
Lastly, the goal of this system isn't "lasting coordination." Step one isn't perfection. Step one is trying to regain control of our systems that have become corrupted. They run on capital, so yes we will need to use capital to fix this. People currently coordinate using capital. Capital is actually simply just a unit of trust. I give you money, you trust it is good for something to be used later on. We can change all that after we regain control. The inner work you speak of comes with education. That doesn't come from a system of business - except maybe unless that business has it as their culture. These deep spiritual questions are helpful, and can be baked into the purpose of any system. But this again isn't for us to answer. It is for the whole swarm to. As with many of the other detailed questions you asked.
Our current systems run on capital, violence, and corruption. These systems will chew up and spit out any movement that cannot hold its ground. We need to build genies that have tangible results in the real world. If we do not act in a timely manner, we may never get to.
Our systems are fully gamed. Step one is to game them back. Without that the rest will be irrelevant when the next crisis hits and The Corruptors tighten their control.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I really appreciate you taking the time to engage so fully. I totally get that you’re focused on practical, actionable entry points that can scale and respond quickly to systemic crisis. I also agree that clarity, simplicity, and momentum are crucial in the early stages, especially when we're up against institutions that are already fully optimized for domination and control.
I think maybe the questions I asked didn’t land quite the way I meant them. I’m not critiquing the use of capital as a tactical tool, or suggesting that deep internal work has to come before structural leverage. I’m asking something more foundational: how the early-stage coordination patterns shape the power that emerges, and whether we’re laying tracks that lead to coherence, resilience, and plural participation, or tracks that lead, unintentionally, toward new forms of exclusion, centralization, or coercive trust enforcement.
For example, when I bring up care, insight, and cultural grounding, I’m not saying those things need to be the currency of step one. I’m asking whether the system as designed recognizes non-monetary contributions as meaningful forms of participation and coordination power. If someone’s work builds coherence across cultural or emotional divides, helps resolve conflict, or strengthens the relational fabric of the swarm, does that thread have a visible role in how power and decision-making accrue? Or are we mostly formalizing the same kind of performance-and-metric logic we’re trying to escape?
Similarly, when I asked about divergence, I wasn’t assuming you were aiming for consensus. I was inviting reflection on how the architecture of the game supports branching, experimentation, and multiple overlapping realities. If we build the entire system on high-confidence metrics and collective agreement around measurable results, how do we hold meaningful dissent that doesn’t cleanly resolve? Does the structure allow for coexisting contradiction and slow transformation? Or will outliers be pressured toward coherence too soon?
To be clear, I think your approach already contains the seeds of a radically different system. What I’m suggesting is that the pattern of coordination itself is what builds trust, or breaks it. And if we want a system that isn’t just more transparent and democratic, but genuinely able to hold different forms of contribution, different ways of knowing, and different kinds of emergence, then the architecture has to reflect that from the start.
I'm not asking you to solve these deeper layers now, but I think they’re already present in what you’re building. They’re not afterthoughts, they’re feedback loops baked into the scaffolding. And if we design for them early, the entire system becomes more resilient, more plural, and more powerful.
Happy to keep this conversation going if it’s useful. I'm genuinely inspired by what you’re trying to do.
Sounds like you need to be part of the swarm to make sure we are considering all of these things. A swarm of people that has high trust becomes a genie. And a genie will use empathy and love and kindness - along with progress, and accountability, and discipline- to achieve goals. The yin and the yang. This is why it is important to have diversity of opinions in swarms. People aren’t just good at creative problem solving in swarms, we are also good at creative criticism, and making sure there is fairness, merit, and also taking care of the people who are weakest in a society. If we keep group labels out of it, we avoid tyranny and the swarm will have the capacity for everything you mentioned.
First we need a system or place to go to make decisions and have discussions in groups where MEANINGFUL and POWERFUL change can happen. Right now that will require us to pool resources, knowledge, love and creativity into a system where we can build trust with each other.
Money is a unit of trust. Maybe someday we decide there is a better one, but for now we don’t have a better idea to get people to unify against this corruption.
Help us make sure we are considering what you described. And we can solve coordination problems and power structure in a new way, together, as the system evolves. We need to start small, and then help it spread.
As always thanks for your feedback, and anyone who reads this we highly recommend Anarcasper’s writings.
This conversation is awesome!! My only comment at this point is that time can be another way to have skin in the game. Having helped to run a time bank, I can tell you it’s a bit complicated, but I’ve found in our town, things get done with volunteers AND money. Mostly volunteers.
Just a reminder or two… goals are necessary however skillful means come before ends. Much of our current system uses ends to justify means. Camus examines this classic problem in The Rebel.
Also, perfect is the enemy of good, the better…
This proposal sounds like an excellent starting point especially in these difficult times. Many very talented people are becoming available due to massive disruption of existing systems… kind of reminds me of the origin stories of Apple & Microsoft… and earlier periods of social disruption…
So much more to share. Lunch comes first however. 🕯️🐝🐪💦
Should we consider buying or controlling interest in an electrical power center, as security so that we cannot be ( de- netted)? Also, can we purchase interests in organic gardens and whole raw milk enterprises?
I like this idea, and I admire your ethos; movement instead of doom scrolling, and benefitting humanity instead of just the self; because the big bad greedy organizations are already here and always doing damage. I definitely see potential as politics and media and the real economic situation is so bad people desperately want something else.
My 2 cents are that this idea needs to be narrowed down in scope. A foothold needs to taken first. I mean it would be great to make a competitor to amazon, and one that wasn't evil. But it's probably a long road to get to the kind of entrenchment that amazon has. Although with a group of thinkers working and promoting I think an explosive exponential result makes sense once some traction got going.
But that initial foothold, it would be great to focus on essentials. I'm thinking about food, housing, maybe power/internet. Maybe something like tiny houses. I think housing would be a great starting point. The housing market has been poisoned by wall street, in dallas texas I think houses went from 100k to 400k in the last 10 years. Did wages increased 400% in those ten years? The big business builders are more watchful of the market now, and they slow down to keep the prices up and the bubble going. Actively undercutting them, would bring me joy.
Thanks for reading and for feedback! It seems a lot of people agree here. We think the first step is building the platform to operate. We think we can get 1000 local users on a platform, at start there. We were going to focus on wellness first, maybe a market that tests all products? Then try to expand to Media. After that we would let the swarm decide. Open one business at a time.
Amazon was the big prize of course. But we would need probably at least 10 million users to have the ability to start that. It was more of a mental exercise to expand to that.
It could happen very fast if enough people got behind it though.
I think it's an amazing idea, and very similar to one I've been pitching. Count me in.
I have also been designing a kind of cohort based "Guild" system for young people just graduating from high school who don't know what to do next. Like a cooperative Civil Service commitment that I think would fit well with this model.
Sounds awesome. I know @Anarcasper had some great ideas on education systems as well. He is a very intertestng person to discuss systems with. Maybe swarm together some ideas?
You’ve clearly put a huge amount of thought into this, and I respect the ambition. It tackles real problems—corruption, consolidation of power, and the collapse of trust—with ideas that deserve serious discussion. I especially appreciate the emphasis on transparency, collective intelligence, and voluntary participation.
That said, if you’re looking for critical feedback, here’s what stood out to me as potential challenges:
Scope and Complexity: The plan tries to solve almost every systemic issue at once—economic reform, governance, media, employment, even social trust. That makes it hard to imagine a clear entry point or practical roadmap. You might have more traction focusing first on one narrow, high-impact use case and proving the model before scaling.
Faith in Swarm Intelligence: Swarm systems work in some environments (like forecasting or idea generation), but I’m not sure they can replace structured leadership in legal, financial, or operational matters—especially with high stakes or when bad actors inevitably show up.
Decentralization vs. Central Control: There’s some tension between the decentralized ethos and the need for centralized funds, employee structures, and collective oversight. Decentralized governance often ends up with informal power centers, so I wonder how you'd prevent that.
Regulatory and Legal Hurdles: The idea of pooling real money and acting as a buying bloc or employer would trigger a lot of existing laws—securities, employment, fiduciary responsibility—that I’m not sure the game framing would protect against.
Scalability and Trust: Systems based on trust and voluntary participation can work beautifully in small groups but tend to break down at scale unless culture and norms are enforced, which adds its own layer of governance.
All that said, this could have real potential if it started as a narrowly defined, real-world pilot project with measurable goals. If you prove it works on a small scale, you’d have a much stronger case for expansion.
Happy to brainstorm more if it helps. Overall, this is an incredible piece of work. Good job.
1) we have a lot of confidence swarm intelligence works in businesses because that is where we have used it most. With amazing results. We don’t know anyone else who has used collective intelligence to run systems. But we know for sure it works. Keeping bad actors out is vital for the system. That’s why we try to decentralize power and put people in power based on trust. This is the solution to the iterated prisoners dilemma.
2) scope for sure would need to start smaller and let it grow. Our goal is 1000 people to start locally. We are pretty confident we can get there. But as the saying goes, start off with the end in mind… but first things first.
3) as for decentralized vs centralized you are 100% right. Please read the article linked inside about what we call “the last hand on the bat theory of systems.” Players would not make day to day decisions. We would have employees and hierarchy that works directly for the game. Our employees would use swarm intelligence to make decisions too. BUT we - the players and customers of the game - the decentralized many, would have the last say. We could override anything that seemed suspicious, or dangerous. And we could remove CEOs or anyone in power at anytime. Including “coaches” of each swarm.
4) for legality - the players would not be called owners. They would be called customers. A regular business with customers, that the game just listens to. There is no legal roadblock if we come at it like this. We thought about this a lot. A co-op, or employee owned business would. This would have single owners. The ownership would get passed from player to player of the different businesses. Players would earn badges for owning a system and shepherding it. We would all agree to a framework. And a legal and accounting team would be one of the first hurdles we would probably need to hire.
5) scalability of trust - we agree. This is why the game will mix IRL and URL. Meeting in person in small circles and connecting them will be key to scaling trust. We think it is solvable. Look at Amazon or eBay. They scale trust in the marketplace with decentralized peer to peer trust. We amplify that by having in person meetings. And some businesses in the network will require it. The more face to face and real you are the more trustworthy your potential.
6) your thinking is right in line with what we have been discussing. Let’s keep it going!
We have some of the system built already (a framework for swarming). Now we need to build the platform which we have blueprints for. Will share them soon!
Just us so far. We are working on getting our first 1000 people. Starting locally in Buffalo NY possibly in order to build face to face trust. Thanks for asking!
How soon can you start and expand this magnificent idea! Trump is trying to get a cbcd network in place and pushing hard to get it through obviously to fast track their digital control of everyone! If everyone who reads this and agrees it is a very workable plan would tell 10 people and they each tell ten people it could grow exponentially in a very short time which is exactly what we would need in order to out game the those who have NWO plans to centralize everything and totally control us! Can you help us start this in cities all over the country right away working together with you? I want to thank you for all your work! Help us get this started everywhere please! Much respect and appreciation! Judith
Thank you for the comments. Hard to say. We spent about $100k on a system to get the collective intelligence part to work, and we have no way or plan to recover that. We actually want to turn it over to humanity to work on it. We need a whole platform. It is a big ask. But we are trying. We have some local people working on it and if we make progress we will certainly share as soon as possible. Got any ideas?
I have this working. A completely decentralized crypto super app. Anyone can create communities and issue tokens. Then pool resources and govern community based on token holding. It requires Conviction Voting in ratio of token holdings.
Please check white paper on Reddit r/TribExSuperApp
Conviction voting is certainly better than what we have now in our world. But are really stuck on collective intelligence because it has beat most forms of voting when it comes to problem solving. Each person in a swarm needs to be able to answer independently, and there needs to be a push pull method to getting to a final answer, along with a confidence score. Voting gets consensus. Collective intelligence gets creativity, criticism, and results from crowds. Think of it like having a conversation with one big giant brain. 🧠 Like so:
Oh yes we have read this before and came up with a VERY similar plan in how we would run government. Almost the same concept except we would use collective swarm intelligence and let the constituents steer us directly like a video game.
This reminds me of a few times someone would come up with a new jiu jitsu move, and then someone else would as well nearly the same move but across the globe without ever speaking to each other.
We remodeled our original take on this from Dec 2023 to this, where we describe making digital "shock collars" that force transparency on politicians. Like so:
Seems similar to how the Mormons own and run various business type enterprises.
Perhaps this “game” would need to be started in a county or similar locale. If successful, it could merge with other games nearby and/or expand.
If there is any drawback, it seems that one has to play the game for some period before any benefits apply ( note I did not say “accrue”). IMHO it would be difficult to attract players who have to get further into the game, more monthly fee investments, before gaining returns or benefits. This would make recruiting difficult.
The concept of co-op is well established. Profit incentive is obvious even to newest members. Payouts regular. I think that model is where this game would have to start. Otherwise I think attracting initial game players would be tenuous.
Profits and ownership cannot be the way. Too sticky. Too much government rules. There would be basically no owners here. Customer controlled, owned by no one. We think we can get the first 1000 signed up locally. We are considering putting $100k in the middle and letting everyone play with it if they also put skin in the game. That alone should draw attention and trust.
Many people want to help change the world right now. No one knows where to go. We must build a place.
There has to be other people out there who both believe we can fix the world and are willing to try. Right? I mean, is this the world we want to leave to our kids?
I own 6 acres in the hill country of Texas. I may be interested in parlaying the land( which i and my family live on) as collateral. Is there anyone else that owns hard collateral thst may benefit the game, with surity of course.?
At some point we (the people) are going to have to take action. I understand your assertion that most people won't join unless there is an immediate benefit. That's a very "capitalist" outlook.
Consider, $25/month is not a huge investment for most people, and it is exactly that. An investment. In the future.
Are you working on this beyond the theoreticals? Sounds very intriguing. There is a plethora of useful things such a system could generate. I think you'd have to figure out ways to protect it right from the start, though, otherwise, as soon as it becomes a threat to large corps, it would be outlawed.
It is very very hard to outlaw decentralization. Ask Napster. We have been working on an app but it is a bigger scope than we imagined. Several people are working on collective swarm intelligence systems. They work. We have used them in business already.
So we are now trying to build this yes, but looking for support first and criticism from readers.
First they won’t notice us. Then they will laugh at us. Then it will be too late to stop.
This correspondent is looking forward to a sandbox of the proposed game interface. Also, cryptocurrency is mentioned; how is cryptocurrency planned to be used?
This is a wildly ambitious and generative proposal, and honestly, I think it carries a lot of resonance with some of the key ideas I've been working on around coordination as power. The emphasis on decentralization, swarm intelligence, transparency, and shared economic infrastructure definitely feels like a real attempt to shift from centralized, coercive structures toward more participatory, emergent forms of collective agency. I really appreciate how it sees trust not just as a soft virtue but as a concrete infrastructure that can be cultivated, protected, and rewarded. That’s very aligned with how I think about Power With and Power Through emerging from sustained patterns of coordination.
However, I also found myself sitting with some structural questions. The first one is about the substrate of coordination. Even though the game decentralizes control, it still seems to treat capital (the $25 monthly contribution) as the fundamental unit of participation. I wonder what happens to people who can’t contribute financially (because that $25 might be the only thing keeping them from being homeless, or starving, or having enough medication to last the month), or whose contributions come in the form of care, insight, emotional labor, or cultural grounding. Does the system have room to recognize those as real threads of power, or does it risk reinforcing the same logic of capital but with a more democratic interface?
Another thing I’m curious about is how much weight the system places on metrics, tokens, and scores. While these can provide accountability and gamified engagement, they might also lead to something I think of as constraint inversion: where the metric ends up shaping the coordination more than the other way around. Is there space for ambiguity, for intuition, for slow trust-building that doesn’t register on a leaderboard?
I also wonder how disagreement is handled. Swarm intelligence is powerful, but what happens when there are deep, unresolvable value differences? Does the system encourage branching and divergence, or does it lean toward consensus as the default? I’d love to hear how you imagine pluralism operating in a game that still needs coherence to function.
And finally, there’s a question of internal transformation. So much of what enables lasting coordination, in my view, comes from how people align their desires, motivations, and actions (what I call volitional clarity). Does the game support that kind of inner work? Are there ways people can grow in trust and influence not just by performing tasks, but by deepening their presence, emotional grounding, or capacity to hold complexity?
I really love the spirit of this project. It feels like something that could reshape the way people relate to power, responsibility, and shared infrastructure. At the same time, I’d love to see it stretch even further toward a model that centers threads of care, designs for divergence, and includes the unseen dimensions of coordination that emerge through resonance, healing, and shared sense-making.
Thanks for taking the time to read and reply! You always have big, interesting, and thoughtful questions and insights!
Overall it seems like you are asking questions about whole societies here, and we are focused on just regaining control of the buisiness systems first, and then a lot of the questions and issues you have can be shaped and answered by the swarms themselves. As the saying goes, start off with the end in mind, but first things first. A plan needs an easy first step. One that people can see and understand. Some of your concepts require deep dives to grasp, and we are unclear on what the first steps would be in the current state of everything. We see the world as we are under attack. It is not a peaceful utopia where we can risk not being clear when it comes to "how to" for the mass majority of people.
Your first question about homeless people being able to contribute, etc seems like it would be more geared towards if this system was designed for political governance. This is another reason we chose to come at the problem trying to solve the business side of it first. When it comes to voting and self governance, all people should be allowed to participate (everyone who lives in a society has skin in the game). But that is a problem for later stages of the project where the swarm itself will decide that. The early stages require trust building and thus skin in the game. Trust is what is broken first. "Care, insight, emotional labor, or cultural grounding" are neither vulnerabilities nor skin in the game. They could - and should - be baked into our codes of conduct or constitution as a business model. But their role in fixing our corrupt systems seem rather trivial as a starting point. Our system would hire people and provide jobs in a transparent way, which should solve some of the problems you mentioned. But those threads of power you mentioned don't come first in trying to fix our corrupted systems. The solutions must be systemic and clearly defined, not vague. So if you want to play, yeah, you need skin in the game. It seems reasonable for trust building.
As for the weight of trust tokens, you don't think that the metric of trust should shape coordination? If people don't trust their systems, then there is no coordination, right? If the group is picking someone to be the CEO of one of our new businesses the most important metric is trust, right? All systems of people use metrics to shape coordination to some degree. That metric could (and likely should) be "wellness" in the long run. But how do you get there from here? The problem is that trust has so many facets to it. Even with the tokens and badges there automatically has to be space for ambiguity, for intuition, for slow trust-building that doesn’t register on a leaderboard. In fact each situation requires this. While we can measure some trust, it always requires vulnerability, and thus those things. It also requires a form of forgiveness, and "penance" to build trust again. The leaderboard is really how many systems does the swarm control and what good are we doing with those systems. Trust will give you opportunities within the game.
As for disputes, you would need to give specific examples. Also consensus is not how decisions are made in a good swarm. Confidence scores are. And consensus is not the goal, results are. This is why all decisions should be tied to metrics. The system absolutely would encourage branching and divergence - creating new business, systems, etc. A good system should always be looking for divergence, as that is what improvement is - divergent from the norm. If you didn't like our business network, what would be stopping you from creating your own? But you will see that diverse groups in swarms actually seem to get the best answers and the ones with the highest confidence score of the group. When a group uses collective intelligence to make an answer, it doesn't need to stop there. You can ask swarms to criticize their own answers, make them better, and if the confidence score isn't high enough, then keep working until it is. But the real goal is measurable results. Even in a pure Wellness Economy, without metrics there can be no goals or error correction.
Lastly, the goal of this system isn't "lasting coordination." Step one isn't perfection. Step one is trying to regain control of our systems that have become corrupted. They run on capital, so yes we will need to use capital to fix this. People currently coordinate using capital. Capital is actually simply just a unit of trust. I give you money, you trust it is good for something to be used later on. We can change all that after we regain control. The inner work you speak of comes with education. That doesn't come from a system of business - except maybe unless that business has it as their culture. These deep spiritual questions are helpful, and can be baked into the purpose of any system. But this again isn't for us to answer. It is for the whole swarm to. As with many of the other detailed questions you asked.
Our current systems run on capital, violence, and corruption. These systems will chew up and spit out any movement that cannot hold its ground. We need to build genies that have tangible results in the real world. If we do not act in a timely manner, we may never get to.
Our systems are fully gamed. Step one is to game them back. Without that the rest will be irrelevant when the next crisis hits and The Corruptors tighten their control.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, I really appreciate you taking the time to engage so fully. I totally get that you’re focused on practical, actionable entry points that can scale and respond quickly to systemic crisis. I also agree that clarity, simplicity, and momentum are crucial in the early stages, especially when we're up against institutions that are already fully optimized for domination and control.
I think maybe the questions I asked didn’t land quite the way I meant them. I’m not critiquing the use of capital as a tactical tool, or suggesting that deep internal work has to come before structural leverage. I’m asking something more foundational: how the early-stage coordination patterns shape the power that emerges, and whether we’re laying tracks that lead to coherence, resilience, and plural participation, or tracks that lead, unintentionally, toward new forms of exclusion, centralization, or coercive trust enforcement.
For example, when I bring up care, insight, and cultural grounding, I’m not saying those things need to be the currency of step one. I’m asking whether the system as designed recognizes non-monetary contributions as meaningful forms of participation and coordination power. If someone’s work builds coherence across cultural or emotional divides, helps resolve conflict, or strengthens the relational fabric of the swarm, does that thread have a visible role in how power and decision-making accrue? Or are we mostly formalizing the same kind of performance-and-metric logic we’re trying to escape?
Similarly, when I asked about divergence, I wasn’t assuming you were aiming for consensus. I was inviting reflection on how the architecture of the game supports branching, experimentation, and multiple overlapping realities. If we build the entire system on high-confidence metrics and collective agreement around measurable results, how do we hold meaningful dissent that doesn’t cleanly resolve? Does the structure allow for coexisting contradiction and slow transformation? Or will outliers be pressured toward coherence too soon?
To be clear, I think your approach already contains the seeds of a radically different system. What I’m suggesting is that the pattern of coordination itself is what builds trust, or breaks it. And if we want a system that isn’t just more transparent and democratic, but genuinely able to hold different forms of contribution, different ways of knowing, and different kinds of emergence, then the architecture has to reflect that from the start.
I'm not asking you to solve these deeper layers now, but I think they’re already present in what you’re building. They’re not afterthoughts, they’re feedback loops baked into the scaffolding. And if we design for them early, the entire system becomes more resilient, more plural, and more powerful.
Happy to keep this conversation going if it’s useful. I'm genuinely inspired by what you’re trying to do.
Sounds like you need to be part of the swarm to make sure we are considering all of these things. A swarm of people that has high trust becomes a genie. And a genie will use empathy and love and kindness - along with progress, and accountability, and discipline- to achieve goals. The yin and the yang. This is why it is important to have diversity of opinions in swarms. People aren’t just good at creative problem solving in swarms, we are also good at creative criticism, and making sure there is fairness, merit, and also taking care of the people who are weakest in a society. If we keep group labels out of it, we avoid tyranny and the swarm will have the capacity for everything you mentioned.
First we need a system or place to go to make decisions and have discussions in groups where MEANINGFUL and POWERFUL change can happen. Right now that will require us to pool resources, knowledge, love and creativity into a system where we can build trust with each other.
Money is a unit of trust. Maybe someday we decide there is a better one, but for now we don’t have a better idea to get people to unify against this corruption.
Help us make sure we are considering what you described. And we can solve coordination problems and power structure in a new way, together, as the system evolves. We need to start small, and then help it spread.
As always thanks for your feedback, and anyone who reads this we highly recommend Anarcasper’s writings.
This conversation is awesome!! My only comment at this point is that time can be another way to have skin in the game. Having helped to run a time bank, I can tell you it’s a bit complicated, but I’ve found in our town, things get done with volunteers AND money. Mostly volunteers.
Labor should most definately be considered. There are many ways to do this. And we should at least try.
Just a reminder or two… goals are necessary however skillful means come before ends. Much of our current system uses ends to justify means. Camus examines this classic problem in The Rebel.
Also, perfect is the enemy of good, the better…
This proposal sounds like an excellent starting point especially in these difficult times. Many very talented people are becoming available due to massive disruption of existing systems… kind of reminds me of the origin stories of Apple & Microsoft… and earlier periods of social disruption…
So much more to share. Lunch comes first however. 🕯️🐝🐪💦
Had ‘take out on the porch’ after prep and clean up in the kitchen… yum.
Had a few bees visit.
Should we consider buying or controlling interest in an electrical power center, as security so that we cannot be ( de- netted)? Also, can we purchase interests in organic gardens and whole raw milk enterprises?
That’s up to the swarm but I would be for it if we were big enough
Fascinating way to gamify a membership nonprofit system!
I like this idea, and I admire your ethos; movement instead of doom scrolling, and benefitting humanity instead of just the self; because the big bad greedy organizations are already here and always doing damage. I definitely see potential as politics and media and the real economic situation is so bad people desperately want something else.
My 2 cents are that this idea needs to be narrowed down in scope. A foothold needs to taken first. I mean it would be great to make a competitor to amazon, and one that wasn't evil. But it's probably a long road to get to the kind of entrenchment that amazon has. Although with a group of thinkers working and promoting I think an explosive exponential result makes sense once some traction got going.
But that initial foothold, it would be great to focus on essentials. I'm thinking about food, housing, maybe power/internet. Maybe something like tiny houses. I think housing would be a great starting point. The housing market has been poisoned by wall street, in dallas texas I think houses went from 100k to 400k in the last 10 years. Did wages increased 400% in those ten years? The big business builders are more watchful of the market now, and they slow down to keep the prices up and the bubble going. Actively undercutting them, would bring me joy.
Thanks for reading and for feedback! It seems a lot of people agree here. We think the first step is building the platform to operate. We think we can get 1000 local users on a platform, at start there. We were going to focus on wellness first, maybe a market that tests all products? Then try to expand to Media. After that we would let the swarm decide. Open one business at a time.
Amazon was the big prize of course. But we would need probably at least 10 million users to have the ability to start that. It was more of a mental exercise to expand to that.
It could happen very fast if enough people got behind it though.
I think it's an amazing idea, and very similar to one I've been pitching. Count me in.
I have also been designing a kind of cohort based "Guild" system for young people just graduating from high school who don't know what to do next. Like a cooperative Civil Service commitment that I think would fit well with this model.
J.
Sounds awesome. I know @Anarcasper had some great ideas on education systems as well. He is a very intertestng person to discuss systems with. Maybe swarm together some ideas?
Yeah I've been in communication with @Anarcasper and @J. Friday about alot of this stuff. Definitely forming a Dream Team here.
You’ve clearly put a huge amount of thought into this, and I respect the ambition. It tackles real problems—corruption, consolidation of power, and the collapse of trust—with ideas that deserve serious discussion. I especially appreciate the emphasis on transparency, collective intelligence, and voluntary participation.
That said, if you’re looking for critical feedback, here’s what stood out to me as potential challenges:
Scope and Complexity: The plan tries to solve almost every systemic issue at once—economic reform, governance, media, employment, even social trust. That makes it hard to imagine a clear entry point or practical roadmap. You might have more traction focusing first on one narrow, high-impact use case and proving the model before scaling.
Faith in Swarm Intelligence: Swarm systems work in some environments (like forecasting or idea generation), but I’m not sure they can replace structured leadership in legal, financial, or operational matters—especially with high stakes or when bad actors inevitably show up.
Decentralization vs. Central Control: There’s some tension between the decentralized ethos and the need for centralized funds, employee structures, and collective oversight. Decentralized governance often ends up with informal power centers, so I wonder how you'd prevent that.
Regulatory and Legal Hurdles: The idea of pooling real money and acting as a buying bloc or employer would trigger a lot of existing laws—securities, employment, fiduciary responsibility—that I’m not sure the game framing would protect against.
Scalability and Trust: Systems based on trust and voluntary participation can work beautifully in small groups but tend to break down at scale unless culture and norms are enforced, which adds its own layer of governance.
All that said, this could have real potential if it started as a narrowly defined, real-world pilot project with measurable goals. If you prove it works on a small scale, you’d have a much stronger case for expansion.
Happy to brainstorm more if it helps. Overall, this is an incredible piece of work. Good job.
These are great criticisms.
A few things:
1) we have a lot of confidence swarm intelligence works in businesses because that is where we have used it most. With amazing results. We don’t know anyone else who has used collective intelligence to run systems. But we know for sure it works. Keeping bad actors out is vital for the system. That’s why we try to decentralize power and put people in power based on trust. This is the solution to the iterated prisoners dilemma.
2) scope for sure would need to start smaller and let it grow. Our goal is 1000 people to start locally. We are pretty confident we can get there. But as the saying goes, start off with the end in mind… but first things first.
3) as for decentralized vs centralized you are 100% right. Please read the article linked inside about what we call “the last hand on the bat theory of systems.” Players would not make day to day decisions. We would have employees and hierarchy that works directly for the game. Our employees would use swarm intelligence to make decisions too. BUT we - the players and customers of the game - the decentralized many, would have the last say. We could override anything that seemed suspicious, or dangerous. And we could remove CEOs or anyone in power at anytime. Including “coaches” of each swarm.
4) for legality - the players would not be called owners. They would be called customers. A regular business with customers, that the game just listens to. There is no legal roadblock if we come at it like this. We thought about this a lot. A co-op, or employee owned business would. This would have single owners. The ownership would get passed from player to player of the different businesses. Players would earn badges for owning a system and shepherding it. We would all agree to a framework. And a legal and accounting team would be one of the first hurdles we would probably need to hire.
5) scalability of trust - we agree. This is why the game will mix IRL and URL. Meeting in person in small circles and connecting them will be key to scaling trust. We think it is solvable. Look at Amazon or eBay. They scale trust in the marketplace with decentralized peer to peer trust. We amplify that by having in person meetings. And some businesses in the network will require it. The more face to face and real you are the more trustworthy your potential.
6) your thinking is right in line with what we have been discussing. Let’s keep it going!
We have some of the system built already (a framework for swarming). Now we need to build the platform which we have blueprints for. Will share them soon!
Thank you for the reply. I look forward to more of your work!
Where can I participate in "Money in the Middle, the Game of Trust" ???
Who are the organizations working on making this happen? Any websites?
Just us so far. We are working on getting our first 1000 people. Starting locally in Buffalo NY possibly in order to build face to face trust. Thanks for asking!
How soon can you start and expand this magnificent idea! Trump is trying to get a cbcd network in place and pushing hard to get it through obviously to fast track their digital control of everyone! If everyone who reads this and agrees it is a very workable plan would tell 10 people and they each tell ten people it could grow exponentially in a very short time which is exactly what we would need in order to out game the those who have NWO plans to centralize everything and totally control us! Can you help us start this in cities all over the country right away working together with you? I want to thank you for all your work! Help us get this started everywhere please! Much respect and appreciation! Judith
Thank you for the comments. Hard to say. We spent about $100k on a system to get the collective intelligence part to work, and we have no way or plan to recover that. We actually want to turn it over to humanity to work on it. We need a whole platform. It is a big ask. But we are trying. We have some local people working on it and if we make progress we will certainly share as soon as possible. Got any ideas?
https://open.substack.com/pub/candeloro/p/the-art-of-electoral-money-laundering?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=zvhi
Nice work. Wish you would allow commenting on your substack without paying.
Done it! Thank for the compliments.
I have this working. A completely decentralized crypto super app. Anyone can create communities and issue tokens. Then pool resources and govern community based on token holding. It requires Conviction Voting in ratio of token holdings.
Please check white paper on Reddit r/TribExSuperApp
Conviction voting is certainly better than what we have now in our world. But are really stuck on collective intelligence because it has beat most forms of voting when it comes to problem solving. Each person in a swarm needs to be able to answer independently, and there needs to be a push pull method to getting to a final answer, along with a confidence score. Voting gets consensus. Collective intelligence gets creativity, criticism, and results from crowds. Think of it like having a conversation with one big giant brain. 🧠 Like so:
https://youtu.be/YyXEzWtii_A?si=i9qb952SSYPYNErO
Most intriguing writeup you've got here~ ❤️🔥 Curious if it may mesh with a similar kind of idea I've been percolating on for a while: https://kithefree.medium.com/transparency-one-46ee18ea6423
Oh yes we have read this before and came up with a VERY similar plan in how we would run government. Almost the same concept except we would use collective swarm intelligence and let the constituents steer us directly like a video game.
This reminds me of a few times someone would come up with a new jiu jitsu move, and then someone else would as well nearly the same move but across the globe without ever speaking to each other.
We remodeled our original take on this from Dec 2023 to this, where we describe making digital "shock collars" that force transparency on politicians. Like so:
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/digital-shock-collars-for-politicians
Or this article which we have revised 3x in 3 years about starting a "transparency movement" https://joshketry.substack.com/p/we-need-a-transparency-movement
In fact on June 10th you can see that Josh Ketry - one of our main writers - commented on your post.
We are highly aligned here.
Seems similar to how the Mormons own and run various business type enterprises.
Perhaps this “game” would need to be started in a county or similar locale. If successful, it could merge with other games nearby and/or expand.
If there is any drawback, it seems that one has to play the game for some period before any benefits apply ( note I did not say “accrue”). IMHO it would be difficult to attract players who have to get further into the game, more monthly fee investments, before gaining returns or benefits. This would make recruiting difficult.
The concept of co-op is well established. Profit incentive is obvious even to newest members. Payouts regular. I think that model is where this game would have to start. Otherwise I think attracting initial game players would be tenuous.
Interesting concept.
Profits and ownership cannot be the way. Too sticky. Too much government rules. There would be basically no owners here. Customer controlled, owned by no one. We think we can get the first 1000 signed up locally. We are considering putting $100k in the middle and letting everyone play with it if they also put skin in the game. That alone should draw attention and trust.
Many people want to help change the world right now. No one knows where to go. We must build a place.
There has to be other people out there who both believe we can fix the world and are willing to try. Right? I mean, is this the world we want to leave to our kids?
We can fix it, but only together.
Would you play?
I own 6 acres in the hill country of Texas. I may be interested in parlaying the land( which i and my family live on) as collateral. Is there anyone else that owns hard collateral thst may benefit the game, with surity of course.?
Yes. And businesses too. People could donate their existing businesses to the swarm
At some point we (the people) are going to have to take action. I understand your assertion that most people won't join unless there is an immediate benefit. That's a very "capitalist" outlook.
Consider, $25/month is not a huge investment for most people, and it is exactly that. An investment. In the future.
Are you working on this beyond the theoreticals? Sounds very intriguing. There is a plethora of useful things such a system could generate. I think you'd have to figure out ways to protect it right from the start, though, otherwise, as soon as it becomes a threat to large corps, it would be outlawed.
Anyway, lots of interesting potential!
It is very very hard to outlaw decentralization. Ask Napster. We have been working on an app but it is a bigger scope than we imagined. Several people are working on collective swarm intelligence systems. They work. We have used them in business already.
So we are now trying to build this yes, but looking for support first and criticism from readers.
First they won’t notice us. Then they will laugh at us. Then it will be too late to stop.
Are you familiar with:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Game
And:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
No…. Thanks!
This correspondent is looking forward to a sandbox of the proposed game interface. Also, cryptocurrency is mentioned; how is cryptocurrency planned to be used?
That is for the swarm to decide. We don’t understand it well enough except that is transparent, decentralized, and seemingly hard to corrupt.