VOTING FOR
Some Theory
Decentralization is not a binary state, it’s a characteristic of living organisms (like this collective body) that ebbs and flows through phases of organizational development. For instance, the highly decentralized caterpillar digests itself into a more centralized cellular slurry ruled by groups of imaginal cells in order to construct a new, further decentralized butterfly body orders of magnitude more complex than the caterpillar [1].
The question is not between doing everything in this DAO or forming a leadership team—it’s about how to grow into an organization with multiple independent, collaborative, and autonomous teams composed of self-managed, passionate community members. This is the future of organizational development [2, 3]—the future that we at yearn are on the absolute leading edge of. And this proposal is a reasonable and thoughtful next step.
Some Key Points
I love this proposal, and want to call attention to a couple key points:
It’s critical to point out that this is not a proposed takeover. This council would only make decisions for how to use the capital that our YIP-36 approval has already allocated to operations. Having founded four successful companies I know from experience that trying to make the kinds of granular decisions needed for yearn to thrive right now in this forum would be a disaster. But, this forum is amazing and has a critical, big-picture role.
Right now we only have one approved decision-making process: on-chain voting. Though executed in a decentralized manner, that’s a centralization of our decision-making capabilities. We need a diversity of decision-making systems in order to flourish. Human bodies are far more decentralized than is commonly understood: we have the equivalent of a cat brain in our hearts, a rat brain in our guts, and peripheral ganglia make tons of independent decisions [4, 5]. This council is a good first step towards a multi DAO system with a range of capabilities.
Think of the council as a form of further specialized and limited functionality—and under the purview of this DAO which can vote to change it as needed. With the council we will have a second approved decision making faculty better suited to the kind of lean and rapid decision-making necessary for operations.
Specific Feedback for @Substreight
I think there is a way to improve the effectiveness and holistic integrity of the council. We have a lovely emergent system of special interest (SI) groups growing. For example, look at the progress happening in the Frontend-Design discord channel. Eventually these groups could become fully-functional organs with autonomous value-forming, sense-making, and decision-making capabilities.
Suggestion: have 1–2 representatives from each SI group join the council as non-voting members. The benefits being:
- Help the council stay informed of work happening on the ground levels
- Help the community feel integrated into the council’s process
- Sow the seeds for the multi DAO future
- It’s inline with models advocated for by luminary organizational thinkers like Frederic Laloux [6], Jos de Bloc [7], and Brian Robertson [8].
Here are the SI groups I am aware of (I am part of a few):
- Governance (discord)
- Frontend Design (discrod)
- Roadmap Discussion (discord)
- yDAO (telegram)
- Discord and Telegram Mods (no formal channel afaik but worth including)
Hope this is helpful.
It’s literally thrilling to see the creature we are forming take its first steps on dry land…