The Problem of Hierarchy

Unmerited hierarchy — power and status not earned through demonstrated competence — carries real costs. For those lower in it: stress, reduced self-esteem, limited access to resources and opportunity, and vulnerability to exploitation. For those holding power: reduced empathy toward people below them, and a temptation toward corruption. For society as a whole: entrenched inequality, stifled innovation, and unrest.

Hierarchy itself isn't the problem — an unmerited one is. Structures built on fairness, transparency, real autonomy at every level, and ongoing investment in people's growth can support wellbeing rather than undermine it. Mentorship structures and self-managed teams are common working examples.

The challenge, then, isn't choosing between hierarchy and no hierarchy — it's designing structure so that authority tracks competence and consent, not unearned status. That's the problem the Core and Edge below are each built to solve, in their own way.

The Core: Governed by Sociocracy

Where the Edge operates as a swarm — decentralised, fluid, self-organising — the Core is intentionally more structured. This isn't a contradiction of the swarm philosophy; it's what gives it something stable to organise around. The Core holds the community charter and platform standards, and is governed by Sociocracy.

Sociocracy is a consent-based governance method, not a consensus one. The distinction matters: consensus requires everyone to agree; consent only requires that no one has a reasoned, paramount objection — a concern grounded in the shared aim, not a personal preference. This keeps decision-making from stalling while still protecting against decisions genuinely at odds with the project's purpose. Sociocracy also organises through circles — semi-autonomous groups with authority over their own domain — connected to each other so information and decision-making authority flow in both directions, not just downward.

Why this over a simple flat structure: the Problem of Hierarchy above shows that unmerited power imbalance causes real harm, but the absence of any structure has its own well-documented failure modes — the coordination drift and slower collective decision-making described under the Edge, below. Sociocracy is designed specifically to keep the fairness and transparency of a flat structure while avoiding the coordination breakdown of no structure at all.

Where this stands today: the Core is currently one person — the project's founder. This is not a placeholder waiting to be filled; it's a deliberate stage. Sociocracy only functions once there's more than one perspective to reach consent between, and inviting people into a Core that hasn't yet articulated what it's actually organising around risks the opposite problem — decisions made before there's a coherent shared foundation to ground them in. Part of the purpose of this Foundation phase is building that foundation clearly enough that when a founding circle does form, consent-based decisions have something solid to work from. The Core will expand deliberately, not by open invitation, once that groundwork is in place.

The Edge: Organised as a Swarm

Where the Core holds structure, the Edge is decentralised and self-organising — inspired by the collective behaviour of natural swarms like bees or ants. No single person holds ultimate authority; people organise around a shared purpose, take on fluid roles based on skill and interest rather than fixed titles, and coordinate through open information-sharing rather than top-down direction.

This trades one set of strengths for another. A swarm is agile and resilient — it adapts quickly, generates more varied solutions, and doesn't depend on any single point of control. What it doesn't offer on its own is clarity or speed of decision: without a stable reference point, coordination between autonomous groups can drift, and decisions that need to be made collectively take longer to reach than a top-down call would.

That tradeoff is exactly why the Edge doesn't operate alone. Read alongside the Core above, the shape of the whole structure comes into focus: the Core supplies the clarity and shared reference point the swarm model doesn't provide, while the Edge supplies the adaptability and self-organisation that consent-based governance can't offer at speed. Each compensates for what the other lacks.

Development of an Intentional Society

Many individuals and groups are striving for a better society. A common theme is to disable and replace in total or in part. Despite the harmful effects of some components of our current society, disabling them can have increasingly harmful consequences. Our society, overall, functions. We have health support in place by governments, supply infrastructure, information-sharing networks, and supported research and development. To disable this in a timeframe faster than society can adapt and systems can be replaced will likely have harmful consequences such as chaos and loss of the minimal well-being we currently have.

The timeline is another common theme. Many well-being activists are motivated by the prospect of seeing the outcome of their efforts within their lifetime. This is reasonable for small or local changes, however, to affect global changes in a short period does not give society time to adapt. Many dysfunctional practices are well internalised into the various cultures and passed on to future generations. These will take generational timeframes to change. Another issue with short timeframes is the high probability of loss of resources and power to those who currently control them. Not all in power will do the right thing and support a change that leaves them with substantial losses. It is more likely they will mount a resistance that could destroy or inhibit any efforts of change that work against them.

The Multi-generational Timeline

The multi-generational timeline gives time for society to adapt and for those in power who may otherwise resist, to see their lives out without creating resistance.

Although this may reduce the motivation for those who wish to affect change, being unable to see the ultimate results in their lifetimes, the growth of a new society can occur significantly and visibly in a person's lifetime by allowing them to be a part of the development of and immersion into local versions a new society now.

From Intentional Communities to Intentional Society

Many facets of an imagined future society can exist today. These can be explored today by creating intentional communities living under evolving conditions based on the principles of the project. 

Knowledge can be shared and people can move between communities to connect and network. 

Intentional communities do not need to be large. Any place where people can live together or live close enough together to jointly experience and explore the envisioned society could be viable. This may be as few as 2 people or nearby individuals.