Enact

Decisions!

Actions are required to create change. Once an idea has been debated and refined it needs to be enacted. Ideally this process is viewed as legitimate by the stakeholders of the system. If so, then engage in that process to voice your preferences. If the process is not viewed as legitimate, then find a new system to engage with because without a legitimate governance process you're living in a world of pure power where the 800 lb gorilla rules.

The specific mechanisms used to make decisions in any specific system are going to be unique. It's very important that you understand how they work so that you can engage with them productively. You're on your own to figure that out.

Also, be aware that just because a decision is made does not mean it will create the outcomes you want. You probably have a theory about what could, should, or will happen - but it's not until you test it out that you'll know. And even then it's unclear! For non-deterministic decisions with execution risk it can be hard to tell if success or failure was caused by the execution of the decision or the decision itself.

Concepts

Legitimacy

Legitimacy means many things to many people. In short, it's the acknowledgement and acceptances of a power structure, and thus the acceptanceof the results of the power structure. Agree on process, even if you disagree on outcomes.

Legitimacy requires explicit and implicit acceptance of a system. If people don't really have much of an option they'll go along with something, but then not participate or rebel half way through.

Politics

As mentioned before, politics is how we make decisions in groups to distribute resources and status. While many people hate politics, as long as people are involved it's inevitable. People are going to want to advocate for their interests when valuable resources are on the line. If you have a formal political process it'll be easy to see that. If the political process is informal that doesn't mean it's not there. It just means that it's harder to see.

A political process can be healthy or unhealthy. A healthy version might look like stakeholders advocate for their interests, present evidence, engage in intelligent debate, and vote with balanced power to determine the best outcome for all parties involved. An unhealthy political process might involve stakeholders advocating for their interests and ignoring everyone else, slandering rather than engaging with facts, yelling over everyone so that no one can talk, and imbalanced power dynamics that disenfranchise stakeholders. Both are political processes, but one can be productive and the other is a nightmare. Regardless, politics is unavoidable if you're going to make decisions in a group to distribute resources.

It's important to understand how politics works in general, and then how politics (group decision making over resources) works within the context of the system you're engaging with. Then you can have a better idea of what you're getting into and how to engage productively.

Tools

The process to enact proposals is dependent on the governance process of each system and therefore outside the scope of this article. That being said, it is a very important step! If you have a convoluted governance process or voting weight is not well distributed among stakeholders then success is unlikely. There isn't much that intelligent analysis, proposals, and questions can do to fix a system that is fundamentally broken. If there is a strong foundation, however, then computer aided governance can help you engage within that system productively.

Notes

MOTIVATION
- fortune favors the bold

CONCEPTS
- legitimacy
- politics

TOOLS
- it depends