A Sociology of Big Pictures (IAM white paper): discussion thread

Ideas
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Still gathering my thoughts on this, but creating this as a thread for discussion of this paper by Robb Smith, founder of the Institute for Applied Metatheory (IAM).

A lot of resonances with the 2R white papers. I’ll highlight especially the 6 elements of grand strategy Robb outlines:

  1. Crystallize a Minimal Integrative Worldview. The Teal+ movements will disagree on a lot, but there is likely also a parsimonious core of what brings them together. This might make all the difference to convivially cohering the network. Philosophical commitments that are candidates for this worldview include, but are not limited to, elements that sum to a visionary, valuable realism: stratified ontology (i.e., reality is emergent and layered); developmental perspectivalism (i.e, knowledge is reconstructively relative); cosmo-normativity (i.e., reality is valuable) ; emancipatory axiology (i.e., commitment to freedom); judgmental rationality (i.e., judgment is possible).
  2. Compete for attention. Name, and fill, one of the four major worldview slots in the global attention space by mid-century of the Transformation Age (i.e., 2025-2060). Seek to attract 10 million followers and $50 million in committed support to the network by 2030.
  3. Tell a true, more deeply meaningful story. Coalesce a compelling, credible and comprehensive story of wholeness—a transcendent pathway to real meaning—around the intrinsic sacrality of being, and being human, through the panentheistic, nondual, complex integral realism that is
    emerging.
  4. Build an autopoeitic network. Beyond story and interaction rituals, relationships are the spiritual connective tissue of a network; they are what makes a network meaningful. Convene the emerging “Teal+” movements into a broader network that can a) develop more robust in-person interaction rituals across the network, b) develop the sacred symbols that amplify the emotional energy of network participants and missionaries, and c) create auto-generative effects of social reproduction in, across, and via the network.
  5. Embrace huge problems. Make big promises and generate big problems to energize the solution landscape across the network, while also attracting the resources needed to support network
    members’ efforts.
  6. Develop proprietary tools. Develop new tools that embody and advance the network’s knowledge.
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Here’s a repost of how I responded to the paper on FB:

I appreciated the paper. A couple observations to extend and consolidate the network, so to speak.

  • Robb’s ideas about the"great release" find echoes in the work of Peter Pogany on the “chaotic transition” between world systems. (Rethinking the World, 2006).

  • Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus, 2024 is an accessible long-historical meditation on societies as information networks.

  • On Baudrillard’s sequence from Real to Hyperreal, a lot of metamodern practice (like Vervaeke, cited in Robb’s paper) is about the recovery of the real through lived experience.

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A lot to be clarified content-wise, but that’s not the point at this stage and I think this is a great initiative. Does anyone know whether there are any concrete actions ongoing to advance the formation of the network?

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Having shopped around quite a bit for the most dynamic action hub in liminal space - the hub that connects all the other ideas - 2R looks best in show to me right now. So I’d say, if there is to be concrete action to be organized around Robb’s paper, this is a good place to organize it. What is being done in parallel somewhere else can always be connected to,

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That’s great to hear, and agreed! Lots of thinking going on behind the scenes about how to do this at the moment, along with the current focus on Limicon.

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