Decentralised Indigenous Organisations (DIOs) — Part I : A Seed From the Future
The Metacrisis in the Light of DIOs
Part I on the DIOs series.
On 13 September 2007, the United Nations General Assembly adopted during its 107th plenary meeting, perhaps the most important resolution of the 21st century.
The 61/295 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)1
In virtue of this Declaration, the United Nations has recognized the right of self-determination to Indigenous Peoples. This right allows them to ‘freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’ (Article 3).
From this Declaration, Indigenous Peoples also receive the right to :
‘Maintain and develop their political, economic and social systems or institutions’ (Article 20) and the right to ‘determine their own identity or membership in accordance with their customs and traditions’, as well as to ‘determine the structures and to select the membership of their institutions in accordance with their own procedures’ (Article 33).
The articles 20 and 33 clearly recognise a right for Indigenous Peoples to have independent institutions aside other rights equally important to defend their self-determination2.
It is the recognition of these rights by the United Nations that initiates this series to frame a first drawing around the notion of Decentralized Indigenous Organizations (DIOs) in the context of the metacrisis.
Part I. The Metacrisis in the Light of DIOs
A Seed From the Future
We are living right now in the most uncertain times of human history, stemming from multiple systemic crises, which many have simplified as the metacrisis. The metacrisis can be defined as ‘the multiple overlapping and interconnected global crises that our nascent planetary culture faces’3.
In a more illustrative form, the metacrisis covers external crises such as exceeding of planetary boundaries4, arms race5, AI existential risks, macro-financial collapse, socio-political tensions, as well as other more subtle ones, to quote Dr. Zachary Stein, “the invisible crisis unfolding within our own minds and cultures that is getting much less attention”6. In summary, the metacrisis is the oversimplification of interconnected crises that no one can fully grasp
As the term "metacrisis" simplifies the multiple, interconnected crises of our time into one word, it might be interesting to do the same for solutions – we should set a clear framework for it or as defined by Daniel Schmachtenberger, frame the “third attractor”. According to him, humanity is currently on a trajectory towards two likely outcomes or "attractors":
Catastrophic collapse and chaos due to existential risks like environmental destruction, pandemics, or misuse of powerful technologies. This is the first attractor to avoid.
Oppressive, totalitarian control systems put in place as an attempt to manage the risks and instability, leading to a loss of freedom and human rights. This is the second attractor to avoid.
Schmachtenberger argues we need to find a "third attractor" – an alternative future that avoids both catastrophe and authoritarianism. The third attractor would leverage emerging technologies and new social systems in a way that increases collective intelligence, sustainability and antifragility. That's what this series is all about, participating in the third attractor.
To find this "third attractor", we can begin to assume that for every problem there is at least one solution, and this assumption should apply to the metacrisis as well. In other words, what is the common denominator between the metacrisis and its solutions? One way to approach this question is to look more closely at the concept of the future. In fact, any solution to a given problem is bound to this dimension of time, where a present problem is inevitably linked to solutions in the future, hidden in the unknown of our ingenuity. As a result, the future is a good concept to work with in order to better understand the nature of a "third attractor".
The Future as a Meta-Public-Good
One way to approach the future is the notion of public good. In economics, public goods are goods that are both non-excludable and non-rivalrous.
Non-excludability means that it is difficult or impossible to exclude someone from enjoying the good once it is produced;
While non-rivalrous means that the consumption of the good by one person does not reduce the amount available for others like the air we breathe.
These properties match with the notion of the future like the air we breathe : no economic agent can be excluded from it, and where there is a priori no possible competition over its resources. The future by definition is a public good insofar as it represents the collective welfare and well-being of all present/future generations. Just as we recognize that clean air and water are public goods that benefit society as a whole, so too can we recognize that a sustainable and fair future is a public good that benefits all members of society, including those who have yet to be born.
This notion of the future as a public good is known in the academic field into the principle of intergenerational equity, which is the idea that future generations should have the same opportunities and well-being as current generations.
In that matter, the future can be seen as a ‘meta-public-good’7 in the sense that it includes all public goods. Taking care of the future, is per se taking care of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the infrastructure we coordinate on, and so on.
And we can push this metaphore one step further.
By importing into our present the ‘resources’ of the future with financial tools like debt (which is a claim on future energy), and by developing ongoing technologies without taking the time to create ethical and global standards about their impacts, i.e. AI existential risks, we are collectively paying a deadly price for the misuse of this meta-public-good, which is the collapse of life on Earth.
So how could we improve coordination around the management of the future to get closer of a “third attractor” ? For now, the management of the future is highly fragmented between nation-states, international organisations, and the private sector, which severely lack global coordination, transparency and accountability to be well managed. Also translater as the multipolar-trap.
Our proposition is the exploration of Decentralised Indigenous Organisation, or DIOs.
What DIOs really means?
DIOs (or Decentralised Indigenous Organisations) is a neologism coming from the DAO movement in Web3. A DAO8 stands for ‘Decentralised Autonomous Organisation’. It’s an entity without a centralized form of governance, where the rules are defined in a computer code executed on a public blockchain like Ethereum.
DIOs stands for ‘Decentralized Indigenous Organizations’ and shares the core values of DAOs. It's an entity without a centralized form of governance, autonomous, open and transparent, where rules can be changed by consensus9. The difference is that the first layer protocol to execute the rules is not defined by a computer, but by ancestral knowledge. This first layer makes it possible to create consensus based on transculturality of different ethnic groups (cultural decentralization), to enable transparent and consensual decision-making based on shared values (political decentralization), and to make connections between traditionnal and technological solutions such as DAOs in a context of decolonization (epistemological decentralization).
In short, a DIO is a Decentralized Indigenous Organization that moves towards a common goal through spiritual consensus outside colonial structures, while being optimistic about technological solutions such as DAOs (which are a reaction to the failure of colonial culture).
Now, the reason we want to explore DIOs is that Indigenous Peoples are already the most decentralized and worldwide community that shares a common consciousness and responsibility for future generations, while maintaining an inter-symbiotic relationship with "non-human" beings. Values that we should deeply reconsider as fundamental to human society 10.
There is a great opportunity for humanity to facilitate global Indigenous coordination in new forms of organization, which is the raison d'être of DIOs.
The Breakdown
This section aims to justify the legitimacy of DIOs as a positive direction towards a "third attractor". To do so, we will approach the notion of metacrisis based on a comprehensive breakdown provided by Dr. Zachary Stein in his article ‘Education is the Metacrisis’ written in January 2022. In his article, he breaks down the metacrisis into four distinct parts:
1. Sense-making crisis (what is the case?)
2. Capability crisis (how can it be done?)
3. Legitimacy crisis (who should do it?)
4. Meaning crisis (why do it?)
His singular approach is to treat the metacrisis from the standpoint of an educational crisis and how it involves a set of related psychological dynamics within our own mind and cultural influence; ‘systems and societies are in trouble, but it is the psyche – the human dimension – that is in the direst of straits’.
Let explore why DIOs could answer positively to the four aspects developed by Zachary Stein.
1.2.1. Sense-making crisis (what is the case?):
The sense-making crisis is defined by Zachary Stein as the ‘confusion at the level of understanding the nature of the world. Everyday people and experts are struggling to say things that are true, unable to comprehend increasing complexity.’
We could assume that the sense-making crisis comes from a lack of common roots in the society to apprehend the natural world and its systemic forces that bring life together. How ‘experts’ could claim to have solutions if most of them do not embody the fundamental interconnectedness of life in their work? It’s simply impossible.
On the other hand, the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous Peoples can help humanity understand how life can be nurtured in order to protect future generations and regenerate the world. From this perspective, it would make sense to have more interconnected indigenous organizations that can protect this knowledge and give direction to future generations.
1.2.2. Capability crisis (how can it be done?):
The Capability crisis is defined by Zachary Stein as the “incapacity at the level of operating on the world intelligently. In all social positions and domains of work, individuals are increasingly unable to engage in problem-solving to the degree needed for continued social integration”.
The capability crisis can be summarised as the consequence of a failure in the multiplayer coordination game of nation states. As we stated above, the future as a meta-public-good cannot be well managed as long as it is fragmented by conflicting interests, local competition and profit oriented market before the well-being of present and future generations.
A good answer would be the creation of global, transparent, inclusive and decentralised organisations or networks in order to avoid any power retention from self-oriented interests leading us to the same multipolar trap.
Indigenous organisations are good candidates for this purpose. First, because the United Nations explicitly recognises their right to self-determination, so they can organise transnational organisation in autonomy. Secondly, because Indigenous Peoples represent the greatest evidence of a global decentralised network in human history11. DIOs act as an adaptation to respond as effectively as possible to the capacity crisis12.
1.2.3. Legitimacy crisis (who should do it?):
The legitimacy crisis is defined by Zachary Stein as the “incoherence at the level of cultural agreements. Political and bureaucratic forms of power are failing to provide sufficiently convincing rationale and justification for trust in their continued authority”.
We cannot delegate the future as a public good to the same entities, organisations, political structure who are responsible for its deadly price. Any entity that fails in the past and present to preserve the well-being of future generations should be dismissed or subordinated to higher authorities. So far, there is no legal entity knwon that has managed this public good successfully. We will assume that it's necessary to create a new power structure to resolve the legitimacy crisis.
Again, despite tensions, and on-going act of colonisation over their cultures and traditions, Indigenous Peoples have shown anti-fragility and adaptation to protect the future of their own community.
The exploration of DIOs aims to improve even more this anti-fragility and ability to organize through the use of decentralized and trustless technologies13.
1.2.4. Meaning crisis (why do it?):
The meaning crisis is defined by Zachary Stein as the “in-authenticity at the level of personal experience. Individuals from all walks of life are questioning the purpose of their existence, the goodness of the world, and the value of ethics, beauty, and truth.”
The meaning crisis might be interpreted as the consequence of a lack of interconnection within the natural world – the ‘non-human’. How can we have meaningful life if we are disconnected from its main community ? Meaning of life requires a reassertion of the self within life itself, and from that point rises our authenticity and brings a natural order to our existence.
On the other hand, by embodying the diversity of their interpersonal relationships with the non-human world, Indigenous Peoples hold a key to address the meaning crisis. The study of DIOs could help improve the communication of their messages, while being in conjunction with the artistic and technological eccentricity of the Western society. This cultural confluence could create new stories and new means of expression that resonate and deeply affect the young generation - our strongest leverage to care for the future.
Now that we have briefly introduced the idea of DIOs in relation to the metacrisis, let's explore some key components that could enable the creation of DIOs in the digital age. We can think of this PART II as a giant set where elements are not speculative or hypothetical, but actual public infrastructures that we can already connect together in the directions we want to create.
Next: Part 2 (1/2) — Conventional Forces.
The UNDRIP includes other fundamental rights such as a ‘collective right to leave in freedom, peace and security’ (Article 7), a right to revitalise their culture and tradition (Article 11), a right to protect the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures (Article 11), a right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religion and cultural sites (Article 12), a right to dignity and diversity (Article 15), a right to establish their own media (Article 16), a right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development (Article 23) and more. Each of them deserves its own paper.
Definition given by Daniel Thorson, host of the podcast Emerge: Making Sense of What’s Next
The planetary boundaries concept presents a set of nine planetary boundaries within which humanity can continue to develop and thrive for generations to come. In 2022, based on available literature, the 5th planetary boundary was transgressed.
“An arms race consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and the aim of superior military technology; the term is also used to describe any long-term escalating competitive situation where each competitor or competitive group focuses on out-doing others” (Wikipedia).
Like for instance the educational, psychological and spiritual dimension of our inner states. Dr Zachary Stein is a transformative educator & co-founder of The Consilience Project who try to break down the metacrisis from an educational perspective.
A ‘meta-public-good’ can be defined as a higher-level public good that enables the production or distribution of other public goods, or helps to ensure their effective functioning. In our context, the future integrates de facto all forms of existing and upcoming public goods. The term meta also refers to the fact that this public good is beyond the nation-states agency.
Protocol : a set of rules and conventions governing the way in which communications and data exchanges are to be carried out within a system or between different systems. It is essentially a common language that enables different entities to communicate and interact in a coherent, standardized way.
‘Indigenous Peoples are the holders of unique languages, knowledge systems and beliefs and possess invaluable knowledge of practices for the sustainable management of natural resources. They have a special relation to and use of their traditional land. Their ancestral land has a fundamental importance for their collective physical and cultural survival as peoples. Indigenous peoples hold their own diverse concepts of development, based on their traditional values, visions, needs and priorities’, Factsheet United Nations, Who are indigenous peoples?, United Nations Forum;
Indigenous peoples are often considered the greatest evidence of a global decentralisation network as they have historically developed and maintained diverse and autonomous societies that have existed without the need for centralised authority.
Indigenous peoples have managed to maintain strong communities through the ages and continue to do so even in a hostile environment, which proves the antifragility of their social structure. A great knowledge to be inspired by.
Trustless is a core concept in blockchain technology, which refers to the ability of a system to operate without relying on trust between parties. It’s achieved through cryptographic techniques such as public-key cryptography, digital signatures, and consensus algorithms, which allow for secure and verifiable transactions without the need for a trusted third party. Trustless is a key factor in the success of blockchain technology, as it allows for secure and transparent transactions without the need for a central authority.