Contents:

Day Four Pt. 2

Participants: Paul Free, Janina Abels, Matthias Larisch, Bodhi Neiser

After the first half of 17-03-15 (personal needs) was frustrating due to low energy, focus and motivation, the strategy was changed.

Even though Paul did not approve in the beginning (mainly because he said the personal answers to questions regarding motivations, needs and values need to be clear to talk about what one wants to achieve with a group), we decided to tackle the questions these meetings are mainly about. Motivation (especially from Bodhi and Matthias) went up immediately and recognizably. The main questions are the following:

• What is yunity?
• What would I like yunity to be?

What is yunity?

We started with a free talking round, where people described how they perceive yunity at the moment.

Paul

Outward communication implies a focus on unconditional sharing, that will change the world, as well as lots of collaboration and building up networks. When I look at what yunity is right now, I see a group of people, that is mainly occupied with itself, no real interest in collaboration and no focus. It somehow is a network. People who wish for things but don't act accordingly. Lots of confusion and not much real thinking about the deeper ideas. Dominance of a culture that's focused on maximizing joy, and therefore pretty superficial. It is a network of friends, providing good bonding effects, which also function remotely. Lots of individual action without group processes. The focus shifts more and more to transformation, but to me that sounds like an excuse, because even simple steps are not taken. It generally is a good idea, that could reach a lot of people, especially because there is not much real criticism of the system as it is now. Many people identify with yunity without really knowing what it actually means. People drop in and out as they want to, there mostly is no real commitment.

Janina

yunity is a network of people interested in sharing. There are different projects associated with yunity, but there are also a lot of people just coming by once in a while. Paul is right with a lot of things. Since we changed our direction last summer we lost a lot of focus and most people don't really know anymore what yunity actually is. Because of the intense PR in the starting phase, we are still seen as a software project, that works on creating 'the yunity platform' - which actually nobody works on anymore. It is hard to find people, who are actually commited and ready to invest more than a little bit of time into helping with one of the projects, but that's probably also due to all the confusion...

Bodhi

yunity changed a lot, now it has almost nothing to do with what it was when we first came together in Malo. Now it's mostly a network connecting different projects, that sometimes overlap. Everybody can start a 'yunity project' and make us of our communication channels, since there are no obligations and no control mechanisms. The people in yunity are friends and since they just meet sometimes in different locations, sure, they want to have fun together. Because the ouward and inward communication differ so much there is a lot of confusion, so of course nobody really commits.

Matthias

For me yunity has always been a software project, but I'd say that stopped last June. It also is a lifestyle and WuppDays always attracted various kinds of freethinking people with critical views on the current system and ideas to create spaces, where alternative approaches to life could be experimented with. Since last June/July the processes we established, while we were a software project still, don't really work anymore: There are no more syscons, the meeting culture deteriorated and confusion took over. The yunity lifestyle includes dumpster diving, foodsaving, a lot of individual freedom, no formalized application process and therefore lots of different people, who bring in lots of different opinions, interests and agendas. I always found it difficult if people spoke in the name of yunity, because in that case it's few speaking for many. Since Badue lifestyle and project work became a huge blur.

Vision and mission

To see what yunity is perceived as - and to remind most of the participants of the contents as well... - we then proceeded with analyzing the exact wording of the yunity vision and mission, as it is displayed on yunity.org and the landing page of this wiki. We also defined the terms 'vision' and 'mission' in the process.

Paul

• A vision is what determines every single action of a person. A mission is the way to achieve the vision.
• The yunity vision is too vague, but I like the mission.

Janina

• A vision is the distant goal, which to achieve is the dream. A mission is the way to achieve the vision.
• I love both the yunity vision and mission!

Bodhi

• A network doesn't need either vision or mission! ...or does it? Hmm...
• The yunity vision and mission are beautiful!

Matthias

• A vision is an abstract reference point. A mission is the way to achieve the vision.
• The yunity vision and mission are really nice!

What would I like yunity to be?

Free round of expressing dreams and opinions.

Paul

The goal should be to create a world, which is based on freedom #2 (collective freedom, the freedom which is based on other people's freedom - we distinguished the two different concepts of freedom on 2017-03-14 (tbw, sry...)) together with people who act based on values. People who (try to) understand the implications of their actions and adapt them to their vision. Collaboration, contact and support are what makes this group/network/project function. Communication is honest and clear - be it inward or ouward facing. People work independently, while still keeping in touch with the group via dynamic, creative attunement. Being part of this is not a phase, it is life itself, that's why 24/7 consequence and commitment comes naturally.

After this statement we directly started discussing.

Matthias: Wow... I really respect that, but for me it's too strict, too consequent. It sounds amazing in a way, but it's not for me. Also, it sounds like a religion.

Bodhi: Yes, that's how I see it, too. It's remarkable, impressive and cool, but I think it would destroy me. So many things to tackle at once! It would simply be too much for me.

Paul: I also see the aspects of religion in this, you can find them in all consistent world views. I want to have a network of people, for whom this is not a job but a life choice. The difference is, that we wouldn't try to convert people like religions do; our promotion consists of an honest 'Hey, can I help you?'. Living by example is the way to convince people, not arguing or any kind of force.

Paul: Little steps in the wrong direction will never let you reach your goal. Little steps in the right direction also won't lead you to achieving it, because it constantly moves away from you. Time and the current society work against you, so you have to make bigger steps if you want to hope to ever catch up.

Janina: But little steps of the many will have a bigger impact in the long run, than big steps of a tiny fraction of people. Just think about how deeply our society changed over the past 150 years with regards to worker's rights, feminism, general equality of people and the likes. The SPD and the green party both have been confronted with huge criticisms, that they deserted their initial values, but see how much change there still is.

Paul: But they started radical, and that's why they inspired.

Matthias, But without deradicalizing and coming closer to the middle of society, they would never have had this big of an impact.

Paul: Maybe, but that happens naturally, because people interpret everything in the scope of their own horizon, thus radicality - or rather consequence - always deteriorates as it reaches more people. So the weaker the initial message, the weaker the long-term and large-scale effect.

Janina: I doubt that. What if you have a message that fits the current mindset and conviction of people, one that satisfies their yearning for change, without denying them every little thing they've been used to before? We could reach out to so many people like this and activate them to change a little bit.

Paul: Such a message doesn't exist, because all people are different.

(Somewhere around here the day ended and we postponed the rest of the discussion to the next day. These statements don't reflect the whole of the discussion that went on, but hopefully the gist of it.)

Day Five

Thursday 2017-03-16

Participants: Janina Abels, Paul Free, Matthias Larisch, Bodhi Neiser

(We started with a little summary of what we had talked about the night before. Good thing we took minutes... )

Janina: Hm, this theory that everything always deradicalizes automatically sounds too unidimensional for me. I mean, couldn't it be the other way around or just not changing at all, as well? It totally depends on the message and the way it is transferred. Whatever, I came to have big resistance against approaches that claim to have answers to everything; that just seems too absolute for me, even though it may sound convincing and pretty. And if I don't support it from the bottom of my heart anyways, it would just be an opinion I submit to and I don't think that is what this is about.

Paul: And it's still possible that I'm completely wrong...

Matthias: The world we live in is so complex and humanity has achieved so much already, if there was a collaps, I fear that we would lose a lot. It's true that I mainly think about technology in this regard, because I think it would be a waste to lose lots of knowledge both in theory and in production, if the world was to fall into a state of panic and uncertainty.

Paul: So you prefer technology over social change?

Matthias: I don't see this as a binary decision. Isn't technology a means of social change? Especially computers and the world wide web have created possibilities of connection and organization for the people - not for the leaders! - that one couldn't even imagine before. We just need to prepare controlled processes of transition instead of letting everything collapse.

Paul: I guess we should concretize the terms we're using here: I'm not talking about sabotaging the current system without having anything prepared and then just plunging into chaos. I'm not against collaps in general, and I definitely can imagine it happening, that's why we need to start preparing real alternatives now! Half-hearted ones won't help us in moments like those. Still, I prefer controlled system change, for sure. It's just, that the preparation for both is the same...

Janina: Great! So we agree on not wanting to plunge into chaos, death, destruction and hunger, yay! xD

All: (laughing)

Bodhi/Matthias: Although it could be interesting to actually see what'd be happening in an apocalyptic scenario like a global collaps of the system...^^

(little digresses like the ones above always made sure that the general atmosphere of the talks stayed friendly, mostly relaxed and humorous, even though they were intense, mostly focused and opinionated at the same time)

Back to the method:

What would I like yunity to be?

Janina: I would like yunity to be a network, where people and projects are connected, that share a similar vision. That's why I actually really appreciate the vagueness of the yunity V&M; it allows for many different interpetations to come together and support each other. The only thing that's missing is a clear set of values, to give more context to the V&M, which would make it easier to decide if some behaviors or a project fits into yunity or not and why. Still, it would be up to people themselves to decide if they're part of the network or not, since I don't see - and don't want to see! - any kind of 'police' enforcing the values. This also implies that yunity itself wouldn't be able to speak anymore. People can speak, maybe projects can speak, but yunity as a whole is too big to speak with a single voice. The onboarding would be made by every project individually and not centralized and the heartbeat would definitely need to be filled in by the people themselves... (Otherwise it'd need to be renamed to 'What Janina thinks happened in yunity over the last two weeks' or something like that...)

Bodhi/Matthias: (agree)

Paul: And what do we need that for? There are already networks out there. What is the real reason to continue with yunity?

Janina: But... yunity! The thought of just leaving it behind is somehow quite sad for me, even if it wouldn't mean to change what we're doing...

Paul: Keeping a name because it is 'yours' is exactly the mindset, that will lead to dominat behaviors. If that is the whole reason then you should let go of it immediately.

Janina: I admit that I enjoy the position I created for myself in yunity, even if it is stressful sometimes...

Paul: Then you will be one of the people destroying it in the long run...

Matthias: Well, it is already there now, it would be a waste to just delete everything. If we were to integrate ourselves somewhere else, it would need to be a slow and secure process, so that all the people and possibilities stay connected and open.

Janina: And what other networks are there? Chandi mentioned Transition Town multiple times...

Bodhi: True, Transition Town has a similar orientation to us. They also have this eco perspective, want sustainability and stuff.

Matthias: I once researched them for an hour - okay, maybe that was not long enough - and had the feeling that it's not really a network, but rather many local groups, that all are organized differently and have different focus areas.

Paul: No, they're definitely connected. The organization is just different from country to country and the online communication is not yet very elaborated. They do have regional gatherings, though, and a lot of people already being part of the network. If yunity was to integrate into their network both sides could probably benefit from that.

Matthias: But it feels good to do your own thing. And if we'd be the tech-savvy people to come into another network, that wants to improve its infrastructure, I fear that would just lead to us having even less time for the projects we actually want to work on...

(tbc)