A few months ago I was talking to a prospect in my software development business who told me that the idea for their startup came out of the blue in an unexpected and ordinary moment, but with such force and clarity that it kept them up most of the night.
Several months later, their MVP is almost finished, and for my part, it seems like their epiphanic moment was tapped into something true. That’s all I can say about that though, and it will be someone else’s story to tell when the time is right.
Two days ago I had a my own such moment though, and I want to tell the world.
Here’s the backstory:
We’re obviously in a weird moment in history right now, and a lot of people are feeling the need to ‘do something’ without knowing exactly what that means. We don’t exactly have a strong civic tradition in the United States that gives people an easily accessible way to tap in to participation in systems of power.
So, what happened two days ago was something that happens to me from time to time, but with more frequency recently.
Someone reached out to me via private message on NextDoor and vented about how upset and worried they are about current events, and basically asked to link up with me somehow, or be included in group events or anything I could suggest.
If you know me you know I live for that kind of thing, and in this case and all the others, I’ll make every effort to meet up with the person for coffee and open up whatever lines I can for collaboration and community building.
I can’t do it all, or be the connector for everyone though.
In a perfect world, when people reach out to me like that I’d point them in the direction of their local DSA chapter, or some other social justice kind of organization, and happily sit back and watch existing organizations grow and become more powerful.
But let’s be honest….even many well-meaning progressives aren’t going to go near an organization like the DSA, and even if they wanted to (like I want to be more active in my own DSA chapter and other orgs I align with), who has the time to carve out of all the other things going on in life for a special extra-curricular not organically integrated with all the details of daily life?
So, again, here’s the idea.
NextDoor sucks obviously, right? I mean, nothing is all good or all bad, but in ways it is designed precisely to prevent the formation of the kind of politically aware and materially connected community we need right now.
So, yes, another social network, but before you groan “another social network”, let’s be clear that it’s something quite different than NextDoor or Facebook, or even Bluesky or Rednote.
Here’s how:
1 – Social and economic justice baked in from the start
To become a member you must agree to a ‘points of unity’ declaration affirming, for instance, recognition of LGBTQ equality, and total dignity for undocumented immigrants.
This is a very artful matter in itself, and this statement will have to be carefully crafted to be clear enough in the details to avoid ambiguity about things that should not be subject to debate, but also to steer clear of sectarian or specifically partisan leanings, or come across like garden variety liberal identity politics.
So, right from the start, anyone in the door has already made that pledge, and such things can be taken for granted.
2 – Place based participation
Every member of the network should be associated with a specific physical location on earth as their home. Could be a street address, or could be a set of coordinates, and it can be changed as often as one likes perhaps, but at any given moment, network members have to be identified with a specific place on earth.
Questions of privacy that need to be considered…yes, of course…but where we’re going, we need to be rooted in a place in concrete relation to others.
3 – Place Based “Nodes”
This is where it comes together.
Based on your self-declared location (maybe verified somehow?), you are given the option to form a “node” with the handful of other members in closest physical proximity.
Once you are part of a “node”, new features open up, with interfaces designed to facilitate both online and offline community building and democratic decision making.
As more members continue to join, “home node” membership will organically change, and nodes will be in a continual flux of spawning, calving, merging, and who knows what.
Lots of questions to be answered about how this is to be mathematically guided as well as what the decision making processes should be for how and when to split, for instance, but these are not insurmountable problems.
4 – Clusters of Nodes
Power lies in numbers, and the movement and transformation we are seeking to create requires massive concerted participation, so a natural extension of a “node” is a node of nodes. This would be like the meta level (no pun intended) of an individual node of human persons, that would be like a council of its own.
There will of course be a lot to learn as we go, but there is a wealth of good social science about how to do this kind of thing, but it’s just never been at scale in the online world.
5 – Scaling Up Grassroots Power
You’re probably already thinking this, but of course, if a node can form a cluster, then a group of clusters can form a…I don’t know…village? And a node of “villages” can make a town?
At any rate, you don’t need that many powers of 8 to encompass all of humankind, and with fluid up and down communication between levels of nodes, you could have instant global participatory communication in ways that humankind never experienced.
You feeling this yet?
Okay, so…how do we do it?
There is going to be a lot to learn as we go, but with the team I have now I know that I could stand up the beginning of the app and get it online for $10,000.
If I can get half of that pledged, I’ll start on it tonight.
I have the domain name burning a hole in my brain right now. It’s available for $120 and I’m tempted to purchase it right now…
Noah Skocilich 