The Threefold Project

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The Threefold Project is the name I am giving to the work I have committed myself to for the foreseeable future. I am publicly sharing this document to signal my commitment in order to make it clear what my intentions are and to make it easier for people to support this work if they wish to do so.

The Threefold Project is designed as three overlapping ratchets. Overlapping means that each component adds to the others. Ratchet means that any forward progress made cannot be undone.

The three components of this project correspond respectively to the Why, the What, and the How of this work.

1. The Church of Collective Providence

The Church of Collective Providence represents the Why of the Threefold Project. It is the motivation behind it all.

Definition of collective providence:

Collective providence is that which allows a collective to provide for its members more than the members could provide for themselves as individuals.

This definition of collective providence implies that it is as a non-mysterious spiritual force. That is to say, in contrast to divine providence, collective providence is not beyond our ability to comprehend as mere mortals. We can study this spiritual force through disciplines such as mathematics, biology, sociology, economics, ethics, art, music, etc. and apply our understanding towards the goal of aligning ourselves with this spiritual force.

By aligning with this spiritual force, we help provide for the needs of all so that we are less trapped by the pursuit of mere survival and more free to pursue creative expressions of love.

Collective providence is the spiritual motivation behind all three parts of The Threefold Project, and the Church is a container for the striving for alignment with this spiritual force.

From the website,

The Church of Collective Providence is an imaginary/real-enough institution established as a social convention for people who wish to join a collective that’s just religious enough to catalyze mutually supportive relationships in service of something greater than oneself, but not so religious that it undermines epistemic humility or individual self-sovereignty.

The “Church” is an idea more than an institution. It’s a bit. And it’s a bit worth committing to because committing to it enables further collective providence for the committers.

2. Tetra [City]

Tetra [City] represents the What of the Threefold Project. It is an attempt to make manifest concrete examples of collective providence in the physical world, putting theory into practice, one city at a time, starting with Seattle.

Tetra [City] aims to realize the coordination potential that the World Wide Web enables. This is not an attempt to return to some idealized version of past civic life. It is an attempt to create something that has never existed before, something better than we can currently imagine.

I am located in Seattle and intend to stay here for the long-term. Seattle is the first testing ground for this effort. Along the way I intend to also support and collaborate with other groups elsewhere in the world doing similar things within the larger ecosystem (e.g. Fractals), especially groups in the Pacific Northwest.

Ultimately, the goal is not for Tetra specifically to grow and propagate but rather for the larger ecosystem to thrive. Tetra is one pattern among many possible patterns. Hopefully it will be a useful pattern that can succeed and replicate, but the ultimate end goal is collective providence for all, regardless of what patterns we use to get there.

3. Harmonic

Harmonic represents the How of the Threefold Project. It is an attempt to build a system by which we can accomplish ambitious projects like Tetra [City] that require a high level of group coordination.

Harmonic is a social media app, but more importantly it is an experiment in self-organizing social structures enabled by the World Wide Web. Whether or not the app itself succeeds is besides the point. If the process of creating and using this app helps move the needle towards greater levels of collective providence in the world, then it will be a success.

The app is intended to serve as a profitable product that I will use to earn money to support myself and my family, to support my communities, and to support the advancement of collective providence in general.

The design of the app, the business model of the app, and the use of the app are all intended to align with the goal of collective providence for all.