History is the Physics of Humanity

History is the closest thing we have to a physics of humanity. History is a compressed collection of social experiments to speedrun the evolution of collective consciousness. History determines morality. Religions start with history lessons. You might think of these as made-up histories, but they’re histories all the same. Tales of the distant past, fictionalized or not, that describe how humans once behaved - and how they should have behaved. There’s a moral to these stories.

The installation of these moral premises is a zero-sum game. There’s only room for so many moral lessons in one society, because a brain’s capacity for moral computation is limited. So you get a totally different society if 99% of people allocate their limited moral memory to principles like “hard work good, meritocracy good, envy bad, charity good” than if 99% of people have internalized “socialism good, civility bad, law enforcement bad, looting good.” You can try to imagine a scenario where these two sets of moral values aren’t in direct conflict, but empirically those with the first set of moral values will favor an entrepreneurial society and those with the second set of values will not.

History is how you develop compelling media. You can make up entirely fictional stories, of course. But even fiction frequently has some kind of historical antecedent. The Lord of the Rings drew on Medieval Europe, Spaghetti Westerns pulled from the Wild West, Bond movies were inspired by the Cold War, and so on. And certainly the legitimating stories for any political order will draw on history.

One pattern that emerges is humanity replacing fear with a capacity to trust the abundance of life as people learn how to work together.

Humanity evolve in stages. This evolution occurs not linearly, but in distinct stages, each marked by sudden transformations, like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The evolutionary stages are: Tribe (implusive red), Army (conformist amber), Company (achievement-orange), Organization (pluralist-green), and then Network State (teal paradigm) This model describe how people should work together. It explores what people gravitate to at different scales of ambition; what are the emergent properties of collective consciousness? The short answer: It depends!

The long answer:

The Evolutionary Stages

A. Tribe (Impulsive Red)

The Impulsive Red stage is characterized by a crude lens of power. In this stage, organizations are held together by the constant exercise of power by ‘Chiefs’ over their ‘foot soldiers’. Fear and unpredictability are the glue that binds the group together.

Red organizations tend to have a short-term focus and are highly reactive. This makes them well-suited to thrive in chaotic environments where quick decisions and decisive actions are essential for survival.

The best metaphor for Red organizations is wolf packs. The alpha male maintains order through displays of dominance and aggression, while the rest of the pack follows in a strict hierarchy.

B. Army (Conformist Amber)

In the Conformist Amber stage, organizations have clear roles and ranks within a hierarchical structure. Leadership is exercised through command and control, and strict adherence to rules and processes is expected to maintain stability.

Amber organizations discourage innovation and view competition with suspicion. The focus is on maintaining the status quo and ensuring that everyone follows the established norms.

The Catholic Church is a prime example of an Amber organization. It has a well-defined hierarchy, with the Pope at the top and clear roles for priests, bishops, and cardinals. The Church’s doctrine and rituals serve as the rules and processes that maintain stability and uniformity across the organization.

C. Company (Achievement Orange)

The Achievement Orange stage is characterized by a focus on innovation, accountability, and meritocracy. Organizations in this stage strive for success through strategic planning and data-driven decision-making.

Management shifts from command and control to a “predict and control” approach. Employees are empowered to make decisions within their roles, but the overall structure remains hierarchical.

Orange organizations consider the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, including customers, employees, and shareholders. They aim to create value for all parties involved.

The machine metaphor best describes Orange organizations. Each part of the organization has a specific function and contributes to the overall performance, much like cogs in a well-oiled machine. Efficiency and optimization are key priorities.

D. Organization (Pluralistic Green)

In the Pluralistic Green stage, organizations prioritize empowerment, values-driven culture, and an inspirational purpose. They strive to create a nurturing environment where employees feel valued and motivated to contribute to the organization’s mission.

Leadership in Green organizations takes on a servant role, focusing on supporting and empowering teams to achieve their full potential. Decision-making is often collaborative and consensus-based.

Green organizations embrace a stakeholder model, considering the impact of their actions on employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and the environment. Social responsibility and sustainability are key priorities.

The family metaphor best describes Green organizations. They aim to create a sense of belonging, care, and support among employees, fostering strong interpersonal relationships and emotional connections.

E. Network State (Teal Paradigm)

A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states. Like Teal organizations, network states operate as living systems, guided by their own evolutionary purpose. They embrace self-organization and self-management, allowing for fluid roles and rapid adaptation to change.

In both Teal organizations and network states, decision-making is distributed to nodes ⁠— relevant stakeholders ⁠— but individuals ultimately make decisions independently, taking full responsibility for the outcomes. Both prioritize wholeness, inviting members to bring their entire selves to the community or work.

The network state metaphor encapsulates the essence of Teal organizations. They are dynamic, responsive, and constantly evolving, much like living organisms in nature. The focus is on creating the conditions for the organization or network state to thrive and fulfill its purpose, rather than on controlling outcomes.

However, there are some key differences between Teal organizations and network states:

1. Scope and scale: Network states are often envisioned as larger, more expansive entities that transcend traditional organizational boundaries, while Teal organizations can exist within traditional corporate structures.

2. Legal structure: Network states may seek to establish new legal and governance structures that better support their decentralized, distributed nature, while Teal organizations typically operate within existing legal frameworks.

3. Political and social dimensions: Network states often have an explicit political or social dimension, seeking to create new forms of governance and social organization, while Teal organizations, although socially conscious, may focus more on transforming the nature of work and organizational life.

Despite these differences, both Teal organizations and network states share a fundamental commitment to reimagining the way we organize and collaborate, challenging traditional hierarchies and command-and-control structures in favor of more decentralized, purposeful, and adaptive approaches. As history is the closest thing we have to a physics of humanity, these new organizational forms can be seen as social experiments to speedrun civilization.

III. Conclusion

In practice, the ranking of effectiveness for driving change is Company (OpenAI or even an old one like Ford) > Organization (Gates Foundation or US Government) > Network State.

Companies excel at rapid innovation and execution, leveraging their agility and focus to drive progress. Organizations bring scale and stability, enabling them to tackle large-scale challenges. Network States, as an emerging organizational structure, hold immense potential for driving change by harnessing the collective intelligence and resources of a large group of people towards a common goal.

The Teal paradigm and the concept of a network state both bias to self-organization, decentralized decision-making, and the pursuit of an evolutionary purpose. However, network states operate on a larger scale, seeking to create new forms of governance and social organization, while Teal organizations focus on transforming the nature of work within existing legal frameworks.

Companies excel at rapid innovation and execution, leveraging their agility and focus to drive progress. They can quickly mobilize resources and talent towards a singular vision, making them powerful agents of change. However, companies may prioritize short-term gains over long-term impact and can be limited by their profit-driven nature.

Organizations, such as the Gates Foundation or the U.S. Government, bring scale and stability to the table. Their vast resources and established networks enable them to tackle large-scale challenges and effect change on a global level. However, bureaucratic constraints and competing priorities can hinder their ability to drive rapid, innovative change.

Network States, as an emerging organizational structure, hold immense potential for driving change in the future. By leveraging decentralized networks, shared values, and a sense of purpose, they could harness the collective intelligence and resources of a large group of people towards a common goal. However, as a relatively new concept, their effectiveness in driving change is still being explored and proven.

Remember, the map is not the territory. The developmental model is an abstraction of reality, and it is crucial to keep in mind some important caveats when applying this theory. One stage is not necessarily “better” than the other; rather, they represent more complex ways of dealing with the world. Each stage has its own strengths and weaknesses and is well-suited to certain contexts.

Positively defined, a startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. Startups are the most effective experiments for change. A startup society is the prologue to the network state. It’s about growing a community, writing code, crowdfunding land, and eventually attaining the diplomatic recognition to become a network state.

If a tech company is about technological innovation first, and company culture second, a startup society is the reverse. It’s about community culture first, and technological innovation second. And while innovating on technology means forecasting the future, innovating on culture means probing the past. Network states and startup societies share some similarities but are not identical.

Startup societies focus on creating small-scale, experimental communities that innovate on governance, economics, and social norms, prioritizing community culture over technological innovation. Network states, on the other hand, are highly aligned online communities that aim to crowdfund territory and gain diplomatic recognition. They operate on a larger scale, heavily leverage technology, and seek to create a new type of sovereign entity that transcends traditional nation-state boundaries.

A startup society that gives birth to a network state might not be the most effective in practice, but it’s definitely the most interesting.