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> I don't know how you are going to be productive without consensus. At the risk of pedantry (but in this case I think warranted): consensus literally means ev

> I don't know how you are going to be productive without consensus. At the risk of pedantry (but in this case I think warranted): consensus literally means every single person agrees. This is as opposed to something like democratic rule, where rules can be made and enforced even if not every single person involved agrees. I think OP is using the precise (non-colloquial) definition of "consensus" and rightly points out how unworkable that is as a governing principle. You can't get a small room of people to agree on what's good for lunch, much less matters of actual controversy. In a precisely-consensus-driven system you'd never be able to shut your neighbor up at 2am, since definitionally at least one person involved thinks the behavior is ok.

nouveaux 5y ago
In order to prevent a nuclear war, you need consensus. Anything less than 100% buy-in is insufficient. Going back to the neighbor example, someone being loud at 2am is a lack of consensus. In order to be productive as a group, you need consensus to be quiet when people are sleeping.
pcthrowaway 5y ago
Where do you get this definition? Wiktionary just talks about widespread agreement, not unanimous agreement: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consensus https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consensus To be fair, I've heard it used (presumably) the same way, but I understood this to be a type of consensus that relies on an agreement by all. From the wikipedia definition on consensus-based decision-making: > The focus on establishing agreement of the supermajority and avoiding unproductive opinion, differentiates consensus from unanimity, which requires all participants to support a decision.
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  There are differing definitions but maybe the wiggle room is in the use of "agreement" vs "acceptance". As I see it, for humans usually consensus on a topic is: majority agree minority disagree... but in lieu of anything better being accepted by the group, they accept a perceived suboptimal outcome for the sake of getting a beneficial outcome at all. IE it's not great, but it's good enough.
int_19h 5y ago
You can certainly get a small room of people to agree on what's good for lunch, if the premise is that there's no lunch at all until they agree on what to have. There will be some compromising involved, so not everybody might get the dish that is their first choice, but the more important thing is that nobody gets something that they hate. That aside, consensus always has a particular domain of applicability, and by decentralizing, you make that domain smaller - and thus make consensus easier. Federation can be used to replicate this process on as many layers as needed for decentralized organization of larger societies.
- crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
  A solution is cultural: Invite people to abandon their preferences and then organize those people so they show the world how many more needs it meets than not doing it. In particular, abandoning preferences allows the need for not to get met more easily.
- chii 5y ago
  > more important thing is that nobody gets something that they hate. but what if there's only a limited set of choices, and at least one person in the group would hate one of the available choices? What then?
  - int_19h 5y ago
    Then you split the group.

nouveaux 5y ago

In order to prevent a nuclear war, you need consensus. Anything less than 100% buy-in is insufficient. Going back to the neighbor example, someone being loud at 2am is a lack of consensus. In order to be productive as a group, you need consensus to be quiet when people are sleeping.

pcthrowaway 5y ago

Where do you get this definition? Wiktionary just talks about widespread agreement, not unanimous agreement: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consensus https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consensus To be fair, I've heard it used (presumably) the same way, but I understood this to be a type of consensus that relies on an agreement by all. From the wikipedia definition on consensus-based decision-making: > The focus on establishing agreement of the supermajority and avoiding unproductive opinion, differentiates consensus from unanimity, which requires all participants to support a decision.

_carbyau_ 5y ago
There are differing definitions but maybe the wiggle room is in the use of "agreement" vs "acceptance". As I see it, for humans usually consensus on a topic is: majority agree minority disagree... but in lieu of anything better being accepted by the group, they accept a perceived suboptimal outcome for the sake of getting a beneficial outcome at all. IE it's not great, but it's good enough.

int_19h 5y ago

You can certainly get a small room of people to agree on what's good for lunch, if the premise is that there's no lunch at all until they agree on what to have. There will be some compromising involved, so not everybody might get the dish that is their first choice, but the more important thing is that nobody gets something that they hate. That aside, consensus always has a particular domain of applicability, and by decentralizing, you make that domain smaller - and thus make consensus easier. Federation can be used to replicate this process on as many layers as needed for decentralized organization of larger societies.

crawfordcomeaux 5y ago
A solution is cultural: Invite people to abandon their preferences and then organize those people so they show the world how many more needs it meets than not doing it. In particular, abandoning preferences allows the need for not to get met more easily.
chii 5y ago
> more important thing is that nobody gets something that they hate. but what if there's only a limited set of choices, and at least one person in the group would hate one of the available choices? What then?
- int_19h 5y ago
  Then you split the group.