> On what basis, what sort of research or experience, do you conclude with certainty that 'really flat' (do you mean egalitarian, democratic, non-hieararchical,

> On what basis, what sort of research or experience, do you conclude with certainty that 'really flat' (do you mean egalitarian, democratic, non-hieararchical, non-authoritarian in general?) organizations are only possible for 'societies' (do you mean 'species'?) 'like ants'? I mean "societies", as if you look into how their colonies work it is very much a collective society. But the thing that underpins its operation is the fact that it is structured on flat classes. Workers do work. Soldiers defend the colony. Queens lay eggs, and it is understood that in the normal scheme of business that workers will never be queens and queens will not be on the front lines fighting the nearby Nation of Termitistan. But except for the queen the soldiers and workers are all almost completely interchangeable within their class. Humans, needless to say, are not completely interchangeable. Maximizing the overall contribution from each individual for a collective goal requires different org. structures, especially given the high need for communications and information exchange. Many groups try to solve this by designing the org. structure first and then finding the "right people" to fill the right positions in that org. structure. That style has seen successes and failures. Others try to start with the "right people" and then evolve the right org. structure. But this reacts more to the needs of the group than to the abilities of the people, and doesn't scale to boot. Then you have groups like Valve that try to enforce a flat org. structure and you end up instead evolving informal org. structures as before (since being flat implies being interchangeable). Is that really better? Is it more equal when you end up being in the wrong clique at the Valve cafeteria?