Qualifications for Board of Directors

If Ariadne Systems is ever going to get off the ground as an actual mutual-benefit nonprofit corporation we're going to need a fully fleshed out Board of Directors.

Board members are the fiduciaries who steer the organization towards a sustainable future by adopting sound, ethical, and legal governance and financial management policies...

~Council of Nonprofits

This might be tricky. For one thing, it's not a paid position. For another, there are some qualifications that are perhaps a little eccentric. Before getting into those, I want to take a moment to sketch out what I see as the life-cycle of the organization.

Three Stages

I foresee three distinct stages which might be called "initial phase", "growth phase", and "mitosis". The initial phase is pretty much just me trying to finally enact this idea of an ecologically harmonious lifestyle. If that works and I can attract more people to participate, particularly as directors and members, then I imagine a growth phase where the nonprofit corp is firmed up and going and we're increasing our stock of plants, animals, tools, and materials to build more of these neighborhoods, and we eventually start acquiring more land. At this point the model to follow is cellular mitosis (especially as a way to deal with divergences in vision and lifestyle.) We split the assets and form two new corporations (likely one spins out of the other according to the paperwork, but conceptually it's a "schism".)

In that framework we are in the "initial" phase of building up enough momentum and awareness to attract people who want to participate and contribute. This would be a great time to establish the vision or "DNA" of the organization, and I think one of the most important ways to do that would be to nail down some basic qualifications.

These qualifications mostly come down to what could be called "things I don't want to argue about" during board meetings. And in essence that boils down to a grounding in both science and metaphysics.

Grounding in Science

Directors should have a grasp of basic science. E.g. conservation of energy should not be a foreign concept. The idea that trees change the isotope ratio of oxygen in the atmosphere should make sense to you, and you should be able to explain that this is not atomic transmutation. (If that seems oddly specific, well, there's a story there.) Without going on and on about it, directors must know at least as much about science and the Scientific Method as I do (which isn't hard. I'm not that well educated.)

As an aside, I mean hard science, not e.g. economics or sociology. For our purposes that means:

Grounding in Metaphysics

In re: metaphysics, here I have to be less prescriptive because metaphysics is still wildly neglected in our Western educational systems. However I can proceed by describing some of my beliefs and then you can decide if I'm too strange to work with. These are things that I'm not willing to argue about in the context of a board meeting. If you want to debate them in a salon setting that could be fine, but if we're trying to cooperate to get specific things done I don't want to get bogged down in fundamental existential arguments. I believe in Nature Spirits. I practice something called Reiki. ... That's about it really. If those two bits of information don't alienate you then you might be a candidate for the Board of Directors. A grounding in spiritual values gives us a basis for compromise, for humility, for admitting we don't really know the answers and we're all just doing the best we can. It gives us a basis for forgiving one another, and for atoning for our mistakes.

Consensus Descision-Making

Last but not least, in addition to a grounding in science and in metaphysics, board members should have an understanding of and commitment to good faith enactment of Consensus-based descision making.

This is a very specific format. It's challenging. A lot of people can't just sit quietly in a room with other people and think and reflect deeply for several hours, it's physically or mentally or emotionally or spiritually challenging for some people. In effect it is an extended group meditation with enough communication to engage a group mind. It is the most efficient form of governance despite what might appear to be enormous overhead, because once a robust and well-founded consensus has been established all the people work harmoniously without turbulence. It's like laminar flow in water, or the coherence of laser light.