This is a clear and cogent point, and thanks for posting it.
I suspect the authoritarian stuff is a necessary catalyst, to get the group cohered together and working, and after an initial period it becomes less and less useful. For instance, I think a major part of the thing is getting everyone to be in the same room at the same times, and that happens fastest and becomes ingrained easiest if someone’s just dictating the time (after reasonably accounting for everyone’s constraints and preferences).
But once everyone’s all in the same room, I don’t think it makes too much sense for an authoritarian to dictate what happens. Like, I think the useful thing is something along the lines of “well, if you all can’t decide where we’re going to eat, then we’re getting pizza”—my plan is to set a minimum bar of “this is a useful thing to be doing,” and to demand that we do at least that, but to in no way restrict people from coming up with something better/more effective/more worthwhile.
So, we start off by having morning exercise and weekly dinner, and then over time, people who are chafing because the morning exercise get to say, “Hey, you know what would be a better use of this slot of togetherness that is taken as a given? Doing X or Y or Z.” The authoritarianism is there to support the scaffold, but is not there to say what grows on it, except in the most general sense of “let’s try to improve” and “let’s lean toward important stuff rather than trivial.”
I also note that I’m somewhat overemphasizing the authoritarian bit, because I expect it’s the most difficult piece to swallow, and I want to really really really really really make sure that I don’t undersell how strict things will end up being. It seems way worse to lose a couple of people who would’ve liked it because I made it sound too restrictive than to include people who are going to be trapped and unhappy because I didn’t give them enough warning.
This is a clear and cogent point, and thanks for posting it.
I suspect the authoritarian stuff is a necessary catalyst, to get the group cohered together and working, and after an initial period it becomes less and less useful. For instance, I think a major part of the thing is getting everyone to be in the same room at the same times, and that happens fastest and becomes ingrained easiest if someone’s just dictating the time (after reasonably accounting for everyone’s constraints and preferences).
But once everyone’s all in the same room, I don’t think it makes too much sense for an authoritarian to dictate what happens. Like, I think the useful thing is something along the lines of “well, if you all can’t decide where we’re going to eat, then we’re getting pizza”—my plan is to set a minimum bar of “this is a useful thing to be doing,” and to demand that we do at least that, but to in no way restrict people from coming up with something better/more effective/more worthwhile.
So, we start off by having morning exercise and weekly dinner, and then over time, people who are chafing because the morning exercise get to say, “Hey, you know what would be a better use of this slot of togetherness that is taken as a given? Doing X or Y or Z.” The authoritarianism is there to support the scaffold, but is not there to say what grows on it, except in the most general sense of “let’s try to improve” and “let’s lean toward important stuff rather than trivial.”
I also note that I’m somewhat overemphasizing the authoritarian bit, because I expect it’s the most difficult piece to swallow, and I want to really really really really really make sure that I don’t undersell how strict things will end up being. It seems way worse to lose a couple of people who would’ve liked it because I made it sound too restrictive than to include people who are going to be trapped and unhappy because I didn’t give them enough warning.