# Dominating Structures

By [gospelofchange](https://paragraph.com/@gospelofchange) · 2024-05-31

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So bandwith is a particular type of potential, in this instance for flow. It’s a broad technical term but I’m going to use it to talk about max potential to be used of human time attention information energy processing.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/88b32e07a8dad475f7ae5690e232615c61b33869eb83b741223719dd8287b387.jpg)

Human time attention information energy has enormous creative potential but requires a lot of invested energy as well. At the micro/individual scale a brain accounts for something like 2% of body mass but uses almost 20% of calories. This is a huge evolutionary choice that must carry big upside to justify. That’s on the day to day, but think about how it takes 25 years for a brain to “fully develop.” That’s bananas. We’re reproductively ready at 15ish but brains don’t mature until a decade after that. This all on its own is fascinating but I’m past the point. Booting up brains is crazy expensive.

At the macro organizational scale as well, labor is one of a primary business costs of most any company. Despite that Labor and entrepreneurship show up twice in the factors of production (land labor capital and entrepreneurship).

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/dbaacdab78f497a6d9594d3371d56f5b194d4b46c8e6e9b19d84371ca194557b.jpg)

In relation to the bandwidth, or total potential, there is an actual usage of that we refer to as throughput. The concept here is percentage of total. When we gather together or pool human time attention information energy, how much of that potential are we actually using?

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/392927feab318cbe48a7dd0bdfe615b54183838832755ae83db39de07d94ee95.jpg)

So it rains/accumulates at the rate people/brains gathered together for a duration of time equals our bandwidth or total potential of human time attention information energy processing pool. When you think about the calories and years sunk in rearing and payroll costs and global integrated supply chains to support all of the above the sunk cost of time together is mind boggling. Now compare that bandwidth as potential with the throughput of actual utilization and its enough to make you cry. The literal opportunity costs that we just go flushing down the toilet every day would make our ancestors furious.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/81ab500b0d6b7259f7ebbe075f4e85d5c9981f1f1ffc78845a40ba36c63643ff.jpg)

And that consideration is before any evaluation about the worthiness of what we’re there paying attention to, the downward vs upward spirals. We’re just talking about what fraction of the possibility we’re burning the entire planet to create are we actually using?

This I’m going to refer to as “the throughput problem” going forward

Now just to be clear I‘m talking about real time, synchronous communication. I’m going to polarize everyone and say I believe that this is the attention that matters most to me. There’s lots to be said about async, but I haven’t given near as much a thought about it. The argument I’m building is about brains and the people they’re in, when they are gathered together at the same time.

When we think about this throughput problem it comes from one primary input that has a few different flavors: one person talks, everyone else listens.

I’m sure why this happens is interesting, but I don’t really care enough to dig into it. I speculate that this is a hominid thing, having something to do with prestige hierarchies. I bet there is a relationship to our individual limitations in language processing and the way that we don’t multi-thread communication. You can either talk, or you can listen, but not both at the same time. You can only consciously process one source of communication at a time as well, so for the sake of keeping everyone on the same page, lets just listen to whoever is talking at any given moment.

This is kind of a weird thing that we do when we gather together, that while it seems pretty normal is actually hard to accomplish. It requires judges to have that wooden gavel thing, raised podiums, architecture like cathedrals or amphitheaters to create passive amplification, electronic amplification with microphones, speakers, screens, lights and production to pull off. Not to mention someone to capture everyone’s attention at once and then to keep and maintain it.

This is going to seem contra to my main point but fuck it. Think about all of the time that people spend together in one time and place, at the train station, in the park, on the bus, in the cafe, at the grocery store, even at work, how often are we all paying attention to one person talking? Hardly ever and yet there is a sort of set of games we play that are hyper insidious where we all share attention as one person talks and everyone else listens, leading to the most tragic throughput imaginable.

There are 5 Stone Age tools for communication and 5 of them fit the pattern of 1 Talks/Everyone Listens. We call them Stone Age tools with a wink and a nudge, but there is a kernel of truth there. We have likely been using these tools since the Stone Age. They are so deeply ingrained that they are somehow omnipresent. Unless you make some conscious effort and exercise an intention, some Process Mindfulness, you’ll default into 1 of them with near absolute certainty.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/c48790a7785ec1181118b41aa938ba9d699f2e55558e55f5eb342e651116fe10.jpg)

While I hate them with a passion, let me qualify that for all things there is a season. At times these structures are appropriate, however this an exception, not the omnipresent rule.

First we need to make a distinction between the informal and the formal. Many conversations happen in the informal, you’re at a bbq or event after the church service, what do you see? Likely any number small group conversations, pairs, trios, foursomes, and maybe even larger circles of 6 that soon divide up into smaller groups. Now contrast that to the church service itself, the toast, or the meeting at the office. This thing that happens has one big pattern that expresses itself in 5 ways:

Broadcast mode: one person talks, everyone else listens AKA 1-TO-MANY-COMMUNICATION

Now sometimes this is proper, but rarely, and yet nearly all formal conversations take this format. In five different ways

Presentation

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/307af25ef81dc8fa9410febc54de1307227c1871dc481954f199e90a7839d77a.jpg)

Stand there and lose contact with 50-80% of people, but take solace in the 20% that seem to hang on every word. Those who speak are often at the top of the hierarchy.

Status Update

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/3a28d77b99c0074aaa0822bb50deb47433d7ee77353d587a892be092255c32bd.jpg)

Like a micro presentation, where everyone takes a turn boring one another with information that is 20%- 30% relevant. We often do this to please an authority figure who finds the information of all parties relevant.

Managed Conversation

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/31e66338439a7a147e125dd1d72198c4f21f1e580512c636edee2dac4ddfa838.jpg)

Someone asks questions that others answer. This inverts the hierarchy because the one who asks is often in the authority role.

brainstorm

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/81f591bdbc1d7f37a1d566ba5fec7d52b1508c04f0b48bb81e8bae7070f42615.jpg)

Throwing spaghetti against the wall and argue about which one sticks and what we should do

goat rodeo/unstructured group discussion

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/dbefd2c6cfb4021d8b0b84d2ebd1f2bc03178f9a8e7ad6c51f3e8c0b7c5953c6.jpg)

[The tyranny of structurelessness](https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm) is real. Those who assert dominance speak up, those who know better stay silent.

The point is that these patterns slow throughput of attention information energy. Which makes it harder to do literally everything.

So here we are to the point where I say it:

A significant part of the value proposition of Liberating Structures is the way that they increase the throughput by intending that everyone participate in many shorter smaller grouped discussions. They accomplish this through the intentional choice around the following 5 design elements

1.  How participation is distributed(note the assumption that it just IS)
    
2.  How groups are formed(note the assumption that they just ARE)
    
3.  How steps and time come together(not that they just DO)
    
4.  How people are invited to participate(OG prompt engineers)
    
5.  How materials and space are utilized(embodied cognition)
    

Every single of the 33+ Liberating Structures includes instructions for each one of these 5 design elements. Whatever choices you make for these are simply design choices. The killer app here is intention then choice, selecting a right companion for the planting, the appropriate waterharvesting infra for the bioregion, the right tool for the job.

Now there are a set of LS that focus on INTERACTION which become the basis for our pattern language for shared thinking. I’ll have to get into each of them to explain how but the long story short is that they offer many ways to increase throughput.

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/ebacc96857dc23da2df8d730c664cda68c32503a6e5511aeb525f7b4a111fcc8.jpg)

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*Originally published on [gospelofchange](https://paragraph.com/@gospelofchange/dominating-structures)*