It is difficult to encapsulate the overarching theme of a body of writing so multifaceted as my own has tended, to wrangle it into some semblance of coherence out of what is at bottom the reflection of a divergent mind. It is perhaps all the more difficult to do otherwise as my veritable cornucopia of attempts would however attest. Indeed might my approach seem a folly for its apparent lack of focus. What I cannot deny myself to indulge is that my course and way about it has developed toward something rather more singular, though certainly not yet fully realized. The latest outlet for this singularity of purpose I have hitherto neglected to address in any direct fashion is a publication I have pursued under the name of Weaponize!:

https://mirror.xyz/weaponiz.eth

Yet this is not its first form, as a longer-lived and (somewhat) more widely read incarnation still persists, though I know not for how long. What is certain is my indelible preference for the nature of this particular platform (muggles be damned) as well this publication’s deep affinity for the approach enabled by way of that selfsame platform, an affinity which has and should find further voice through it’s more tech-oriented outlet or column under the name of theExpeditionarian. Yet this platform is not of itself wholly sufficient to the needs of this publication, which to some degree are better-served elsewhere (namely in the lack of capacity for contextualization, likewise that of editorial governance by way of a multisignatory approach), yet it is nevertheless the most adequate as better-established and more featureful than its alternatives.

In order to compensate for a certain lack of richness in possibilities for contextualization, I have opted for something of a hack in my approach: I have simply selected an EOA to act as stand-in for a multisig (and made it controller of the domain associated with that role) but leave the brunt (if not all) of publication to contributors enabled through that EOA, namely myself as well as my more literary alter-ego. To get around the lack of any intrinsic means of categorization, I have opted for dedicated rolling curatorial posts assigned to each of the columns currently represented by the content published thus-far (with but one yet unrepresented):

https://mirror.xyz/weaponiz.eth/VcvzLGcBYdXl_84qzplfcn8FXS6X9tNPfW2czutN9mg

https://mirror.xyz/weaponiz.eth/-AGNWFN3JJHMj8BvnrJez5d5s_m_wh_VSqRig8QgrpI

https://mirror.xyz/weaponiz.eth/8xbHyT2N1cIOOn4kRcd30mUhVWbrdZFQpdbNfWNraF8

As with any posts on this platform, these curatorial posts are collectible, which means that apart from simply subscribing to the publication, one could collect a column of particular interest by proxy of its curatorial post, which can then be revisited from one’s collection to discover any updates thereto. This is clearly very much a hack and far from ideal, but it also suggests a latent potential for this or some future platform to pursue; one I would be inclined to dub as Roam-like publication in which posts of any kind can be deeply referential, but that’s a topic for a future article.

It occurs to me that I’ve been remiss here, as elsewhere, in characterizing the nature and purpose of Weaponize! which, while I fancy either as immanently evident, can certainly bear to hazard some modicum of clarification. To that end would I claim it as inspired in equal parts by the likes of the Vorticist publication BLAST, Georges Bataille's journal Acéphale (which took its name from the secret society to which its production was owed), and the revolutionary newspaper Iskra (all with perhaps no small aspiration toward something like a hybrid of Mondo 2000 and the CCRU). The topics of this publication include the exploration of creative and infrastructural tech bearing no small degree of radical import, political economy, critical theory, as well as all manner of (largely transgressive) art, literature, and philosophy.

Lofty as these aspirations seem, it should be said that in this current considerably pupal stage of the publication’s development, it is indeed merely a pet-project of sorts and an outlet for work of mine which might otherwise go unpublished, owed in part to an aversion toward simply attributing that work to a personal authorial “brand.” But it does indeed want to extend beyond this status and really only captures the imagination of its creator in that capacity. All that can be done in the intervening period is to endow it an editorial style and aesthetic spirit and thereby form of it some discernible character to grow beyond such endowment as be merely attributable to its creator in that regard; indeed is its trajectory fixed upon this greater aspiration, and yet more its still greater, still loftier impetus:

𝐖𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐦𝐛𝐮𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐢𝐫𝐜𝐮𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐘𝐞𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭 “𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐥” 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲 — 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐝, 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝. 𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐮𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐬 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝, 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭.

It occurs to me that this realm of quandary is likely no novelty, whether to this latest field of organization or even its antecedents; nevertheless has any such prior study as what we here embark upon eluded my notice thus far, and so might this pursuit seek simultaneously to unearth these primitives both by manner of logical analysis and by any ensuing discussion, corrections, or resources as its readership might supply. Perhaps at the very least may we re-frame considerations around governance sufficient to formulate a more comprehensive overview than presently exists.

Defining Our Terms

Helpful toward our endeavor would be to establish the terms which will prove most essential in constructing and evaluating effective organizational governance. These will likely relate back to one another in the course of characterizing their importance and underlying contingencies. We will establish these terms in a loose order of precedence or dependence and even find ways in which one segues into the next.

Again, we shall henceforth attempt to work from those terms most relevant to the smallest scale of organization up to terms which perhaps only gain in relevance with scale.

Partnership

The minimum criteria for any organization to be regarded as such is to be comprised of more than one entity, thus would we define the first possible composition of an organization as a partnership of two entities, be they persons or otherwise. Such an organization has only two possible modes of decision-making consensus, barring whatever manner of convolution might be inflicted upon any of those two: unanimity or autonomy. These two entities must either agree to share autonomy in directing the course of their partnership or else achieve unanimous consensus between them throughout the plotting of that course.

Note, however, that whatever the case may be later in the course of partnership, the first decision must always resolve unanimously and be entered into autonomously--that is, the decision upon how to decide. Likely this decision would be made even before any formalization thereof, as it would already be entailed in the partnership as such (i.e., the decision to become partners). In any case, such a decision need be decided as a precursor to what might best be referred to as its formal substantiation, lest it merely remain only a tenuous balance of autonomy and unanimity, lacking any finality of consensus.

Formal Substantiation

While a partnership can be extrapolated out into many multiples of its basic composition (a governing body of two) and remain a partnership, its effectiveness as a basis of organization can hardly be assessed until it is formally substantiated in its ability to exercise consequential decision-making toward material aims. This may be accomplished by many means of mediation or intermediation, by which is meant whatever objective manner deciding upon the allocation of resources at the organization's disposal (and the sole means by which resources might be regarded as at its disposal), whether by some instrument of execution or by the intercession of a neutral party employed as executor or overseer. In the latter case, it might be said that a specially designated entity is admitted into the organization either implicitly or explicitly, but even in such a case, it is usually assumed, however erroneously, that an intermediary merely acts as an instrument, rather than as a decision-making (or breaking, for that matter) and interested party. We shall therefore dispense with any question of an intermediary's interests or lack-thereof by dispensing with any need of such an expediency as intermediaries increasingly prove, at least lately given the veritable cornucopia of innovations upon all manner of disintermediating executive instrumentation operative today. Furthermore, it is only outside of the auspices of such intermediation that the shortcomings of mere partnership become salient, particularly at scale.

For instance, autonomous partnerships require a great deal of trust between members when assets critical to that partnership's persistence as such is on the line, and the risk is only magnified with growth (of assets or membership). No better would be the case of partnerships operating upon unanimity, given that every member gains unabated power of veto, whether by intention or, more glaringly problematic, by negligence. Without an intermediary, there is little recourse to be had outside of whatever variety of convolutions might be employed to mitigate such contingencies. Failure of this sort--of an organization's mode of governance or its practical lack thereof--is mere failure of accountability or, rather, the failure of the organization to account for itself as such. To put it another way, it is the failure for any such account to emerge objectively in the course of decision-making.

Failure of No Account

Failures of an organization for which that organization cannot account, as opposed to some unforeseen vulnerability in the course of what is unequivocally the organization's best possible apprehension of itself,[^1] are almost necessitated by the very lack of such account. An organization which fails by such means cannot be said to be anything but misbegotten. Thus does it fall upon any organization to be capable of such account prior to its formal substantiation as such--prior to obtaining custody over any resources critical to its very subsistence as an organization.

In order that an organization might gain such an account of itself, it falls upon that organization to process a wider array of signals than mere partnership affords. In essence, it must secure for itself a reliable apprehension of itself.

Core Majority

The first way in which consensus might be obtained in any way distinguishable from that a partnership (again, whether by unanimity or by autonomy) is by that of a majority. A true majority is obtainable by a minimum of 2/3 before any other manner of parsing a majority. As this is the first most fundamental majority, significantly demarcates in excess of the next smallest possibility of a simple majority, and is often the chosen ratio of what is termed a super majority, this may be regarded as something like a core majority. It may very readily serve as the first and last means of organization's accounting for itself.

The achievement of a core majority alone, however, can hardly distinguish an organization from a partnership, given the ease in which, at the smallest possible scale, two entities might collude in the disenfranchisement of a third, meaning that even an organization capable of demonstrating a core majority must still function like a partnership in practice. Where a core majority excels in comparison with a simple partnership is that the expedience of consensual autonomy can be more soundly supplanted than is possible by unanimity. A core majority will find better utility, however, when differentiated as a demarcation in excess of a simple majority or any similarly substantial quorum. (i.e., any quorum which does not reduce the organization to a simple partnership)

Minimally Differentiated Majority

The first instance in which a simple majority might be demonstrated at a level below that of a core majority is at that of a 3/5 majority. This differentiation, scaled even to ever-finer ratios than 3/5, would allow a simple majority to securely wield executive authority over critical resources for the sake of an expedience ill-afforded at scale by a core majority, yet that core majority might be deployed still as part of an oversight mechanism or as a stop-loss of sorts against decisions of terminal consequence.

What we should find instructive about a membership amounting to five standing as our first opportunity to demonstrate a majority minimally differentiated from that of a core majority (comprising at least 4/5 in this case) is that for an organization to achieve this at all reliably, it must scale in excess of five member entities, lest it suffer the loss of this capacity with but the loss of a single member. Thus could we discern a minimum level at which any organization may achieve what might be referred to as critical custodial fault tolerance.

Critical Custodial Fault Tolerance

It is crucial to determine the level at which an organization should formally come into custody over its own means of operation (at any significant cost to its membership, say, or even more critically as a wager against its growth potential) as well as to demonstrate the very capacity to dispense with those means as it sees fit. While the achievement of a minimally differentiated majority can certainly factor strongly into such considerations, a partnership can very often also demonstrate a sufficiently secure basis of operation, though with exponentially greater difficulty at scale. (short of some mitigating convolution)

It is important also to consider the composition of an organization's membership at this level of analysis: For instance, an organization demonstrating a level of custodial fault tolerance over its own critical assets would itself prove a more accountable member (i.e., a member org) than any one individual (or any entity so purportedly an individual as distinct from another--i.e., presumed as not a Sybil) and could very well serve as the basis of a secure partnership among other members of its like.

It should be said, however, that relying solely upon the attentions and discretion of a majority, whatever its composition, would almost certainly prove insufficient for this purpose. One capacity afforded by a minimally differentiated majority is for the exercise of oversight by individual members invoking the discretion of a core majority against the whims of a simple majority or any lesser allotment (quorum) of executive authority as might prove necessary.

Universal Power of Veto

Whether by the expedience of a simple majority, similarly substantial quorum, or some convoluted contingency beyond that, executive authority over critical assets--to no exclusion of the privileges of membership--can benefit from the formal oversight of each and every member. One such means of oversight would be the universal allotment of a power of veto. However, in order that deploying such doesn't reduce an organization to a mere partnership (requiring unanimity and so forth)--instead, employing partnership narrowly in the specific task of organizational oversight--a veto must be possible to overturn, such as by the decision of a core majority. In such a case, it would be necessary that the power to revoke membership also be handled by a core majority in order that any abuse of the power of veto might be answered by none other than the very authority that veto invokes.

In whatever case universal power of veto be allotted or invoked, it should always stand as a liability for whosoever might wield it, lest it become a permanent and insurmountable means of alienating an organization's resources from itself; and there is little better representation of that self than by means of a core majority (partnership's notwithstanding, given the implicitly universal power of veto in one case or else its total impossibility in the other[^2]). Appeal to a core majority by manner of veto becomes then a service to that majority and therefore to the organization itself, if not by protecting from the incursion or negligence of a predetermined quorum (simple majority or otherwise), than by singling out would-be interlopers, witting or otherwise, by virtue of their own actions.

An Example of Our Terms in Action

Let us imagine a case in which a hybridization of membership types might be desirable and how we might characterize this approach in the terms we have here established, as well as in ways these terms alone might fail to capture. For instance, it might be desirable for an organization to include both permissioned membership and permissionless; as it would prove nearly impossible to balance the weight of each member in this case respectively in terms of governance over the whole, the simplest course would be to regard these two membership types as distinctive entities entering into partnership.

As distinctive entities, however, they differ in terms of their capacity to separately achieve custodial fault tolerance over resources critical to either's persistence: While the permissioned half of this partnership may function strictly upon the conventions we have laid out, utilizing a minimally differentiated majority to achieve the oversight afforded in universal power of veto, etc., the permissionless half would require any number of convolutions beyond these to achieve any such operative security for itself. However, if the terms of permissionless membership are set in the outset by its permissioned counterpart and only amended unanimously in partnership, then it becomes possible to mitigate the inherent security risks of permissionless membership. It can only then prove practical to deploy more conventional manners of achieving quorum and consensus among permissionless members collectively if the only formal substantiation arising therefrom is in partnership with the permissioned body of membership. (as opposed to separately and independently)

All that said, any non-permissioned governing body in this partnership--which of course can ill-afford to operate upon the autonomy of either body without significantly truncating its growth potential--is susceptible to malicious capture which, as is the case of any partnership requiring unanimity, may nevertheless result in a failure of no account by preventing any wielding of the resources at hand. To thwart this perhaps requires a regression into simple economics or game theory: For instance, if there were "skin in the game" for any would-be malicious entity, mere attrition or the specter thereof might suffice as a mechanism to resist the incursion of Sybils or whatever other manner of collusion; this can be achieved easily enough in the form of membership dues as a basis for permissionless membership, as the resources held in partnership can only increase with the duration and magnitude of such an attack, as well would the threshold for mounting such an attack only increase with a growth in such membership.

Whatever the case may be, the permissioned body over-determines the terms of partnership which are then entered into freely by any willing or able to contribute to its funding. Thus, it is a fault tolerance achieved first by that independent governing body as extrapolated out into this partnership which better enables the greater scales of organization made possible by permissionless means. It perhaps goes without saying that such an organization, so long as a permissionless entity or collection thereof cannot alone achieve quorum, might be scaled beyond a partnership while maintaining or even augmenting its own reliability as custodian over itself, such as by the addition of distinctive permissioned entities. (by admittance unanimously decided upon among the pre-existing partnership)

In Conclusion

It is difficult to say off-hand whether these terms will prove sufficiently accurate for those purposes to which we have assigned them, but if they make it possible to better describe and assess the effectiveness of any hypothetical organization's governance toward its most basic ends, then at the very least should they be amended or iterated as necessary to improve upon this utility. Is there already a science or study of organizations (and their governance) established and comprehensive enough to subsume these concepts into more fundamental forms or primitives? Perhaps there is, but there certainly ought to be if it is in our (societal) interest to advance our organizational capacity generally.

One notion I would like to explore further in the near-future is whether an organization being leveraged for profit might be intrinsically hampered as an organization by that very purpose, given that it can ultimately only serve as a vehicle for the individual (as opposed to collective) gain of its membership, however obliquely it might pursue that end. Might it be essential, for instance, that any effective organization (one which wishes to be effective as such) guard against any possibility of being co-opted for personal gain? that organizations which exist solely for personal gain can only ever prove merely the sum of their parts?

At any rate, expect follow-up to this piece as well as changes to the piece itself as my own study of the matter develops.

Notes:

[^1]: This concept of an organization's best possible apprehension of itself bears revisiting, and while the remainder of this piece will better qualify some sense of the phrase's meaning, it will likely serve as a juncture of further analysis in future discussion. It might strike us that this concept is relatable to the so-called calculation problem if applied to a society at large, but it is notably devoid of any pretense to whatever quantification of value finer than that represented by a singular member, whatever the nature of that member; thus might we regard this as a lower or more fundamental consideration than what the "calculation problem" summarily precludes.

[^2]: Note here that a partnership's foundation as simultaneously grounded in autonomy and unanimity might be reflected in a more convoluted scheme of partnership, such as autonomous decisions being subjected to a timelock during which they may either be expedited or vetoed by unanimous decree.