Harvesting Pad 7: All Questions

Part of "DandDTrans," a community of inquiry and action regarding the role that dialogue and deliberation can play in addressing the mega-crises of our time

@Lucas Cioffi This page is a compilation of questions asked by participants during all the previous events. I've created this list by reading the notes from all the sessions. Sometimes it wasn't clear who asked the question, so when in doubt, I listed the person who wrote it down for them. Ben R adds: This is ver cool, Lucas! Thank you! I do think in most cases, you've noted the scribe, not the speaker, especially if you were mining notes from a live conversation. Is there any meaning you make from the list? We can have some discussion in the comments section at the bottom if desired.

Specified Questions

Ben R: What do we, as members of the dialogue and deliberation community of practice, have to be and do to enable our most positive transformational impact in the face of emerging global crises which fundamentally challenge our business-as-usual habits and systems?

Ben R: What's possible?

Ben R: This is hard work! Both grappling with these BIG questions and managing an unfamiliar and multi-layered use of technology required significant effort. My reframe on this is that it is at least in part a reflection of the deep challenge of thinking about what might “make enough of a difference to make a difference.” Asking you to go there can bring up pain and grief and frustration and anger. But since we didn’t invite the direct expression of those feelings, perhaps they emerged as “being tired?”

Ben R: What is the crossroads where you find yourself at this stage of your work in service to systemic transformation?

Ben R: What declaration of possibility can you make that has the power to transform the community and inspire you?

Gerald D: Apparently, our grandkids' best odds for sustained quality of life for their kids hinges significantly on how quickly we develop a global culture that perceives that we are all in this mess together, and then quickly realigns now overly-competitive and self-serving cultural and economic values to balance and more gently challenge globally cooperative exchanges of values and information, like language, and dialogue, and deliberation. Within this way of seeing our situation, the NCDD "neutrality" value would recommend framing this "Great Turning or Not: Crisis for Global Economic and Environmental and Cultural and Educational and Nutritional and Health/Well-Being Systems, or not so much?"

John B quoting someone: "What are the mechanisms by which a whole country can be intelligent?

Ben R: What do we want to create together that would make the difference?

Ben R: What can we create together that we cannot create alone?

Brian D: How might we eliminate structural barriers that inhibit conditions for fully realizing possibility?

Brian D: How might we overcome the lack of trust in our Democracy, leaders and one another?

Ben R: +What's In Motion?

Ben R: +What Else?

John A: What is good work on existential crises?

John A: Another pad, on taking action forces the question of who counts as "people doing good work on existential-scale crises"?

John A: Who is working on bringing together the different groups working on a given dimension of climate action, or groups working on different dimensions of climate action?

John A: Who is already hosting conversations that include climate action folks and the people who have the power to make the desired changes?

Linda E: The question is 'who is holding all of these efforts together'?

Linda E: Who is synthesizing and coordinating and learning from all of the lessons that have been experienced so far?

Linda E: How can all of us, both those in the D & D community and those at the front line of transformation work, work together to take advantage of the collective wisdom that is there, but perhaps not consciously processed formally as a broader community?

Linda E: How can we join with others who are perhaps focused on creating an alternative future in the so many ways they are doing it so that things are more coordinated and collective learning thinking is being applied?

Ben R: As you consider the original calling question, how has your sense of what we have to be and do shifted or developed?

Ben R: What else have you learned--and what else have we learned-- that you feel adds real value to our work?

Laura: A good question to ask of ourselves..what has our experience been in terms of climate change and what experiences have gotten through our own denial?

Savannah: How to, in our conversations, go to the next step, take action and work together, to comprehensively create the foundational framework... Native American 16 guiding principles, Earth Charter, lots of others. How to get enough people talking about this and about alternative choices?

Savannah: We've been able to get to know and trust each other, speak from our hearts, so it can bear fruit... like a tree. How do we get the fruit off the tree, now that we're branching out?

Bruce S: Notion of invitation... how can we convene activism?

Bruce S: I'm inclined to write down what we can do together as a group... what would you agree to do? Be in a conversation of a few points... what's unique to you that needs to branch to you particularly.

Bruce S: What would be a central tree for this mycelium of this conversation?

Tom A: what do we need to do or be to bring transformation?

Heather: there's a particular politician who I love to hate; what would it mean to show up regularly and try to experience love for that person. "What is that "Love Thy Neighbor' instruction?"

Heather: What about using climate change as a wedge issue, as Naomi Klein wants the Democrats to do....what are the odds.... end of ideology, but can we afford not to try?

Ben R: the new story, the superordinate goal, how do you shift the paradigm (Donella Meadows), where do we go with that?

Ben R: Who are we as a group? That's a question we haven't asked enough... nor answered, maybe. Is that why it feels like engagement has been somewhat elusive?

Ben R: Are we animals living a spiritual life, or spirit living an animal life?

Ben R: Is that really me doing that? Or something that's using me, so to speak.

Ben R: Can I let myself be what it wants me to be? Sometimes I don't want to; there's risk, and I want people to like me. I'm very vulnerable to feeling that I don't belong, so why would I do that thing that makes it likely that I won't belong?

Ben R: What does it mean to show up on Hackpad, or in general in these online spaces?

Ben R: Theory of change being a cultural story?

Ben R: Like the behavior of mammals... do females pee on other mammals' territory?

Ben L: "Transmute" - different than transformation. How does transmutation happen?

Ben L: We have to get hot. Are we being too cerebral?

Ben L: Is trust a necessary system condition for collaboration?

Ben L: Undiscussable: Desire to make a difference -- some big ego thing going on. Unless it's in alignment with a superordinate goal... who decides?

Ben L: Yes and in the midst of breakdown, would it not behoove us to have a superordinate goal to help us move out of the breakdown? And wouldn't it be useful to practice that goal now?

Ben L: As long as we're moving in the direction of the SoG, it's not going to look the same at every level. Is the right direction enough? Or do we have to do something transformational?

Ben L: What does Living Human Living Earth mean?

Ben L: What if we imagine, provisionally, that all perspective are equally valid, even though most of us actually don't?

Ben R: How do we do this in a way that creates happiness and joy and a sense of genuine oneness?

How to move from inquiry into action?

Ben R: What would represent the superordinate goal we're living under? The one we're moving towards.. it's easier to look at what we don't want... where is the new world's memes?

Ben R: What's the super-ordinate goal of the current system? Does it have one?

Ben R: A lot of our beliefs about who we are has been given to us by others--cultural myth-makers, etc. How do we take this back, refuse those stories, and become myth-makers ourselves?

Ben R: Synthesize and come up with a meta-narrative from collecting the micro-narratives. Can be overwhelming with all the toxic stories out there. How does desire relate to one's purpose?

Ben R: What's the relationship between poetry and courageous modeling?

Ben L: What does silence mean in a conversation?

Ben L: Chaos theory suggests that there are "attractors" and "basins of attraction" for chaos to self-organize around. What kinds of attractors can we emerge from this conversation?

Heather T: Every day now I remind mySelf of what "I" know to be "true": I am one of billions of sentient Beings, my case in the form of a mammal, on this small, beautiful sphere, rotating and vortexing through space/time so fast that "I" can't feel the speed...so fast that there is an experience of "stillness". How does this happen?

Heather T: How is A Difference made? Is "making a difference" a belief system?

Bob Stilger: What can we do that will make enough of a difference to make a difference?"

Ben L: Part of being courageous is to violate the flow of the group... it's a question for me... should I say this, will something be derailed?

Heather: Is it in service to the whole of the gathered group? It is coming through you for the benefit of the whole? Or is it more your ego having an impulse? Is it true? Is it useful? Is it kind?

Ben R: How can we support different groups talking to each other?

Ben R: There's a lot on the hackpads about participants wanting action. And these CoE conversations are not explicitly "action oriented," but they're really working for those of us showing up. What does that tell us?

Ben R: What's holding this CoE together?

Ben R: How do we put the philosophy of kindness into practice?

Ben R: Are we here to hospice the old world and midwifing the new?

Marjorie Kelley: "What kind of economy is consistent with living inside a living being?”

Marjorie Kelley: "How could corporations be redesigned to incorporate social and ecological aims as deeply as financial aims?"

Marjorie Kelley: "You start with life, with human life and the life of the planet, and ask, how do we generate the conditions for life's flourishing?"

Ben R: Group work is a collective journey. How long will it take, and what will be the shape of the path?

Tom: Re the energetics around the question "What should we be doing around these big issues?"

Tom: "What conversations have to do with change? What is the quality of energy I want to cultivate?

Tom: "What is the strategic use of catalystic power in a potentially catastrophic situation?" Which processes, kinds of people are more catalytically oriented?

Ben R: Say we said this DandDTrans group focused on something, e.g. "global culture change." Find all the best practices out there. Break that down. But we haven't landed on the exact inquiry we are in. Can we break the steps down for the process of landing on that?

Tom A: In "right size bite", what is the definition (or assumptions underying) the idea of "right"?

Ben R: The cards fit for group process, but do they work for large system process change?

Ben R: What if we are prototyping a form of inquiry that can then be brought out in service to a set of three, four of five of these "things in motion," in a way that serves them all?

Ben R: Lot's of organizations and initiatives were identified. How might we help them?

Tom A: An inquiry that could shape a pattern language project: What design elements (including gifts and key dynamics, strategies, and tactics) do we have to keep in mind as we seek to catalyze the Great Turning with our D&D skills?

Ben R: How do we create a process that takes us from an individual to a collective hero myth?

Ben R: Are we talking about naming in general, or a name for what we're trying to create?

Ben R: How can we tie our work to the agenda Naomi Klein has suggested?

Ben L: What if the ideas that Naomi Klein, the paper referenced above, etc. can align with a "superordinate goal" like Living Human Living Earth, and that starts to become Common Knowledge?

Ben R: What is alive in you that could play a role in what we need to discover and do?

Heather T: Is it personal and/or collective transformation we are talking about?

Heather T: Who can we really be to offer our greatest gifts to the collective?

Heather T: How to use the best of face-to-face with technology we have used in this experience today?

Heather T: How to anticipate as hosting team to plan for ways for satisfying outcome to these kinds of conversations? Accommodating "ahas" and "next steps". Are there processes that are not "d&d" we could include?

Jeff A: Asking: who are the leaders in social movements making their leadership known? Whose been out there leading and connecting with people who are trying to connect?

Jeff A: What is needed to be done?

Bruce N: How to go beyond "preaching to the choir"?

Bruce N: My vote is the one direct handle/lever that I have. Could some initiative be tried on a larger level?

Bruce N: How to help people wake up to the larger issues, working at a more local level you do not HAVE to know where you are going?

Michaela S: What would be the ideal outcomes / the aspiration for your dream?

Michaela S: what would become possible if we allow those who are most affected to speak their wisdom?

Heather T: How do we make and foster connections across "weak links"?

Gerald D: Congress folks get little non-extremist contact with reps in the hiatus between election years. Can we facilitate a more normative mutual accessibility within established districts?

Heather T: Could it be as simple as remembering who we "really are" and then a/the path opens up?

Mark S: Inviting people to How do we create a thriving, resilient local food system?

Gerald D: Prototyping, is that what is taking shape? combining technologies?

Gerald D: What are limitations of that model?

Gerald D: Are we building momentum toward something that we can cooperatively develop together? How will we get from this sweet spot to that place which would allow everyone to experience this sweet spot with everyone else?

Linda E: What response would be of comparable magnitude of the challenge we face and what does the phrase of comparable magnitude mean?

Linda E: How do we do this (with technology)?

Linda E: How the diversity and richness of this community can engage with coherence and creative diversity? There is such variation and overlap at the same time...quality of conversation brings us to capacity. Interested in how this will serve as individuals and collectively?

Linda E: How do we create a platform where people working with deeper inquiry, who can we learn from each other

Linda E: How do we build in reality check?

Linda E: Interested in ways in which Dialogic processes that I see good in exploring what is behind our beliefs and actions and plays a role in our personal transformation...how does it play a role vs. deliberation?

Linda E: Articulation of self within the groups and institutions we are in. What are the transformations we make? Wherever we encounter people...how do we make the changes we want to see?

Ben L--scribing comment by Ben R: Possibility that what is apparently divergent is only so because we can't see underlying structures, especially if we're looking at global systemic transformation that we've never been before. Why should we assume that we can spot that, given we're coming from an old paradigm?

Ben L: Do we need to know? We've gotten this far w/o knowing how to get here...

Ben L: How do people feel about a super-ordinant goal? If we were to discover such a thing, could it be an attractor that could lead a majority of people toward a new path?

Ben L: Superbowl is on Sunday... what can bring us together? It's an occasion of many points of view converging on something.

Linda E: We like to compete..different from a super-ordinant goal. It isn't a win/lose situation. The context is different. HOlding the paradox - is what Bohm Dialogue is about. What is the place where both are true?

Ben L: Raises question of what kind of conversations... conversations in search of a superordinate goal constitute a superordinate goal, in and of itself?

Ben L: But life also embodies destruction, decay and death... and change. Is there an imbalance?

Ben L: Distinction between showing up, having a superordinate goal, self-organizing... and an expectation something's going to happen, something to be designed. Who's the 'we' doing the designing?

Ben L: What purpose is there to what we're doing that offers people who are working many jobs, trying to survive, what do we do for them? They're the majority... what do we offer them that's a different system in the world?

Ben L: How do we know when something's moving us, vs. an addictive behavior?

Ben L: What serves life?

Ben L: What did you expect to happen that didn't, what did you not expect that did happen, and how do we grow that intersection between the two?

Ben L: What really do we have that's concrete coming out of this?

Jim: How do we find the ways of being human together in the face of difficult challenges?

Tom A: What kind of questions would invite the kind of attention and engagement from people that's needed?

Tom A: What people with what kinds of backgrounds do you want to reach? How do you reach them, get their attention in the first place, how do they even know about the process? Should it be through existing networks like faith communities and prof assns?

Stephanie: I wonder if the "being" issue is more clear to you, now, as a result of this endeavor?

Heather: Had my own listening shifted?

Ben R: What else have you learned--and what else have we learned-- that you feel adds real value to our work?

Bruce S: Who gets the water in the river?

Mark: How do we converge what we are doing into a specific project?

Tom A: When else would I talk with all these people?

Tom A: If we are co-creators of whatever happens in the future, what does that mean we will do?

Tom A: Does further support need to be provided to help people engage in the conversation and live with what they've learned constructively?

Savannah: How to get knowledge out to people to show them the choices they have to connect with them. Many strands at work but not working together. How do we have a generalized framework regardless of where their from to help engage and respond to them?

Tom A: What haven't you learned --and what haven't we learned-- that you are really hungry to explore?

Tom A: Hunger understanding some of the biology of collaboration, accepting the emergence of things over time (fungi carpet) when we can't see that emergence. Neurobiology of our capacity to BE during living into possibilities; is there a capacity to teach resilience in this regard?

Heather T: How to build universal bridges between people of divergent values and belief systems? Where are the commonalities in our belief systems and world views. Discerning together...how to do that?

Heather T: What are the processes that surface common values, beliefs, assumptions in a group of diverse people who "think" they disagree on just about everything?..so as to create a foundation of shared somethings (agreements?) from which a co-creative experience/action can emerge that in some way reflects and meets the needs of the diverse people in a community/organization?

Jarod H: Where are some of the complex issues being talked about?

Linda E: We are more powerful in smaller groups, what can we grow together?

Linda E: How do we continue to go forward and continue talking to develop this? How do we step beyond the disparity so we can come together?

Stephanie K: What would it mean to be our best selves right now?

Ben R: What you gained: What new insights, challenges, ideas, inquiries, or actions came up for you from your participation this past month? What possibilities have opened up or been further reinforced?

Ben R: What you experienced: How did you feel or change at different points in this process? Which processes did you participate in? Which were new to you? For processes you’ve experienced before, what was it like doing them online? What worked for you, and why? What didn’t? How might you use or change these processes on another occasion? What about the web tools used? Maestro? Hackpads? Zoom (if you experienced that)? Any others?

Ben R: What next: What are you doing, will do or might do as related at least in part to the question that brought us together and/or as a result of what we have done together? Who else would (might) you involve?

Naomi Klein: What if part of the reason so many of us have failed to act is not because we are too selfish to care about an abstract and seemingly far-off problem--but because we are utterly overwhelmed by how much we do care? And what if we stay silent not out of acquiescence but in part because we lack the collective spaces in which to confront the raw terror of ecocide?

Ben L: What vision will carry us forward and inspire us to work together?

Ben L: What vision will charge us with a sense of heroic purpose that the future is indeed calling us to greatness?

David Korten et al: "What role does narrative play in shaping economic life? How must the current narrative change if we are to have a viable human future and an economy that works for all, including Living Earth our home and source of nurture? What will it take to discover and establish a new narrative in the public mind?"

Savannah: I personally am interested in what would happen beyond this change actually taking place? Are we prepared to have a foundation that could be implemented in a matter of a few weeks? Have enough people agreed to participate so this could be planned in different ways according to where you live, your cultural group, your personal beliefs, etc. so the transition will be peaceful and non-violent?

Tom A: What good examples do we know of each approach? What is missing from this list? What synergies are possible among these different approaches to make them even more effective?

Linda E: How can we take this powerful virtual tech + our special conversational approaches out into the public?

Heather T: I ask myself: What would nature do? If we are in a living system and are part of nature and not separate from it... is there an intelligence in nature that has a concept of "strategic"? Does a maple have a strategy for spreading seeds?

Linda E: For me dialogue is "strategic" when we combine the fact that Dialogue develops its practitioners' empathy, collective sense, etc., with thinking about "who do I most want to engage in dialogue?" and "where do these conversational practices need to happen to best effect what's happening?" and "how do we show up where there are already conversations which could use our technology for quality conversation?"

Sharon J: How does the whole system work to effect transformation?

Tom A: So how can learn to do healthy self-organization in human systems (like using Open Space) and how can we be in true partnership with nature?

Mark: That kind of thing is fine but it's not a self-organizing structure, since it needs sponsorship and participation from power structures, who would be challenged by it. How can we host events like that - or have them emerge - where we get the sponsorship but are able to challenge power as well?

Jennifer: it would be a great inquiry to poke at how do we parse the world in light of strategic conversation? We talk - but did anything happen with this group in Canada? Who took up what the Canadians said - officials? People in the street? What are ways to parse things that then result in action?

Sharon J: What are the conditions that enable vibrant, life-affirming networks to self-organize, flourish and sustain themselves, while simultaneously creating a truly global movement for positive futures?

Tom C: How do we balance or integrate affiliative, feel good, bonding, affirming, etc., outcomes, with personal commitments, concrete, measurable, promises to take action? Who would the promiser be accountable to?

Tom A: What does conversation offer as a tool for confronting existential crises and transforming social systems and cultures? What do we need to know and do to use that tool in the best way possible?

Tom A: What does strategy mean to each of us?

Tom A: What do we each include in the field of D&D and conversation, as it relates to this inquiry?

Tom A: What are our various assumptions, theories, and stories about how transformational change happens? How does conversation fit into each of these theories of change?

Tom A: What gifts or services do we know the right kinds of conversation can provide that might be useful in catalyzing the kind of transformations we seek?

Tom A: What public issues - or kinds of public issues - if any - should we focus on in our transformational conversational initiatives? Which issues would you not consider strategic? Why?

Tom A: How should we choose the targets for our conversational interventions to have the greatest impact? ("Targets" here refers to who or what we want to engage in conversation, in what situations, circumstances, sectors, or dynamics of society.) What is our reasoning for each approach to targeting?

Tom A: What forms of conversation offer the most potent transformational benefits in what circumstances / for what purposes?

Tom A: What are some ways we can spread or magnify the reach of any particular conversational intervention we wish to undertake?

Tom A: Who do we need to be and how do we need to function - individually and collectively - as practitioners and advocates of conversational approaches, to contribute more to transformation than business-as-usual dynamics?

Tom A: What might we do in the immediate future to authentically address the issues that have come up as we explored these questions, given our current capacities and resources?

Stephanie: +Prototyping Crisis Inspired Change through Hybrid Communication Technologies: Are we at Kitty Hawk?

Linda E: How could we come together at this macro level of conceptualization and then create an actual implementation plan that we would all be able to work with at different levels?" What might this entity be, how might it be structured, how might it begin to emerge that might prototype a new way of collectively taking action in our world using our D & D skills/experience?

[Ben R. 1/4, trying to simply be curious!] You use "we" quite frequently here, Linda, and also "we all." Why is it important to you that "we all" do this, as opposed to some subset of "us?"

Ben R: "I'm back to wanting a framing that asks what are specific opportunities for applying these eighteen dimensions of leverage to the existing system in ways that might support, amplify, or catalyze its rapid transformation?"

Linda E: Lastly, how can we hold "generative conversations" at strategic places - how might we come together and discuss playing roles at critical global issue junctures like the climate talks this June in Bonn, Germany? How can D & D be rolled into such strategic places?

Ben R: I'm back to wanting a framing that asks "what are specific opportunities for applying these eighteen dimensions of leverage to the existing system in ways that might support, amplify, or catalyze its rapid transformation?"

Linda E: So, in response to "I think we need a more dense/intense form of interactivity to discover non-reductionist coherence out of the rich diversity of perspectives we have and need." What would you recommend? I mean that is the $2 million question in many ways. We have come close, but other than something approaching and beyond what we now think of as Dialogue, what can we do?

Ben R: Who are you, and what do you yearn for and desire most?!

Chris S: How might I help you and your members?

Chris S: For me the purpose of this inquiry was a little confusing: was it knowledge capture, knowledge management, community building, or all or more? Perhaps an experiment with a more tight “business” focus as a core thread that the other rich explorations branch out off of?

Chris S: How might interactions with fellow followers of the visionary Tom Atlee emerge and how could I provide support energy (my 2 questions just to help while also of immediate interest to me) for a sort of endeavour I approve of?

Chris S: We were a little two track just by nature of those with background vs those catching up. Is there a way to avoid this?

Chris S: Structurally: how would the responses to the various individual and group purposes emerge or stumble in response to the containers and facilitation strategies; how does the platform/approach compare to my own benchmark mental models; and what works and what does not?

Chris S: And on diversity, where were the young people?

Chris S: Thinking of Wise Democracy/ Dynamic facilitation some engineered diversity too needed?

Chris S: We need questioning space, problem solving space, anarchy space, convergence space, etc. (what other “spaces” do we need in inquiries like this? And how should people be called or encouraged to interact with them or let them float?

Implied Questions

Ben R: How do we engage in deep dialogue around our calling question?

Ben R: How do we connect to build community and share resources, information and strategies?

Ben R: How do we elicit inspiring, actionable possibilities and support the emergence of collaborative teams to work together on bringing them forth in the coming year?

Ben R: How do we have the inquiry process itself be a prototype that can be iterated upon in service for systemic transformation?

Documents not yet combed through:

+Open Space Main Pad for the DandDTrans Inquiry

+January 13 Open Space Call Main Pad for DandDTrans

Bohm Dialogue 2 January 20 2015

+January 25 Open Space Call Main Pad for DandDTrans

Comments by Others on this Harvest

Ben Roberts, 2/5

Wow, Lucas! This is quite a piece of work you undertook! I remember you discussing the idea of something like after the end of the second Open Space call. And then you just went and did it! I'm curious, having gone through the exercise, if there is any learning you can identify on your end? and How do you imagine others might work with this list? Over the weekend, a small group of us developed a "quote harvesting" tool and I'm wondering now if we can upload these into it. Should be possible, I expect. that might allow for some additional work of categorizing, theming, ranking, etc to be done.

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​​Comments by Others on this Harvest

Comments by Others on this Harvest