Difference between DHOs and DACs (former DCOs)

Renaissance Explorers Exploration Groups
#1

Starting Point / Tension : Having more clarity on what is a DHO (Distributed Human/Holonic Organization) and what is the difference to the SEEDS Global Co-op, that I chose to call DCO (for Distributed Co-Op), that is stated on Section 0 of the Game Guide

Proposal / Invitation:

  • To start using the acronym DHO to define a SEEDS Organization that serves a Purpose. All Organizations in SEEDS can potentially request to have their own DHO.
  • To start using the acronym DCO to define a co-op that serves its participants. All Regions in SEEDS get their own DCO automatically (they don’t have to request it).

More details
Here’s a diagram to show these differences:

DHO-DCO
DHO-DCO960×720 131 KB

What is a DHO?
It’s an Organization in the SEEDS Ecosystem that serves a Purpose (some needs from people outside the org)

  • Receives funds from the people it serves (or investors, or from the SEEDS Harvest Organization bucket)
  • Has an adaptable organization structure composed of Circles and Roles
  • People can only be invited to join, to fill a Role, that requires certain skills/archetypes, they become Members
  • Members receive compensation and voice while filling Roles and serving the purpose, otherwise if they are no longer able or willing to serve the Purpose they are asked to leave
  • The Organization can also create Quests, for non-Members (third parties) to do one time jobs and be paid on delivery
  • People with voice (Members or investors) can vote on Proposals on the DHO, deciding if that proposal serves the PURPOSE (not if they like or dislike)
  • There can’t be DHOs nested inside DHOs, but eventually a Circle can fork to become a brand new DHO, if they are serving a different Purpose altoghether.

What is a DCO?
It’s a group of people that band together based on some preferences (region, ideals, skills)

  • Receive funds from the SEEDS Harvest (Regional Bucket or Global Bucket) based on their size, or from personal investments
  • The DCO serves its people and its identity
  • Anyone can join providing they have the same preferences (live in the same region, have same regenerative ideals, share the same crafting skills etc.)
  • For Interest groups DCOs, people that chose to join can be called Participants, for Regional DCOs, people living there can be called Residents
  • Any Participant decides if they want to join or leave anytime (maybe they can be banned?)
  • All Participants receive an equal number of votes to participate on Governance, based on the Contribution Score
  • Participants vote on Proposals based on personal preferences, if they like or dislike it
  • There can be DCOs nested inside DCOs
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SIP 1 - Continuous Funding
#2

One possibility I see is to create a DHO to better manage and serve the people living on a Region DCO.

Suppose we have a Brazil Regional DCO with 1444 Citizens, and they are receiving a lot of SEEDS every cycle and approving dozens of interesting proposals there.

Maybe some of that Citizens will organize and create the Brazil Caretakers DHO, that has the purpose of serving the residents of the Brazil Region, and help accountable to: incubating local projects, generating metrics and organizing efforts to carry on proposals that got funded from SEEDS, approved on the Brazil Regional DCO.

But some other set of Citizens from that same Region may decide to organize another Indigenous Brazilian DHO, with the purpose of supporting exclusively the indigenous population and their related proposals.

Both DHOs can happily coexist and be funded in that same Region.

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#3

Just thinking out loud to see if I’ve understood this from an institution’s perspective (big business and government)…

Scenario

  • Coca Cola (CC) corporate is coming under immense pressure to demonstrate ESG responsibility.
  • Someone in their head office reads Rebuilding Society and they reach out to SEEDS Corporate. (future truth :innocent: )
  • After understanding “the SEEDS way,” they create the CC DCO and inform all their national offices about what they’re doing. An internal annual ESG budget is set, but no funds change hands at this point.
  • The CC Brazil DHO is formed, which engages with Brazil Caretakers DHO. An agreement is reached showing which Brazil SEEDS projects can help Coca Cola meet their ESG commitments and the Caretakers DHO is funded by Coca Cola.
  • Coca Cola Brazil also creates a DCO and invites any of their employees to join so that employees can see the ESG progress the company is making in Brazil.
  • As a result of following the Coca Cola Brazil DCO, Miguel, who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, forms the CC Copacabana DHO.
  • The CC Copacabana DHO formally engages with the SEEDS Rio Beaches DHO and funds their activities.
  • A similar process is repeated throughout Brazil.
  • Collectively, Coca Cola’s Brazil ESG initiatives exceed all other countries and the global CEO awards the Brazil CEO with the inaugural Coca Cola ESG award.
  • Over the next 10 years, Coca Cola goes on to become the world leader in ESG initiatives. They make a real difference in the world, as opposed to Shell’s ESG greenwashing, all thanks to SEEDS.
  • Everyone lives happily ever after… :boom: :dizzy:

What have I got wrong?

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#4

Thanks for the explanation @julioholon! Very well put.

One thing which stood out for me in the original conversation on Discord is that @Carleymonty was wanting to ensure that the organisations are ‘inclusive’ - “If we are building a truly decentralized governance I believe all citizens should have the opportunity to vote along with inclusivity and transparency.”

I deeply respect where this perspective is coming from and agree things should be as inclusive as possible, however from my experience in decentralised organising (a completely open online cooperative among other things) I advise against not having some membranes to organisations.

We had people turning up and wanting the password to the website server on their first day of collaborating and other similar incidents. When we said that they needed to wait a bit longer we were called ‘elitist’ and ‘excluding’.

Some form of commitment track record should be a prerequisite of being allowed to take on responsibility within any organisation. This does indeed exclude some people, but frankly, some people are not operating with the best of intentions and need to be excluded. The idea that everyone can decide everything within every context (not implying this is what Carley is asking for specifically, but just in general, and we did have many people who said this is what they favoured) is not going to produce good outcomes.

With transparency, good communication, and webs of trust, nearly everyone can be included somewhere where they can make a positive difference. The ‘bad actors’ usually show up later (especially within crypto once the price goes up) but it’s good to think and talk about these issues relatively early on IMO. :slight_smile:

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#5

Thank you @guyjames!

Indeed, having membranes is essential to managing commons, as our very wise
first woman to win a Nobel prize on economics, Elinor Ostrom already said:

https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons

8 Principles for Managing a Commons

  1. Define clear group boundaries.
  2. Match rules governing use of common goods to local needs and conditions.
  3. Ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules.
  4. Make sure the rule-making rights of community members are respected by outside authorities.
  5. Develop a system, carried out by community members, for monitoring members’ behavior.
  6. Use graduated sanctions for rule violators.
  7. Provide accessible, low-cost means for dispute resolution.
  8. Build responsibility for governing the common resource in nested tiers from the lowest level up to the entire interconnected system.

My experience with shared resources (commons) without a “boss” or violent guardian, is that we need something like those 8 principles, otherwise the resources get attacked and used up by those “decentralization advocates”.

Can SEEDS as a whole be a DHO? Unlikely, however there can be many DHOs formed around each passed proposal on the SEEDS DCO, or by any existing Organization serving a Purpose. There can be any number of DHOs to serve the citizens of SEEDS in many ways.

Can the SEEDS DCO have “roles” with salaries proposed and voted by anyone? Bad idea. This will generate a bazillion of tensions when people voted in to do a certain thing don’t do it. We already removed old “roles” from Hypha in favor or Archetypes. True self-management Roles are created and changed any time by the Circle, not by individuals or by the whole Org with democratic voting. They are created by Circles to serve the purpose for the Organization not to serve individuals. People don’t have roles, Circles have roles, people can only temporarily energize them. If a Circle needs a role, they just go ahead and create it, providing there is no objection inside the Circle, they can’t be subjected to waiting for 1 month or 1 week before the role is approved or not by people not even inside the Circle…

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#6

Thank @guyjames for sharing your experience and perspective of everyone is involved in everything in decentralised settings. We had similar experience in the Climate Activism space where new people show up to a meeting with the expectations of ‘changing the wheel’ within those 30-60min, disregarding everything else that’s on the agenda. Yes membrane is important to build a web of trust.

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#7

I really like the distinction you draw between DCO and DHO. It makes absolute sense to me. I’ve been deep diving into the DisCo framework early last year. What I loved most about it, is the Open Value Accounting approach, simply because everyone contributes to the commons, instead of having salary bands and essentially working for your own pocket.

So a massive thank you for bringing this to life :raised_hands:
I deeply value your expertise. :green_heart:

I’ve never seen SEEDS as a DHO. But I am also not convinced that SEEDS is DCO either. In my understanding SEEDS is the economy. If I compare it to our current economy out there, it isn’t an entity/org either. It is just a theoretical concept with tools build to take part in it. Which leads me to the question…

Why does SEEDS have to be a DHO or DCO?

I am carrying this question with me for some days now and couldn’t find answers to it. Maybe I get it all wrong, I am happy to learn.

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#8

From my understanding, I think you nailed it. Love the story flow :rainbow:

:point_up_2: This is one thing I am not so sure about. Wouldn’t Coca Cola Brazil simply be part of the Bioregion DCO?

#9

Yes, we had that too. All the time. Someone’s who’s ridiculously enthusiastic about changing everything lots of other people already worked on for ages then gets pissed off with perceived ‘exclusivity’ or ‘bureaucracy’ or something, then leaves, having wasted everyone’s time.

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#10

I agree, I would say SEEDS is the name for the ecosystem which contains everything else. It doesn’t need to be a defined organisation itself. The membranes are within the DCOs and DHOs for working on specific things.

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#11

Just to update for the sake of common understanding, the name DAC is being used instead of DCO. :pray::white_heart:

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#12

I saw people mention the term “DAC”, but that refers to an entire other concept, very different from what the SEEDS Global Co-Op is.

A DAC is used by the EOS community to manage the block producer funds, and they allow anyone to launch a DAC, which is another name for DAO, as defined here: eosDAC | Why Launch a DAC?

So DAC is just another name for a DAO.

A DCO is another thing, it’s an engine build on SEEDS to empower (bio)regions to self organize. You don’t have to create a DCO, you get one automatically once your region activates (144 citizens on it). And in fact you can’t create a DCO in any other way.

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#13

Thank you for your response, @Kath.PlanetHive !

So just to clarity my perception: I fully agree SEEDS is not a DCO, but rather it has a builtin network of DCOs, starting from the Global Co-Op, fractaling down into regional DCOs.

Another important aspect is that, once you join a region, you automatically join that region’s DCO and gets voice there after the region transition time. So you can always vote on the Global DCO proposals, plus your region DCO proposals.

I am also proposing each Region DCO can have child region DCOs, so if you join the lower branch DCOs (like your village), you also get to vote on all Parent DCOs (like bioregion, country, global). Makes sense?

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#14

Sorry for the long text. I try bullet points

  • DHO, DCO, DAC seems ambiguous for no reason and beside the point
  • Difference between DHO and the other(s) is one is for organizations like businesses etc. and the other(s) are for community governance like regions, villages etc.
  • *Who knows how Dsomethings evolve and how they are used… it would be a lot easier if one can just attach their use case to the name and make the difference simple and explicit.

Finally I have some time to participate in this thread.

I love the whole acronym stuff… usually only adds to the confusion but its fun :)))
I think it is good to make a distinction between ‘Governing’ Organizational Systems and ‘Business’ Organizations if they actually are different.

I find it dangerous @julioholon that you speak of DCO as something officially in place. This is how it is and not this is how you define it, where as others like Reiki and Joachim indeed have stated to rather call it DAC.

All we really talk about though is a way to organize in a decentralized or even distributed manner.
DHO is for organizations, yes or no?
DAC/DCO for community governance, yes or no?
If yes why not make the working title less sexy but more explicit?^^

But anyway that’s not really the key point here for me.

I think there are strong similarities between DHOs and DACs and even circles or however one ones to call it… because they are all basically circles.
Circles as being the simplest representation of a unit, with a field and a boundary. A unit is an individual entity but also part of the unified field (uni is its root).
That is something that IMO is super important to be made visible by the structures we put in place.
I once started a presentation that fits to that actually:

Defining a DHO by saying it is a SEEDS Organization serving a Purpose does not show me the difference to a DAC/DCO. It as well serves a purpose… like everything in SEEDS and it also can have roles. For example SEEDS does have roles: The Constitutional Guardians.
For now they are only mentioned in the Game Guide and are not allocated to any DHO.
The Game Guide itself is build to enable governance/cooperation of SEEDS entities… therefore the same as a DCO. It’s not that SEEDS is a DCO but it is run by a DCO comprised of all Seedizens (your SEEDS Global DCO).
That is not a question of semantics but a mere fact of how the SEEDSystem is designed to operate so far.

For me it would seem a lot easier to understand if one differentiates not with novel ambiguous terms but clear purpose statements and because all the Dsomethings can potentially work very similar it would make way more sense to me to just say they are a DHO for business (DHOb), for communities/social (DHOc), for governance(DHOg) or whatever. Or even simpler: just Ob, Oc, Og :)))

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#15

Hey there @MaxVBohn, thanks for adding your perspective to the mix.

I indeed see a lot of differences between a DCO and a DHO and this post is to make those differences clear so we can start calling them different names, in recognition of this differences.

By the way, I still want to call the SEEDS one a DCO, because the DAC name that is already taken by the EOS community and it means another entire different thing (see my previous answer to @joaoestellita), a DAC is just another name for a DAO (eosDAC | Why Launch a DAC?), and a DCO is already much more specific. I know some people have a tension with using the name Co-Op because it has ties to the old world “Co-operatives”, but on the last version of the Passport we’ve had a Co-Op section, so I am basing myself on that experience. The main difference between a Co-op and a regular Organization, is that anyone from that class can join a Co-op (Any shoe maker can join a Shoemaker Co-ops, as per the International Coop Alliance 7 principles (Cooperative identity, values & principles | ICA)

Here are the 5 striking main differences between a DHO and a DCO, as per my original post:

  1. The purpose of existence:
  • DHO: exists to serve a Purpose that is external to the people inside
  • DCO: exists to serve its People (and whatever individual purposes they may have)
  1. How people join them:
  • DHO: you can only join if you are in service to the Purpose (usually by invitation by someone inside), and if you no longer service it you can be “fired” (invited out)
  • DCO: anyone can join and leave whenever they want
  1. How they are created:
  • DHO: is created upon request, then a Purpose is set, by using the DHO creator tool (soon to be) provided by Hypha
  • DCO: is created automatically for you on the SEEDS Passport when you form a (bio)region and it becomes active when 144 Citizens join it
  1. How they are structured:
  • DHO: have an organization structure with nested Circles and Roles to serve the Purpose. All proposals are created by someone on those on Roles, and have to serve some Circle purpose otherwise they don’t make sense.
  • DCO: have no organizational structure, because it’s not an organization, everyone is on the same level, everyone votes equally, and creates Proposals from the same base ground, to fulfill personal/community needs.
  1. How they are funded: (GG 3.2)
  • DHO: people purchasing its services, or investors, or SEEDS Harvest through the Organization bucket (GG 1.6) (DAU counting on this)
  • DCO: personal investments or the SEEDS Harvest Regional bucket (GG 1.7)

So, my proposal to call them DHO and DCO still stands. :pray:

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#16

that is awesome. Makes me think about how we can learn to be coopeartivities. Like, if we take it seriously, make sense to approach a community with better-than-free tools for being a cooperativitie and create proposals that’s is builded upon agreement of regeneration and unity by humans that can create together new ways of serving a purpose. Ok, me dreaming again…

I understand what Max share and was very lucid but what Julio is talking is for sake of distinguish something that can actually be funtions to connect bioregions with the passport (i like that) and be a way to expand with the tools beond DHO’s … imo, so, thanks both, that’s inspiring…
I might want to say more about the ideas to connect those DCO’s and DHO’s :smiley:

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#17

Sorry Julio I might have expressed myself in a way that seemed like I go against the difference of DHO and DCO you see, which I generally do not.

Rieki and Joachim also just made a ‘proposal’ of naming the community tool DAC and suddenly it is the convention. DHO is also just another name for DAO… in the videos on youtube the DHO is still called a DAO in fact.
So all of that is essentially just another name for DAO :)))

My main point here is only that its one possibility to look at the different structures that we can put in place. But since they are not even clearly defined it is important to make clear that this is not a fact but just a thought experiment.

I personally agree on most potential differences between DHO and DCO as well as co-op being a fitting name for it in terms of history… not necessarily when it comes to the modern use of it.

I can already see points where the differences you see are just one potential way they play out but are not set in stone and can take different shapes.
For example

to 2.
If everyone could just join and leave a DCO whenever they want it will be impossible to define who is part of which bio-region and benefits from their harvest etc.
So there most likely will be an organizational structure (to 4.) in place to be sure which bio-region someone can be part of, as well as village and that they don’t conflict with other DCOs.
Even if that organizational structure is not put on individual people but on DCOs themselves.
Every DCO can agree on these structures themselves or there are universal SEEDS structures in place… probably a mix of both.

to 4.
We haven’t come up with a definite way how DHOs have to work… if it in fact has roles or circles. They certainly can have different structures within as we can see in the differences between Hypha and Samara. And everyone is potentially empowered to change the code to their liking.
So this is not an essential difference for me.

DCOs do have an organizational structure simply by connecting to the SEEDSystem with Visitors, Residents and Citizen, with Constitutional Guardians and who knows what other things add to the structure in the future.

Point being that we don’t know how DHOs or DCOs will play out exactly and therefore the differences might become more clear or less.
The only differentiation I can see to be true no matter the implementation is that of use-case:
DHO for organizations
DCO for governance

The rest needs further definition of how these things actually will be implemented, IMO, defined in the Game Guide.
So I see that your proposal is just that attempted but we can already see how people take your perspective as fact… just like most now call it DAC…

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#19

I can see both perspectives here. No one should earn more of a say simply because they worked on something for longer. Although it’s ok if a group has formed that philosophy to work by. Though this isn’t any kind of inherent truth.

Objectively speaking, an outsider could have a better idea about what to do in a given situation even though others have been working on it longer together.

Also, any organization that doesn’t establish things by direct democratic vote in all things is somewhat authoritarian in its approach. Not that this is a bad thing but it is good to realize. If everyone doesn’t have an equal say in something then some have more of a say. And this by definition is an oligarchical system. It is good that we use distinguishing terms like circles, etc. But it’s also good to realize that systems like holacracy, socioacracy, etc, do include some authoritarianism (ie autocracy) in order to increase efficiency.

My proposal is that for the next few hundred years we run social design experiments amongst groups of humans with thousands of different variations of governance. We can take the insights and learn which forms are best in what contexts.

Overall, I believe we will find our way back to seeing the wisdom of a direct democracy for everything. Because for example, only a direct democracy can transition integrally into any system which is not a direct democracy (eg circles, etc). In the end, we want everyone to be inspired and aligned, and not subtly or overtly coerced into certain forms of governance.

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#20

OMG so grateful for this piece of wisdom @guyjames and also from @Kath.PlanetHive

Many of our Seeds interactions from my point of view are exactly like that - someone claiming they should have equal rights to change everything, or to decide on everything, when they’ve just showed up to a project where people have been diligently working on it for over a year.

Even our voting system follows a similar pattern the amount of time it takes before people are entitled to co-create the entire system from scratch is around 10 seconds.

Makes me think if I would do it all over again, I would have contribution level accounting - that means, yes, everyone has equal rights, depending on how much they have contributed to the system.

People who want to jump in and have a say - sure, come on it, and contribute, and then receive a say in equal proportion to your contribution.

If I had to do Seeds over again, that’s how it would work - it would create a better system because it would align the incentives with skin in the game.

I have skin in the game, having spent 2 years of my life making this work full time - I am very much interested in the success of the system as a whole. This is the only reason I even started on a completely unknown coin with a crazy plan. Because I wanted to see the whole thing succeed - that’s what’s been driving Seeds all along, this desire of the collective to see a fair and equal and regenerative system arise.

Whereas, someone who just swings by a month ago, and loves it all - and I am of course super appreciative of the enthusiasm - but they get to play here on an equal level, except if they happen to tear the whole thing down they just move on to something else, another coin, another game.

So the alignment of skin in the game is skewed with the system we have created. Which is a valuable lesson I much appreciate.

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