Thank you. Thank you, Val. Well, thank you everyone for for coming by. This is a topic that has been on our radar for a while. We've finally started earlier this year, the the research, and it's a pleasure to to be able to share with you. Although, I do not have the permission to share screen at this moment. If you can enable me to, I'll bring you two slides.

No probs. Well, guys, it's also my maybe my first time in the seminar. So nice to meet everyone. I'm Zug. I've been on this coordination, downward journey for for a few years now. Very, very passionate about trying to optimize how we coordinate. Metagov is definitely one of the coolest references about it that I find. So it's very nice to to be here.

I'm not sure. There is, like, a small arrow to the top that you could click and and menu will I mean, I don't see. Oh, I think I can do it now.

I was using I did I was I clicked it to see if it works for me.

I I think I can do it now. Does that work? Yes. Okay. So, let me let me get into it. Well, we're at Block four have been looking towards human coordination as a very broad topic and, specifically, looking towards building public good structure that allows for it to improve. And at that point, we're taking a look at what's what's beyond the standards, the hegemonic elements, types of organizations that we follow, and trying to find elsewhere inspiration for other ways to build it. Look what has humanity done over over its extensive period here to to find their methods to coordinate. And the Yanomami has the the point that we're focusing for now, trying to understand their structures and what we can learn for it. So this is a research in alternative coordination structures with a specific look towards DAOs. That's what we focus most of our time off towards. And, well, that's gonna be a bit of the perspective in here. A few disclaimers before we jump in. The Yanomami people and their challenges in the current landscape of Brazil are a very sensitive political topic. It's a group of people that's been under constant attack. Their land is focused by illegal minors, drug trafficking cartels, and this makes it a very hard topic to establish partnerships. Most of the anthropologists that we reached out are not willing to to take on, the partnership either because indigenous rights and perspectives are not exactly, point very close to crypto most of the time. So there's either the a bias against crypto or, just a fear of exploring the topic because of retaliation. We have, as much as possible, used indigenous sources for our understandings here. A lot of them for, a guy called the Vianomami that's from the Yanomami people and brought some books out, spoke a bunch of how they believe their manners, but we also have sources that are not we're doing our best to try to remain realistic to what's going on and to to what we can find, but it's not always the easiest. And the last bit of this is an early research stage. We have, for the next quarter, two anthropologists that will be working together, with more time. But for now, this has been most of early exploration of the books, papers, documentaries that we could find about it to understand what are the best questions that we can be searching for. So all of your questions are very welcome. There's a a stage of finding the right questions that we think we're almost done with. We think we have mapped the best things we wanna learn from this, but can always improve. So feel free to contribute to this. Is always building in public in the open, and all all hands are welcomed. So once you search for the name, I find it amazing that for the Anomami people in their language, Anomami means human being. So we're talking about they're talking about themselves. We're talking about us. And when we say the turn to our people, it's the human people. They were not approached, until very late for being up north on the Amazon and the Brazil side and the South Of Venezuela. So it's not the most accessible area. And that view, I I just find it a beautiful way to understand that we're talking about a particular culture. We're talking about a culture that has had long isolation. So the changes that our means of coordination, of state based coordination, not necessarily have made a lot of influence in how those groups, are coordinating between themselves. To tell a bit more about the Yanomami, it's indigenous people living in the Amazon Rainforest, like I said, Brazil and Venezuela. Apparently, there's approximately 40,000 people living in from two to two fifteen hundred villages across those territories. Those territories are about just in the Brazilian part, like, two times the side of Switzerland. So we're talking about extensive land here. It's part of what the conflicts come by, and each of those villages is autonomous. They do not work around an idea of a leadership or central government that is, coercive or executive. Those villages have their own coordinations between themselves and internal. They do not work with a fixed hierarchy. They have this concept of wisdom, communication, and speech. That's what what defines a leader, inside, a group. And they're currently threatened by water poisoning, by direct violence, and by disease of groups coming from outside, had their first contact in with, white society in 1910 and a more constant contact since 1940 with Catholic colonizing missions that that have been acting in there. Recently, this has escalated with with mining. But in general, since this first contact's about one third, one in every two people died either by disease mostly or other way of of violence. And the questions we were looking is why should us, down nerds, coordination nerds, or any researcher interested in governance be looking to how Yanomami coordinate? Right? We but as a first point, the way that their social coordination works, so we are looking at this idea of a known hegemonic framework. So escaping from what most of us or likely all of us were raised as how to coordinate, this This is a very entrenched structure for us to see. So when we're designing governance, when we're designing coordination, we are definitely biased. So getting out of of this bias, is something that we're we're seeing as a a good way to find new experiments that we can build. And out of this, hegemonic framework, we see that, you know, many people have some perspectives that are very interesting to us. First of them is that leadership's about guiding communication, and that relates directly to the fact that decision is about achieving consensus. There is no voting. There is no boss. There is no chief of the village to make the call. The leader, in in in a group in a village will be guiding that communication that can have happen in a social moment, in a a spiritual rite. And his role is to make it possible through his understanding of the whole, through to his understanding of the peers, of the reputations, to to find this consensus as to as to how it can work. In Unimomished Society, roles are about gender, about capacity and experience. It is quite challenging in my perspective that gender is one of those, but, again, that's not the culture I'm immersed on, to to understand the the aspects that this brings. That's what we're trying to to look at here. But capacity and experience to decide to give, this opinion, to be heard when you bring an opinion to the collective as you're trying to find together a consensus of what to decide. That's where you're heard from what you're capable and experienced in doing. And at that, those collective rights, those rights or the relationships turn out to be pretty much political moments, too. We see a direct, connection when we're talking about online communities of all the shared beliefs and culture as to as to how shared beliefs about the word and its essence are for any group. They're one of the manifestations of of shared culture that we think can can also be observed here as how political force can derive from that. Another part of how we look into this is to the resource coordination. So for the Anumami property, it's something that's communal. I don't have my land, my area, my thing. Of course, there are small exceptions to collective living to that. So they live in structures similar to this one shown here. Of course, they they vary from circles to squares to other shapes and how it goes. But this idea of common plaza center and the distribution of the families around this with their own bonfires and hammocks and, private belongings. This all happens around this one point, and each one of those is autonomous. Right? So the decisions that come from here, they are what counts, and the relations for the outside are part of what to is to be decided in inside. And while this property is is communal, they have to to find ways to manage this. The view the view of a private property of, oh, this is my profit, my production, It's not similar to the way that European or global bite society at this point sees the the property. So it's allocated based on needs. It's allocated based on the same type of consensus that makes the other decisions. And it it have this view of nature as something sacred and to be cared for. So nature is what provides human being a part of it. Everything has their spirits and connections to the spiritual world, and it's the role of the people there to make sure that the future generations will still have access to it. So as many other indigenous groups and peoples in Brazil or South America, the preservation of nature is very a very strong point in in how they see a meaning of life and coordination. And another point why this is interesting for us is because, as mentioned, the enemies are under constant attack. Don't want to get a big part of the tech representation towards that, but I think those are essential points to to get an understanding. Illegal mining and drug trafficking are the two main reasons. Opening that land and being having access to that land that is right now prohibited to explore its indigenous territory, and the Brazilian law protects, like, instead exploration. So all that happens there is illegal, which means that security is based on organized crime, which makes the escalate and murder be something very common. Beyond murder, diseases and poisoning are also part of what happens here, and a big part of the goal is to lower the resistance against that exploration. You know, many people are preserving that nature and protecting that nature. So if you wanna destroy it, you have a problem. And for some people, murder is a solution for that problem. There's many necessary, perspectives of support, in this, from health, legal, financial, political. One of the other ones that I also find very interesting is education. I think there's some conflicts as government starts to interact on how culture is passed forward and knowledge is passed forward, which might even interfere with the with the coordination structure over time. So some perspectives to look at and, enabling compatibility is what we're looking at that can be, what can be key. Right? So if we're able to understand, metrify model and simulate digitally parts of their structures. Maybe there are some of those challenges that can be made, easier through uncensorable, immutable, nature of the tools we use for it. So we we hope we can find that's one of the things we're most looking at as how we can find that building this can actually bridge the the Anamami more into a position in society where they can resist against exploration. Some of the early insights that we got from this first first few months of of reading and, early talks of the anthropologists are that for us, looking at DAOs, looking at digital organizations in general, management of the commons is something that we struggle in our society in general. Like, public goods are not something easy to to look at. So finding understands how finding understanding on how this is done here. Right? Bring might bring some solutions for us. How do they work with guidance, towards consensus? Like, what what means that we found consensus, differs from a 100% agreement and votes, on something. This is the way that we see it most of the time. This is not the same way that the Anamami do it. So there are also paths here to to open new perspectives. The relation of autonomous groups, we identify that they are able to do it more successfully than subDAU, interDAU communication, or network state political relations. Like, this is very early, very new. We don't really have our formula, and we're constantly seeing people copying what the UN is supposed to be. And that's a possibility, but it's not the only one. So finding other ways we might understand this relation between autonomy. The combination of rights and politics, I find specifically especially interesting. I started in Dallas as a community manager, community builder. So looking at how culture actually influences decision, how the things we can the how the memes turn the votes in the last sense or how the memes turn numbers, we see that culture affects the ways we coordinate, and they have specific moments that enhance that that look at that in good ways and make that more possible. We'd like to to learn from that, although this is likely not too much to refocus or framework focused, but still some very in a very interesting point for us. And the attribution of roles and responsibilities, in Bluff, we are we are building a reputation system. So understanding a bit of other reputation systems and how those things let me read here a question. And it's feeling very, very fun. Idealize, can you share some more concrete examples or actual process norms or events to make this more live? Yes. I I can. Let me get there in a second. It is right now, to to get to your point, still very theoretical and idealized. We we've mapped the the points to to follow the research forward here, and we have some of the answers that we can find from from papers and and from reading, but it's not necessarily pair to pair with issues that we are looking for solving.

So I I didn't mean to interrupt. We can address this when it's time for questions. But my question was actually more your characterization of the Yanomami. I'd like to it would help me rather than kind of describing them in values that we're already all trying to attain, which just sort of lets us label what we're doing as good. It would be really helpful to kinda get more insight into Yanomami practices, beyond the high level values they represent. Just it adds me to the bones. It makes them feel a little bit more real, and it and it offers me a little bit more specifics on how they navigate the, you know, the the difficult things of all this. I think I just contradicted myself saying I wanna wait and fleshing out the question. I'll let

you know. Good. All good. Okay. Yeah. I think it's a very, very valid interjection, to be honest. I'll get into that point a couple of slides from now a bit deeper. What we are looking at at this point is the possible abstractions of looking those practices and trying to find how do we dial it in a in a sense. Right? How do we look at what's going on there on specific practices and modeling in a way that we can make use make use of. To make this a a bit more a bit more concrete, when we bring the definition of roles in here, we're talking about mainly gender as a split of men that are fishers and hunters of men and kids and children that are taking part of the herbs and plants and village care, A part of what we see of the most what I I specifically saw the most interesting process is the very vocal very vocal practice of both political and educational processes. So to to be talking, what are your thoughts about the issues that are going on? The enemy have a broad network of radio. They they use radio as one of their main sources of communication between those groups, and it's a common practice since you're young to be vocalizing either by yourself or to a group of people and whoever wants to listen, but even by yourself to be practicing that what we'd call oratory, right, to be taking your thoughts and working on that transmission that works from education for their basic culture aspects to the shaman and religious aspects to whatever else comes into the political to the political points here. What else is concrete and interesting that that I think is directly related here might show a bit more as we go through the the questions and goals that we're looking at. As I said, this first first part was about looking for for the right questions. One of the access that we're analyzing for for this is of leadership and reputation. So we're still looking for those practices of how Yanomami leadership goes. What is the process? What is the step by step? We'd be something that we've struggled at finding, and we're hoping to to work with the anthropologists at this next quarter to understand what's the step of this step by step of what is, this guiding of discussion. We have so far, the understanding that there are, games on that central area of their villages. There are religious rights and political gatherings, but how they are led, how they are worked to make to make it easy to reach that consensus is not something we have found so far. And to bring that into a way we can use would be very interesting. We see a lot of mentions towards reputation. The use of names is something very, very, strange to Yanomami. It's a very big offense when you're at war and you wanna really trigger, really make your opponent, your enemy mad, you'll be calling his name out loud because the use of one's name is something very serious. They use references to your reputation. So as we're communicating, I'm calling you by the thing you do to the to the reason you are here, the hunter son of someone, the hunter of this group of that story, of that thing, or the maker of that thing. That type of reference is part of how they communicate daily, normally, and that shows reputation that we'd like to break down more. So how is the reputation viewed, tracked, and used? What makes when I call you the son of someone, the sure that that someone is is that reference? How does how those practice differ from the modern society, let's say, standard and the way that we adapt them to digital models? So not only how is reputation and big, state, city, world, but also how we're adapting reputation to to our communities. Like, what are the coincidences and differences, and what would be a a viable model for replicating this digitally? I love that network communities was was a point very early on the on this call before we start the presentation because it's one of the of the directions that we see this type of thing being able to to be shaped towards. The other point that we're giving attention is resource allocation and management. So we have the clarity that as resources are produced, it's a collective decision on how to allocate those, but we do not have the clarity on, okay, what is the step by step process again? I get in here. We're back from hunting. We have this. We have this wood or we have whatever it is. What is the take it the decision to take it from here and put it there. How is that conducted? That's one of the points we we wanted to to break down and and understand if we can model. Again, same views on this. Where does it on inside, where does it differ from, like, our models? Specifically here, capital allocation and public goods management. We think are the two perspectives that might be different and interesting to analyze and in sales, and how can we replicate this into digital model for DAOs with or without ownership based models. We see that there is also an opportunity here to understand, how we can how we can work without this idea of of ownership directly relating everything. So balance was kind of an event advance in some ways, but it doesn't really define a solution for anything. So understanding that owning might not be tradeability that defines owning might not be necessary. And the last point on integration and modernization, like, what can be done with these models if we bring them, if we bring them to life, if this research, does result into actual tools that we can build if models that we can integrate in governance, open libraries, in open source code, what comes out of that, how can that actually connect Yanomami to the positive sum games we wanna play, and how can those who's also integrate into the landscape of who's building those positive sum games to superpower them. That's the two two main main views on on blockful side. The goals here to understand if from this research, there is actual concrete models that we can use, from here, and if there's any opportunity to leverage, anything that comes from it to support, their connections, either from state, from private source, looking at, education, making sure their decisions if their decisions are now only spoken and abstract, it turns very hard to use them as anything legally binding, or anything legally protecting, it might have, lie an opportunity here to to make that clearer and more usable and in a modern system without having them need to change their ways of life to integrate, but actually build a system that allows their way to life to be easier to integrate. I know this is not a a deep dive in answers. As one of the first disclaimers, we are in an early stage of this. We have struggled, quite a bit in the first moments to find, the anthropologist willing to work, with us. We are gonna get into this researcher in a more, in a more active moment. Now with a bigger team for the second quarter, we're working in three people so far. We're going to go for seven people in this next quarter, and that should allow us to to get quarter, especially as specialist enter. But we are mapping this those questions. We're mapping those interests. I see that both of the questions, the the one from from Seth on, like, processes, norms, and events, the deals of daily life, war, and economics, are are a good way for us to to look into this more concrete analysis. But all other questions and curiosities that you guys have, maybe some I can answer from from the the things we've read and the experts have done so far. Maybe some will join this this next this next phase. But thank you for for for the attention so far, and feel free to to bring questions or or comments.

Yeah. I think I think those those three those x's in there definitely make for for a a broader view. What I can bring at this point without risking saying things that are not true, that I haven't been able to confirm with an indigenous source, is that daily life is mostly split between the roles of care, hunt, and gather. Those are the gender and age based differentiations as well as the religious that is done by specific shamans. As war, the enemy are known warrior people. They are, fighters. This coordination between autonomous villages is not only handshakes and peace. It is a conflictious environment where war is specifically for revenge on destroying something of our people or healing some of our people. Anything is is definitely a matter here and and a common a common point that even relates to their spirituality. And about economics, that's a bit a bit more out of of the understanding that we've got so far. I think I've brought most of the views we have, at this point, but the the economics of sharing publics, sharing commons is not, not hard for me to to comprehend deeply at this point, to bring explanation. I'm curious if you are saying stack in the chat. I'm not sure I understand.

have Okay. Go on.

K. So for I think the main sources that I've brought the best part of the knowledge we've got so far. I would put the the book the book from from David and Amami. It's David Kopanawa and Amami. It's called falling sky. There there should be a a movie coming out of it pretty pretty soon that's I'll documentary it on and their culture. It's just just been on a conference festival recently, so it's not yet openly available and easy to access, but it should be soon. But the book is, and it's was one of our main sources. There is a survival international. That's one of the one of the places we found most, also from W. Of interviews and and his points of view on on the on the ways of of life that they have. Most of the of the parts about conflict is international coverage. It's very weird for me as a Brazilian to see that this people live in Brazil, and any type of coverage of this in Brazil is super limited. It's way easier to find coverage of people who actually go on the ground and talk with people in in English sources than than Portuguese. Okay. I think I about sources that is a bit of the bit of the view. I can also share with you or in the group. I don't know what's the best way to to get the the sources, towards you guys, but I can coordinate with Val, to get our sources, to to everyone who's interested to to take a read, a bit further. The other part, that you asked about changing their their protocols. I have not seen any any specific, comment on processes of how it changes. I think what I observed in everything is that it's pretty fluid on itself. I didn't see a lot of, a lot of, definitive formality. Right? So if it's happening on a shamanic ride or a social gathering, if it's a speak a hunter, speaker per person leader, or if it's a religious leader that's conducting some decision, that'll happen dependently on who's more knowledgeable and recognized by their own community towards that. But there's very, very few mentions of any type of of a formalized structure that I I consider would be the reason to not have a need for a changing procedure towards those. But, again, that's a very good question for us to to include in further researching this.

Okay. Very good question. I have not even taken any look into if there's exceptions to how the gender roles are played. There I have from the readings, I haven't found any mentions of of any any breaking with this, nor have I seen a lot of enforcement. There's like I I didn't see any type of of of morality put on that's how it should be. Seems to be the way, kind of, like, the way it is. But but I wouldn't I wouldn't know, an answer for if there are exceptions or not. I think, definitely, they interact one of one another. It doesn't matter how experienced you are on something if it there's another limitation for if this role is yours or not. I see, especially, the capacity in there. I I mean it towards towards the oratory part where we're talking about both education and leadership. Like, there was, like, literally this this all all part about young boys practicing how they teach, how they talk, how they how they explain things to one another to to be, to be in in such type of of position, to be in such type of of role. That's something we'd be practicing since very young. I don't know if that's general, if that's specific for the some type of chosen kid, or I I do not have this this type of of deep look into it yet. It's something that we we couldn't really really find out. Our our hopes is that for this next quarter, we're able to reach the team around the book and the movie directly. We wanted to pass through the anthropologists first to make sure that we are not not just bringing the socially unconscious nerd with unsensitive approaches. So we're we're doing that work with anthropologists first, but we hope to get that type of detailing way better having actual opportunities to interview and and approach the groups. But But for now, I do not know the answer. Is there another clue? That stack?

Maybe this is building off before. I really I mean, just to kinda make my my question concrete, I really like your description of these names, and it's it's it's something to understand more about this idea of roles and how those are maintained. I like how those kinda make it concrete for me. From what you've shared, you know, I know that groups that are, you know, small, that are based on lifelong connections and that don't wield incredible power, like like marginalized groups. If you have those qualities, it's pretty easy to to well, it's very on the table to maintain a kinda decentralized, nonhierarchical, interpersonal based, you know, social order. And we we see it all over the place. And so, I'll be paying maybe this is answerable now, or maybe it's just something to pay attention to in the in the future. I'd be really curious how if that's enough to kind of explain everything that you like about Yanomami culture or or how much or, you know, what is in their practices that, you know, we haven't learned about yet that accounts for all of these great qualities. I I guess I'm kinda looking like it's almost I I I kinda I don't mean to fall in the devil's advocate role, but we'll call that, like, the kinda null theory, the the boring we'll call it the boring theory of of what's exciting of the exciting qualities of this culture. And I'm wondering what you can do to to dislodge the boring theory with with kind of more insight into actual practices and things they're doing. The upsides and the downsides, like Chase points out, to account for all these things.

I'm not sure I get, a lot of clarity on the specific question. I do I do think this is definitely easier on on small groups of long life proximity. There's no doubt. I'm not sure if everything is known. I think that's that's part of of what we're going for. We didn't start this idea with wanting to go down on the deep research of this specific aspects ourselves. We were counting on having that very well researched by other areas and be able to do the part of the abstraction from that to how to model and implement those differences. And what we found is that part of the sites that we want from these are just not available at this point. So we that we kinda took it to ourselves to take this extra step to, to allow for the part we were initially looking at. If there are, things beyond the boring, beyond the things we know, that's that's to be seen. I particularly didn't have a a lot of background on the on the Yanomami, before, Danny started, this project, with us, And it's been very, very curious to see that, for me, it's not obvious that those small groups have that easier decentralization time or it wasn't, until that point. So maybe that is something that is replicated in many different areas and many different cultures. I would would find it very interesting to to cross, to cross reference some of those once we have more, more data in here.

Hello. I'll just read it out loud. In doing research in another culture, especially to inform new, quote, unquote, better forms of governance, It's, in my opinion, a natural human tendency to cherry pick evidence or warp evidence in some ways that it fits better with our own cultural understanding. I was just wondering how your research group plans to prevent this tendency.

Dependency of looking as an outsider, not understanding and just speaking the parts that we want. That's the yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're trying to prioritize the best we can to have sources that are Yanomami or other indigenous cultures that are researchers and are researching to Yanomami instead of trying to get it from outside. I don't think we we ever stopped to make a clear plan. I think that that that's all at most at most, we can call it a strategy. Right? That is to to give to give priority to sources that we see that have some validation of their trustworthiness about that culture. And that I don't think the tendency here is for better in a sense of taking the place of the worst one. It's better if we have more ways to coordinate that are easily available in a digital manner so we can have the variety to to choose things that fit better for each type of project. So it's not a looking we're not necessarily looking for something that is superior, and it will make our current governing systems just old old stuff. It's it's just a view that it would be better if we could have this diversity of models to fit different needs. That's maybe maybe why the tendency towards this batter and this cherry picking. Yeah. We wanna look at that and take the best things that we find we can adapt to try to avoid our own blindness. We want to hear to people who are actually living it, and don't make that as a compete with the other, possibilities, but just make it one more one more choice. I I don't know. Does does that answer I would love to to understand what would be a a good plan if you guys have any experience on preventing this type of tenacious view. Like, we we do not have that inside our team at this point, or on a planning that's more concrete than what I just told. So all insights on that perspective are very welcome. Well, if not, we can follow with the stack. I see, what's the best way to follow along and or support your work. The best way is to follow along with Blockful's page on Twitter and with our GitHub that's not ready for for this one, it's not open, but Blockful, Blockful GitHub already is. Again, we're trying to be very careful. So we have this one on private until we get approved by our own topologist partner that we can make sure to to have to not be adding noise and wrong info to the to the table. One this one. Yeah. Blockfood.i0 have both the links for for our socials and for and for GitHub. To support, it's it's likely through GitHub to the best way If there's a specific, way to approach and support that you're interested, very happy to to talk, and, we we'd love to have more hands and more brains, looking at this even if, just for for reviewing, for bringing questions. That's very welcome. You can reach me out, on Telegram with at Zug. I'm giving a a link here, on the side just to make it easier. Let me get this here. But, yeah, I think those those would be the ideal ways.

Thank you, guys. Really appreciate the space and the questions.

Okay. Bye bye.