How Consensus Works 

Hope y'all enjoyed! Check out _Consensus: A Handbook on Formal Consensus Decisionmaking_ for more advice and guidance on the process: www.consensus.net/pdf/consensus.pdf

me: that's a great idea! my social anxiety and conflict aversion: hi

We use consensus at our meetings. Can confirm: Consensus Works

ik this is an old video but i also wanna add: for people who feel uncomfortable sharing their concerns with the group, you could set it up so that issues could be submitted anonymously. for example, everyone could write down their thoughts an a small piece of paper, and then they could get mixed and read in a random order. that way, nobody would know who said what unless they came out and said it!

Bwai, RU-vid really doing me dirty w/ the post notifications but mi come for the title and stay cause ya accent. My Caribbean bredren ✊🏿

Haven't had the time recently to look into how consensus works in detail and this video was basically a godsend Much love from this Nigerian anarchist Keep up the great work mate

among most people who are any fun to be around, the process used to decide what to have for lunch is just informal consensus. hurray! most of us intuitively already do consensus everyday!

Consensus combined with fluid democracy seems like a really good solution to me. Essentially you can give someone ''your vote" and retract it at any time. Your 'representative' will attend consensus meetings on your behalf. This can be because you don't have time to attend every meeting, because you don't really understand the specific issues, or you have no strong feelings. But if there is an issue you really care about, you can still go and speak for yourself. With this a commune of 200 or so people might be able to narrow down their decision makers to the most trusted members of that community, who can communicate and make a consensus.

I happen to be the owner of a discord server for survivors of childhood sexual abuse and I've decided to try to implement consensus decision making on it (if everyone agrees obviously). I think it is the best system for a server like this since well potentially things can go very wrong otherwise but also because I think the very act of giving survivors this kinda agency and control is healing.

I am currently binging your content except for breaks to let the lessons sink in. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your incredible mix of practical advice, historically-informed perspective and community-based solutions. The fact that we're from the same region might have something to do with it but I don't want to give that credit for what is mostly due to the work and love you put into your videos. I will probably comment effusively on a lot of them sooooo I'll keep this short. Thank you so, so much.

I’ve been struggling with this exact thing in a new mutual aid project I’m involved in… thanks for the tips, I’ll spread this knowledge on

11:48 A note on the facilitator and their role in "keeping discussions on-topic": as an AuDHD person, a very common characteristic of autistic and ADHD neurotypes is an ability to make connections between topics that often appear completely unrelated and feel like abrupt shifts, particularly to people outside of those neurotypes. This can lead to autistic and ADHD individuals with meaningful, insightful perspectives and concerns getting shot down or even ostracized and excluded by allistic and neurotypical people who perceive them as simply "being disruptive" and "going off-topic" rather than asking them to elaborate on the connections they're making and how they relate to whatever topic is at hand. Given that, I feel very strongly that it shouldn't be up to any individual or group within a given space to decide what is and isn't "on-topic"; instead people should be asked for clarification when confusion arises.

All of the groups i led in Uni used consensus, I thought we weren't legitimate, because we didn't use votes, but votes just seemed silly and unnecessary and restrictive. My local community association uses consensus as well, and we use subcommittees to share responsabilities and focus on problems. I haven't seen a conflict yet though... so maybe we'll devolve into voting when that time comes. It's so good to hear about the power of consensus. I've been rallying for it for over a decade, but it's felt weird, because I haven't had anyone affirm my beliefs until now. Everyone I knew believes either "do what you're told" or "rely on voting" :\ [I'm white and most folks I know are white [and tend to be middle class or better off]... it may say something about the way we do things >.>;;]

My classmates and I are working on a group decision making application for our class project. This helped give me a lot of ideas thank you ☺️

I really liked the proposed process of consensus.

This is on point. The graduate classes I've attended function this way and they are spaces where everyone learns and I don't exit the class feeling as if I were dominated. I feel *smarter* than I was when I entered the classroom. This isn't to say that this is how every graduate seminar functions but to lend current day legitimacy to what's being said here. For each seminar we read things ahead of time then show up to class to discuss them and create knowledge collectively. This was a great video.

I've implemented Consensus on my Discord Server for half a year now, even sharing your video in the rules for people to understand the concept. Monthly Consensus Meetings to ask what people want the group to be and 100% consent vote on leadership. This has eliminated any potential drama since everyone consents to the elected leadership. Though some things are done democratically, so we added the idea of "pausing" a vote. It's a power that pauses the vote at hand to discuss any concerns, despite it having a super-majority.

Family, ya have yet again saved me a ton of time and effort! I have another vid I can point folks to lol Always love hearing things put better than I often end up putting em. ✊👊🖤☮️🥀🏴🌐A///E

I was struggling to understand the video at times until I realized it comes with subtitles. I don't know why I didn't think of checking it at the beginning.

I really appreciate that you took the time to talk about the potential problems with consensus and situations where it's not used. I feel like that's honestly rare to see in videos of this sort. Thank you.

your videos are so empowering and inspiring. I always feel a little smarter, a little more prepared, and a little more aware. I am extremely ignorant in a lot of ways regarding all of this and my attention span and available time makes it very hard for me to sit, read, and absorb books or other long-form literature, especially academic (hate that gatekeepy bs) so these nice little introduction videos make me feel less anxious, and even moreso do I appreciate your sources and further research, since that way I know if I DO find the time to read something heavier, then it won't be something not worth bothering with.

The first time I encountered consensus decision making it was not set up to succeed. It was with a group of teenagers and it was about what to order for lunch. There was also no scribe keeping track, so points had to be raised multiple times by the same person. I walked away with the idea that consensus was a nice idea but in practice leaves everyone hungry and grumpy. The group building process is integral, knowing who you are working with and why you are aligned together is absolutely critical.

This was absolutely incredible!! Thanks for yet another amazingly informative, practical, and actionable video!!

Found this due to Aaron Bushnell preferring consensus-based decision making to majority democracy and it has massively changed some of my views. Thanks for the video, Andrewism!

If anyone's curious more about the history mentioned here, I got some resources 2:39 FYI, that image isn't from ancient Athens. Its from the Roman Senate in the late republic, which was extremely aristocratic, hierarchical, and dysfunctional. That's literally a painting of one senator denouncing another. This video from Historia Civilis goes into some great detail on the workings of the Athenian government ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pIgMTsQXg3Q.html 4:42 Historia Civilis also has a great video on the Haudenosaunee confederation, focusing on its government structure including both the successes and flaws in its system. Despite the video's title, he very quickly switches to using "Haudenosaunee" instead of "Iroquois". ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-S4gU2Tsv6hY.html

Excellent video! One thing that I feel is not addressed enough (at least not directly) when it comes to talking about consensus is that it functionally creates and maintains shared narratives surrounding decision made by and actions taken by the group. Narratives are how humans make sense of the world around us and this process has people intentionally create shared narratives. Groups that have shared narratives are more likely to stay together whether it's a family, community/social group, ethnic group, or nation. Neiliberals and fascists understand this, too, and it's why they treat narratives that counter theirs as a threat (see: CRT). That is why they manipulate narratives (see: US history taught in schools as well as provocateurs like Andy Ngo). That's why they seek a monolithic society. It's an attempt to manufacture consensus in their favor. Shared narratives are the threads that hold people disparate identities, perspectives, and experiences together and they just so happen to be a byproduct of the process of coming to consensus. Also, I feel a lot of people don't realize that it takes a lot of time, effort, and commitment to build up to situations were, to use an example from the video, 300 families can successfully trust in and use this process. I also don't feel it is necessarily less efficient, especially on a larger scale in the long run. How much time and how many resources do we continually put into continually dragging people along on social and needs-based issues? The US's system incentivizes invalidating other ppls perspectives and narratives and force yours to the forefront, not taking time to make sure everyone is heard and understood in the name of efficiency when it really isn't for anyone who doesn't subscribe to and share dominant narratives.

Doing the thing for the thing so people will see the thing. Keep doing the thing, brother.

Thank you, these days its easy to forget how much of a real chance to build a better world we have. I am grateful for your sobering reminder of how we can organize on the basis of collective consent.

Both the 1976 cuban constitution and the 2019 changes to it were developed through 1000s of advisory meetings with most of the adult cuban population at the time. This is one of the largest scale and most contemporary examples of consensus democracy

I went through an whole college class called “Interpersonal Communications” and it was about half as useful and the information presented in this video.

Good luck with this channel. You're doing good work, and have done a lot to broaden my own limited horizons.

I appreciate how clear and detailed this video was!

Another fantastic video- thanks a lot for your work!

Love what you do brother, keep it up ✊🏽

Great video, thank you so much for your work.

I've been working on building a hypothetical model for a government system that could run a country as big and complex as mine (The USA) under anarcho-communist / collectivist principals. This video actually helped me figure out a very specific issue I've been rubbing against, which is that direct ranked-choice democracy isn't the be-all-end-all solution I use to think it was, and a better alternative (like consensus) that ensures no minority group goes unheard or ignored is absolutely necessary to avoid potential political backsliding.

great video! Love information about communication and constructive discussion, it's a powerful tool!

This is a fascinating video. I've been lurking on your channel for a while, but I've finally subbed after this. I really appreciate your ability to both make your case, but acknowledge potential problems in it. Thank you for your work!

I watched the whole video. Really liked it but I have a few criticisms. As the racoon man Slavoj Zizek said "I do not want to spend all day in community meetings to make each and every decision. Little alienation is good". Of course there was that other talk by David Graeber where he attended one of these community meetings and people were there tirelessly for days, enjoying it. It really depends on the type of place you live in. If you live in the burbs, community outreach in public parks is always welcome, but people need more alienating methods for the time being. Stuff like Sortition/Lottocracy, Instant Run-off voting, and checkbox based voting might be more welcome proposals. It's also better if there are community decisions made on point by point basis as opposed to voting for leaders -- allowing for a less fragile system (one or two bad policies does way less harm than voting in a bad leader). I wish I can turn the burbs into Rojava, and if anybody has experience/struggle doing such a thing I would love to hear from them.

This is really good. Thanks brother 🙌🏻

Love your channel. Such an important video too.

5:52 AHAHAHA! AHAHA! I'm still wheezing over the fact that you basically went full "for consensus to work, everyone has to agree before the question is put on the table". I sent this after I finished watching the video. Anything about resolving disagreement felt like lip service. Alluded to, but never addressed.

I feel like a board game can be made out of the idea of Consensus. You got 5-6 people with jobs and a bunch of note cards with "Issues to solve" and "Idea's to implement." There'd be no winning...exactly, just an attempt at finding an answer that would work. Maybe add some other cards for context like "You live in a forest." Probably wouldn't be much of a game but good for exercising the idea and practicing the concept.

Can't begin to explain how vital your content is. Thanks for all of this!

Good vid. Checking out Post Comprehension 👍

GREAT WORK

Yesssss thank you!

Thinking about using this video as a structure for a theatrical experiment/live show to help people learn about it!

Another wonderful video! I'm very curious about how this can be implemented in activism. I've heard some activist advocate for hierarchy because of it's efficiency so for a while I didn't know what the ideal system for movements should look like. It's nice to hear other possibilities, contexts, and evaluations of these systems. This helped to give me a better understanding of consensus, thanks. 🙂

Something I would add is that (at least in my experience) reminding people to stay on topic is crucial to a good consensus process. I went to a school based on consensus as a kid and the vast majority of the time that I saw actual anger and argument, instead of debate, was when people were getting off topic. But as soon as someone reminded everyone what decision or conflict we had originally sat down to resolve the anger would almost instantly stop. And then we'd either get back on topic, decide what we're talking about really is on topic, or decide the new topic is more important and switch the focus of the meeting to it. Even when we switched focus the anger would be gone. I still remember the time someone started going on a loud, sudden and extremely irrelevant rant about something that they could've easily resolved outside of the consensus process, and then immediately going silent when simply asked the question "is this really on topic?" The ranter didn't even respond because they knew it clearly wasn't on topic, and then everyone went right back to having the meeting.

Face to face is key. Fantastic essay!

I reject the premise that the difference between Thai food and Chinese food is trivial.

This is very useful

15:10 Although I've never seen it being used, I would favor approval voting as way to do vote when multiple options are on the table. People vote on which proposals from a list of many they approve of and the one approved by most wins. The key features is that voters can approve multiple options. I imagine this would also be a great way to elect facilitators too. Obviously, it would have to be implemented to see how it works in practice. The disadvantage here is that approval voting can be open to tactical voting by savy voters who can bullet vote for only one option. This can mean that those with the understanding of the mathematics can put the thumb on the scale, lying about what they believe in order to change the result. Unfortunately, this is true of nearly all voting systems involving more than 2 options (as in its literally a mathematical inevitability). This can be partially remedied by requiring voters to vote for a minimum and/or maximum number of proposals to make sure the views of savy and power hungry voters are not overrepresented.

Nice video! This is another favorite topic of mine. You know a lot about this, have you facilitated the formal consensus process before? Years ago, I used to be involved with a facilitation subgroup in a network of activists locally. I'd love to compare notes! I'll recommend another Graeber book, because it's my favorite thing. If you haven't read it, Direct Action, an Ethnography has some fascinating stories about the use of the consensus process by the NYC Direct Action Network. He describes consensus meetings of up to 500 people! (Whether that was a modified consensus, I'm not sure.) In other cases with larger groups, I've seen people use the spokescouncil model. Great video again!

What are your thoughts on Lottocracy (Sortition)? Random members of the public would be selected to write the legislature. Since it's random, we would have a heterogenous population with people from a variety of income levels, ethnicities and education levels writing the policy. It would be built on a culture on consensus as explained in this video. All policy would be written, re-written, and re-re-written until the members are satisfied.

Sociocracy works with consensus (they call it consent) and presents options work with large groups. Check the book Many Voices One Song.

As long as there are no measures to coerce the minority into conformity, I think we are fine and consensus will be reached and works. There is the concern of cultural coercion. In which for example it is taught that as long as 90% have agreed you "have to" conform. Then if someone disagrees, they are automatically forced to follow the majority. If you remove the coercion factor, I think people will automatically find ways to live together and adjust. I this sense I am a bit against strict definitions of consensus. Because a form of cultural coercion might form. As long as we don't define rights and wrongs, we can learn to respect each other's opinions.

Great video! Do you ever consider doing deep dives on any subject? Or even criticism of existing/ past movements and projects like CHAZ or something?

Hi! I've watched some of your videos and I think you might like checking out "The Open City" in Ritoque, Chile. It's a utopic comunity of architects, poets, artists, musicians, filmmakers, etc. They also call it "The Consensual City", because all decisions made in it involve the consensus of all its inhabitants and guests.

I like this as it pertains to organisation theory. What I can't wrap my head around, however, is vis-a-vis political theory: genuine states of exception/emergency exist, and historical inertia often has a way of normalising/eternalising/formalising ad hoc measures that derive therefrom. Further, if that dissenting sub-groups are allowed to found a new community once the emergency is considered over, how would a consensus democracy reconcile possible further dissenting parties over whether or not it ought to help the founding of that new community at its own expense? From the standpoint of cost-benefit analysis, if help is indeed given, would not the help be severely truncated or outright rejected? To overcome this problematic, either (1) the duty to meaningfully help would have to be constitutionally grandfathered in (but that would be performatively contradictory to the tenets of consensus democracy) or (2) the underlying material conditions, which give rise to cost-benefit calculus in the first place, would have to be eliminated in toto (but is this even possible, or, better yet, does it even make anarchist sense to assert as possible in the face of leftist critiques of neoclassical economics on grounds that the latter presupposes infinite growth in a resource-scarce world?). I wholly welcome partisans of anarchism or this particular strain thereof (which I assume is prefigurative anarchism--please correct me if I am mistaken) to enlighten me on the above. For frame of reference, I'm neither a liberal (in the broad politico-theoretic sense of the word) nor a centrist; I consider myself, at least politically, a staunch pragmatist (albeit not in the centrist/reformist sense) in the Zizekian sense that any seeming unity is always contingent and short-lived--hence, in fact, why I also consider the Marxist means-end unity to be a theoretical impossibility.

_Give us more bread, algorhithm!_ I: Excellent video. More people need to see this

I'm so glad I found your channel, your analyses are always thoughtful and well written (and are actually based on the real world, which is a breath of fresh air from the terminally online discourse)

Are you going to / have you already discussed Paticipatory Economics?

I sorta agree mostly. The way I see it direct democracy is generally the only governing system for anarchism in practice. Paris Commune Morelos Commune Free Territory Ukraine Autonomous Shin Min Anarchist Aragon Rev Cat Zapatista Chiapas Rojava All have/had direct democracy. That being said consensus democracy and direct democracy aren't two opposite binaries. No anarchist system can thrive without a mixture of both. We should have majority vote, just so it could reach a consensus for compromise of the losing minority. Hell this is even how it works in my local IWW.

This video is great. I've mostly experienced this kind of decision making in groups where the members have broadly similar ideologies. How would you handle serious ideological differences when simply leaving the group might not be doable? I'm thinking something like a neighborhood assembly, where leaving the group would probably mean moving. Also, what are some ways to prevent a few intransigent folks from politicking with their block power? I can imagine someone coercing the group to accept an unpopular proposal by threatening to block every proposal until they get what they want. We've all met That Guy. Would that be a time to fall back to a directly democratic method instead?

I think a community of civilian scientists and, generally, public involvement in experimentation and research could greatly increase trust. It seems to me, especially in recent years, that large groups can be manipulated emotionally to go along with even outlandish ideas. Data is data, though, and data that is repeatedly verified by multiple independent sources, especially everyday community members, should be hard to deny.

have you heard of the CIPO-RFM in Oaxaca? Their an Indigenous Anarchist organization that uses consensus. I think they're worth looking into.

Great resource.

Wow. Without any means of coercive control of people, consensus is the naturally emerging solution. Requiring less energy to listen and collaborate than to attempt to force agreement.

I am yet again asking for open debate to help me understand some of these concepts better. I have serious fundamental misunderstandings about how a stateless society would function, and I'm hoping that one of you- ANY of you can help me understand. I love solarpunk and the idea of stateless society, but I just don't see how it would be safely implemented. My fundamental misgiving with solarpunk and other stateless models is this: how would a stateless society possibly hope to defend itself from encroachment by another society that does have a central state? It seems like community defense measures would fail if they had to go up against a centralized military industrial complex. Maybe the stateless society could build up a formidable defense force akin to a regional UN? I don't know how this would work. Please argue with me to change my mind

I like the idea of consensus and try to apply it in my decision making with my friends but i find two major problems to which i cannot find solutions: -bad faith: Some people will try to meet their selfish goals using bad faith arguments. What can we do? call them liars? If everyone is not sincerily trying to find consensus how can we reach it? -different goals: Some think the problem is immigration(and will stick to their position mainly because of bad faith or endoctrination) while thers think the problem is war that causes immigration. If we have different goals how can we agree on a way to solve anything? I'm not sure my problems are that big, or well explained but i hope someone in these comments will be able to help me find ways to surpass these issues.

I love consensus

Throughout the video the argument I had in mind was about TERF bathroom bills. What could be gained if a trans person were told to "argue for an opposing viewpoint" on an issue like that? Or would that be a case where no good-faith facilitator should take that approach?

How on earth do you keep putting out bangers so quickly fam

Hahaa. My dude, why are you always posting specific topics that always at the front of my mind?! Recently, I actually cared enough to attend a consensus-based decision-making ... I guess I'd call it a seminar, or workshop

4:40 what place did this?

Great work! You should look into making a discord channel!

11:48 not THIS guy! 🤣🤣🤣

Haven't completed the video yet, but I just wanted to say that how I presumed this video was talking about Consensus Democracy in the national level. It might say that at the end, and if that is the case then I would disagree. Something like this can only exist in a relatively small group or town, not for a whole nation. It doesn't mean we can't improve the current democratic process in most democracies, but rather that we would need something much more, plausible, effective and not so time consuming. Because I think this would be much more time-consuming even for a small group or town. It works, but there could always be some people who want to have their own way and will retaliate if their idea isn't accepted word to word.

This sounds very similar to sociocratic consent decision-making

My experience with consensus is that it generally ends up with a couple of socially dominant people steamrolling everyone else and calling it a consensus

Consensus is, very conveniently, doing whatever I want

👍✊

Is anyone familiar with the confederacy mentioned at 4:43? I would love to learn more about it!

Question: I was in a group that functioned on a voting system, and we had a member who was consistently making women in the group feel uncomfortable. Eventually, the women brought it up in a vote, and the member was "booted" from the group. Obviously the women had valid concerns, but it still felt like the member who was removed was never given a voice, and nobody seemed to mind. I've since left the group, but my question is: How would you recommend dealing with issues in which members feel unsafe around other members?

For the algorithm

Isn't this just regular debate? Maybe just without the voting?

On the contrary I think when you have a few people together deciding what to have for lunch they usually very often naturally engage in consensus decision making. Get things like what do you want to have for lunch I don't care what do you want to have for lunch oh I don't care well were you thinking anything maybe McDonald's you want McDonald's yeah kind of but it's gross yeah that's true. You want to go to the vegan place. That might be decent I'm not really in the mood for the dishes they serve what about ramen etc. It doesn't have the formal organization of a note-taker and facilitator and timekeeper and all those things but like the basic structure of here's a proposal what are the details bat back and forth their ideas and then come to a decision

I'm testing it, no contestation as of yet. Give it a try

consenSUS

On one hand: it's a great way to have truly egalitarian decision making process On the other hand: when we need a global movement to meaningfully change status quo (and we need it asap bc of climate disaster and all comrades who are continuosly suffering) there will be many situations where it's sadly not an avaliable option

Isn't super majority rule teh same as minority rule?

This sounds a lot like how scientific consensus and scientific research is done. Im assuming that this organization of society would be heavily driven by science and empirical evidence.

very much been appreciating your content, all so timely and relevant and informative. AND accurate captions out the gate? unheard of 😭 thank u 🙏🏼

Sorry this is (partly) unrelated, but you really need to read a book called Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. I cant recommend it strongly enough, it will change the way you see the world. I feel like an ahole for commenting this without directly relating it to the video topic, but if you combine the idea of the memetic ecosystem with the symbiotic ideas of that book you'll see how it applies

Algorithm

I really don't understand the point of consensus. 90% of anyone making the case for consensus is them repeating over and over again that it's about close-knit groups ensuring that "everyone's voices are heard" but high levels of participation in democracy and Deliberation do not define consensus. Participatory and Deliberative practices take place within majoritarian systems of decision-making all the time. This video even says that consensus tends not to work outside of groups of "15-20 people" which is basically like saying "consensus doesn't work but if you have a really really close-knit group you'll never have to notice that it doesn't work." Finally, perhaps most importantly, when principles of consensus are applied on a larger scale they hamstring collective decision-making. That thing about "maybe we can just have a rule where we require, say 80% majority instead" that already exists, it's called a Supermajority. And in practice supermajorities lead to government inaction. A slower government that can only act on the bills that everyone agrees on is not an improvement over a fast government that acts in the interests of a simple majority, and which can change course is the majority opinion changes.

But there are too many people