Plex: 16 July 2025

The Biweekly Plex Dispatch is an inter-community newspaper published by Collective Sense Commons on first and third Wednesdays of each month. Price per issue: 1 USD, or your choice of amount (even zero).

In This Issue

• Inter-Community News and Beat Reporting (Peter Kaminski)
• Wisdom-Fostering AI Agents (George Pór)
• Stacks and Stories (Peter Kaminski)
• Trees of Palermo (Hank Kune)
• Remembering Joanna Macy (Ken Homer)

Inter-Community News and Beat Reporting

by Peter Kaminski

I’m organizing a couple of informal calls during the weeks of July 21 and July 28 for anyone interested in exploring a distributed version of Plex, with shared and cross‑syndicated stories across communities. These calls are meant to be an opportunity to:

• Rally beat reporters and other folks passionate about intra‑ and inter‑community news
• Co‑design how we can circulate stories more broadly across a Plex federation
• Discuss tools, rhythms, formats—building on the inter‑community newspaper ethos of the Biweekly Plex Dispatch (you’re soaking in it!).

Schedule is still TBD, so please email me at kaminski@istori.com with your interest and availability in those weeks. I’ll coordinate a couple of times that work for as many of us as possible.

Whether you’re a regular correspondent or just curious about what cross‑community reporting could look like, I’d love to hear from you. Let’s build together!

Wisdom-Fostering AI Agents

by George Pór

Recently, I was appointed to serve as a Distinguished Fellow at Schumacher. This Fall, I plan to lead a 4-semester, invitational Action Research webinar series about Co-Evolving with Wisdom-Fostering AI Agents. Detailed information will be published by the end of the month on the program’s website.

Somebody asked, who will be eligible to apply for an invitation?  Below is a section of the draft syllabus.

IS IT FOR YOU?

Maybe. You decide. You are certainly eligible to be invited if:

• You are attracted to work on three planes of evolution — personal, communal, and planetary
• Inspired more by facilitated, collaborative learning (capability development) than traditional academic knowledge transfer
• Your relationship with the possibility of wisdom-fostering AI agents falls into the blue zone

Stacks and Stories

by Peter Kaminski

Jerry Michalski convened last Thursday's 2025-07-10 OGM Call around the topic of the quest for our “next stacks” and the power of narrative.

I attended the call, and later used NotebookLM to ingest the publicly available call and chat transcripts so I could ask it to provide a few looks at the call from different directions.

The following text was curated by me and written by NotebookLM powered by Gemini 2.5, using the transcripts as sources. I have reviewed the text and I believe it's a fair representation of the call, but I have not reference-checked every bit of the text. NotebookLM has this disclaimer about text it generates: "NotebookLM can be inaccurate; please double check its responses."

2025-07-10 OGM Call

The participants in the 2025-07-10 OGM call extensively explored the intertwined concepts of “stacks” and “stories,” viewing them as fundamental frameworks for understanding and shaping both human societies and the development of artificial intelligence. Jerry Michalski introduced the discussion, noting that “stacks and stories” were a “combination of 2 things that are in some of our heads”.

Understanding “Stacks”

The core metaphor of “stacks” was borrowed from software development, where a “stack” like LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python) represents a set of software components that work together elegantly as a suite. Jerry extended this concept to describe society, delineating a “Civilizational Stack” (encompassing liberal democracy, courts, separation of powers, capitalism, and a free press) and an “Organizational Stack” (including C corporations, 501(c)(3)s, government services, and NGOs).

A central point was that current societal stacks are “crumbling” and the “social contract seems to be broken everywhere,” leading to widespread protests and an “involuntary renegotiation of the social contract”. The challenge, Jerry posited, is to identify what new stacks are needed and what principles should govern them, emphasizing a “mostly bottom up with a little bit of top down” approach. John Kelly further elaborated on stack evolution, suggesting that people initially consent to protocols for “narrow purpose,” but these can then be discovered to have “broader potentials” that are “generative” and can pull people into a new stack. This organic, bottom-up evolution allows for “shared meaning” to emerge from participants, rather than being imposed from above. Pete Kaminski highlighted that the success of the LAMP stack, for instance, was greatly boosted by “crisp encapsulation and branding,” making it a “strong brand name” that facilitated adoption.

While Gil Friend initially found the stack metaphor “awfully linear” and preferred “mycelial networks” to describe complex systems, Pete Kaminski defended its utility, arguing that stacks help decompose complex systems into manageable “hierarchies” and “layers” for understanding and working on them. Pete also introduced the concept of “containerization” in software, where multiple stacks interact within a whole system, allowing for abstraction and working at higher levels. Historical examples of “smearing over time” in stacks were also discussed, such as the evolution of character encoding from the 1870s to modern Unicode, demonstrating how older layers persist and influence newer ones. Kaliya Identity Woman emphasized that the success of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in the “Protocol War” was due to its “better governance” and clear path for “incremental improvements”. She stressed the “underappreciation for the power that protocols have and an underinvestment in supporting good ones develop”.

The Power of “Stories” and Narratives

Narratives were identified as the “second force” in shaping human behavior and guiding people into different stacks. Jerry noted that powerful stories, such as “neoliberal stories” or “the Invisible hand,” can “eat our world” in profound ways, leading to significant societal transformations.

Klaus Mager explicitly linked this to Yuval Harari’s idea of “stories as software” that enables large-scale human collaboration. Klaus explained that “values” form the “foundation” or “pyramid” upon which shared trust and cooperation are built. He observed that shared stories, even “fantastical” ones (a point Jerry echoed regarding religious stories), powerfully influence human behavior and can “create swarm like behavior” on a large scale.

Stacey Druss introduced the concept of “Stacks of stories,” observing that “opposite stories” often possess an “identical narrative structure”. She posed a critical question: “Why is it that there are opposite stories with the identical narrative structure. Because if we haven’t figured out why this works, how do we dismantle this system that’s operating to keep us in dysfunction”. Stacey advocated for a “Resource library” to collect and organize “stories that light the path to a better world”. Kaliya Identity Woman raised concerns about the spread of “nihilistic postmodern ideas” in universities, which she believes undermine foundational cultural anchors and material reality, emphasizing the need to preserve “good parts” of Western culture while respecting indigenous knowledge.

The Interplay: Philosophy, AI, and Ethical Stacks

The “Philosophy Eats AI” video, which Rick Botelho found “quite illuminating” and a “door opener,” served as a catalyst for a deeper exploration of how philosophical principles and virtues underpin both human and artificial intelligence systems. Rick’s key takeaway was the idea of using virtues as a non-hierarchical framework for guiding development, contrasting this with hierarchical value systems that often lead to conflicts. He advocated for “humanity guided AI enabled emancipatory Neo learning” to foster “open-minded truth-seeking free thinkers”. Rick demonstrated this by using AI search engines (like Perplexity AI) and NotebookLM to analyze “compound ethical questions,” discern biases, and reduce content to different reading levels (e.g., 6th or 12th grade) to make it more accessible and create “generative and strategic dialogue”. Klaus Mager also discussed using AI agents by “building a stack” to “facilitate generative dialogue” and improve learning methods.

Klaus issued a stark warning about the ethical implications of “building software stacks” for human contexts, referencing Nazi Germany as a historical example of a “solid” stack built on horrific narratives with “horrific results”. He stressed that there is “nothing inherently ethical or moral about building these stacks”. This warning extended to AI development, as Klaus highlighted the “dangers of tinkering with AI algorithms trained on specific stories,” citing Elon Musk’s attempt to “re-educate Grok,” which resulted in “anti-semitic diatribes”. This illustrates how changing the underlying “base stories” of AI can lead to undesirable outcomes, underscoring that AI is “driven by stories” just as humans are. This reinforces the critical need for philosophical and ethical guidance in AI programming to ensure positive societal impact. Doug Breitbart added that emotional connections are vital for protocols and frameworks to succeed, likening emotions to “water” necessary for life, and emphasizing that the “naming” of a stack can give it “grounding” and safety.

In essence, the discussion highlighted that both human societies and AI are built upon deeply embedded “stacks” of shared stories, values, and protocols. The conversation emphasized the ethical imperative of consciously choosing and shaping these foundational narratives and principles, advocating for a human-centric, adaptable, and ethically guided approach to leveraging AI for collective advancement.

Key Themes

Foundational Narratives

Stories were central, described as “software” influencing “human behavior and societal movements”. Yuval Harari’s idea of “shared stories” enabling “large-scale human collaboration” was key, underpinned by “values” as the “foundation” of a “pyramid” of trust. The “purposeful disruption” of narratives creates societal dysfunction, even when “opposite stories” share an “identical narrative structure”. The need for “positive stories” for a “positive future,” contrasting with “negative stories,” was emphasized. Religious and cultural narratives, even “fantastical” ones, were powerful mobilizing “stacks”.

Protocols

Protocols were seen as crucial for how “layers” within a “stack” interact. The IETF’s success stemmed from “better governance and clearer path for incremental improvements,” a contrast to the unadopted OSI stack protocols. There’s an “underappreciation” and “underinvestment” in good protocol development. Stack evolution often occurs bottom-up, as consent to “narrow purpose” protocols reveals “broader potentials,” fostering “generativity” and “flexibility” without a top-down “oath”.

Shared Goals

A “clear shared goal or concern” was considered the “bottom of the stack” or “foundation”. The Apollo 11 moon landing illustrated a “SMART goal” mobilizing “a hundred thousand people”. The challenge lies in finding “shared stories that actually resonate” beyond “motherhood statements”. Yet, even “trite” clichés can “resonate with human experience” and imply a “common intention or aspiration”.

Societal Structures and Outcomes

These principles apply to “The Civilizational Stack” and “The Organizational Stack”. Participants noted these societal “stacks” are “crumbling” and “not working well,” leading to global protests seen as an “involuntary renegotiation of the social contract”. The discussion explored the need for “new stacks” or “pieces for our new stacks” that are “easy to copy and appropriate,” to foster a “better society”. Understanding these foundations is vital for addressing dysfunction and building more functional systems.

Examples of Stacks

The participants in the conversation provided various examples of “stacks,” both in their technical, original sense and as a metaphor for complex systems in human society and behavior.

Here is a list of the examples of stacks discussed:

LAMP Stack

This is the most frequently cited example from software development. It stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. It is described as a “set of pieces of software that work together as a suite, really quite elegantly, to let you build out websites, web services”. The success of LAMP was attributed in part to its “crisp encapsulation and branding”. Participants noted that LAMP was often chosen because it was “free” or because investors mandated its use.

OSI Stack / OSI Layers

This refers to the Open Systems Interconnection model, specifically its seven layers: Physical, Data Link, Network, Transport, Session, Presentation, Application. It was a model for network communication. While widely used to describe the internet, the OSI protocols were ultimately NOT adopted and are not running the internet today; instead, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) model (like TCP/IP) became more successful due to “better governance and clearer path for incremental improvements”.

TCP/IP Model

This refers to the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol model, which has layers such as Application, Transport, Internet, and Link. It is the foundation of how the internet works.

Civilizational Stack

This refers to the fundamental components of Western liberal democracy. Elements include democratic process, courts, separation of powers, capitalism, and a free press. This stack is currently perceived as “crumbling” and “not working well,” leading to widespread protests and an “involuntary renegotiation of the social contract”.

Organizational Stack

In the Western context, this refers to common organizational forms such as C corporations, 501(c)(3)s, government services, and NGOs. It also includes “little vestigial organizational forms like L3Cs, special purpose corporations, and B corps”.

Religious and Cultural Stories

These are considered powerful “stacks” that can “powerfully influence human behavior and societal movements”. They often serve as “foundational cultural anchors” and can be “fantastical” or “otherworldly” yet form the basis of belief systems and actions. It was explicitly asked, “are religions stacks?” with the response that “The ones that last a few thousand years certainly are stacks”.

Narratives / Stories as Software

Yuval Harari’s concept that “stories as software” enable “large-scale human collaboration” even among strangers, with money being a prime example. These stories form a “pyramid” based on “values” which build “shared trust” and allow complex collaboration. The challenge is that “stories are being purposefully disrupted” leading to a “fight over narratives”.

AI Agent Stacks

Klaus explained his approach to using AI agents by “building a stack” that dictates their behavior and responses based on the foundational stories they are trained with. He noted that when Elon Musk tried to “re-educate Grok,” tinkering with the “base” led to “anti-semitic diatribes” because AI is “driven by stories”.

Historical Layers/Stacks

Pete mentioned how character encoding standards have “smeared over time,” with current Unicode/UTF-8 being built upon earlier systems like Baudot’s 1870s binary code, demonstrating how “older stacks” or layers persist and influence newer ones. Jerry also referenced James Michener’s novel “The Source,” which explores layers of history in an Israeli “tell,” connecting it to current geopolitical conflicts as “layers of history that are sort of burned into everyone’s memory and soul and family” forming their “stack beefs and beliefs”. EBCDIC was also mentioned as a historical layer that was “outcompeted and disappeared”.

“Stacks of Stories”

Stacey’s concept of “stacks of stories” suggests that “opposite stories” often have an “identical narrative structure”, leading to dysfunction.

“Philosophy Eats AI”

This concept suggests using virtues as a non-hierarchical framework for guiding development, in contrast to hierarchical value systems that often lead to conflict. It implicitly refers to a “stack” of philosophical underpinnings.

“Metaphor” as a Stack

Gil raised the question, “Where does ‘metaphor’ sit in the stack?”, and Rick followed up with, “And what are the stacks of metaphors?”. This implies a conceptual layering or system for understanding metaphors themselves.

“The Musk Stack”

Eric mentioned “The Musk Stack” as a potential example, suggesting how specific individuals might attempt to implement their vision of a “stack”.

Hypercard Stacks

Eric also brought up “Hypercard stacks” from early PC days, recalling a more “innocent and heady” time of learning.

Docker Containers

Pete discussed “containerization” in software, where “a whole working system” can be collapsed into a container, which might include “multiple stacks interacting with each other in a way that makes a whole system”. This concept is compared to container shipping in physical logistics, which revolutionized international trade by abstracting and condensing elements.

“Motherhood statements” / “Motherhood protocol”

John Kelly suggested that people might initially “consent to a protocol for a potentially narrow purpose” which then reveals “broader potentials,” using the idea of a “motherhood protocol” that enables other things. This implies a foundational, widely agreeable layer in a societal stack.

Minority Themes and Possible Next Steps

Several minority themes emerged during the discussion, offering fertile ground for future exploration beyond the primary focus on foundational narratives, protocols, and shared goals.

One significant, yet underexplored, theme was the call for material investment and practical action in building new societal “stacks”. Kaliya directly challenged participants to consider how those with “assets (houses, retirements, stock portfolios)” are “investing in the new world” by acquiring land for farmers, building new centers, or founding co-housing communities. This shifted the conversation from theoretical understanding to tangible, on-the-ground implementation, a critical but brief interjection.

Another minority theme involved the deeper psychological and emotional underpinnings of narrative and protocol adoption. Stacey explicitly asked why “opposite stories with an identical narrative structure” work, highlighting a desire to understand the mechanisms that keep society in dysfunction to dismantle them. Doug Breitbart further elaborated on this, emphasizing that successful protocols must connect to “fundamental human needs” and possess an “emotional component,” suggesting that purely intellectual frameworks are insufficient for universal acceptance and sustainability. Rick also introduced the idea of virtues as a non-hierarchical framework for guiding development, contrasting them with values that often lead to conflict.

What This Group Could Consider Tackling Next Time

Based on these emerging themes and explicit suggestions, the group could pursue:

A Deeper Dive into AI Ethics and “Humanity-Guided AI”: Rick’s offer to share his “deep dive analysis and AI search results on compound ethical questions” and his use of NotebookLM for “emancipatory learning methods” presents a clear next step. This could integrate Klaus’s work on “building AI agent stacks” based on foundational stories and values, and explore how to program AI ethically to discern biases.

Practical Strategies for Building New Societal “Stacks”: Moving beyond metaphor, future discussions could focus on concrete methods for prototyping and implementing “pieces for our new stacks that are easy to copy and appropriate”. This could involve examining Kaliya’s “Sideways with Grace” project and “Neighborsheds” as examples of community-level stack building and conflict management, or Jerry’s work on blending indigenous wisdom with modern approaches.

Understanding and Shaping Narrative Power: Re-addressing Stacey’s core question, the group could explore the psychological and sociological dynamics behind narrative resonance, and how to intentionally craft and propagate “positive stories” while counteracting those that cause “great dysfunction”, integrating the role of emotion and elemental needs in this process.

Links Shared in Call

Inspected for broken links, but use caution, it's possible there are still some broken or incorrect links.

• Aluna the Movie: Ecological Warning
• Bairn (Scottish/Northern English term for child)
• Creating a World That Works For All (book by Shariff Abdullah)
• Docker (software) - Containerization
• EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code)
• Émile Baudot (pioneer of telegraphy and binary code)
• From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation
• George Monbiot Talk on Narrative (bra.in link)
• GitHub: run-llama/notebookllama
• Google NotebookLM
• Hand Identity
• Homo narrans (Humans as storytellers)
• Identity and Systems Leadership for Catalytic Change (PDF)
• Jerry's Nuggets: We Used to Know How to Live in Community on the Commons
• Kaliya Identity Woman's IETF Research
• LAMP (software bundle)
• LIMSPEC, HIMEM.SYS, and EMM386.SYS (DOS memory management)
• Living Between Worlds Zoom Meeting
• MUMPS (programming language)
• Manfred Max-Neef's Fundamental human needs
• Mechahitler Grok Meme
• Neighborsheds (PDF)
• Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence: Explained (YouTube)
• Project Xanadu's ZigZag
• SMART (project management)
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Gutenberg)
• Shared Power and Collective Action: The Path to a Thriving Future (Google Slides)
• Sideways Earth: Ostrom's 5 Principles for Governing the Commons
• Sideways Earth: Verifiable Community
• Summer of Protocols 2024 Cohort
• Summer of Protocols Gitbook
• Summer of Protocols Kit
• Summer of Protocols Reader
• Summer of Protocols
• System Leadership Resources (PDF)
• The 20-Ton Packet (Wired article on shipping containers)
• The Common Way Institute
• The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
• The Source (novel by James Michener)
• The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
• The Web’s Inventor Regrets One Small Thing (New York Times archive)
• Tristan Harris TED Talk (on AI and MAD)
• YouTube: What is happening with Grok 4
• ZigZag (software)

Trees of Palermo

text and photos by Hank Kune

The capital of Sicily is a city of many things: churches, palaces,
villas, sculpture, statues, street markets, ice-cream and granite,
baroque and Norman architecture, and with all of these, it is a city of
trees.

Some of the oldest and most interesting ones are in a small park near
the harbor: the Piazza Marina and its Garibaldi Garden. Take note of
the Ficus macrophylla subspecies columnaris, the Australian banyan.

You can find them in other parts of the city, and other Sicilian cities
too – but here there are several, in a park, together. The trees here
are old, and large, and surprising, even when you have seen them before.
They are a little like cities themselves, with the aerial roots from
their branches, which become additional trunks when they reach the
ground and support the enormous weight caused by the foliage.

There is a specimen here planted in 1864, more than 30 meters high and
more than 20 in circumference. With its 10,000 cubic meters of foliage
it is considered by the Accademia dei Georgofili to be the largest tree
in Europe.

There are other beautiful trees in this park, and elsewhere throughout
the city. Palermo is thriving, bustling, personal, beautiful -- and just
when you think there is too much gray, or ochre, or brown, you will
notice the green. Palermo is also a city of trees.

Remembering Joanna Macy as she prepares to leave us

by Ken Homer

I first met Joanna Macy in 1992 at a Buddhist Peace Fellowship retreat.  There were about 80 of us gathered at a retreat center just outside of Oakland. It was mid-afternoon and everyone was in that post-lunch-blood-sugar-crash-don’t-make-me-think-lull. We were standing around in a circle yawning when Joanna said, “Oh dear, we need to shift the energy here and wake ourselves up!”

So, she had us create “a storm.” She started by imitating the sound of the wind and told people to make that sound as she pointed at them and her arm swept slowly around the entire circle. We each vocalized when she pointed to us and the wind that began as a sigh soon built in volume, pitch, and intensity. She added different sounds for rain, thunder, and chaos, and each new sound she introduced overtook the previous one as it moved among us. She had us snapping our fingers, clapping our hands, and stomping our feet. Soon there was a raging storm of sound and a lot of smiling faces. We were now awake!

I needed to use the restroom and when I returned, I discovered that everyone had paired up with a partner for a “parent-child” walk, where the person role-playing the parent would lead the person role-playing the child around the property. The instruction was for the child to react to whatever the parent was showing them as if they were experiencing it for the very first time. Besides me, the only person without a partner was Joanna so she became my child and I hers for about 20 minutes in each role. I still recall clearly how this woman, who was nearly 30 years my senior, was able to connect with childlike wonder and essentially become, for a moment, a child once more. I brought her over to a jasmine bush and she inhaled deeply and smiled so broadly that I had no trouble discerning what she must’ve looked like when she was but a wee lass. This was the first but not the last time that I would witness her graceful fluidity in assuming different aspects and perspectives on life.

Over the next few years, we would run into each other often at BFP events. She was on the faculty at a program called Deep Ecology Summer School, a two week-long retreat in the redwoods in NorCal, which I attended in the summers of ’93 and ’94. It was there that I, along with dozens of others, participated in many of her marvelously constructed processes for connecting deeply with the land, the life it supports, and ancestors both past and future.  During the years we were in regular contact I had many long talks with her about the Dharma, dependent co-arising, systems thinking, deep ecology, the growing threat to our home world, approaches to healing, and life in general. We fell out of touch in the 2000s but her influence on me continues to this day.

Few and far between are the people I’ve met who are of her caliber.  People who have such a tremendous grasp of the way life works along with the imagination, creativity, and talent to connect people in profound ways, to awaken them to what is important in life. Joanna shaped my thinking in ways that were both deep and broad. I cherish the times I spent with her, and with Fran, her husband, who was a formidable intellect and a hell of a nice guy.

Fran left this world in 2009, and it seems Joanna will join him shortly.  The world is a better place for the both of them having the courage to do their part in supporting the narrow bridge of life that connects the dead to the unborn.

Joanna, you have my deepest thanks for the ways in which you made me a better person. Wishing you a peaceful transition to the next world.

With love from an old student of yours,

Ken

Thank you for reading! The next edition will be published on 6 August 2025. Email Pete with suggested submissions.

Grateful appreciation and many thanks to Charles Blass, Ken Homer, Hank Kune, and George Pór for their kind contributions to this issue.