Church of the Intelligent Multiverse
an alternative religion offering a synchronicity explanation related to the meaning of life and I forgot the other two keywords
Code for Orders
An order is an independent organization operating under the Default Rules of Procedure (DROP) and which has adopted this Code for Orders unanimously, retaining both without contradictory modification. Orders are made up of a hierarchy of subordinate organizations called councils. A council is a group of several members, one of whom is the leader. Councils are subordinate organizations as authorized by the DROP. Their own resolutions are void where they contradict resolutions of superior levels of organization, this Code, or the DROP. Only unanimous vote of all participants may adopt a modified Code or DROP.
Councils have superior and subordinate relationships with each other. Each subordinate council has only one immediately superior council, but a superior council can have several immediately subordinate councils. Councils which have the same number of councils superior to them are said to be on the same level. Participants of an order can be members on multiple councils, provided those councils are each at a different level.
Higher-level leaders will also be leaders at lower levels, and on all councils the leaders are also members. The leader of each council is always a subordinate member on the immediately superior council. All the councils and participants subordinate to an individual leader make up something called a sector. The highest-level council in an order is called the high council. The leader of the high council is called the president. The participants of the high council are called the deputies. The sectors led by the deputies are called departments. The highest-level council in a sector is called the sector council. Resolutions of the high council are resolutions of the entire order and resolutions of a sector council are resolutions of the entire sector.
On each council, each member has a seniority score representing cumulative achievements as a member of that council. Procedurally, seniority score determines seniority, as under the DROP, except that status as a council's leader automatically confers top seniority in that council regardless of current seniority score. When seniority scores are tied, age is the tie breaker. Normally (in a sedentary order) a participant will have a different seniority score on each council the participant participates in, and when a participant joins a council, the member starts with a seniority score of zero and when the member leaves the council that seniority score goes back to zero. New participants of an order start with a seniority score of zero. A member’s seniority score on a council increases when the member is awarded merits, and it decreases when the member is awarded demerits.
Members receive merits and demerits at evaluation meetings, which are held regularly by each council. Members have a right to be present, but all others are at the discretion of the senior member present. Members give each other merits or demerits, and this is called rating each other. Leaders and other members cannot rate themselves. At each evaluation meeting the leader can award every other member a merit or a demerit (or neither). At each evaluation meeting, members other than the leader can select one other member (including the leader) to be awarded either a merit or a demerit. A member can be rated whether the member is present or not.
Each member absent at the start time of an evaluation meeting automatically gets an additional demerit, and each member present at the start time of the meeting automatically gets an additional merit. At each evaluation meeting of a council the leader automatically gets an additional seniority score adjustment which is identical to the rating the leader most recently received as a subordinate member from the leader of the next higher council.
Councils at the bottom of the hierarchy, which have no subordinate councils of their own, are called basic councils. Only basic councils may induct new order participants from the public or expel participants from the order. By becoming a member of a basic council, a person becomes a participant of all the sectors that council is part of, including the order.
To be a participant of an order a person must be a member on a basic council. A basic council inducts a new participant by resolution. A majority of the council members must vote in favor of a candidate for the individual to be inducted. Subsequently, the leader of a basic council can expel any other member of the council who has a negative seniority score. For each member of a basic council who has a negative seniority score, the leader also receives an automatic demerit at the end of each evaluation meeting.
Other than the president, leaders normally start terms at the beginning of the year. At the end of each year, all leadership status ends (except for that of leaders whose terms run until leap day) but council member status continues initially. In the first moment of the New Year, the most senior member of each basic council becomes the leader of that council and a member of the next higher council. Above the level of basic council, it goes this way: in order of increasing level, through a succession of moments, each council gains as a member any leaders of immediately subordinate councils who were not previously its members, then members of the council who are no longer leaders of immediately subordinate councils cease to be members of the council, then the most senior remaining member of the council becomes its new leader. Whichever continuing member of a council had the highest seniority score after the first second of the year will be its leader for the entire year. Once attained, leader status continues regardless of any other status (including life or death) and regardless of subsequent seniority score. At the start of each New Year, continuing members on each council retain former seniority scores on the council and new ones start with seniority scores of zero.
Unlike other leaders, a new president is chosen every leap day instead, and a president may not serve two consecutive terms. On leap day, whichever deputy has the highest seniority score on the high council becomes the new president unless that individual was the previous president.
An order lacking a president may choose one by resolution of the high council, but if it fails to do so by the close of its first business meeting without a president, then the most senior member of the high council becomes president, to serve until the next leap day.
Evaluation meetings are always in locations or settings which have been prescribed by resolution of the council. The high council establishes rules for setting a recurring schedule of times and days for regular evaluation meetings of all councils throughout the order. Evaluation meetings must be scheduled to occur at least monthly and no more often than weekly.
In accordance with the DROP, organizations (such as councils) can hold business meetings any time a quorum is assembled, but this code demands that no business meetings ever be started during an evaluation meeting. Calls to initiate a business meeting during an evaluation meeting should be ignored as void because a meeting is already under way.
Each sector council has the power to fission, or bifurcate, an immediately subordinate sector into two sectors under certain conditions. A council can only fission a sector which has 10 or more immediate subordinates, and can fission it only into two new sectors of at least 5 immediate subordinates each. The council ordering the fission decides which subordinates of the bifurcating sector will go into which of the new sectors, but it may not otherwise break up the immediate subordinates of the bifurcating sector. When a sector undergoes fission, members of the sector councils originally retain the same seniority scores in the new sector councils that they had on the original council. Following a fission event, both new sectors resulting from the fission (and their sector councils) will get new leaders, based on which participant of the new sector has the highest seniority score on the sector council at the time of the fission, and those leaders will serve out the remainder of the year.
When a sector has fewer than the minimum number of immediate subordinates it is automatically disbanded and unless the sector is an entire order all its participants are expelled from the order (though they may then be re-inducted into basic councils in the remaining parts of the order). Usually the minimum number of immediate subordinates is five, but the exceptions are that an order can have as few as three departments and basic councils can have as few as three members. When an order itself dissolves, the remaining departments become independent orders (unless the entire order was just a basic council), and the former deputies become presidents of those orders, to serve until the next leap day. This may be scheduled irrevocably by the high council.
When an order has 15 departments the president may add a level to the order by just dividing the 15 or more top level sectors into 3 groups, which will be the new departments. Seniority on the former high council is cloned and retained on both the new high council and the new department councils. The most senior member of each new department will be the deputy and leader of the new department and department council for the remainder of the year. An order which consists of just a high council may add a level when it has just 9 or more participants, by using a resolution to divide up into 3 or more basic councils (whose members will inherit seniority scores cloned from their scores on the former order council) and appoint new leaders for them who will make up the new high council.
A president may eliminate a level from the order by just eliminating the top level. Thereafter, members on the new high council will include not the former deputies but all their former immediate subordinates. From such a level reduction, the former department sectors simply cease to exist and their former immediately subordinate sectors come to be immediately subordinate to the president and the high council instead. After a level reduction, all high council participants start on the new high council with seniority scores of zero.
By resolution of the high councils of both orders, a larger order may adopt a smaller order of the right size (one fewer levels) to be taken on as an additional department.
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Rating Leadership Rule (RLR). By resolution of the high council, an order may adopt or repeal a rule that members in all councils may not rate other members in contradiction of the most recent rating of that member by an immediately superior leader. Under such a rule, a member cannot legitimately give anyone a merit that the individual’s own immediately superior leader most recently gave a demerit, or give any one a demerit that the leader gave a merit. No other rule may ever bind code authorized ratings.
Nomadic Orders Rule. By unanimous vote, the high council can declare an order nomadic, as opposed to the usual which is sedentary. Also, by unanimous vote, the high council can take the order the other way, making a nomadic order sedentary. In nomadic orders, each participant has only one seniority score which is tracked at order level, but otherwise council ratings modify that score as usual. Thus, participants who are not leaders can retain seniority and transfer into another basic council if it will have them. When an order goes from sedentary to nomadic, each individual’s score becomes the total of the all the council scores that individual was a member in. When an order goes from nomadic to sedentary, each individual’s score on each council is initially equal to that individual’s former order seniority.
Property Rule. Orders may register as corporations that can own property. The disposition of that property is entirely under the control of the high council and the law.
Congregation Rules. Sedentary orders may also designate just one other level of sector for permission to also incorporate and own property. Such subordinate sectors which may incorporate and own property are called congregations. The disposition of congregation property is entirely under the control of the congregation council. Congregations must be extended the following special protections. 1. By majority decision of the congregation council, a congregation may secede at any time and become an independent order. 2. When a congregation loses the right to remain a congregation it must give all property to the order, or else secede and become an independent order. 3. Finally, the high council of the order may give all congregation leaders a term of office just like that of an order president. If they are in effect, such terms extend from one leap day to the next and two such terms cannot be served consecutively.
Dissolution Rules. Before an order dissolves, its property should be divided equally between the former departments which will be its successor orders. Exceptions can be made by consent, such as if a successor order is willing to give up a certain amount of cash in order to retain a piece of real estate rather than have it sold so the proceeds can be divided. But the law takes precedence over this preferred way. Planned transfer prior to dissolution is ideal, so for that purpose departments may establish themselves as corporations prior to an inevitable order dissolution.
Officer Rules. For incorporation, orders and congregations may have to fulfill legal requirements such as appointment of officers. The order president or congregation leader has unilateral authority to take all such required actions, appointing and dismissing other officers at will.