Scaling up – multiplication by division
I was asked a question recently by someone considered a luminary in my field.
How do you scale up the work of Syntropic? How does this work reach the masses?
It is the wrong question, for it assumes that a Syntropic World works at a mass scale, inviting all the usual tropes of growth and scaling of business-as-usual.
One of the principles of the Universe I was taught through my study of Buckminster Fuller is the principle of Multiplication by Division. To multiply anything, divide.
This is the basis of mitosis, or cellular division, where the growth of our biology occurs from a single cell zygote into a complex human being.
What we do in Syntropic World is divide to multiply. Keep each unit small. Have thousands of small units held within a larger unit. Repeat. Holons, or whole parts.
This is also the principle of localism. Change the whole system by changing the local systems. Repeat.
When we work this way, we invoke other principles of Universe, such as Unity is Plural, at minimum two. For every living system, there is polarity, a complementary pair.
Syntropic World works at both polarities, local and granular and large scale systems change. Not one or the other. Both.
Each unit, or holon, can be a collection of other holons, held within a membrane boundary that holds the shape and integrity of that holon. In Syntropic World the boundary is held in the Trust Manifesto and Synergistic Audit.
When there are too many units within a single holon, too many people, we divide the holon so we now have two holons.
The commitment becomes the communication between holons, both within the bounded holon and between other holons.
Biology is brilliant at this. Within the complexity of human biology, we have cells that become the cells of the liver, held within a boundary of the liver, but not separate from the whole person, or the heart of the same human.
If we consider a human as a fractal of Earth, a whole and a part, then each organ within the human body, with its own function, must co-exist with the other organs. Each community, each Nation, each language set, is a part of the whole.
We are not seeking to make an undifferentiated homogenous humanity. Little clones operating under the same set of rules. This is the directional arrow on monopoly and monoculture. It cannot survive, for nature needs diversity to survive. (DEI initiatives are essential for any organisation or community to thrive. The Nazi idea of an Aryan race is a certain path to collapse and death.)
We want the liver to do liver things. And the heart to do heart things. Neither works without the other. They are interdependent.
Not scaling up, but rather maintaining the vitally unique functions towards a whole working system. Scaling out. Breathing together, for life for all, yet holding our individual functions within a collective.
Get this right at the local level, be that local digital or local physical, and then to multiply, divide.
Photo June 20th 2025, Article written June 20th 2025
