XLP-Manual Chapter 7. XLP Philosophy
Micro,Meso,Macro
The XLP curriculum has three tiers:
Macroscopic in Nature
Globally search and compile relevant information, and creatively tell a compelling story using trustworthy data sources and presentation techniques.
Mesoscopic in Sorting Order
Apply optimization technologies and understand the principles of optimal limits, so that participants and teams can apply optimization to all their learning activities.
Microscopic in Contexts
Guide participants to be acquainted with domain-specific vocabulary and rules, so that they can leverage existing bodies of knowledge in an organized manner.
The three categories of courses are built on top of our Remix platform, which provides a foundation of industry-standard tools to help XLP participants achieve the goals of their curriculum.
The MD’s and ME’s learn individually and collectively. The community of sponsors, MD’s, and ME’s is a microcosm of a larger context – for example, a university, a society, or a nation. XLP challenges every learning team to be a focused, goal-oriented microscopic society in a digital publishing/learning workflow environment.
Theory U
Theory U is a change management method created by Otto Scharmer, who has worked with Tsinghua University and Xu Lili (Theory U’s China Coordinator) to refine XLP. The principles of Theory U are suggested to help political leaders, civil servants, and managers break through past unproductive patterns of behavior that prevent them from empathizing with their clients’ perspectives and often lock them into ineffective patterns of decision making.
Several of XLP’s steps correlate with Theory U:
By following these principles, we can achieve several beneficial outcomes:
Early Success
Provides resources and knowledge that enables participants to kick off their learning journey with excitement.
Fail Early,FailSafe
Ensures participant learning assignments are challenging enough, so they can observe their shortcomings and correct their course of actions in the early stage of the mission.
Convergence
Guide participants to re-combine their team structures to create a synergistic product/service with other teams.
Demonstration
Every learning program should end with a ceremonial event that allows participants to summarize their learning experience and present it to other people who may be future XLP participants.
Lessig’s Four Forces
Lawrence Lessig’s Code Version 2.0 states that a number of forces regulate the behavior of individuals in a society or community:
Law: The Rules a Community Recognizes
- Imposesconstraintsonthebehaviorofmembersbyexplicitlythreateningpunishmentor sanctions that the community as an entity will enforce.
Social Norms: How a Community Expects You to Behave
- Similar to the law in that norms constrain behavior of community members
- Unlike the law, community members impose social norms on each other informally
- Whereas the law, and (prospective) punishment for breaking the law, is explicit, social norms are understood by all, or most, of the community without being explicitly stated or mandated.
Market: How Much Do You Pay?
- Enables buyers and sellers of goods, services, information, labor, and capital to exchange.
- Themarketforcesofsupplyanddemanddeterminetheequilibriumlevelofpricesineach respect market.
- Implicitly regulates behaviour of community members, for prices can fluctuate rapidly dependent on consistency and reputation.
Architecture: The Way the World Is
”The way the world is, or the ways specific aspects of it are.”
- The way a product(not a service)has been designed, created, manufactured, or built.
- Regulates community members by imposing physical or technical/technological constraints.
- Special due to ”agency” - does not require direct human intervention to operate (whereas other forces require police force, community members, merchants, etc), so it is ”self-executing.”
While each of these regulating forces is separate and distinct, all four influence each other as they regulate the behavior of community members.
Example: Smoking
In Code version 2.0, Lessig uses the regulation of smoking to illustrate the operation and inter- dependence of these four forces. If you want to smoke, Lessig asks, what constraints do you face?
Law
Federal, state, and local laws laws regulate:
- Minimum age and ID requirements
- Where you are permitted to smoke
- Tax on the purchase of cigarettes(aiming to reduce smoking incidence)
Social Norms
Social norms can constrain behavior even more than laws:
- Smoking in the house of a non-smoking friend
- Smoking near children in restaurants
Market
- The higher the price of cigarettes, the more financially constrained you are by smoking
- Higher insurance premiums for smokers reduces the desire to smoke
Architecture
The way cigarettes are designed and manufactured.:
- Filterless cigarettes are more dangerous, so more pressure to reduce smoking.Ultralights may tempt you to smoke more (thus costing more in terms of money and social norms)
How do the Four Forces Interact?
The four forces are interdependent; they interact, and influence each other as they regulate the behavior of individuals in the community. A change in one may influence another. Using the example of smoking:
Social norms → Market
Market → Law/Social norms
How do the Four Forces Relate to XLP?
Since XLP is a methodology for crowd-learning, these four forces also (by definition) regulate the behavior of individuals in each micro-learning community, and ultimately increasingly large macro learning communities.
Law
The law is constituted by XLP’s digital recording infrastructure (legal evidence collection mechanism), which allows the filing of complaints, patent filing, and law enforcement.
Social Norms
One of the most important forces shaping social norms in XLP is the idea that all learning out- comes must be demonstrable. One of the most important end products is publishing the crowd- learning results online using a digital publishing system.
Market
XLP’s transaction validation system records and validates transactions executed in the crowd- learning environment.
Architecture
XLP’s technology architecture is one of the most important forces that regulate the behavior of individuals in our crowd-learning environment. Architecture is the only one of the four forces that, once created or enabled, does not require direct human intervention to operate. It func- tions alone and directly; that is, it is ”self-executing.”
The architecture in XLP’s crowd-learning environment is the Remix Platform, a combination of hardware and software. A later section in this manual will describe it in detail.
The Four Forces, XLP, and The Real World
A noteworthy feature of XLP is how each force within a specific micro- or macro-learning community interacts with the same force in the ”real world.” For example, much of XLP’s legal frame- work interacts with that of the real world: It is difficult to divorce the two, given that the real world’s legal frameworks and mechanisms have evolved over centuries, and to regulate the individuals in a community. Patents filed in the XLP crowd-learning environment may very well also be filed in the real world, for example. If XLP is internationally and legally recognised, then this process of duplication may become automatic.
Similarly, given that one of the most important end products of an XLP activity is publishing the crowd-learning results, it is natural that these results are published via a real-world means like social media, other online media, or traditional media that is accepted by social norms.
In the market, a product or service might attract investment in the XLP environment – and might attract real-world investment too. Intellectual property in XLP’s environment might also be bought and sold in the real world.
Finally, XLP’s architecture has its roots in the public commons of universities, and specifically physical campuses and other resources that enable the crowd-learning environment to emulate the the real world to a large degree. This is an important factor in XLP enabling learning on a large and public scale.