DRAFT
People who push vertical common sense over horizontal process are absolute prats and very normal. But they’re not just “prats” – they’re the default outcome of how most people have been trained to think and act. Vertical thinking feels natural because it’s everywhere. Schools, workplaces, government, media, all teach the same pattern – someone decides, others follow, outcomes are judged quickly and conflict is suppressed or escalated.
So when people enter horizontal spaces – like a Fediverse project, a grassroots group, or something like #Oxfordboaters – they don’t suddenly become different people, they bring that conditioning with them. That’s why you get the messy behaviour we need to compost – pushing for quick decisions instead of slow consensus, defaulting to authority (“someone should just decide this”), treating disagreement as a problem to shut down, not work through leading to valuing efficiency overtrust.
From a #OMN perspective, this isn’t an edge case, it’s the mainstreaming pressure coming into horizontal paths. And here’s the uncomfortable bit – if you don’t design for this, vertical logic will always win, not because it’s better, but because it’s simpler, faster, and culturally reinforced.
So what’s actually going on (under the hood) is horizontal process is hard because it depends on things most systems ignore – trust (which takes time), shared context (which is uneven), emotional labour (which is invisible) and conflict mediation (which is messy). Vertical “common sense” cuts through all that by skipping the hard parts. That’s why people fall back to it, especially under stress.
The mistake to avoid is calling people out as “the problem” doesn’t fix this, it just creates another loop of conflict. Because they are the system we’re trying to move beyond, if you push too hard against them, you often just reinforce the behaviour they double down on control, others retreat, trust collapses. It’s a normal pattern.
The useful shift (#OMN framing) is instead of “these people are wrecking things” we try “this behaviour needs mediating structurally”. That leads to different responses, ways to handle it:
- Slow the decision layer down as vertical actors thrive on speed, so you build in friction – no instant decisions on complex issues, require visible discussion before action, document context before outcomes. Not to block – but to force process.
- Separate spaces (this is key). You need different environments for different modes: fast chat → messy, reactive, low trust – working groups → focused, semi-trusted – face-to-face (“whisper fire”) → high trust. Then don’t let chat dictate outcomes, because chat almost always amplifies vertical behaviour.
- Make process visible and normal, as people push vertical solutions when they can’t see the process working. So write down how decisions happen, show where input goes, reflect outcomes back to the group. This reduces the urge to “just take control”.
- Route conflict, don’t suppress it, vertical systems suppress or explode conflict – Horizontal systems need to hold it. That means acknowledging disagreement early, moving heated issues out of public chat to use smaller trust groups to work through tension.
- Build trust anchors, without trust, horizontal systems collapse into power struggles. So you need consistent people doing consistent work, small wins that build confidence, repeated interaction over time. Trust isn’t declared – it accumulates.
The blunt truth is we won’t get rid of vertical behaviour, ever. What you can do is – stop it from dominating the system, that’s the real job.
The #KISS version is people pushing vertical “common sense” aren’t unusual, they’re normal. If you don’t design process to handle that, horizontal project will slowly turn vertical, so the goal isn’t to fight those people. It’s to build structures where their instincts don’t take over, and where trust, not control, becomes the thing that actually works.
