Duncan Autrey

About this episode’s guest

I have spent my whole life dreaming about how to make world peace. This project is both the culmination and commencement of me truly living into that dream. with this project I believe that I’ve found the intersection of my passion, purpose and profession.

I trust can live into this goal:
Facilitating the healing and evolution of our democratic systems and political culture, so that we can co-create a future that works for everyone.

Duncan’s Journey

Please enjoy this tour through the thinking that brought me to launch the Omni-Win Project.

2015

This is the year I returned to the U.S. and I launched Fractal Friends

Welcome to Fractal Friends 

I am opening a space here to shift our global conversation. We are leaving behind the question of right vs. wrong. We are abandoning the age-old question of us vs. them.

Here is the new plan:
We are accepting that we are all in this together, like it or not.

The Three Rules of Conflict

1. The conflict is never about what the conflict is about.

2. Whoever is not involved in resolving a conflict will find a way to involve themselves on their terms.

3. The process of managing a conflict and the outcome are the same.

 

2016

This is the year I knew that I needed to start doing something about our political crisis, even if I knew that others might not be on the same path.

Divided Politics in the United States

Our political system is corrupted. The mainstream candidates are beholden to corporations and lobbyists, and they are out of touch with the average citizen. For this reason, people are beginning to clamor for a serious change in our political system. The concept of a political revolution has become part of our day-to-day conversations.

I, too, have serious concerns about the state of U.S. American politics. While living abroad for many years, I watched in horror and fascination as the United States continued to lose its credibility on the international stage. 

The Deal with Fractals… Finally 

The underlying proposal of the Fractal Friends project is that humanity, guided by culture at all scales, is also a fractal. This is especially true when we look at our choices, behavior and how we experience conflict.

I Came With a Treehouse Full of Flowers

I have a vision for a society where we recognize our common humanity is a dream, a fantasy. My proposal that we’re all in this together seems to be a reality that I’ve constructed in my head. I worry that it may only exist here inside of my head because the world around me is so eager to push back against it, to doubt its validity, and/or to prove it wrong.

Choosing a Lifelong Practice

The choice to engage in a lifelong personal development practice includes a second interdependent paradox: On one hand, this choice commits me to deep unending effort. There is no destination, so the need to start anew constantly faces me. On the other hand, it is a journey that I get to release into. I simply need to allow it to unfold.

The Value of the Repair after the Rupture (Part 2: The Importance of Crisis)

We are in a world of diverse people and perspectives that will not always align. It means that to have a world with thriving people and relationships, we’ll need to give a voice to those perspectives. This will often lead to rupture, especially if we are still unskilled in how we say “yes” or “no” or if we still struggle with people saying “yes” or “no” to us. We are all in a lifelong process of learning how to be humans, so we can also practice being patient with one and another.

2017

I call this “The Year of Diappointment…” I let a lot of people down.

2018

We All Win, or We All Lose

We have been here before, yet this time we have a rare opportunity. We face the potential collapse of empires, civilization, and maybe even humanity, but we (collectively, not individually) actually know what’s going on this time. We know where we are in time and space. We can see more clearly now than ever before that it is us, the sentient beings on this planet, that are going to have to figure out together how to survive on this planet sustainably. It is up to all of us, and no one else, to make the course correction.

The Dangers of Division and the Challenge of Cooperation

Division, separation and polarization will kill us by making us collectively ineffective in facing the complex and significant challenges in life. Division will destroy us by undermining our ability to claim and enact shared values. Separation will kill us by driving more and more people into the dark well of loneliness that is the precursor to suicide. We either can learn to embrace the complexity of life, do the difficult work of finding our common cause, or we can choose to die alone collectively. 

2019

Going Upstream: Shifting from Conflict Resolution to Conflict Transformation

Lately, I’ve shifted my focus to teaching people the skills they need to prepare for conflict, to transform it into a positive experience, and where they can maintain and deepen the relationships with people they disagree with. I want to work with people who recognize the value of their long-term relationships and see that relationships are not served by anyone winning or losing. I want to help people work together, build beautiful futures, and navigate complexity with agility.

2020

New Decade’s Resolution

We don’t have to live this way. We have all the answers to be as prosperous as we could want to be. We have an abundance of brilliance and so many beautiful dreams. We care so much, so deeply. This cuts straight to the heart of all of us, and that’s why it’s so scary. We have to learn to trust ourselves; I have to trust myself.

So again, this is my advice for myself, for everyone, all of us together, and for you:

Remember, you have everything you need to start making the world you want to live in.

Every answer to your questions is within you.

All you need to do is start believing it’s possible, and then get to work.

Omnipartiality – A Bias in Favor of Everyone

I think, however, that it is time that we begin to apply the principle of omnipartiality to the rest of our lives. A certain magic happens when we think about how to extend omnipartiality in all directions. We can value and work towards the prosperity of all humans and cultures. We can desire the best for past and future generations, for the tiniest organisms and the whole planet; we can even desire the best outcome for life and existence itself. We can be deeply selfish and profoundly care for others at the same time. We can want the best for our allies and rivals and want the best for the victors and the vanquished. I propose that the omnipartial manifesto would be:

Let’s try to make the experience of life as awesome as possible for as many as possible. 

Vision 2030

When I consider my current work and intentions, project them into the future, and allow myself to imagine how they would play out into reaching the most amazing outcomes, this is what I see:

A world that operates from the shared understanding that we are all in this together, optimized to support the truth that we all have a role to play in the whole. To do this, there will be a shift in thinking. We will learn to let go of the ideas of “right and wrong” and “us and them.” It is no mistake that these are such powerful guiding forces in our current culture, yet we will see that they are false dichotomies in the future. We will resist that kind of divisive thinking, knowing it to be the path to our mutually assured destruction.

Instead of us/them, we will shift our attention to everyone being part of a greater whole and each whole being part of an even greater whole. We will understand the importance of the successful participation of all parts to make the whole succeed. This omnipartial approach would orient our society towards supporting people in finding their best expression, helping to remove the barriers to their full participation.

2021

It’s Time to Upgrade Our Democracy

We need to develop a win-win (omni-win) democracy that considers and serves everyone. People need to be able to have direct input into the decisions that affect their lives. A great democracy would be able to make decisions that are workable for almost everyone. Even better, democracy would be able to harness the generative power of diversity, polarities, and conflict itself and use that power to improve our collective capacity to meet everyone’s needs. Here’s the best part, this idea is not a fantasy.

We already have the tools to create an omni-win democracy.

2022

Civilizational Collapse: We Need Anti-Rivalrous Governance

We need collective input. As politicians create these propositions, they should be listening to the affected people. That’s a core value for me, and it’s a core concept here in the Omni-Win Project. Some questions to generate that collective input: 

• What’s the question we’re trying to answer to? 

• Do we agree it’s an important question? 

• Do we agree that we have identified the problem?

• What does better look like? 

• Can we have a shared understanding of what good means?