The Taboo of Compromising on (Social) Safety

This is a huge topic and it could use a whole book. This page only serves to get an idea of what we’re trying to do.

Let’s start of by saying that we do believe in the importance of social safety. Given history and counterexamples, we believe the development of social safety is something good.

But we do have to challenge the current reality of social safety. Important elements of TIDSUO include making small compromises on social safety.

A gathering hosted in a forest is less safe than one hosted in a walled off garden. The event could be compromised by strangers with malicious intent or wild animals.

A gathering hosted by individuals without credentials will lower the (perceived) social safety.

So we believe that there might be some room to work with. We ask the following of the current system:

• Has the need for social safety become too rigid? Does it discourage the taking of risks (which are needed for innovation)
• In what way does our need for total control (in for example, healthcare) influence our demand for social safety?
• Given the negative trend in the world, do we make ABSOLUTELY sure that our healing gatherings are 100% safe or do we host gatherings that are slightly less safe which could potentially integrate more?

One might get into an ethical discussion. Is the suffering of one person (gets bitten by a dog during a meditation) worth the healing of many others (1000 meditation sessions). We tend to choose for the option that avoids harm, as that is obviously bad while healing is not obviously good. We’re not enlightened, so we can’t quantify suffering either.

We don’t think we need to solve or argue about this discussion. We just think it is fair that the risk-taking side is considered equally as valid as the not risk taking side and we don’t think it currently is. We also don’t think there are spaces yet which hold enough presence to talk about this in a fair way and that our current discussion structure and maybe not even language yet is up to the task.

Which is why compromising on social safety is highly sensitive and extremely context-dependent!