Coda: In Plain Terms

In plain terms: the first version of the app should be small, should refuse more than it does, and should first of all teach people something about themselves — what presence feels like — before it ever asks them to coordinate. — In the Cardinal Scale the app was a mentor before it was a marketplace. People learned, through its quiet feedback, what a regulated nervous system felt like and what it was to truly meet someone. The coordinating came after the awakening. It always does.

Toward the coherent substrate. This is where most people will first feel the pivot. The app brings people together on their word and rewards presence instead of harvesting attention — a coordination device, yes, but first a biological mentor that helps a person sense their own state and truly meet another's. It is how the ecosystem begins: people finding out who they really are, how they differ from who they assumed they were, and where — and with whom — they can actually be present. The bodies we can co-regulate with are, more often than not, the ones with whom we land in the feeling of home, or of inspiration. And to be clear: Providence does not begin as a government or a marketplace. It begins as an app, and builds slowly from there.