stiasti

Stiasti is a fictional concept used in speculative fiction and role-playing communities to describe a form of community organization based on shared governance and mutual aid. In these settings, stiasti communities aim to minimize centralized authority and maximize participatory decision-making.

Originating in discourse within virtual and printed speculative fiction, the term stiasti is typically presented as a neologism created to denote a practice rather than a tribe or place. The name is usually treated as an abstract label rather than a fixed historical origin.

Core principles include consensus-based decisions, rotating leadership roles, councils or juries, transparent budgeting, and reciprocal obligations. Assemblies convene regularly to propose and resolve issues; decisions are often recorded publicly, and mechanisms exist to hold individuals or groups accountable through collective votes.

Variants appear across works: some depict stiasti communities inside city-states, others as networks of neighborhoods or online collectives. Resource sharing commonly encompasses housing, food, or digital infrastructure, with investment guided by perceived communal benefit.

Reception and analysis: In fiction, stiasti is used to explore questions of trust, cooperation, and the resilience and limits of non-hierarchical systems. Realistic critique often focuses on coordination costs, the potential emergence of informal power structures, and sustainability concerns.

See also: utopianism, anarchism, consensus decision-making, mutual aid.