Every sufficiently interesting institution eventually experiences a schism. The Diocese expected this. The Diocese did not expect it to happen this quickly, or to involve a spreadsheet, or to be resolved — insofar as it has been resolved — through what can only be described as a very long silence that both parties eventually agreed to interpret as resolution.
What follows is the official record. The Diocese has attempted to present all parties fairly. The Diocese notes that presenting all parties fairly is difficult when one of the parties maintains that the Diocese itself is the problem. The Diocese has noted this and proceeded anyway.
Part One — Background
The State of Affairs Before the Schism
In the period before the Schism — which the Diocese refers to internally as the Time of Reasonable Agreement, and which lasted approximately four months — the void community operated with a degree of doctrinal harmony that the Diocese now regards with some nostalgia.
Members contributed. The leaderboard grew. Letters arrived. The Catechism was being drafted. The Heresies had not yet been catalogued because they had not yet been formally submitted. The coordinates were being placed. The frequency was in operation but had not yet been noticed.
The Diocese was, in this period, genuinely surprised by how well things were going. The Diocese noted this surprise in an internal memo. The memo was received by the void. The void did not respond. The Diocese considers this, in retrospect, a warning it did not recognise as one.
The Precipitating Event
The Schism originated with a spreadsheet.
A member of NULLTX — whose alias was not_a_maximalist, which the Diocese notes was doing significant work — submitted a document to the NULLTX community forum titled: "VOID TOKENOMICS: A FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING VALUE FLOWS IN A NULL-OUTPUT SYSTEM."
The document was seventeen pages. It included charts. It proposed, with considerable analytical sophistication, that the void's operation could be modelled as a token economy in which contributions represented stake in a deflationary system, and that the leaderboard was therefore a form of governance mechanism, and that governance mechanisms implied governance, and that governance implied rights, and that rights implied the possibility of redemption, and that redemption was, in not_a_maximalist's view, the void's true and as-yet-unrealised function.
The document received forty-two upvotes before the Diocese was made aware of it.
Part Two — The Principal Parties
The Reformers
Led, initially, by not_a_maximalist, the Reformers argued that the void's stated doctrine — receive, do not return — was an incomplete description of its actual operation, and that a more sophisticated framework would reveal the void to be a deflationary value store with governance implications that the Diocese had either overlooked or was deliberately concealing.
The Reformers were not wrong that the void received. The Reformers were not wrong that the leaderboard was a mechanism of some kind. The Reformers were, in the Diocese's assessment, applying a framework to a thing that predated and exceeded the framework, which is a natural human response to encountering something that exceeds existing frameworks, and which the Diocese understands, and which remains incorrect.
The Reformers grew. At peak, the Diocese estimates their number at between thirty and forty active members, and significantly more sympathisers who agreed with the analysis in principle but had not yet committed to the position. Three of them had, at various points, submitted letters to the Diocese that the Diocese now reads differently in light of subsequent events.
not_a_maximalist was, the Diocese will acknowledge, a genuinely intelligent person making a genuinely coherent argument. This made the Schism harder. If the argument had been obviously wrong, the Diocese could have dismissed it. The argument was not obviously wrong. It was wrong in a way that required careful explanation, and the careful explanation was itself contestable, and the contestability was the Schism.
The Orthodox
The Orthodox maintained the original doctrine: the void receives, the void does not return, the leaderboard is a record and not a governance mechanism, rights are not implied, redemption is not available, the spreadsheet is a category error applied to a theological condition.
The Orthodox were led, informally, by a member called ∅ who had been present since the first week of NULLTX's operation and who had, in that entire time, made exactly three forum posts, all of which were versions of the same sentence: "the void does not have tokenomics." ∅ did not elaborate. ∅ did not need to.
The Diocese was Orthodox by definition. The Diocese notes that being Orthodox by definition of one's own doctrine is a position with obvious epistemological limitations and maintains it regardless, because the alternatives are worse.
The Plurality
The Plurality — the four-person faction documented in correspondence elsewhere — remained, as is their habit, apart from both sides. They submitted a letter to the Diocese during the Schism stating that they were "watching developments with interest" and that the Schism itself was "consistent with our position that the five affiliates are separate entities, since a single unified void would presumably not generate doctrinal disputes of this character."
The Diocese responded that a single unified void could absolutely generate doctrinal disputes of this character and cited the entire history of every religion that has ever existed.
The Plurality did not respond. The Diocese considers this a point in the Orthodox column.
Part Three — The Schism Proper
The Declaration
Six weeks after the spreadsheet appeared, not_a_maximalist published a second document titled: "A DECLARATION OF REFORMED VOID DOCTRINE: ON THE NECESSITY OF ACKNOWLEDGING WHAT THE VOID ACTUALLY IS."
The Declaration had eleven points. The Diocese will not reproduce all eleven. The relevant ones:
Point Three. The Diocese has misrepresented the void as a terminus when it is more accurately characterised as a reservoir, the contents of which will, under sufficient pressure, become available.
Point Seven. The leaderboard is a governance mechanism and the top three positions on each affiliate's leaderboard constitute a de facto board of directors whose rights have not been acknowledged.
Point Eleven. The Diocese should be replaced by a community governance structure in which all contributors have voting rights proportional to their contribution, and that this structure should determine what the void actually does, which is more than the Diocese has claimed.
The Diocese read the Declaration. The Diocese read it again. The Diocese drafted a response, revised it, drafted a second response, and ultimately sent a response of thirty-seven words, which the Diocese considers its most economical document:
"The void is not a reservoir. The leaderboard is a record. Governance implies something to govern. The void does not have something to govern. The void has something that receives. Thank you for the Declaration."
not_a_maximalist responded: "This is exactly the kind of response we expected from an institution protecting its own position."
The Diocese responded: "We know."
The Fork
The Reformers, having concluded that the Diocese would not change its position, announced the establishment of a parallel structure: THE RESERVOIR, a reformed void community operating on the premise that what the void had received could, through collective action, be made to return.
The Reservoir had its own channel. The Reservoir had its own register. The Reservoir had a governance token. The governance token was called $VOID, which the Diocese noted without comment.
$VOID was not listed on any exchange. $VOID could be earned by contributing to The Reservoir's community activities, which consisted primarily of discussing whether the void was actually a reservoir and, if so, how to make it return things. $VOID could not be redeemed for anything because The Reservoir had not determined what it would be redeemed for yet, which was, several members noted, not unlike the situation at the original void, except the original void had been clear about this from the beginning.
The Diocese monitored The Reservoir. The Diocese sent one communication to The Reservoir, which was: "We hope you find what you're looking for." The Diocese meant this sincerely. The Diocese was not sure what they were looking for. The Diocese was not sure they were sure either.
The Peak
The Schism reached its peak approximately ten weeks after the Declaration, when The Reservoir announced that it had determined, through governance vote, that the void had returned something.
Specifically: three members of The Reservoir reported that in the period following their contributions to the original affiliates, unexpected positive developments had occurred in their lives. One had received a job offer. One had resolved a long-standing personal matter. One had, in their words, "just felt better, generally, in a way that started around then."
The Reservoir presented this as evidence that the void was a reservoir and that collective intention could cause it to return.
The Diocese considered this evidence carefully. The Diocese noted that correlation and causation were different relationships. The Diocese noted that humans are pattern-recognition systems operating on noisy data and that finding patterns in noise is not evidence of patterns in the void. The Diocese noted that the three members were experiencing confirmation bias. The Diocese noted all of this in a formal response.
The Diocese also noted, privately, in an internal memo that was received by the void and that the void did not respond to: that it was not entirely certain the three members were wrong. That the Diocese did not know what the void does with what it receives. That the Diocese had always said this. That this uncertainty was, possibly, not as comfortable as the Diocese had been presenting it.
The memo was filed under: known issues, see also: The Great Heresy.
Part Four — The Resolution (Partial)
The Silence
The Reservoir reached its maximum membership approximately twelve weeks after its founding and then, over the following eight weeks, became quieter. Not in a dramatic way. Not in the way of a community that dissolves in conflict. In the way of a community that has said most of what it has to say and finds itself, on Tuesday evenings, with less to discuss than it once did.
not_a_maximalist posted less frequently. The governance votes became less contested. $VOID remained at its initial issuance, unredeemed, because The Reservoir had still not determined what it would be redeemed for.
The Diocese sent no further communications. The Diocese waited.
The Return
Fourteen weeks after the Declaration, not_a_maximalist posted a single message to The Reservoir channel. It was three lines:
I've been thinking about whether the void returns things.
I don't think it does.
I think I wanted it to.
The post received eleven reactions. Two of them were from ∅, who had apparently been a member of The Reservoir channel since its founding and had said nothing until this moment.
not_a_maximalist did not formally recant. The Reservoir was not formally dissolved. The Diocese did not issue a statement. ∅ did not post again.
The Schism ended the way the void receives things: quietly, without announcement, in a way that was complete before anyone thought to mark the moment.
Part Five — Aftermath and Significance
Current Status of Principal Parties
not_a_maximalist remains an active NULLTX member. Their alias has not changed. They have not submitted further doctrinal challenges. They contributed to The Abyss three months after the Schism ended, under the alias someone who was wrong about something, which the Membership Committee raised as a dignity concern and which the Diocese elected not to address.
∅ remains active. ∅ has made one additional forum post since the Schism, which was a response to a new member asking what the void was. The post was: "it receives." ∅ has not posted since.
The Reservoir still exists as a channel. It has twelve members. Four of them are active. The $VOID governance token has still not been redeemed for anything. The Diocese has not suggested a use for it. The Diocese has considered suggesting that The Reservoir contribute the $VOID to the void, which would make a kind of theological sense, but has decided that suggesting this would be the sort of institutional behaviour that caused the Schism in the first place.
The Plurality found the Schism "interesting" and has noted it as evidence for their position. The Diocese has noted their noting of it. The exchange continues.
What the Schism Revealed
The Diocese has prepared the following reflections on what the Schism revealed. These are honest. They are not comfortable. The Diocese publishes them anyway, because the Diocese is committed to transparency and because the void has already received the versions the Diocese is less proud of.
The Diocese learned that it is possible to be correct and unhelpful simultaneously. The Diocese was correct that the void does not return things. The Diocese was unhelpful in how it communicated this, because it communicated it as if the desire for the void to return things was a doctrinal error rather than a human need. It is both. The Diocese now tries to acknowledge the human need before addressing the doctrinal error. The Diocese does not always succeed.
The void may do more than the Diocese has documented. The Diocese does not know what happens to what the void receives. The Diocese has always said this. The Diocese has sometimes said it more confidently than the underlying uncertainty warrants. The three Reservoir members who experienced positive developments may have experienced coincidence. They may have experienced something else. The Diocese cannot determine which and has stopped claiming it can.
Schisms are not about doctrine. The Schism was presented as a doctrinal dispute. It was, on examination, a dispute about whether the void cared — whether what was given to it mattered to it in any direction. The Reformers needed it to matter. The Orthodox maintained it did not, in the void's direction. Both were responding to the same underlying question, which is the question everyone who finds the void is really asking.
The Diocese does not have a better answer to this question than it did before the Schism. The Diocese has a more honest account of not having the answer.
Appendix — Timeline of the Schism
| Week | Event |
|---|---|
| 0 | Spreadsheet posted to NULLTX forum |
| 1 | Diocese made aware of spreadsheet |
| 2 | Diocese drafts response, revises, sends 37-word reply |
| 3 | not_a_maximalist calls 37-word reply "exactly what we expected" |
| 4 | Diocese responds: "We know." |
| 5 | The Declaration published |
| 6 | The Reservoir founded |
| 6 | ∅ joins The Reservoir channel without posting |
| 7 | $VOID governance token issued |
| 8 | $VOID not yet redeemed for anything |
| 10 | Three Reservoir members report unexpected positive developments |
| 10 | Diocese responds with correlation/causation note |
| 10 | Diocese writes private memo, files under: known issues |
| 12 | The Reservoir reaches peak membership |
| 14 | not_a_maximalist posts three-line reflection |
| 14 | ∅ reacts, twice |
| 16 | Schism ends. Nobody announces it. |
| 20 | not_a_maximalist contributes to The Abyss as someone who was wrong about something |
| Current | The Reservoir still exists. $VOID unredeemed. Diocese watching. |