How Human Groups
Descend toward the Nadir
From a falling-out among friends to the failure of public institutions, NADIR collects question pairs about how groups decline. Each pair sets a question beside a conditional judgment that can be revised.
NADIR is a black box that records how human groups decline — friendships and small clubs, online communities, hourly jobs and small firms, large companies and their executive floors, professions, public administration, politics and non-profits. It does not look for easy reassurance. It sets out the structure of each decline plainly, so a reader can recognise where their own group stands.
Four Stages of Descent
No organization collapses overnight. The library follows decline through four stages, starting from small silences.
Small frictions build up. Open discussion cools and talk moves into smaller, closed circles.
The point where silence turns into complicity and someone is chosen to take the blame.
Open conflict, collective blame, audits passed from desk to desk, lawsuits and a wave of resignations.
Even conflict has gone quiet. No one protests any more, and a few people remain to close things down.
From Close Friendships to State Power: 12 Arenas
The scale differs. Whether the same mechanisms of decline recur across these arenas is a question the library tests.
A pair who shut one friend out in the name of sparing feelings, a treasurer who spends club dues privately while preaching harmony, and pile-ons on message boards.
Explore Agendas ↗STRATUM II · FRONTLINEA shop owner who pins stock losses on part-timers, a lead developer who leaves when pay falls behind, a founder who keeps giving talks with three months of cash left, and a new hire made to sign off on a defective record in someone else's place.
Explore Agendas ↗STRATUM III · POWERAn executive who turns on a mentor to win favour with a new chief, a hospital that blames a medical error on residents, an official removed for refusing to approve unsafe work, and aides let go after an election.
Explore Agendas ↗STRATUM IV · FAÇADEA charity head who spends donations on luxury travel, and a cause used as cover to silence whistleblowers.
Explore Agendas ↗Where Do You Sit as the Group Goes Down?
NADIR leaves no seat for watching from outside. Name your position, and weigh the cost of each choice.
The ringleader who sacrifices the weakest, or those who object, to protect cohesion and power.
The working manager who knows of illegal and arbitrary conduct but signs off and stays silent to protect a performance review and a job.
The staff member left to answer for the organization's structural flaws and the mistakes of those above.
The passenger who hopes the trouble ends before it reaches their seat.
The last person left, closing the books and the door.
Four Pairs from the Black Box Set
Instead of stock advice, each question marks the edges of a decision and the cost on either side.
Raise the unease about the friend left out with all three present, or keep pace in the private chat and let the exclusion happen quietly?
Demand a police investigation, or walk away with your wages unpaid?
Refuse to sign the falsified test report, or put the director’s verbal order on record and sign?
Write the report gutting the mentor's new venture, as the new power broker demands, or share the mentor's fate and accept a demotion?
Every Question Pair, Placed by Organizational Layer
Each point is one question. Points gather by organizational layer; a line joins questions that branch from the same scenario.
The Terrain of Questions and Judgments
1,736 links across 496 questions · 1,091 standalone
A line joins questions that branch from the same scenario
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Show how far trust, relationships, power, work, learning and fairness fall as an organization weakens.
- 01Trust
Whether people still take each other at their word.
- 02Relationships
Who still talks to whom, and who is left out.
- 03Power
Who decides, and who carries the cost.
- 04Work
Whether the work still gets done, and by whom.
- 05Learning
Whether mistakes still teach anything.
- 06Fairness
Whether the same rule holds for everyone.