Judith Gaines asks: Mark, There was an organization called IOPS, I think, in my time. Did you have that too? Did it impact RPS?
In our world, IOPS, vastly smaller, preceded RPS, and then it lived on for awhile, but later melted into RPS, or was superceded by it, if you prefer. And yes, it did have some impact, sure. In fact, pretty much every previous endeavor had impact on RPS in diverse ways. Sometimes it was just by having reached people who later related to RPS. It was also, sometimes, having experimented with, or perhaps even offered up various ideas, that played a role. In the case of IOPS, it had tried to become, I think, what RPS did become, and as such it foreshadowed many features RPS organizationally adopted, especially regarding vision, program, and organization.
The thing is, this was also true all the way back to the best of the Sixties, say, and the Thirties, and further. Revolution always has a very long lineage, as does reaction, for that matter, albeit with significant renovations along the way.