Find a third way that is different from Dianyu totalitarianism and chaebol chaos

本篇文章作為GreenPill.Network全球運動的自發文章之一，英文版發表在mirror平台。綠藥丸網絡寫作計畫，由Gitcoin創辦人Kevin Owocki發起，鼓勵全球在地社群自發書寫獨特的web3公共文化。這是系列文章的最後一篇，討論數位民主的概念。

Previous article:

1. Green Pill Network 1: What is worth noting about the issuance of NFT by local organizations?

2. Green Pill Network 2: Realistic Conditions for Digital Solidarity: An Anti-establishment (Algorithmic) Third Space

Green Pill Network 3: Looking for a third way different from Dianyu totalitarianism and chaebol chaos.

Green Pill Network ( GreenPill.Network ) encourages web3 practitioners to become Regen (the abbreviation of Regenerative, which is also the antonym of Degen, and Degen means speculators). In the first article, I discussed how NFT, in addition to being a digital certificate, has become the spiritual support of the local community. Yangchun technology, which is ahead of human civilization, has become a religious sacred object. Sacred objects are endowed with strong spiritual meaning through religious context, and social initiative NFT is also endowed with consensus within the community through the process of collaboration and cooperation. These consensuses become stories, which gradually spread to other communities and become low-level. Efficient but powerful links; in the second article, I discuss how the digital public sphere (Public Sphere) was established from the social practice cases of the web3 community. In the current world where algorithms are prevalent, such algorithms-resistant How precious is inefficient solidarity action.

In the third article, I try to discuss Regen's ultimate vision— Digital Democracy , which is a bold attempt. Overseas, Taiwan is often regarded as an island of digital democracy, but we in Taiwan are still troubled by the polarization of democracy every day. Past successful cases seem to be fleeting, and the trauma caused by digital social movements has caused many open source Free, free, and democratic practitioners leave the third space, return to family and work, and occasionally recall the past on social platforms. And the next generation has not experienced the wave of digital transformation and movement. The history of these digital democracies, as if they had never happened before, the years are quiet and good, and they continue to be trapped in the sweet and hard-to-break algorithm world. In the end, all of them died of diabetes. Amputation.

The following article can be said to be a reading note. It takes the essence of the texts of the web3 for all and da0 learning reading sessions in the past six months. In the atmosphere of intensive reading and discussion, we slowly practice and read while gradually grasping The necessary narration has become a theoretical nutrient; on the other hand, since I am currently working in the Digital Development Department in Taiwan, I happen to be working in the multiverse department, so I also try to explore the meaning of multiverse (Plurality) in my work. Tang Feng, the director of the digital department, is the inventor of the word multiverse, and the two initiators Tang Feng and Glen Weyl are writing the book " Plurality " (it can be said to be another style of "GreenPilled", or "Radical Market" (the sequel to Radical Market), the Plurality Institute (Plurality Institute) held two physical seminars in the United States, discussing a lot of research on the relationship between emerging technologies and democratic societies, and the Plurality Tokyo Forum (Plurality Tokyo) also It is going out of its own localization route.

The following discussions represent only personal positions and do not represent any DAO or centralized organization.

In the narrative concept of Plurality, Glen Weyl once proposed three ways out of the future, and corresponded to the latest civilized regime in Civilization VI, namely Entrepreneurial Sovereignty (ES), Abundance Technocracy, AT) and digital democracy. Let's use this as the core spirit to expand the theory down.

Chaebol chaos is supported by accelerationists and singularists in Silicon Valley. It is a technological world where capital ideas are maximized. Behind the spirit of man's victory over nature, there may be a society where the rich and the poor are even more unequal. All information content is privatized and can be calculated as The intangible assets of GDP; and Dianyu totalitarianism is a unipolar world with efficiency, convenience, and unity developed after the totalitarian government has fully mastered digital tools. The development of artificial intelligence is more able to align the collective will with a single thought . (For discussions on personal AI and collective AI, please refer to the article " When AI Becomes Human's "Twin Flame": Competition Brings Threat, Fusion Brings Strength" and Weiren's article.)

As the third way, digital democracy creates a digital life form that meets the needs of the public, and Glen Weyl believes that the multiverse is the practical technology of digital democracy, bridging the gap between democratic society and emerging technologies. For example, the quadratic voting method, the Harberger tax system, the language model for aligning multiple opinions, online deliberation tools, etc.

The above three, let me reduce them to three economic types, namely:

1. Plutocratic Brawl: Market Economics

2. Powerful Totalitarianism: Planned economics

3. Digital Democracy: Cooperative Economics

In essence, the market economy and the planned economy are on the same spectrum, but the distance is relatively close, and the cooperative economy is on another axis, jumping out of this spectrum. The abbreviated full name of cooperative economy is Social Solidarity Economy (SSE), which is a collective term for alternative economy, underground economy, cooperativeism, etc. It is widely seen in Central and South American and European cultures. I will recognize this term, which originated from Teacher Wu Qizhen of the Taiwan Economic Democracy Union (recommended book: " The Human Conditions of Sovereignty and Independence: How Taiwan Becomes a Free, Equal, Unity and Sustainable New Country? " The Human Conditions of Taiwan's Sovereignty) and Taiwan Labor Front (Taiwan Labor Front) Research Director Mr. Hong Jingshu (recommended book " Labor Hires Capital ", When Labor Hires Capital: Overturing Captalism with "" Ecomic Democracy). The two teachers talked about economic democracy and social investment from Nordic democracy all the way, and reflected on the current situation of cooperatives in Taiwan.

Digital democracy, literally translated, can be said to support democracy in a digital way, such as open government information, open supervision, online review, electronic voting, identity verification, etc.; it can also be said that multiple (Plural) democratic types coexist. However, this coordinated mode of mutual coexistence must be based on a cooperative economic model. If the future of market economy growth is taken, democracy is likely to be reduced to a secondary consideration, and even become a tool for manipulation. Therefore, we are bold here. Hypothetically, digital democracy and cooperative economy are concepts with two sides of the same coin, and they contain too many similar concepts. According to " Why Am I a Multiverse Man?" "The article defines that Glen Weyl condenses " cooperative liberal democratic pluralism " ( cooperative liberal democratic pluralism ) into "multiverse", and its emphasis on cooperation can be seen.

Let us continue to stack up, and then continue to quote various theories. In the spectrum of the market economy and the planned economy, three concepts appear at different costs, namely artificial rare wealth, closed technology, bureaucracy and atomization.

Information is fluid and originally shared, until someone encloses information, packages it and sells it artificially, and becomes artificially-scarce goods. It can be designed, packaged, and curated, but it has also become an inaccessible resource. The equivalent of artificial rare goods is public goods, especially digital public goods (Digital Public Goods, DPGs) in the information society.

And closed technologies are like nuclear energy or AI models that have not yet been open sourced. The more advanced closed technologies are, the easier it is to be mastered by technical elites or technocrats, making the distance between technology and citizens more and more distant. The opposite of closed technology is open technology, which can be used with each other. Through standards and open authorized formats, technologies can be used interoperably.

However, people's working habits in modern society are bureaucratic and atomized. People are used to knowing their tasks through the chain of information transmitted layer by layer. Under this framework, people are cut into units without characteristics and placed in more It is used by operations under a large framework. The opposite concept is the flat organization and the spirit of solidarity and cooperation.

Therefore, the corresponding concepts are listed as follows:

1. Artificial Rare Wealth - Digital Public Wealth

2. Closed Technology - Open Technology

3. Bureaucracy and Atomization - Flattening and Unity

The above three concepts have been widely mentioned in different theories.

For example, Saito Kohei, who is famous for studying Marx's later works, advocated abandoning the concept of growth (Degrowth). He believes that only by abandoning capitalism, greenwashing and the dream of advanced carbon reduction technology can the natural environment be solved, because only by giving up unlimited growth can human beings enter a true state of abundance (Abundance). In his book " Capital in the Anthropocene ", he spends a lot of space explaining the concepts of public and private property, not to mention the importance of open technology, for example: "What we need is open technology. We must restrain Don’t be tempted by the top-down politics brought about by “closed technology”. We must look for technological possibilities that allow people to develop autonomous management capabilities.” Saito is a believer in Marx. He starts from the environment and eventually goes to "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." (From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.) world. Here we can ask, in the digital world, how can we contribute ourselves and obtain our own needs.

The spirit of the multiverse, initially mentioned above, is a bridge between emerging technologies and a democratic society. The indispensable spirit is to go to the center, first deconstruct the center, and break up the concept, technology and operation mode before there is the possibility of multiple centers. We can easily see the advantages of multi-center operation in the web3 world. Such as avoiding single points of failure, bringing automated and permissionless possibilities for decentralized identity, shared property sharing, and quadratic voting. Of course, the multiverse perspective also emphasizes digital public goods services that are accessible to everyone, and advocates the interoperability of open technologies, while also emphasizing collaboration across differences.

Finally there is decoupling, a term taken from Joichi Ito's The Practice of Change . He described the history of Internet development with decoupling. He believes that the development of the Internet is like a pendulum, swinging repeatedly from centralization to decentralization. And it can be decoupled at different levels, so that the invented standards or things can no longer be exclusive. When a tool can be easily used, there is room for evolution. Also because different levels of technology, people, and events can operate repeatedly on a simple scale, a complex system is born (this is the operating mode of the natural state, and it is a non-Von Neumann architecture (non-Von Neumann architecture)). Complex systems, while not so efficient for a single job, are almost universally applicable to all kinds of changes, so they are resilient and able to cope with various situations. Solidarity economies are found in worlds where various regimes have collapsed, and dominions maintained in small groups of communities tend to respond quickly to change. Of course, this kind of group is essentially a state of decentralization and abundance.

1. From "abandoned growth" to "abundance"

2. From "decentralization" to "multiverse"

3. From "decoupling" to "complexity"

Summary: Thinking you should have as a Regen

Being a Regen in a digital democratic world is likely to be about doing what you identify with and making limited decisions in a complex environment. When a person and the agreeer become one or plural Pods (or DAOs) to cooperate together, and the less-identified group still cooperates across differences (or inter-cooperative cooperation), it is finally possible to "do our best" in an environment of abundance. Can, each takes what he needs." This is an ideal description of public wealth and the third space. Of course, the reality is skinny. As a small island with obvious threats, we cannot give up any chance to join forces with foreign aid, and we are bound to be involved in the complex network of international relations. However, the Internet has been open and connected from the very first moment. Perhaps we can develop from the Internet. Shi reorganized the spirit of "openness", "sharing" and "unity" and continued to create abundance.

Let us conclude by concluding that climbing to the realm of digital democracy will most likely necessitate the discussion of cooperative economies.

The cooperative economy is very likely to appear in three states at the same time: " abundance " after abandoning growth, " multiverse " after decentralization, and " complexity " after decoupling.

These three characteristics are based on three characteristics, namely " public wealth ", " open technology " and " flatness and unity ".

The above three characteristics make it possible for us to escape the dualistic narrative of market economy and planned economy, and the development direction of web3 Regen may be its latest standard-bearer, so a conceptual statement is made in the third article of Green Pill.

Although this article is the end of the three articles of the Green Pill Independent Writing Project, it only explains a schematic diagram. But this is also the beginning of the discussion on Digital Solidarity . Many concepts are like bullshit, but there are a lot of overlaps in the past. Since then, an international consensus has gradually accumulated and become the theoretical cornerstone of practitioners.