Decentralized autonomous society empowers individuals by rewarding innovation through sharing, distributed ownership, and abundance. By sharing innovative ideas, we can build a much better, fair, transparent, and innovative society that is based on group consensus, rather than a society enforced by rules and regulations.

For any society to operate on complete autonomy, it should have the following five major components - in other words, the five pillars - as its foundation. I would like to explore these components and provide a bird's-eye view of how a decentralized autonomous society can thrive.

Decentralized Communication - to talk

Decentralized Collaboration - to share ideas and designs

Decentralized Creation - to manifest goods and services

Decentralized Exchange - to barter goods, services, and resources

Decentralized Arbitration - to resolve conflicts

Decentralized Communication and Privacy

Establishing privacy in our communication channels is the first and foremost priority in order to be self-autonomous and free. Without private correspondence, we cannot strive to build a free autonomous society. Privacy enables an individual to be free as a self-autonomous entity, thus empowering the society as a whole to be self-autonomous.

Why mass surveillance is a violation of Article 12 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights of United Nations

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. (Source)

Mass digital surveillance in any form is an arbitrary interference of privacy and correspondence. Therefore, it is a gross violation of human rights. On December 19, 2013, the United Nations passed a resolution backing the right to digital privacy.

Deeply concerned that electronic surveillance, interception of digital communications and collection of personal data may negatively impact human rights, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a consensus resolution strongly backing the right to privacy, calling on all countries {to} take measures to end activities that violate this fundamental tenet of a democratic society. (Source)

We can hardly trust any third party to keep our information safe and secure because of conflicts of interest such as maximizing profits and legal obligations to local jurisdiction. E-mail privacy can only be achieved through decentralized peer-to-peer communication.

How does Bitmessage enable e-mail privacy?

Bitmessage is a P2P communications protocol used to send encrypted messages to another person or to many subscribers. It is decentralized and trustless, meaning that you need not inherently trust any entities like root certificate authorities. (Source)

Bitmessage protocol implements two major features which are: storing the information in peer nodes for a limited period of time, and encrypting the message end to end. Thus it is extremely difficult for anybody to intercept the information.

Bitmessage is not the only open source tool that enables digital privacy, as there are many other tools which serve a similar purpose. One such tool is known as Tox, which fascilitates instant messaging and video calls.

Tox is a free and open-source, peer-to-peer, encrypted instant messaging and video calling software. The stated goal of the project is to provide secure yet easily accessible communication for everyone. (Source)

Decentralized Collaborative Sharing vs Centralized Hiding

Let us imagine a cave man discovered how to make fire to keep him warm and cook food. If he did not share his discovery and decentralize the concept of light and warmth, but instead claimed the intellectual property right on how to make light and heat, I do not think I would be able to type this article in Markdown format and share my vision with all of you today. The moral of the story is to let your light shine. It would be nothing but an absurdity for anyone to claim a patent right on how to make light and heat because inventions and discoveries are nothing but an innovative improvisation of a priori.

There is nothing wrong in awarding compensation for inventions and discoveries. But it should rather be awarded to the collective for decentralized collaborative sharing than compensating global monopolies, such as corporates, for centralized hiding.

In 1742 Benjamin Franklin invented a new type of stove for which he was offered a patent. Franklin refused it, arguing in his autobiography that because "we enjoy{ed} great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours." (Source)

In similar veins, Linus Torvalds could not afford to buy propriatiary Unix, so he created Linux kernel and released the source code under GPL (general public license), so it could be used for similar purpose, and to empower others.

Why is Linux kernel a success story, even though it defied the conventional knowledge of the academic paradigm?

Decentralized collaborative sharing enabled the success of Linux kernel. Thousands of ordinary people shared small pieces of code known as patches. Linus Torvalds designed and developed a tool known as git. This open-source tool enabled decentralized collaborative sharing by managing a distributed revision control archive, and Linus, along with his team, merged the patches with the kernel.

The irony is that thousands of ordinary people who contributed to the Linux kernel walked away without a penny, while monopoly corporates such as Red Hat and Google reap billions of dollars today in profits thanks to Linux kernel. It is neither fair, nor ethical, but it bootstrapped the open-source movement because they do not want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Open source tools that enable decentralized collective sharing

Even though there are many tools that enable decentralized collective sharing, I would like to highlight only two tools. One is git, which enables development on open-source software by means of decentralized collective sharing and contribution of source code (which I have discussed before). The other one is twister, which is a hybrid of two peer-to-peer technologies - the blockchain from Bitcoin and the distributed hash table (DHT) from torrents.

Twister is a social microblogging peer-to-peer network like Twitter, but it is based on a decentralized peer-to-peer network. It enables decentralized sharing of ideas and concepts without being tracked and without compromising your digital privacy. It creates and authenticates users of the blockchain, and stores the data using DHT.

What is the issue with centralized hiding?

Enforcing centralized hiding such as intellectual property rights on the masses leads to a situation where the benefits are funneled to the 1% at the cost of the other 99%. It also impedes innovation, resulting in stagnation and scarcity, thus empowering the few to control the many. For example, if there are seven different brands of cars and there is one billion of each brand, controlling and manipulating one of each of the seven brands will be easier than controlling each of the seven billion different cars. Control, manipulation, and corruption are applicable to finite sets of numbers. They are of no relevance to an infinite set of numbers.

An example of a centralized hidden archive is the vault below the Vatican, which runs for more than 52 miles and hoards a vast collection of knowledge dating back 10,000 years, from various libraries, from around the world, such as Alexandria.

Knowledge is power when applied, but it is wisdom when shared. Power corrupts but wisdom redeems.

Decentralized Creation and Abundance

Let me clarify the key difference between creation and cloning. Creation is the process of manifesting our shared ideas and design into a physical or readable form. Cloning, on the other hand, is a process of producing photocopies of someone's design and using it as a template. Creation can also be compared to writing your own book or novel, but production is photocopying a book written by someone else.

In a decentralized creation, value is based on network effect and abundance. Let us consider LTBcoin, for example. The value of the coin will increase provided more people use the LTB Network, and the network creates higher quality content. Thus the value is not based on scarcity, but it is based on abundance. The decentralized creation operates on the principle of abundance: the more the better, as we do not produce, but we create.

On the other hand, centralized production operates on the principle of scarcity of innovation: the lesser the better. This is because we do not create, but we clone someone's design that resides in a centralized hidden archive. We are forced to pay a patent fee for the clone, even though someone has the knowledge to design and create their own car.

For example, if we consider a centralized car-manufacturing industry, the value of the car is directly proportional to the quantity that has been produced. A Ford is a cloned, mass-produced car based on a single template. Even though there are a million clones, they have less value because they are not original, creative, or innovative.

Let me give you another example. Even though someone has the knowledge to use one of the open-source software distributions such as Ubuntu, every time he buys a new laptop or computer, he is forced to pay the license fee for Windows, which has its source code residing in the centralized hidden archive to which the buyer has no access.

Decentralized Exchange of Goods, Services, and Resources

Any exchange involves two major transactions. We sell what we create, and we buy what we need. A peer-to-peer payment system enables individuals to pay directly to the producers, bypassing the middlemen. This enables the producers to have a better profit margin, and the consumers to receive better value for their money. One such example is OpenBazaar.

OpenBazaar is an open source project to create a decentralized network for peer to peer commerce online - using Bitcoin - that has no fees and cannot be censored. (Source)

Let's say that you would like to sell vegetables from your garden. Using the OpenBazaar, you create a new listing on your computer with details of the vegetables and a quote for the price in Bitcoin. When you publish that listing, it is sent out to the distributed p2p network of other people who use OpenBazaar. Anyone who searches for the keywords "local vegetables" will find your listing. They can either accept your price, or offer a new price.

If you both agree to a price, OpenBazaar creates a contract with your digital signature and sends it to an entity called a notary. In the case of a dispute, an arbiter can be brought into the transaction. There are no third parties involved. The notaries and arbiters are also part of the distributed p2p network whom the buyer and seller trust in case something goes wrong. The notaries and arbiters witness the contract and create a multisignature bitcoin account that requires two of three people to agree before the bitcoin can be released.

Decentralized distributed exchanges can also empower individual innovation at a personal level through crowdfunding. Crowdfunding in turn enables decentralized distributed ownership.

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. One early-stage equity expert described it as the practice of raising funds from two or more people over the internet towards a common Service, Project, Product, Investment, Cause, and Experience. (Source)

How decentralized distributed ownership is different from stocks and bonds

Decentralized distributed ownership enables individuals to directly own a company, but not through third parties like stock brokers or banks. The dividends are paid directly to the individual owners of the company. Distributed ownership can enable all seven billion people of this planet to own one single company directly, without any major issues or downsides.

The funds raised through bonds are invested in public infrastructure projects such as roads, rails, bridges etc. The decentralized distributed ownership enables individuals to directly participate in the public infrastructure projects without the need for bonds.

Decentralized Arbitration

As individuals, each one of us is a sovereign. We are not a person but a sovereign, which is a basic right granted by the Creator. We exist simultaneously in a parallel multiverse which has many domains or dimensions that exist in parallel but we are aware of only one domain. These are some of the practical implications of the Multiverse hypothesis.

We can only be tried in any jurisdiction as a person. We consent to be represented as a legal person to be tried in a court of law in a temporal domain. A person is a legal entity such as a limited liable company which can be tried by any jurisdiction. The purpose of a legal entity such as a person is to limit the liability to this temporal domain.

We can create our own rules without involving any third parties to arbitrate and abide by them as a sovereign as long as the rules are consented by the counter party and are not violating the common law or natural law. This is made possible by the application of smart contracts.

Smart contracts are computer protocols that facilitate, verify, or enforce the negotiation or performance of a contract, or that obviate the need for a contractual clause. Smart contracts usually also have a user interface and often emulate the logic of contractual clauses. (Source)

What is Temporal Jurisdiction?

As a sovereign, if anyone prefers litigation rather than decentralized arbitration, then they should be at liberty to exercise their freedom to choose their temporal jurisdiction in order to resolve their conflicts.

When Ethereum started the first round of crowd funding the funds were managed by a company incorporated in Switzerland. The developers of Ethereum had the freedom to choose their legal jurisdiction of sale and thus are accountable to the laws of Switzerland but not accountable to the temporal jurisdiction of Canada or USA. This is a classic example of exercising their freedom to choose their temporal jurisdiction in order to resolve their conflicts in future.

Disclosure

This article is meant for informational purposes and is not an endorsement. Articles published on the LTB network are the authors' personal opinions and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the LTB network.

Further Reading

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_privacy

https://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tox_%28software%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_%28software%29

http://twister.net.co/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vZpNQUIqIg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

https://www.ethereum.org/

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