SocietyOS — Crowdsourcing A New Civilization Design

What kind of world can we paint together?

In their popular 2022 paper, Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul, Vitalik Buterin, Puja Ohlaver, and Glen Weyl introduce the concept of DeSoc — decentralised society — based on a few principles: local knowledge — those who are closest to the problem have the most knowledge about it; local control — those closest to a problem have the greatest stake in its resolution and thus should have the greatest influence over it; and cooperation across difference — consensus by the most diverse stakeholders is key for composing local units into broader networks of cooperation. They outline the use of “soulbound tokens,” non-transferrable tokens which represent both affiliations and credentials. A thoughtful articulation of elements which could support a new, better social structure, it quickly caught fire, rising to the top 100 of SSRN (Social Science Research Network)’s all-time downloads. Its popularity comes from its outlining of a beautiful vision of how a better society might look. But it’s one of many.

In How We Can Encode Human Rights In The Blockchain, Nathan Schneider plays with many possible applications for blockchains which would foster a more fair, just, and open society. From a simple proposal to embed human rights into blockchains, to more innovative and ambitious mechanisms and approaches like “coalitions of crypto projects [which] could offer shared services in exchange for adhering to certain commitments,” designs which might prevent one country from invading another to seize resources, and even ones which might negate military might altogether. Less prescriptive than Buterin, Ohliver, and Weyl, Schneider is nonetheless tinkering with visions of a better world.

In the early 2010s a group of intellectuals including Bret Weinstein, Jim Rutt, and Jordan Hall, were part of a think tank at the Santa Fe institute which developed the concept of Game B, a rough set of parameters outlining what a better society might look like. Coined by Hall, the name GameB stems from the idea that if we call every form of society so far GameA — “replete with destructive externalities and power asymmetries that produce existential risk, GameB refers to the kind of world which would be post this current one.” Intentionally non-prescriptive, it outlines principles upon which a theoretically better society would be founded. The loose movement has since grown to include more intellectuals like John Vervake, Daniel Schmachtenberger, and Jamie Wheal, as well as thousands of community members connected through Reddit, Facebook, and the group’s private MightyNetworks page.

Upon conclusion of the first meetings, Weinstein says the GameB founders didn’t know if there were hundreds of similar conversations occurring. Searching and finding none, they concluded they were the cutting edge. The question is — where were they supposed to look? Where is the public space everyone knows they should go when they have an idea for how to make the world a better place?

From DeSoc to the ideas Schneider proposes, to GameB, to the groundbreaking work of Buckminster Fuller, all of these wonderful concepts are proposed by siloed intellectuals. First, we must develop the facility for these ideas to be cross-pollinated, critiqued, evolved, and synthesized. Second, and perhaps more important, we must invite and facilitate idea sharing from those not in the ivory towers of academics and intellectuals.

Crowdsourcing New Civilization Designs: Introducing SocietyOS
To provide the world with the tools to co-create new civilization designs, Global Unity is developing SocietyOS — a crowd-sourced civilization design platform. While still early in development, it is time to invite the conversations, ideas, and visions of people everywhere.

“Let every [one] make known what kind of government would command [their] respect and that will be one step toward obtaining it.” -Henry David Thoreau

How do we crowdsource or co-create a new civilization design? There are three aspects to consider:

1. the process of designing of a new civilization;
2. the designing of the design tool, SocietyOS, itself; and
3. the manner in which we engage each other in doing both 1) and 2).

1.How To Design A Civilization

Where do we begin when thinking about how we design a civilization? While Global Unity includes an initial proposal for an approach to civilization design, what’s more important than any one approach — indeed, we will need a plurality of approaches — is creating the space in which all approaches can be shared.

SocietyOS will offer multiple ways for people to share their ideas, designs, and visions, whether they be whole systems, partial components, or simply principles and ideals upon which a better world would be based. But new ideas and visions are only part of the work. The Global Unity whitepaper outlines “three steps to a better world”

1. Create a vision of what that world looks like
2. Figure out how to get from here today, to there tomorrow
3. Implement

Who is qualified to create this vision? No one of us, only all of us together, hence the need for SocietyOS. In addition to facilitating the sharing, improving upon, and synthesizing of new visions and ideas however, we must also work on how we transition from today’s world to whatever one(s) we design together.

Transitioning
It seems there are three processes to consider in transitioning society — mapping what already exists; connecting the dots between that which exists; and creating anything new to replace, support, or augment that which exists.

Mapping
Mapping refers to identifying that which already exists — from ecological systems to existing infrastructure to populations; from philosophies, to impact organisations, to cultures and communities; and from education organizations and efforts, to sense-making tools and processes, to governance models, and best-practices. Moreover, mapping should not only identify what is, but what is needed — where are there water shortages, crumbling infrastructure, extinction risks, social isolation, etc? We require both resource cartography and need cartography.

Incredible mapping is already underway. Jon Schull of Eco Restoration Alliance has used graphical tool Arc GIS to create a Big Map to Save The Future which aims to map all eco projects across the world. Global Unity hosted its first event, Transformative Impact Summit through Catalist developed by Vincent Arena. Using the platform, we have mapped out the impact projects and individuals among the speakers, panellists, and attendees which can be filtered by location, area of impact/SDG (the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals), and what needs they have.

Connecting
Connecting refers to finding synergies between existing places, practices, tools, and groups. How many impact orgs are duplicating efforts? By analysing, categorising, and introducing various efforts and individuals to each other, we create greater efficiency, effectiveness, and synergy.

This act of weaving is a vital asset for the process of better coalescing networks, and one that traditionally happens organically through introductions, outreach, and serendipity. We can accelerate the impact of this weaving by making it an intentional, proactive, encouraged practice.*
*And perhaps in time, a rewarded one.

We have worked to weave impact webs through making introductions, hosting impact dinners, and organizing private “impact niche masterminds”, bringing leaders together from various sectors of impact, including an Impact Measurement, Reward, and Incentivization Mastermind; a Soil + Regenerative Agriculture Mastermind; and a Decentralized Supply Chain Mastermind, which brought together leaders within their respective niches.

Creating
Creating refers to the establishment of anything new. When we identify that there is a need — land or water basins in need of regeneration; decayed infrastructure in need of repair; people suffering lack in some form, etc, we might first attempt to connect those individuals and organizations who can help satisfy said needs. In many cases however, some altogether new innovation may be needed.

The vision for SocietyOS is that projects, solutions, and efforts of various kinds can be proposed, chosen, and funded by the community using quadratic funding — a more democratic funding mechanism popularized by Weyl and Buterin’s RadicalXChange and by web3 impact org Gitcoin (which has funded more than $69 million in public goods using it).

2. Designing SocietyOS
Visions of a better world and the processes for getting there are not all we must co-design — SocietyOS itself, must be co-created. While we aim to avoid being too prescriptive we do [above] propose a set of processes. These are merely one set of possibilities. There must be capacity for others to be proposed, as well as entire structures, frameworks, and models for how the platform should function. As we discuss below, the first version of SocietyOS is not yet launched, and so all input into the first design is invited, but that collective designing must remain part of the tool’s function as it operates. It must retain the capacity to evolve.

3. Collective Engagement
With rough outlines of how we approach designing both a) a new civilization and b) the platform through which we design it, it is important to explore what types of engagements we facilitate. We are exploring three main forms: online (asynchronous), virtual (live), and in-person.

Online
The majority of interaction through SocietyOS may well be asynchronous online communication. Forums, polls, surveys, wikis, proposals, funding platforms, social platforms, group chats, and other classic engagement containers will be necessary spaces to provide. These allow the sharing of ideas, responses, feedback, challenges, questions, and more, without requiring everyone to be in the same time zone. This allows for an ever-growing content base and the growth and evolution of the ideas, designs, and proposals offered.

Virtual
Though asynchronous online communication will likely be the primary means of communication and interaction, we should ensure it is not the only form. Live online interactions not only provide a wider variety and richness of engagement and idea generation, but importantly, of connection, trust, and bond-building. From standard video calls organized around specific presentations, panels, and group discussions; to group audio calls through Twitter Spaces, Clubhouse etc, to specialized models of collective sense-making and decision-making such as Forrest Landry’s ephemeral group process (EGP),we must offer a carefully considered suite of options.

In-Person
Though undoubtedly online engagement, whether asynchronous or live, will comprise the bulk of SocietyOS interactions, we should not ignore live, in-person events. From trust-, bond-, and community-building, to their capacity to generate more, sometimes richer, and at least different insights, ideas, and decisions, live interaction is inherent to the human experience. These could take the forms of local meetups, weekend-long EGP sessions, actual events, and more. Of note, Moral Imaginations developed by Phoebe Tickell and United Planet Game developed by Lucian Tarnowski are established live collective imagining processes which get participants to imagine and articulate the better future we are aiming for. They have been facilitated with anywhere from dozens to hundreds and even thousands of participants and are ideal practices to integrate as live events within SocietyOS, both generating rich visions of a better society.

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No doubt the co-creation of new civilization designs, as well as the co-designing of the tools through which we do so will come with unforeseen challenges and bumps in the road, but they are worthwhile endeavours. We need to encourage and support the brilliance of folks like Weyl, Buterin, Ohlaver, Schneider, Weinstein, et al, but we cannot leave such important work only in their [siloed] hands. This work is too important for us to not ensure that all voices can contribute.

While the SocietyOS platform is far from launch, we can begin tapping into collective wisdom today. Global Unity’s first live SocietyOS workshop in which we invite folks to share their visions of a better world, as well as their plans for how we get there from here will take place at Schelling Point at ETH Denver. This and subsequent live sessions will be recorded, with ideas, visions, and proposals added to the SocietyOS platform when it launches. As we are ready to roll out more tools and platform elements, we will invite other forms of participation. Let’s build something better together. Follow @globalunityorg on Twitter to get updated.