A future of peace and its institutions
What are the core mechanics of a society of abundant peace?
Think about an ideal social design.
Think about what the world could be. Think about the limits of human culture, of human society, of mutual communication, understanding and empathy. Craft a world that is true to those limits. Craft a beautiful world. And then populate it. With people, with stories, as if you were about to write a novel or shoot a movie out of it.
Now, dwell into this world a bit. Get in it. Float to the nearest person and ask them questions. Ask them how the world got to that point. Ask practical, pointed questions: how do things work here? Ask about how day-to-day things work. About varied human affairs. Then trace all of those to bigger questions. To how the core agreements of that society are structured.
Eventually, decode what is behind the social structure, and get to principles, values. And finally to what kind of social revelation, what kind of world-view, what kind of core story, what kind of understanding about the world that is so substantially different than the current one, that could support such a radical transformation of social consensus, leading to such a beautiful collective human experience?
Tell me what you see in your mind’s eye.
The structural transformation I see is personal public records. Records of people’s identities — you, me, everyone. And the kind of public records I see are a consequence of a new understanding of human society: that a world of peace is one where people advertise their existence to each other without fear.
What actually gives power to hierarchical society is the erasure of individual human identity. It is crucial for hierarchical society that it monopolizes the power to identify people, and it is also crucial for that hierarchical society that people are constantly afraid of publishing personal identification and are constantly trying to safeguard it.
I thought “money” was the core mechanism of domination. It is not. It is identity itself. Money systems are “apps” of identity systems.
What do governments and corporations always ask of their “users” first? Identity. Then money. The root construct of social power is identity. There is no revolution if the revolutionaries cannot identify each other. If we cannot know each other, but private power monopolies can, we will never be able to “organize” in any “anarchic” fashion, ever.
But it is not about coming up with the perfect “identity system.” No. Fundamentally, it is a personal revolution — a profound change in world-view, based in a new understanding of how exactly humans are oppressed in such a large scale. It is a change in perspective, and in personal attitude.
Individual humans, and humans as a whole (“the people”), are oppressed and enslaved because they are afraid of stepping forward and refusing to hide their identities from each other. When you conceal your identity, you are individually protected from oppressors, but you weaken society as a whole. You save your ass, but you miss a chance to chip away at hierarchical domination. You miss a chance to invite others into that space.
Social revolutionaries have fought with their bodies, putting themselves physically at risk. I say that one of the most powerful acts of revolution you can do is to refuse to hide your identity. It may put you in harm’s way, but by publishing information that allows anarchic systems to find you and service you, you are creating the conditions for that more beautiful world where people don’t have to fear other people and evil hierarchical persecution from corporate-states and their militias. That world you already saw.
You designed that world. You created it. You’ve seen it — you’ve visited it. Do you really think that people refuse to participate in public, open identification in such a world? Why would they? What would they have to fear?
I don’t know if this will happen “next.” But I do know that will happen eventually. Perhaps we can pay Unconditional Basic Income to all using the current paradigm wherein only the corporate-state can afford to know which people exist. Perhaps we can pay Unconditional Basic Income using private guarantor funds of corporate-state money. Perhaps we can pay Unconditional Basic Incomes with local currencies, with local identification efforts. Certainly there is much we can do while still remaining fearful of exposing our identities.
But I don’t think it is wrong to start such a movement. That will be a movement of those who wish to break away from the paradigm of fear. Maybe I will be the only “insane” person publishing my personal information so UBI systems can securely reach me and pay me only once.
Perhaps there are ways to implement secure UBI systems without requiring people to expose themselves.
But I believe that the foundation of a society of peace is fearlessness. This climate of fear breeds violence and divisiveness.
States exist because we accept to live in fear. A world is free to the extent that people are fearless, and it is oppressed to the extent that people are fearful.
I believe we cannot build democratic social institutions if we cannot know who exists through open, public systems. To avoid identity being used to monopolize power (and, consequently, money, “law” and all other corrupted institutions, organizational games we have), we must all publish it voluntarily, for all others to see.
So that’s what a “government” is, essentially. It is a bunch of social systems based on the capacity to identify people. The only way to prevent a monopoly on “government” is to destroy the value of identities by having people learn that they should all make their identities public.
A “world government” that is not a tyranny is a world in which identity is a public commons made possible by computers and the Internet. A “world government” which is a tyranny is a world in which an elite controls access to everyone’s identity. That is the world we already live in, when you are able to see past the facade of “multiple countries, multiple states.”
