Re-distribution! (Value Systems)

## Table of Contents 1. [Introduction](#Introduction) 1. [Value Systems](#Value%20Systems) 2. [Value Functions](#Value%20Functions) 2. [History/Evolution Of Value Systems — A Transition To A New Age](#History/Evolution%20Of%20Value%20Systems%20%E2%80%94%20A%20Transition%20To%20A%20New%20Age) 1. [(DEAA) Indoctrination/Referral Systems ➡️ (TEAA) Parenting](#(DEAA)%20Indoctrination/Referral%20Systems%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Parenting) 2. [(DEAA) Informational Advantages/Edges ➡️ (TEAA) Hunting](#(DEAA)%20Informational%20Advantages/Edges%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Hunting) 3. [(DEAA) Property Rights ➡️ (TEAA) Property](#(DEAA)%20Property%20Rights%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Property) 4. [(DEAA) Gossip/Reviews ➡️ (TEAA) Curation](#(DEAA)%20Gossip/Reviews%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Curation) 5. [(DEAA) Governance ➡️ (TEAA) Governance](#(DEAA)%20Governance%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Governance) 6. [(DEAA) Organizations \[Corporations and Religions\] ➡️ (TEAA) Organizations \[Distributed Corporations and Cultural Agreements\]](#(DEAA)%20Organizations%20%5C%5BCorporations%20and%20Religions%5C%5D%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Organizations%20%5C%5BDistributed%20Corporations%20and%20Cultural%20Agreements%5C%5D) 7. [(DEAA) Communication Channels ➡️ (TEAA) Communication VF](#(DEAA)%20Communication%20Channels%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Communication%20VF) 8. [(DEAA) state Storage \[Data Centers and Libraries\] ➡️ (TEAA) Farming](#(DEAA)%20state%20Storage%20%5C%5BData%20Centers%20and%20Libraries%5C%5D%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Farming) 9. [(DEAA) Exit ➡️ (TEAA) Portal](#(DEAA)%20Exit%20%E2%9E%A1%EF%B8%8F%20(TEAA)%20Portal) 3. [Conclusion](#Conclusion) ## Introduction Redistribution gets a bad name…from the communists, and socialists, and fascists…and all the horrors of history, but the reality is that the State’s purpose is to coordinate people into the strongest possible structures, and that means redistributing stuff! _It’s literally their job._ All State structures redistribute resources. No State structure has ever existed throughout history without redistribution of some sort. **Coordination isn’t possible without the redistribution of resources.** All State superstructures consist of two sides: the social contract (which is the macro group coordination side), and the free markets (which is the micro individual coordination side). _These two sides combine much like the two hemispheres of the brain—they’re interdependent[^1]._ This article is about value systems, which are always stored inside the social contract side. Value systems define “what does a collective find valuable?” ### Value Systems Value systems are embedded in the social contract side and define how we redistribute resources as a society. - In a communist society, value flows from the rich to the poor. - In a fascist society, value flows from the citizens to the corporations. - In a capitalist society, value flows from the poor to the rich. - In a monarchical society, value flows from the citizens to the monarch. - In an anarchical society, value flows from the authority to the individual. **_Collectives always need a social contract that defines what they find valuable._** **All societies have value systems; their value systems are very important—_we use them everyday._** _A society with a flawed value system cannot thrive._ The value system is “where the value comes from,” in both senses of the term: 1. What a society values determines how value inside of it flows, and determines its social hierarchy pyramid structure. 2. What a society values, should be interconnected with the thing that brings value to that society itself. All societies have protocols for value systems. The handshake, or alternatively “hi, how are you?” are protocols established to implement the value system—in this case, the values being orderly business interactions. An organization with a really bad value system, like stabbing each other in the leg upon greetings…is worthless. _Just that one value would sink the whole society._ The value system must be optimized. Societies require value systems to keep them together. Without those, there would be no social cohesion. It’s like “What game are we playing, how has this been done in the past, and what do we value today?”. **What is the purpose of value systems?** They’re used to optimize the coordination of a collective. They aim to bring individual interests closer to the collective interest[^2]. Different collectives have different value systems. Each collective restructures its societal pyramid to the tune of its underlying value system. The value system of all collectives must start with survival, after that they diverge. The value system of Society Protocol (SP) is ideologically meritocratic. Inside of SP instances, the value system is defined by the Value Functions (VFs). - In a meritocratic society, value flows from those with less merit to those with more merit over time. For this to be possible, we must define merit—which is defined by the value system itself. ### Value Functions Each Society Protocol instance incorporates an array of Value Functions (VFs). Value Functions define how socioeconomic value is redistributed inside of the shared reality. _Every Value Function is a redistribution function._ Society Protocol instances redistribute Energy[^3] (socioeconomic value) inside of them automatically, based on their value systems—which are defined by their Value Functions. #### Automated value system vs manual value system Throughout the entirety of human history, our value systems needed to be manually tracked—which made them very limited in application, prone to corruption, and expensive to upkeep. VFs in Society Protocol are the first time that we can automate the redistribution of value on a society-wide basis, in an equitable manner—by sharing a singular Synchronized Social Contract (SSC). A singular transparent SSC society-wide removes the opportunity for corruption always present when value gets redistributed manually. Value Functions remain able to incorporate an evolved version of subjective decision-making in value redistribution. Some Value Functions contain both subjective and objective elements. Subjective interpretations combine with objectively automated execution via the computational backbone of SP. #### Designing Value Functions Designing how VFs redistribute socioeconomic value within collectives comes with lots of potential and a few noteworthy limitations. The potential arises because all of Society Protocol’s identities—are programmable objects, and we are able to design how socioeconomic value flows between them using algorithms in very profound, real-time, and powerful ways. The limitations come from multiple requirements: - Value Functions produce Activity Scores, and thus must not be “free” to use. Participants shouldn’t be able to mash buttons and use Value Functions for “free”—they must provide real value when interacting with each Value Function. - Anything that can be exploited, will be exploited. Value Functions must remain unexploitable. They must balance together into a cohesive system. Since they all define how socioeconomic value is redistributed, just one overtly imbalanced VF can imbalance the rest[^4]. - Value Functions must help the Society Protocol instance _survive_—meaning producing activity in the case of SP instances. #### Changing Value Functions Society Protocol instances are able to add, remove, and manually adjust the Value Functions present in their system via Governance. Society Protocol instances will each have different assortments of Value Functions in accordance with the value systems of their collectives. Even the same Value Functions might look drastically different in various SP instances—such as Parenting requiring one Parent to join a society in one instance and ten Parents in another one. The initial SP architecture includes nine original VFs. They are tremendously powerful, but they are also modular and interchangeable. We are excited to see what VFs our community comes up with. You can join our community and contribute your ideas, research, and implementations for VFs at the [forums](https://forum.societyprotocol.io). #### Web3 Value Functions If you want to compare Society Protocol to simpler protocols like Bitcoin or Ethereum, you can also conceptualize their Value Functions as such: - Bitcoin only has one VF—_it’s mining_. The Bitcoin network values miners and rewards them with Bitcoin for their contributions. This value system is based on their agreed upon Synchronized Social Contract (SSC) which retains the Bitcoin rewards schedule—eventually unlocking 21 million Bitcoin. - Ethereum has two VFs—they’re _staking and access to the EVM_. The Ethereum network values two things: when users stake Ether to secure the protocol and when users pay Ether to access the EVM. _These are defined by the value system inside the SSC of Ethereum._ - The original SP design contains nine VFs. _All nine Value Functions aren’t necessary to make Society Protocol valuable—the first three VFs is already a very powerful configuration[^5]._ SP instances each come with a modular assortment of Value Functions, which together define each society’s value system. ## History/Evolution Of Value Systems — A Transition To A New Age Value systems are nothing new; they have been around since the beginning of time, in every organization. We will cover how the value systems of the double-entry accounting age (DEAA) compare to those of the upcoming triple-entry accounting age (TEAA) in this article—analyzing their functionalities, limitations, and possibilities. The TEAA opens up possibilities which simply weren’t possible during the DEAA… Synchronized States will perform all the functions of value systems faster, with less effort, fairer, and more efficiently than the current Nation State paradigm. In the big scheme of things, the DEAA places redistribution powers into the hands of only a few people (representative governors, algorithm managers of social media companies, central bankers), while the TEAA places redistribution powers into the hands of: 1. Value Functions (agreed upon algorithms implemented society-wide in the SSC). 2. Governance (which doesn’t necessarily mean everyone, but can easily support direct instant representation. Or even better, it can support a meritocracy.) Society Protocol comes with nine original Value Functions: [_Parenting_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Parenting)_,_ [_Hunting_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Hunting)_,_ [_Property_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Property)_,_ [_Curation_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Curation)_,_ [_Governance_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Handbook-Governance) _(_[_Distributed Courts_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Governance+(Distributed+Courts)) _and_ [_Futarchy_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Governance+(Futarchy))_),_ [_Organizations_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Organizations)_,_ [_Communication_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Communication)_,_ [_Farming_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Farming)_, and_ [_Portal_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Portal)_._ All of these Value Functions were designed to take generalized societal interactions that humans already partake in, in daily life, and upgrade them to align interests using the capabilities of Synchronized States. Below, we’ll explore how Society Protocol's nine original Value Functions evolve their equivalents from the DEAA. ![[Value Functions.excalidraw.svg]] ### (DEAA) Indoctrination/Referral Systems ➡️ (TEAA) Parenting The Parenting VF is the evolution of current indoctrination & referral mechanisms in societies. _It’s designed to mimic the incentives of parenting in real life._ #### DEAA of Nation States Indoctrination & referral methods aren’t well tracked. The teacher hardly gets rewarded for indoctrinating the student in a classroom. The parent & child relationship functions similarly, with the parent expected to raise and indoctrinate the child without many formal economic bonds—hoping that the good child will fruitfully reward them in their old age if raised well, without any economic incentives to accomplish this—creating the misalignment of interests and often frustration in the relationship. *DEAA incentive alignment**: It’s difficult to keep track of formal referral or indoctrination incentive alignment. As a result, individuals often purposefully neglect and miss out on opportunities for these interactions because they aren’t incentivized correctly. #### TEAA of Synchronized States Parents get rewarded for inviting new participants to their SP instance ONLY in proportion to the value that these new Actors bring to the society—in accordance with the value system. The Parenting mechanic creates clearly defined and harmonious incentives for indoctrination & referrals to occur—without either: falling to non sybil-resistant mechanisms such as “invite spam” (where participants spam invite to everyone), or failing to incentivize referrals and invites properly—which is the most obviously glaring weakness of the DEAA (where participants simply aren’t incentivized to perform these actions, as they aren’t rewarded and cost care, attention, and energy). **TEAA incentive alignment**: The Parenting VF automatically keeps track of all the value added by referred participants and transfers the appropriate amount to the Parent Actor—thus, incentivizing the Parent Actor to be simultaneously conscious of whom they are referring, rewarded for their contribution of valuable new members to the collective shared reality in exact proportion to the new members value, and generally incentivized to help their Children succeed throughout their lifetime. ### (DEAA) Informational Advantages/Edges ➡️ (TEAA) Hunting Humans are always competing for status—_it’s a hunt_. There is only ever 100% of societal status to go around, and there’s always a big competition between participants about how to get it. _There’s always somebody caught lacking._ Physical robberies, informational advantages, and little loophole exploits are happening all around us…everyday…and while they might seem like bad things, they often serve a vital function: to rebalance the society towards those paying attention and producing value—forcing participants to pay attention, remain organized, and stay vigilant in an evolutionary process. #### DEAA of Nation States One of the best comparisons to the Hunting VF in the DEAA is informational advantages being input into systems to receive economic value against other participants, such as markets. Many people in society spend their entire professional careers seeking a form of informational advantages that they insert into the markets to receive monetary value. Other examples include physical robberies. Both of these examples serve evolutionary functions, helping society to organize better. **DEAA incentive alignment**: _The edges are produced all over society, helping to keep it in balance in a very disorganized fashion. There are no clear rules to the game, it’s a jungle. Individuals find weaknesses in their co-workers, exploitable informational advantages in informational markets, and unsecured physical property. No one really knows the rules to this game, because it’s a jungle, but it’s an important process for evolutionary purposes._ #### TEAA of Synchronized States The Hunting VF mimics this real-life dynamic of seeing and taking advantage of weaknesses, and is designed to channel this energy to accomplish three things: - Reward participants for inputting Events into the system, thus keeping their SP instance alive, active, and updated with a stream of current Events. - Incentivize all participants in the system to remain active and keep contributing value, as defined by the value system of the collective. - Place a personalized account tax on individuals which is equivalent to the inverse of their contributions to their SP instance. This mechanic entirely removes the need for any inflation or deflation in the monetary system, taxing every account precisely in proportion to its contributions, and thus eliminates the ability for a small amount of advantaged entities to gain control of the monetary system via controlling the inflation or deflation. **TEAA incentive alignment**: Automation transforms the jungle into a system of entirely clear and precise rules. It becomes evenly applied to everyone. There are no privileged Actors—anyone can become a Hunter. The Hunters are funneled into the productive pursuit of inputting Events for everyone in society to use. All Actors are cleanly incentivized to keep producing whatever the value system finds valuable to increase their Activity Score and lower their taxes. ### (DEAA) Property Rights ➡️ (TEAA) Property Property rights have been a crucial and necessary invention. Every society strives for the optimal way to create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) property rights—”what belongs to whom?” Without a consistent, fair, and efficient mechanic for this…physical conflict to resolve disputes would constantly need to arise, and **nobody** _would be able to have nice things_. #### DEAA of Nation States In the current age, we secure property rights using the combination of duplicated contracts and centralized court authorities. Individuals use documents, such as marriage certificates, title deeds, and receipts to secure and transfer property and status ownership. Duplicated contracts have [several known issues](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/The+state+of+The+State+(History)#Problems+of+Double-Entry+Accounting). Every duplicated contract remains separate and must be taken to the central court authority for notarized updates. **DEAA incentive alignment**: In all property rights interactions, the incentives between the two+ parties involved aren’t perfectly aligned—that’s why we need these contracts! Currently, the parties must meet or e-sign a singular digital document[^6], then retain their individual unharmonized copies. The supply chain of past property ownership isn’t clearly visible. The contracts are trivial to forge. Every update requires a new unharmonized duplicated contract. The rules to property rights are unclear and stored at multiple disputed governance levels (city, state, country). _It’s simply tedious, inefficient, unclear, and prone to corruption and mistakes—when compared to the property rights of the TEAA._ #### TEAA of Synchronized States All Property is stored and synchronized in the same state machine—accessible by all participants, who hold accounts worldwide as bearer assets through the internet directly. Some benefits include: - A centralized intermediary isn’t necessary for updates (they’re recorded in the Timeline automatically). - Actual property rights are secured better with it being nearly impossible to steal physical property—as it all would trace back to digital ownership certificates and be easily recognized as stolen. - The entire supply chain of ownership is clearly visible. - Transaction costs will become extremely low. - Ownership cannot be easily forged. - The entire status of property rights is distributed between participants, and property rights don’t get corrupted upon the loss of a contract. - The contracts themselves are automated and programmable—unlocking many new possibilities. **TEAA incentive alignment**: - Property rights are less corruptible and better preserved via cryptography. - All participants get better insight into supply chains. - All participants are incentivized to create more robust types of property using programmable smart contracts. - The entire Synchronized State is incentivized and able to drastically lower the costs of CRUD interactions with Property. - Prices for CRUD operations aren’t corruptible by gatekeepers like in many modern Nation States. - Participants are encouraged to register, transfer, and own Property—creating the most useful automated programmable contracts to do so, at the lowest costs—unlocking possibilities which weren’t possible before. ### (DEAA) Gossip/Reviews ➡️ (TEAA) Curation It’s always been very important, even vital, to get the most up-to-date, highest quality information about the people, property, and organizations around us. In life, we often have to enter into situations, relationships, organizations, and purchases with extremely limited information about the world around us. These interactions could cost us our life, a 10 year failed entry into a dead-end career which looked so promising at the start, or simply an unhealthy purchase for lunch (we don’t know where the ingredients come from). We all have to extrapolate A LOT of information about the future based on the EXTREMELY LIMITED information presented to us at the outset. #### DEAA of Nation States This information at the outset is extremely easy to manipulate; misinformation is prevalent. _The DEAA is is the age of image manipulation._ The core tenet of information in the DEAA is that image manipulation rules over accurate information. This occurs because the incentive structures aren’t well aligned…While all participants are naturally incentivized to manipulate & skew the public perception of property, individuals, and organizations for their own gain—revealing accurate information has no incentives attached (equaling being disincentivized). As a result, hordes of valuable accurate information are stashed away in society—while a sea of misinformation and disinformation are unleashed. All the information that we want is out there, but it remains hidden because of perverse incentives and overshadowed by the sea of slop/misinformation/disinformation due to the naturally perverse incentive structures of the DEAA. How much time do individuals spend contemplating and manipulating their image, their social graph, and the image of the goods they sell?…_It’s a lot._ _Image manipulation rules over the accurate aggregation of subjective opinions because_ the information all participants perceive at the outset of interactions is so limited. Individuals gain benefit from spreading misinformation, “gossip”, because of the: - **Lack of incentives** for revealing accurate information - **Lack of attribution** (it’s hard to tell where a piece of information originates—it just sort of floats around the mind share of society) - **Lack of persistence** (when the misinformation has fulfilled its purpose and fooled enough people, it can disappear from the shared reality just as easily as it appeared, for a new piece of hardly attributable information to take its place) _We see this everyday in almost every interaction currently around the world. The DEAA is an age of image manipulation. Vendors, potential dating partners, government representatives all spend time manipulating their image, knowing that it will be enough to fool most common interactions due to the low amount of information at the outset—making proper quality informed interactions essentially impossible. It’s the history of the past 2,000 years. Informational advantages are retained internally, while misinformation is pushed out into the world. Valuable accurate information is a rare treasure in the public space._ There are three avenues that we use for gaining valuable information about the world around us (listed from the most contained and valuable to the most widespread and distorted): - Gossip: Gossip can often be the most valuable information (but it cuts both ways), it’s information parties are only willing to reveal privately, because for whatever reason they don’t have enough incentives to reveal it publicly. - Reviews: Reviews are a middle ground of individuals who would like to share their opinions publicly, but usually aren’t incentivized by anything other than desiring to share their experience to others about their counterparties. This “free” and “non-incentivized” dynamic makes fraud prevalent, but writing great reviews essentially is an altruistic task. - Informational Media Channels: These are public broadcast channels which attempt to broadcast a public shared reality throughout the entirety of society. In my life experience, these channels are controlled by only a few parties, always have ulterior political motives, and broadcast information which is wildly inaccurate to influence the public perception. **DEAA incentive alignment**: What are the economic incentives which exist for incentivizing the DEAA methods to spread valuable and accurate subjective & objective information throughout society? **There aren’t many, but there are many reasons for information manipulation. As a result, all the incredibly potent and valuable information is hoarded and stashed away in silos—not benefitting society.** One could even say rotting society, because the lack of this information spreading, caused by the lack of well-aligned and established incentives is what makes the majority of society fall into the same potholes and traps recurrently. It helps to have good spider senses, but overall, _the disinformation of the DEAA gets us all_. It’s just how the incentives of the age are structured. It leaks an indescribable amount of potential out of the public consciousness compared to a properly incentivized information flow—lowering human potential. #### TEAA of Synchronized States The Curation VF allows all participants to monetize and gain value from sharing valuable insights that would normally lay dormant and hidden. Curation combines with the persistence and synchronization of state to create an environment where valuable information is shared, rewarded, and remains forever—rather than withheld. Since attribution of all state is always clear and persistent in Society Protocol…the origination point of all public opinions (and thereby disinformation) is easily perceivable and attributable—”gossip” cannot emerge and fade like amorphous shadows in a theater play on society. **TEAA incentive alignment**: The economic incentives of the Curation VF are designed and required to accomplish a few things: - Surface valuable subjective information across society, which would be withheld otherwise. - Impose a cost, paid to the rest of society, on information manipulation (meaning, people can start Curation chains to create and propagate their subjective opinions, but if they are not organically agreed with by the rest of the population, they must pay some cost to the rest of society to do so. In some ways, this can be seen as a form of paid marketing.) - Combine with the state persistence properties (clarity of ownership and propagation paths of all the state) in Society Protocol to prevent misinformation and disinformation from chaotically spreading and ruining the informational quality of a society. Ultimately, what we get is: more accurate information surfacing and those surfacing it being rewarded, marketers paying all of society for their attention rather than extracting value, and less misinformation persisting in the public consciousness because its origination point and propagation path remains in the shared reality and is easily attributable to specific identities. ### (DEAA) Governance ➡️ (TEAA) Governance Governance can be relabeled as “group decision-making” and is always a necessity in organizations—it defines how we make decisions as a group. Governance isn’t easy; it’s difficult to synchronize and coordinate decisions at scale as a group. That’s why, the methods of governance civilizations have used, even after millions of years of evolution, have remained incredibly simple: physical threat of violence, monarchy, democracy. These are all incredibly simple methods of governance—at most, we have evolved to give everyone one simple vote. _It’s simply an incredibly difficult challenge to scale decision-making and propagate it across an organization—both in a practical sense, technical sense, and because individual interests are always colliding._ #### DEAA of Nation States Through the usage of _duplicated contracts,_ societies have evolved into attempting to allow everyone to participate using democratic principles (for better or worse). The DEAA generally only supports representative democracy because the technology to gather direct votes in a secure manner has been essentially nonexistent[^7]. Democracy isn’t a perfect form of decision-making, it’s theoretically flawed in many ways: it’s slow, the majority of people aren’t well informed, and their opinions are manipulatable in many ways: disinformation, bribes, etc. ![[osho-democracy.jpg|600]] That said, the alternatives for organizational group decision-making are limited and the bar is low. Beyond physical violence, our only options have been monarchies and oligarchic enshrined councils. **DEAA incentive alignment**: The incentive structure of DEAA governance is pretty simple: _the populace must pay elected representatives with partially aligned interests to represent them_. The elected representatives are relatively easy to corrupt, prone to a misalignment of interests, and aren’t evaluated on the results of their decision-making abilities. Election cycles appear every two–five years to solve these issues, but the system is fatally vulnerable to a representative getting elected and then changing their tune after winning the election (this pattern can be repeated ad infinitum). Representatives bear no responsibility to represent the wishes of the populace which elected them. #### TEAA of Synchronized States Synchronized States open up lots of incredible potential for group decision-making. Since all participants’ identities, history, and communications channels are synchronized together and computable—the limits of how we can make decisions as a group become mostly up to our imaginations. The theoretical limits of group decision-making go way above the inefficient forms of physical violence, monarchy, and democracy. The theoretical limits of group decision-making reach towards a meritocracy of real-time direct decision-making between all participants—where only those participants who are making good decisions get selected to make decisions, and only those who are truly exceptional get rewarded by the society, as compensation for making great decisions for the group. Society Protocol enables such possibilities through its [modular Governance system](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Handbook-Governance) and its two Governance VFs: [Distributed Courts](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Governance+(Distributed+Courts)) and [Futarchy](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Handbook/Function-Governance+(Futarchy))[^8]. While not all the Governance in SP runs through Value Functions, the Governance Value Functions are designed to achieve a meritocracy. They offload the cost of Governance from the entire population into a zero-sum mini-game between competing Governor factions, who are each rewarded from the other side for making good decisions (“aligned \[subjective\]” in the case of dCourts, or “accurate \[objective\]” in the case of Futarchy). **TEAA incentive alignment**: The governance mechanisms of the TEAA aim to reward participants who are able to make the best possible decisions, while using less effort than a Democracy by not needing to involve everyone in all decisions, at all times. These are the principles of meritocracy which the TEAA will be built on. TEAA governance mechanisms allow any Actor or Organization to participate in Governance, but incentivize only the best Governors, and don’t mandate or desire that everyone participates. The system aims to reward competence and alignment in decision-making. Meritocratic systems can entirely offload the economic costs of governance (such as representative salaries) from the populace, by allowing direct representation and structuring incentives as zero-sum mini games between decision-makers. ![[Dictatorship vs Democracy vs Meritocracy.excalidraw.png]] ### (DEAA) Organizations \[Corporations and Religions\] ➡️ (TEAA) Organizations \[Distributed Corporations and Cultural Agreements\] The nature of all organizations is fractal—all large organizations must be able to segment into sub-groups to operate efficiently. The quality with which these sub-groups are able to form and coordinate either uplifts or degrades the entire societal superstructure around them. In the past ages, organizations were loosely affiliated, and their state was difficult to keep track of—making them valuable, yet inefficient entities for coordination. #### DEAA of Nation States The two most prevalent forms of organizations that civilization currently uses are corporations and religions. All organizations of the DEAA must operate on duplicated contracts—that’s their limitation and potential capacity. They’re able to scale globally, but extremely clunky in their maneuverability and coordination mechanisms. Organizations aren’t able to move in unison because they aren’t able to synchronize, visualize, and interact with their state in real-time. Each duplicated contract remains separate, isolated in different parts of the organization, and harmonizing all these siloed contracts isn’t trivial. As a result, organizations aren’t easily able to update their structures, synchronize their actions, or incentivize participants in real-time…this limits their coordination capacity. As an example, if a religion of the DEAA wanted to add a new rule to its tenets, it wouldn’t be trivial to update this rule, and inform all the members across various branches about this new rule. It’s not trivial to align the entire organization around adding even something so simple. If there are many subsidiaries, each branch would need to update their duplicated contracts separately, the communication might not entirely reach every branch’s participants equally, and there would often need to be a debate about how to exactly interpret this new rule (it’s just subjective words). **DEAA incentive alignment**: While the incentive structures of organizations in the DEAA might be aligned decently, their potential is capped very low due to their lack of synchronization. DEAA organizations have a hard time maneuvering, incentivizing valuable participation, visualizing their comprehensive status, and overall _moving as one_. Often, perverse incentives between participants keep organizations in a state of disarray, which is impossible to resolve and improve without the clarity of a Synchronized State. #### TEAA of Synchronized States Society Protocol provides two types of Organizations, which are designed to be the evolution of corporations and religions. They are: Distributed Corporations and Cultural Agreements. These organizational structures evolve all the capacities of DEAA organizations by infusing them with all the capabilities provided by the structure of Synchronized States. They inherit code-based identities, synchronized state, entirely preserved clarity of history, a singular shared reality, and the ability to align incentives of individual participants and prospective new members via automated programmable incentives. These powerful structures will entirely change how the world organizes. Organizations being able to _move as one_, treat all participants equally with clear objective rules written in code and executed automatically, and program economic incentives directly into their organizational structures will enable a different level of coordination capacity for the world. **TEAA incentive alignment**: The tracking of state will increase the capacity for all sorts of supply chain tracking and incentive structures, allowing Organizations to coordinate at a worldwide scale and level, in real-time, with low costs, which isn’t currently possible. TEAA Organizations will entirely eliminate the middle-men required to facilitate organizational interactions of the DEAA by allowing all members to directly interact with the Synchronized Social Contract (SSC). This will drastically lower costs and enable direct real-time coordination between all participants at unseen scale and speeds—forming living worldwide golems. The ability within TEAA Organizations to _move as one_, perceive everyones contributions, perceive the rules clearly, and incentivize any assortment of actions—while retaining the abilities for subjective judgements, and enhanced governance capacities—will supercharge Organizations to incredible heights. ### (DEAA) Communication Channels ➡️ (TEAA) Communication VF Communication has always been important for societies. Humanity has evolved from barely being able to communicate…to now, in the modern age, being able to trivially communicate worldwide. Society Protocol will add two facets to this communication capacity: - The facet of being able to bring the proof and weight of your entire identity into your Communication interactions. - The facet of being able to communicate worldwide in a peer-to-peer (P2P) fashion, without requiring a centralized entity in the middle to peer into Communication interactions. #### Communication Channels in the DEAA of Nation States In the modern age, we have reached the capacity to communicate with anyone (presuming our governments allow us) worldwide. _This is trivial! Hooray!_ But the price we pay for these interactions is to the infrastructural centralized entities, which record, monitor, and data mine our interactions. We are also overwhelmed with fake identities and phishing interactions. It’s often hard to perceive who we are dealing with because each communication channel is fragmented and has a different database of accounts. Each fragmented channel produces a separate identity, and even if we know someone’s identity in one communication channel, it could be a malicious hacker controlling (seemingly) their identity in any of the other channels. Our communication channels can also be censored by these centralized entities. **DEAA incentive alignment**: The big issues of incentive alignment in communication channels of the DEAA arise from the centralized entities required to run them and their ulterior motives. Every centralized entity has its own ulterior motives to exploit participants’ communication…whether that be data-mining for state, displaying ads, censorship, or pushing these participants to interact with some favored pre-determined parties…_The centralized infrastructure controlling our communication channels has its own ulterior motives._ #### **Communication VF in the TEAA of Synchronized States** Participants in Synchronized States communicate directly P2P. Their communications are encrypted, bearing the full weight of their identities, and don’t require any centralized intermediaries. Participants can add programmable economic incentives to their Communications. For example, Actors can program into their accounts, the parameters of who can contact them. Let’s say I would like to block anyone who isn’t in my Family Tree from interacting with me…unless they are willing to pay me 1000 Energy on specifically Wednesday—these types of arbitrary rules are easy to setup using the Communication VF. This greatly enhances user experience. Participants can cut off all spam from unknown identities, or set specific rules for interactions that the protocol automatically enforces. **TEAA incentive alignment**: - The middle-man standing in the middle of every conversation and extracting value to fuel surveillance states will be removed from the equation. - The incentives to develop a great identity will be enhanced, because each interaction bears its full weight. - Access to and from identities will be easily controlled and programmable. _Nothing extra, just minimal and powerful features which can be built upon extensibly._ ### (DEAA) state Storage \[Data Centers and Libraries\] ➡️ (TEAA) Farming All societies throughout history have needed to store their state somewhere. Humanity has evolved from recording it in our minds, to storing it in obelisks, churches, and data centers. The more refined and efficient a society’s methods of state storage are—the more that society is able to coordinate around that state. #### DEAA of Nation States Currently we store our state in centralized data centers. Earlier during the DEAA, societal state was stored in churches. The problem with the methods of state storage in the DEAA—**is that they’re centralized**. When societal state becomes centralized, the entity which owns it essentially owns society. This issue is the root of the giant centralization issue we are witnessing today. _They can change history, delete people, manipulate the monetary system…and anything else._ This much total overwhelming power over society drives sociopathic rulers insane, and they often start eating children. _To save the children, we must decentralize the state storage._ **DEAA incentive alignment**: The current way state storage works, is that technology companies store the state of our society for everyone for “free”—in order to control the state of society. **The state of our identities is the product they farm.** The only real cost to the users of these “free” services—_is slavery_. Whoever controls the state of another’s identity, owns them. #### TEAA of Synchronized States Anyone can use the Farming VF in the TEAA to store chunks of the societal state. The state storage in effect will become distributed, and as a result—_resilient_. Farmers are always replaceable and produce redundancy, their value in the system is to provide state storage services in exchange for socioeconomic value—not to control the state storage of society and turn everyone into slaves. A plethora of Farmers will emerge—competing to store the state of society in the most cost-effective ways. **TEAA incentive alignment**: The state storage capacity provided by Farmers aligns the interests of all participants with the Farmers excellently. It distributes state storage to avoid slavery, provides resilience and redundancy in the societal state storage by distributing it far and wide, and rewards a whole class equitably for providing a fair and valuable service to society. Farming simultaneously makes all participants compete on cost-effectiveness, retrieval efficiency, and storage security in a free market—improving the absolutely crucial backbone of state storage for society. ### (DEAA) Exit ➡️ (TEAA) Portal The ability to exit a tribe, nation, or society has always been available to those who seek it—_it’s just really difficult_. People seek an exit from societies for many reasons: they’re not satisfied with governance, don’t want to get drafted into a war they don’t believe in, it’s not a good cultural fit, etc. It’s historically been very difficult to _exit_, but possible. This is because it’s very hard to take an individual and integrate them into a whole different society and value system—alongside States not wanting to let their members leave and enhance their rivals, preferring to retain them captured. _It’s always been very difficult, but possible._ As humanity’s coordination mechanisms improve…“exit” has become more feasible. #### DEAA of Nation States To facilitate an exit into a different Nation State, two things have to occur: - An individual must be granted residency or citizenship by another Nation State. - The individual’s original Nation State must allow them exit. This process happens all the time in the DEAA…it’s very difficult but lots of people still pursue it, because when beliefs aren’t aligned, or something important is broken in an individual’s State—_staying is hell_. _Migration happens._ Still, the necessity of people to uproot their entire lives, participate in extremely tedious bureaucratic processes, and need to integrate into new locations and cultures is a very painstaking process. _Exit is doable, but mostly it requires starting a new life and losing most of your acquired connections and possessions in the DEAA._ **DEAA incentive alignment**: Nation States don’t want to let people go, they often impose exit taxes or don’t let citizens exit. The citizens have a difficult time exiting and joining other Nation States, where: the value systems are different, they often don’t speak the language, and residency or citizenship often requires significant financial resources. **TEAA of Synchronized States** The Portal VF allows any participants or groups to exit while retaining their entire identities, relationships, history, Property, and everything else stored in the Synchronized State. The groups which choose to Portal out are able to redefine how their new Synchronized State functions, in a way more to their liking, by adjusting the Value Functions, Governance, Protocol Parameters, Actors, Energy distribution, and Constitution. _The cost for exit becomes significantly lower._ I wouldn’t call it seamless, but exit becomes much more attainable for the average Joe who wants to live differently and isn’t satisfied with the status of their society. **TEAA incentive alignment**: The Portal VF is designed to retain as much of the value as possible for both parties in the disagreement. The individuals or groups exiting get to retain their identities, relationships, monetary systems, and all other state; while the Synchronized State they’re leaving gets to retain all the locked up Energy of the exiting group—_without it all being sold on the open market_. Thus, the State retains its value, and the individuals who are unsatisfied get to exit, with as little harm as possible done to both parties of the interaction. ## Conclusion For millennia, societies have struggled with a fundamental problem: how to redistribute value fairly without corruption and optimally. Manual systems require armies of bureaucrats, create endless opportunities for exploitation, and leave most people wondering if they’re getting their fair share of the pie. _Society Protocol changes this equation entirely._ The transition from manual value systems to automated Value Functions represents more than technological progress—it's civilization’s opportunity to automatically align individual incentives with collective flourishing. For the first time in history, we can redistribute socioeconomic value automatically, transparently, and most importantly fairly at a society-wide scale. What was once vulnerable to corruption and inefficiency in the DEAA can now become automated, optimized, and synchronized in the TEAA through Society Protocol's breakthrough architectural design. The nine original Value Functions aren't just upgrades to existing social mechanisms—_they're building blocks for a new form of civilization_. By making socioeconomic redistribution automated, transparent, and aligned with merit rather than manipulation, Society Protocol instances can finally deliver on the promise that in previous eras could only imagine: _a society where contributing value to the collective genuinely rewards individuals in proportion to their impact_. This isn't utopian dreaming—it's systematic coordination design. The Age of Synchronicity awaits, and with it, the possibility of societies that don't just survive but genuinely thrive—where redistribution becomes the engine of human flourishing rather than a source of horrors and corruption. ### Footnotes [^1]: The social contract side always distorts the equation on the free market side. For example: a social contract with a 300% tax on cigarettes versus a 0% tax will equate to different equations on free market side. A social contract where polygamy is the norm, will equate to different dynamics in the free market for marriage. [^2]: For more information about coordination, please read [Rebalancing Pyramids (Coordination)](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/Rebalancing+Pyramids+(Coordination)). [^3]: Energy itself is how we measure and transfer value. It’s the monetary system, not the value system. [^4]: Imagine a VF saying “every time you do a handshake with someone, take $1000 from all other participants.” It would ruin the entire financial system. [^5]: You can conceptualize a very simple version of Society Protocol with only the Hunting VF included (redistributing 10% of the Energy to the Hunters every year for inputting Events) and the rest is just a free market of Energy. [^6]: This document is stored on someone’s centralized servers, which creates vulnerabilities. [^7]: Until at the very least the advent of the internet, but even then…the technology for direct voting would be prone to a slew of issues: centralized servers, hacks, vulnerabilities, etc. In actuality, the first time direct democracy became technologically possible is very recent—it’s only through some form of distributed public key cryptography system like Bitcoin attached to real world identities. [^8]: While not all the Governance in SP runs through Value Functions, the Governance Value Functions are designed to achieve a meritocracy. They offload the cost of Governance from the entire population into a zero-sum mini-game between competing Governor factions, who are each rewarded from the other side for making good decisions (“aligned subjectively” in the case of dCourts, or “accurate objectively” in the case of Futarchy).