The state That Binds (Shared Reality)

> Bitcoin and decentralization began as a movement to separate money from the State. Little did we realize, Satoshi had invented the roots of a new form of it: The Synchronized State. _This article is part of the state trilogy; terminology for the trilogy can be found [[Terminology for the state trilogy|here]]_. *You might want to read [The state of the State (History)](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/The+state+of+The+State+(History)) and [Synchronized States (The Golden Record)](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/Synchronized+States+(The+Golden+Record)) in addition to this essay.* * * * What is reality, who _makes it, where does it come from?_ > It sure as hell isn’t you. Hahahaha! 😂 😂 Let’s break down the nature of reality. Since it doesn’t come from you, it has to come from somewhere. ![[buddha-on-humanity.jpg|450]] ### The Nature of Reality Our natural state of reality upon birth is a private perception, a private state of *subjective truth*. Almost immediately from that point onwards, we begin a journey of indoctrination into the shared reality of the tribe, a semi-private state derived from a *consensus*. This process demands a good chunk of our early lives and culminates in adulthood—when we are able to function autonomously as a member of the tribe—seamlessly understanding and interacting with the shared reality. During the indoctrination period, we must learn: the rituals, common knowledge, patterns, and beliefs which form the shared reality of our tribe. The process includes learning: the language, rituals of the tribe, and the beliefs and meta-knowledge which exist in the consensus (such as religion, political ideologies, status symbols, and friends & enemies of the tribe). From the moment of birth…we are programmed to become productive and valuable members of the tribe via this indoctrination process. Without it we couldn’t function in society. The issue is, this semi-private consensus is fundamentally a compromise—**a shared reality**. It is never our private perception of subjective truth—**consensus is not the truth**. It is a shared reality which allows us to interoperate with the other participants who share the same reality. It’s a compromise of our individual subjective truths into a shared reality we can (hopefully) all agree on (sorry, this part is actually impossible). From the moment we start to become indoctrinated, as the child is dependent on the parents for survival, our entire reality becomes compromised. Check out this [famous CIA experiment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Dj03Z8T6Q) originating from the [Solomon Asch conformity experiments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYIh4MkcfJA) of the 1950s. The shared reality (consensus) must be accepted and the private subjective truth discarded to function in society. Since the private subjective truth cannot be removed, it is usually deeply hidden below the surface of the consciousness—causing a duality[^1]. Existing in this duality, as you can imagine, gets a little bit confusing. We must share a reality, which is essentially not our subjective truth or what we subjectively perceive, but a consensus in the middle (or is it? where does it come from?) that kind of works for everyone. This shared reality is the glue which binds our societies, and yet it can never be exactly the subjective truth we experience internally. Since this shared reality doesn’t exist in anyone in particular: full transmission or synchronization of it is impossible. We even wouldn’t know where it comes from—we all naturally see a different world from different subjective points of view. In this process, everyone gets a bit (or a lot) confused. The shared reality that we participate in goes through two levels of indoctrination and transmutation: 1. From private subjective truth into a shared reality (consensus) 2. From clear-ish shared reality into a twisted and warped one––as parties fight to manipulate the shared reality for personal gain (serving as a political mask and the narrative of the tribe). ![[twisting-shared-reality.png|500]]<center>So much of our reality gets lost in transmission. Time and space bend and warp it 🧬.</center> On a positive note, now we have a tribal pattern. We’ve baked a tribal pie––**a shared reality**[^2]. Our tribe can now coordinate using this state—improving our protection and survival while it is competing with other tribes—who are playing the same exact game. To give a concrete example of subjective private perception (subjective truth) vs consensus (shared reality): subjective private perception is our individual perception of time (depending on how we are feeling energetically and emotionally in the moment, it can go fast or slow), while shared reality is clock time we synchronize around (it’s a consensus we can all agree on). While subjective private perception always lives within us, shared reality does not live within us—it is external. We must measure and uphold it. The subjective private perception and shared reality coexist in parallel, overlap in our perception, and never see the same thing. Hence, everyone in the world walks around confused. It’s the blind leading the blind. **We’re not living in our realities**, we’re living in the “shared reality,” which exists as a shared story we propagate, not in our subjective perception. Socially, it’s an important pretend world, more vital to an individual’s survival than their subjective truth. There is naturally no shared thread of reality that flows through the universe. We must form it—using energy from our physical beings. Let’s introduce a new term for this shared thread of reality: > #### state that binds (STB) > > The state that binds (STB) is a certain form of state which binds our realities together into a shared reality. > > It is reached through a form of consensus and almost synonymous with shared reality itself (except conceptualized as a mutating object). > > Individuals are pulled to the STB gravitationally from their individual realities, as a way to coordinate. The STB applies to any form of relationship. In this case, it can be referred to as the “state that _bonds_.” Without a shared reality, we cannot have any bonds_._ There is a saying, “_those who suffer together, stay together_.” This reflects how shared experiences strengthen the STB—it has a life force and power of its own. The STB is responsible for both mass psychosis and mass synchronization. It gravitationally pulls people together into a singular context. It itself has an energetic power and gravitational pull to it. It's a constant part of our lives and if we erase it; we would erase our identity, nation, and notion of society—but where does it come from? The STB has transitioned through four epochs. Each epoch has fundamentally altered how it functions—how we store, perceive, maintain, and update it—changing the fundamental nature of societies, their realities, and the identities of people living within these networks. **The Four Epochs:** > 1. **Zero-Entry: Tribes**: The shared reality exists solely in people’s minds. It’s disjointed between the tribe. With no recording, duplication, or synchronization mechanisms, it cannot scale. Reputation is everything. > 2. **Single-Entry: Classical States**: This epoch added a permanent recorded STB to the inherent reputation systems. A huge imbalance naturally arose between those who created and could record and maintain the STB and those who couldn’t. Reality was dominated by those few who could access and record the STB—giving them control of the identities of those who couldn’t access the recorded shared reality[^3]. > 3. **Double-Entry: Nation States:** The legitimacy of the shared reality is rooted in duplicated contracts and agreements. This system is supposed to facilitate access to the shared reality equally for the population. Today, we all feel like we have access and influence over the shared reality (at least in the Western world). Whether we do or not, is another question. The duplication of the STB allowed multiple parties to imbue lasting contractual agreements into the shared reality. > 4. **Triple-Entry: Synchronized States:** Every global participant has equal access to a synchronized shared reality. The entire history of how we arrived to this state in the shared reality, including all previous states, is quasi-immutably recorded in a chronological Timeline. ![[Epochs of Shared Reality.excalidraw.png]] The STB is always fundamentally a social layer trying to maintain coordination. It’s kind of made-up by the tribe. The tribe is trying to maintain, progress, and synchronize a reality as a way to coordinate. Yet it cannot be fully synchronized. Since the consensus is important, influencing it is **_immensely valuable_**. Since influencing it is _immensely valuable_, and yet it doesn’t exist in anyplace in particular—we’re all constantly fighting over influencing and modifying it. All the way from the micro level of relationships to the macro level of Nation States. We negotiate, deceive, and fight physical conflicts for influence over the shared reality. We wear beliefs as a fashion, because shared reality doesn’t belong to us…and if reality doesn’t belong to us, then our identity doesn’t belong to us either. Hence, we adopt the beliefs that we believe would be the most beneficial for us in the shared reality. _For most people, beliefs are a fashion to enhance their identity in the shared reality rather than independent convictions._ Erik Torenberg does a good job of describing these mechanics in [Beliefs are Fashions](https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/beliefs-are-fashions) based off Rob Henderson’s work on [luxury beliefs](https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/thorstein-veblens-theory-of-the-leisure). > “People don’t even have beliefs per se, separate from the current moment and what their peers think. The idea of “belief” itself is a misnomer. Implied in “belief” is an individual, first-principles, derivation process of figuring out what’s true, whereas it’s more like a complex algorithm that takes into account one’s peer group, the loyalties one owes and to whom, who has more status and what talking points fit better accordingly. > > To summarize: People don’t choose beliefs according to the merits or logical value of those ideas—people choose ideas that will best improve their reputation within a tribe.” \[@torenbergBeliefsAreFashions2022\] So…to recap: We’re all sharing a pretend world for coordination purposes that we’re all fighting over influencing—which is separate, yet overlaps with our private perceptions—often in conflicting ways. This becomes confusing to the brain, which often needs psychiatric help as a result. The mind often pushes the consensus up-front to the consciousness and the private subjective world into dreams and other forms of subconscious behaviors—to enhance survival. This article is not about the private world. It’s about the shared reality—**the state that binds (STB)**. We will cover: what participants want out of it, how altering it affects the mechanics of societies, how States form and die around it, and how Synchronized States will change the nature of the STB. For your personal psychological problems stemming from the natural overlap of these realities—you will need to see a psychiatrist. We don’t provide that. ## Sharing a reality (What qualities do people want in a shared state?) All shared realities are constructed (man-made). Not all shared realities are constructed equally well. Some are fundamentally more conducive to maintaining prosperous and thriving communities and societies than others. The shared reality is vital and used for essentially all facets of coordination (ranging from micro to macro) in every society. Minor differences in its mechanics can have huge effects on people’s lives and interactions. Let’s examine the qualities people seek in a shared reality, and what qualities they are repelled by and won’t tolerate. #### Survival Survival of the STB is the most important feature in a shared reality. It’s imperative that the STB lasts through time. If the STB dies—all the work put into creating and maintaining it becomes powerless and dissipates, including: relationships formed, languages learned, status acquired, and anything else (unless it’s acquired by another shared reality). Participants must believe in their shared reality’s future survival. If they do not, it will be treated as a short-term relationship and constantly exploited, dooming its future prospects. The most important underlying factor in determining the survivability of a shared reality is its community. At the end of the day, STBs are upheld by a community, and above all dependent on the strength of the community upholding them. All value derives from the social layer. While the social layer is the root, it also works in the opposite direction, the quality and mechanics of an STB can either super boost the community, pulling outsiders into its gravitational field—or grind the community to a halt, destroying it altogether. The purpose of the shared reality is also paramount. Does it serve a purpose for the social layer to continue to upkeep this reality? If the STB can’t survive, all the effort sunk into it will disperse. Participants will lose their learned ideologies, commonalities, relationships, and identities while simultaneously being conquered, split, and absorbed into a different shared reality(ies) and having to re-learn everything (with what are essentially now bad obsolete habits). #### Legitimacy (Trust) Since the STB has an _immense_ impact on all participants who share it, its legitimacy is of paramount importance. Legitimacy is defined by its accuracy to the total sum of participants. How it changes is often outside of participants’ individual control, while changing it can alter everything about their lives and identities asymmetrically. Therefore, it’s extremely important that participants in the shared reality believe in its legitimacy (accuracy), which produces *trust* in their perceptions. When participants don’t have trust in their shared reality, it’s a downward spiral. People abandon, go back to their individual private perceptions, split into different realities, and shamelessly further distort the legitimacy of the already illegitimate shared reality. Everything melts. #### Shared Context (Information) The shared reality stores our property rights, relationships, social roles, identity, and history. It must be able to CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) and transmit information well. Ideally, participants should have reliable instant access to current information from anywhere globally, with the appropriate levels privacy and access control, and without an ability for any participant to withhold or censor this information flow. The social layer is entirely bottlenecked by the “bandwidth” of its STB mechanism to perform these informational duties. If the shared reality can’t effectively store and transmit information: our shared reality mutates uncontrollably and grinds to a halt. #### Access Control (Agency) Users want to access and update the shared reality with maximum agency. This requires implementing role-based permissions and enabling as many participants as possible to directly CRUD the shared information while maintaining appropriate security guardrails. When users lack agency: gatekeepers emerge, we get bureaucracy, and ultimately power concentrates in the hands of a few. #### Coordination (Incentive Mechanisms) The STB isn’t just storing our shared reality—it’s in a sense alive and evolving throughout time. It includes algorithms which guide the further creation of itself. Participants want the best coordination mechanisms possible embedded into their shared reality. Throughout history, since transmitting the shared reality was not always trivial, rituals, religions, and ideologies have often served this function. All great religions carry tenets, which are great coordination mechanisms enabling us to form a harmonious society. They are fundamentally coordination engines with a narrative attached (for easy memefication and memorization). In the past, rituals, religions, and ideologies had to maintain very simple narratives and rules which were easily remembered and propagated throughout society. This is because historically societies' methods of maintaining and propagating a shared reality were fragile and unstable in themselves. _Complexity would quickly mutate and be impossible to duplicate_. As we grow more sophisticated as a society, our methods of facilitating shared realities have evolved—allowing us to include more complex and efficient incentive mechanisms. The more sophisticated the mechanics that bind our STB, the more complex and sophisticated the coordination and incentive mechanisms which exist inside our shared realities can become. In the modern age, with synchronized states, we can have algorithmic coordination mechanisms which are programmable and synchronized globally in <1 second. If the coordination mechanisms inside a shared reality aren’t optimized, the social layer using it won’t be able to organize well. The consequence is…it won’t **survive** against other rival social layers. As we mentioned, **survival** is the participants’ #1 priority when it comes to shared realities—making coordination and incentive mechanisms residing inside it a crucial factor. #### Fair Representation of Interests (Balanced Control) The issue with most shared realities, isn’t that it has power. All shared realities have some power. It’s in representing the interests of all its participants fairly[^4]. Every individual participant naturally wants more representation in the shared reality than is fair (everyone wants to maximize their self-interest), but what’s deadly is less representation. The people in power (who have more representation in the shared reality than equilibrium) never want to abandon their representation advantage (it would be a relative loss to them). The desire of the powerful to retain their unequal representation of the shared reality can often threaten the survival of the shared reality itself, as their excess representation comes at the expense of everyone else’s. As a society, we want fairness (which implies a balanced representation of all individuals’ interests). That’s what builds the optimal prosperous society for everyone. This can be labeled a balanced equilibrium. No particular Actor in society wants a balanced equilibrium individually (everyone wants more representation in the shared reality), but all participants benefit from a balanced equilibrium, which creates a net surplus in society and creates thriving for everyone. That’s what we’re concerned with creating at Society Protocol, a STB with as close to a balanced equilibrium of representation as possible. This equates to the facilitation of the maximum thriving of society itself. The difficulty lies in the STB mechanism itself. Throughout history, humanity has never had STB mechanisms which enable fair representation in the shared reality. _Don’t hate the player, hate the game._ We all like to hate on participants who exploit this—depriving us of our fair share of shared reality—but it’s not their fault. It’s a systematic issue stemming from the mechanics of the STB[^5]. Satoshi originally invented Bitcoin to separate money from the State, not because it’s optimal to do so for the citizenry of any State[^6], the citizenry of a State overall doesn’t want money flowing outwards…that weakens their State’s shared reality. Satoshi invented Bitcoin because he didn’t trust in the representation of interests which Nation States exerted over the money supply. In modern Nation States, representation over the shared reality is tightly centralized and it doesn’t accurately represent the interests of the people—losing legitimacy[^7]. This is obviously corrosive, where a small faction benefits at the expense of everyone else and decays the shared reality. This terrifies the participants of the shared reality, and causes them to search for alternatives, both externally and internally—further decaying the legitimacy of the shared reality. #### Synchronization (Shared Context) The better our STB can synchronize all of this shared information, the more powerful it becomes. The synchronization qualities of a STB aren’t absolute, it’s a relative quality, which spans from completely (asynchronous & slow) to completely (synchronous & fast). There is always some lag between nodes. The overall test of the quality of synchronization is in how well it keeps the shared reality in the same state for everyone. #### Moats (a form of defensibility) Oftentimes, when a social layer creates a shared reality…they don’t do it in the most “_perfect”_ way. Instead, they create a system they have an advantage in understanding, such as the English imperial system or the Portuguese language coming from Spanish. Those using the English Imperial System and Portuguese can understand the metric system and Spanish, but it’s a one way street. Moats ensure the tribe using the shared state retains an advantage and form of defensibility against opposing shared realities. #### Interoperability & Ubiquity Participants often seek ubiquity and interoperability in their shared realities—the broader its reach, the more likely the survival of the STB and more powerful their coordination becomes. Different States, languages, currencies, cultures, and religions cannot effortlessly interact or coordinate effectively. Every incompatible shared reality creates barriers to interaction (at minimum), and also potential threats. Shared realities are actively battling for reality, of which there is only 100% available. When an STB achieves ubiquity, its users gain tremendous advantages through network effects. This victory necessarily comes at the expense of competing shared realities, which fade from collective awareness. This dynamic drives missionary zeal: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Bitcoin Maximalists, and military conquests—each represent an attempt to expand their STB to achieve interoperability & ubiquity. It’s the reason you see archetypes of restaurants (Thai, French, Japanese, Italian) instead of completely unique dishes at each restaurant. With this interoperability mechanism, _users know somewhat what to expect_ _before entering the restaurant by using the shared reality_. Let’s take an example: North Korean food. Since the shared reality of North Korean cuisine hardly exists in the world compared to the ubiquitous nature of other cuisines—_everyone sharing that reality is hindered_. It would be a difficult uphill challenge to open up a North Korean restaurant in most places in the world because of the interoperability difficulties with the patrons and supply chains. Although the food may be superior (we will never know), it would have to be phenomenal to overcome such disadvantages. _Until then, North Korean chefs aren’t making the big bucks while Italian and French ones are._ The language of English is another good example. It has network effects that allow all users who share in its STB, to use it as a “currency of languages”, even if it’s not either user’s native language. Its ubiquity allows two users who are, let’s say Polish and Bolivian, to both switch to the ubiquitous STB of English from all the less ubiquitous STBs to interoperate. _How many languages did English destroy in its process of growth?_ ## How communities form and die around a shared reality (The State) All human connections—whether micro relationships, communities, or macro States—are born, sustained, and ultimately dissolved around the gravitational pull of their shared realities. When we think about it, States are essentially organizations fighting for control over the state—both their own and rival neighbors. _There is only 100% of reality to go around._ ![[SR State Competition – DEAA.excalidraw.png|500]] <center>DEAA States fighting for control over 100% of shared reality.</center> Every individual is to some degree sharing this ethereal STB, the shared reality—and each one wants a little bit more representation[^8], because the STB is innately tied to our identity, and having less control over it gives other actors more control over our identities. Both individuals and States are fighting for control over each other’s _identities_ via control of the shared reality. ### Gravitational Pull All shared realities have a gravitational pull. Most people perceive blockchain ledgers to be like a single thread, whereas, they are actually more like this: ![[sr-gravity.excalidraw.png|450]] <center>A Timeline which grows stronger and fades with it’s energetic and gravitational pull—which derives from the strength of social layer using it.</center> During the past epochs of humanity, we have never been able to synchronize the shared reality or its gravitational pull into a single chronological timeline. Humans have never had anywhere close to the technological capacity necessary to do something like that. It’s only possible by using (S)synchronized (S)states. As we gather around a STB, _it grows in power and lore._ The volume, value, velocity, density, and history of information stored inside it increases. This causes a myriad of [network effects](https://www.nfx.com/post/network-effects-bible). ### Network Effects The gravitational pull of shared realities doesn’t grow and fade linearly, it both grows in and fades in power superlinearly. This causes snowball effects in different variations of shared realities as they battle against each other (one person defecting from one to another is worth more than one unit—both the fading STB loses more than one person/total worth of power, and the growing STB gains more than one person/total similarly). _This superlinear nature can cause big shifts from small differences in preferences._ The STB becomes very useful in ubiquity as it reaches larger sizes. For example, I’m able to use English to interoperate with the majority of the world, while a less widespread language wouldn’t be able to achieve that. As the [effects of scale](https://www.nfx.com/post/network-effects-bible#Scale-Effects) kick in—they produce additional increasing momentum. _Ubiquitous shared realities allow us to coordinate in ways that_ _small_ _ones can’t_[^9]_._ _Shared realities have momentum._ As it gains momentum superlinearly, it can quickly spread with that power in momentous ways and its abilities can expand explosively (somewhere between superlinearly & exponentially \[@bobbriscoeMetcalfesLawWrong2006\]), contracting in the same fashion for the opposite effect. This makes the manipulation of enemies’ shared realities a powerful weapon of politics, war, and rival competition—because little differences in preferences can achieve outsized outcomes, quickly snowballing and mutating or wiping out enemies’ shared realities while making your social layers STB more ubiquitous. It’s a constant high-stakes battle between rival social layers to infringe and manipulate their enemies’ STB, which glues them together, all while strengthening their own. _This works in dual-sided ways_, just as quickly as empires and organizations can rise with network effects, they can fall. Consider the CIA triangle/square experiment from earlier in this article, or how color revolutions don’t need more than a tiny percentage of the population to sway the fate of an entire Nation State by altering its perception of shared reality. ### STB Lifelines: Waxing and Waning Shared realities can be perceived as the lifelines of their relationships, community, or State. We’re going to use the linear Timeline of synchronized states to illustrate how they grow and fade: **Illustration of a STB as it grows in gravitation:** ![[Shared Reality Growing.excalidraw.png]] **Illustration of a STB as it fades in power and gravitation:** ![[Shared Reality Fading.excalidraw.png]] ### Split Reality (STB Forks) A scenario that often occurs in the social layer is _split realities_. _The shared reality can split_, similarly to a hard fork in blockchains, for a multitude of reasons; it could be a single contentious decision or just accumulated differences over time. Let’s ask a question: Today (in the double-entry accounting age), how do we track if our social layer has a split reality in the past, occurring presently, or brewing in the future (and we have issues in our shared context)? **We currently don’t have a common thread of reality.** At a societal level, we track this information with duplicated contracts, along with media entities to propagate the information. The problem is that these duplicated contracts are separate (unharmonized), created after the event to attempt to seal its status, and not showing the shared reality as it is happening in real-time (unsynchronized). Since our access to duplicated contracts is limited, we require middle-men intermediaries: the media entities which are responsible for propagating this information throughout society (as best they can). Media entities do not convey this information accurately for a variety of reasons: they have their own political interests as middle-men, they simply don’t have all the information because it doesn’t exist anywhere singular, and they are unable to propagate it society-wide (we must use channels, and different channels say different things). How do we then accurately perceive which parts of our shared reality are splitting, what is really occurring, or who supports each divergence? **There is no way for a society to currently understand this because we can’t perceive the shared reality.** Our shared reality doesn’t exist in any singular place; it’s currently a patchwork of individual perceptions and duplicated contracts. _All people are incentivized to manipulate this information, to arbitrage the informational advantage between different points of perception._ During a _split reality_ event, multiple leaders and factions emerge proclaiming different realities as the consensus, but it’s impossible to peer into the social layer and determine what is really going on…_Who is truly aligned with each leader’s position? How committed are they? What have they done in the past?_ The social layer must eventually reach a consensus about competing shared realities, but the process we currently use to achieve this is subtle, imperceptible, dangerous, and unpredictable. _An ephemeral foggy notion of a shared reality splitting apart…members disappearing in the fog_…Filled with fake masks, spies, manipulation of the remaining STB, deception, and a constant political fog of war about the consensus. _It becomes essentially impossible to see what’s going on or how various actors are moving and preparing._ _Shared reality splits_ are a common recurring pattern throughout history. During these processes, a fundamental challenge emerges: no one can truly perceive the shared reality. _Shifts in allegiances rapidly occur. Factions are incentivized to manipulate information flows. This information appears, mutates, and disappears over time. The whole process is amplified by the momentum of network effects. The winners rewrite the history in their shared reality at the end._ **It gets worse;** competing factions controlling state propagation are incentivized to manipulate and censor information, and can do this imperceptibly. Corrupting the very foundation of our shared understandings. What does this mean, what do we achieve in the end? It means that we spend a lot of energy and create a lot of confusion to destroy our enemies’ shared realities and rewrite history in ours. Does it make our shared reality ultimately better or more effective? No, we’re still very confused and in a fog of war, unable to perceive the shared reality. The battle is nearly a coin-flip, with maybe a slight edge at best, and network effects can carry either side to victory. Let’s take this example of a reality split: [Kurdish leader calls for PKK to lay down arms.](https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pkk-founder-orders-kurdish-group-lay-down-its-arms-dissolve-historic-statement) _Whoa…that’s quite a dicey proposition! What do you mean lay down my arms?_ _Will it work, well who supports him? Imperceptible! What prevents those who support him from falsely doing so and switching sides? Imperceptible! The media told me he’s has a lot of support. Manipulated! What if he’s a decoy for the other side, controlled opposition 😱? Possible! Should you follow his lead or not as a Kurd and lay down arms? Who knows…? I don’t know homie._ Good luck! To call this situation dangerous is an understatement, and yet it’s a fundamental recurring part of human nature. Split realities occur just as often in relationships as they do in Nation States. Ultimately, those who can duplicate their state and destroy their enemies’ shared realities win and the losers’ reality suffers destruction, but it’s an _ugly process affecting both sides_. It’s a needlessly confusing and destructive process, where _both sides end up with tremendously warped realities_. It’s not a virtuous cycle for anybody and can be optimized, in every occurrence by using Synchronized States—_where all parties can perceive the singular shared reality and history immutably at all times_[^10]. ## Sharing a Synchronized Reality (synchronized states) > There are two distinct things we are talking about when discussing (S)synchronized (S)states. > > **synchronized states** – can synchronize a state for a community, binding them to a shared reality, but not fulfilling all the essential functions to bind a State. > > **Synchronized States** – can synchronize a community, binding them to a shared reality, and fulfill all the essential functions to bind a State. > > All Synchronized States are synchronized states, but not all synchronized states are Synchronized States. At the bottom of every shared reality is a social layer coordinating using that state. **All blockchains are is just synchronized states, synchronizing shared realities**. They can evolve to become Synchronized States if we add in all the features necessary to form a State, as in Web4. _Blockchains are closer to an evolution of the clock than financial infrastructure._ (S)synchronized (S)states only offer one foundational value: **synchronizing a shared reality via a consensus**. From this singular foundation, all of their other valuable features are derived: verification, trust, and coordination. A consensus about a shared reality (preferably synchronized) is a foundational prerequisite necessary to achieve all these features. This wasn’t historically possible at scale[^11] (outside of the clock) until Satoshi invented Bitcoin in 2008 \[@satoshinakamotoBitcoinPeertoPeerElectronic2008\]. Without any form of reliable neutral (or as close to neutral as possible) consensus and synchronization: we are unable to share verifiable lossless data, thus unable to achieve trust in our communications, thus unable to reliably coordinate using this information. _Everything falls apart._ The reason we use blockchains for verification, trust, and coordination is because consensus about a shared reality is a prerequisite to achieve these features, but they are fundamentally not the root purpose or value of synchronized states. These features are generally easier to offload and achieve in other ways, such as co-processors and zero-knowledge proofs. _The only state that needs to go into a synchronized state is information which requires synchronization._ Everything else can be offloaded. At some point, every participant must be updated about this shared reality, either through synchronous or asynchronous communication. The closer that we can get all participants interacting with the STB in a fully synchronous fashion—the more possible actions open up (the decision tree of theoretic actions for each actor expands). _The current lack of synchronicity in society is similar to society’s lack of ability to coordinate before the advent of the clock, more on this topic is covered in_ [_4-Dimensional Synchronization (Clocks)_](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/4-Dimensional+Synchronization+(Clocks))_._ ### Dissolving Misconceptions About synchronized states Blockchains are just synchronized states—humans trying to coordinate around a shared reality—ideally in the most powerful ways possible, to serve the interests of the social layer using them. Contrary to popular dogmatic beliefs, they aren’t immutable, secured by consensus mechanisms, credibly neutral, trustless, censorship resistant, or decentralized. Every one of these features is a common belief (meme), not how these systems actually operate. Let’s examine all these misconceptions and see what we find remains at the bottom [^12]: #### Immutability Most people believe that blockchains are some sort of immutable financial indestructible ledgers–_they aren't_. There are methods to mutate the past, present, and future available to participants. There is no immutable code, there never was—there is only a community. Therefore, we must place our trust in the community, rather than the code. Yet the community cannot be perceived in 1D, 2D, or 3D synchronized states. It is invisible, while retaining the power to alter the shared reality for everyone (including the past, present, and future). ![[Synchronized State Mutateability.excalidraw.png]] <center>Both social layer forks and reorganizations at the protocol layer can alter the shared reality for all participants existing within it.</center> Mutating the state (adjustments): So, we can change it, we can mold it, we can refactor it, we can do a lot of things…but what we're ultimately trying to achieve in the end is as close as possible a valuable synchronized state: a shared a reality that the social layer, and ultimately every participant finds valuable and can use reliably. Blockchains must be reconceptualized as a social coordination mechanism which synchronizes a shared reality to a ledger—_community coordination tools_. They create a STB which unites disparate people, from different realities, pulling them gravitationally into one shared reality over time. It’s essentially impossible to plan the optimal economics from the outset of a synchronized state anyway. Deciding the whole economic formula at the outset of a shared reality, without being able to adjust it later, because of its false sense of immutability—is not a winning formula, it’s economic suicide. _The only constant in nature is change, shared realities must adjust to change to survive._ > _The idea of a blockchain “rollback” dates back to 2010, less than two years after Bitcoin’s launch, when block 74638 ended up minting 184 billion BTC because of a software flaw. To resolve this, Satoshi Nakamoto released a patched version of the Bitcoin client, invalidating these transactions._ > > _Excerpt from:_ [Can the Ethereum blockchain roll back transactions? Understanding the limits and risks](https://cointelegraph.com/explained/can-the-ethereum-blockchain-roll-back-transactions-understanding-the-limits-and-risks) Even the most immutable blockchain changes from the imperceptible social layer: [Bitcoin update to raise data limit on divisive OP\_RETURN function](https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-op-return-data-limit-raise-next-update), [Disclosure of CVE-2018-17144](https://bitcoincore.org/en/2018/09/20/notice/). #### Security via Consensus Blockchains are said to derive their security from their consensus mechanism; they actually derive their security from their social layer. This is explained at length in [Fake Everything](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/Fake+Everything+(Prelude)#Fake+State+(Coordination)), refer to the “_Fake State (Coordination)_” section. #### Credible Neutrality Credible neutrality is a concept Vitalik Buterin introduced in his essay [Credible Neutrality As A Guiding Principle](https://balajis.com/p/credible-neutrality). Vitalik argues that mechanism design should be as “credibly neutral” as possible, which is defined by the mechanisms of the protocol not favoring one party over another. > “Essentially, a mechanism is credibly neutral if just by looking at the mechanism’s design, it is easy to see that the mechanism does not discriminate for or against any specific people. The mechanism treats everyone fairly, to the extent that it’s possible to treat people fairly in a world where everyone’s capabilities and needs are so different.” [@buterinCredibleNeutralityGuiding2020] Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist. (S)synchronized (S)states aren’t apolitical. The mechanisms within them aren’t apolitical. The parties creating the mechanisms aren’t apolitical. The users participating and exploiting the mechanisms aren’t apolitical. The informational advantage some parties have by being closer to the information isn’t used apolitically. The parties at the social layer are incentivized to make mechanisms seem as apolitical as possible while enjoying their informational advantages, which exist outside the confines of the protocol. Meaning, a mechanism can be completely fair in itself, but exploited by other external parts of the system (which in blockchains stretch way outside the confines of the system to the social layer). Even after all that: The mechanisms themselves cannot be fair to all parties, because they by definition incentivize some parties. For example: incentivizing the miners fairly and equally, is by definition at the expense of everyone else who isn’t incentivized. As a guiding principle, the only time “credible neutrality” would be used in practice, is when it is being exploited as a guise by an actor for gain at the expense of unwitting participants or when it is being used by a merger of political parties to form a coalition, at the expense of other political factions—because the actors making the mechanisms themselves are fighting over the shared reality of a singular network. > **_(S)synchronized (S)states, which synchronize a shared reality for their participants, are by definition a political tool of a State._** That is why we are not building a singular network at Society Protocol. Each instance will have its own politics, and that’s fine. Our aim as systems designers, is to enable each Society Protocol instance to create rules that are as close to balanced as possible for all participants[^13]. We can accomplish this because we are not building one singular shared reality which everyone is fighting over, but rather a modular codebase template. We do not expect the participants fighting over the shared realities inside Society Protocol instances to be credibly neutral. _Everyone is incentivized to imbalance the shared reality a little bit in their favor, and that’s what we expect to happen. Meanwhile, we can build a codebase that is as close to balanced as possible._ There is a similar concept in game theory, which we believe is more applicable and would better serve Vitalik’s intentions for guiding principles: _balanced vs exploitative play._ What we aim to do as systems designers, is to design a system which is in sum total, as close to balanced: unexploitable as possible for all participants. The concepts of _fair representation of interests_ and _legitimacy_ of shared realities also come to mind as guiding principles in lieu of the possibility of credible neutrality. #### Trustless (S)synchronized (S)states are not trustless. There is nothing in their mechanics which removes the need for trust. What they do is distribute the trust requirements between multiple parties. In permissionless cryptocurrencies and Web3 blockchains, these parties are pseudonymous. Meaning, the trust could all be distributed between one party and users don’t have a way to distinguish who they are trusting at all. #### Censorship Resistance Permissionless-ness is a core quality which is imbued into the ethos of the decentralization movement since Satoshi introduced Bitcoin. It is also an illusion. (S)synchronized (S)states only have as much permissionless-ness as the nodes running the shared reality would like to grant users. A good example of this can be seen when Tornado Cash came under United States sanctions and Ethereum nodes began censoring users trying to interact with the smart contracts. > In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury's OFAC sanctioned Tornado Cash, a decentralized Ethereum privacy protocol, for facilitating over $7 billion in transactions, including $455 million in laundered funds by hackers like North Korean groups. This unprecedented move targeted its smart contracts, prompting major Ethereum infrastructure providers like Infura, Alchemy, and Flashbots to block interactions with Tornado Cash, with over 50% of post-Merge blocks in September 2022 becoming "OFAC-compliant," effectively censoring transactions. This sparked a community backlash, with privacy advocates decrying Ethereum's centralized chokepoints, as transaction volumes plummeted and developers sought decentralized workarounds like IPFS. The censorship-resistant qualities of a synchronized state depend entirely on the qualities of its social layer, while the social layer in permissionless blockchains is imperceptible. How can participants perceive the censorship resistance qualities or know how those qualities will change in the future with an imperceptible social layer running the nodes? **They can’t.** _What kind of shared reality are you living in? What do the nodes want to censor and how will this change in the future? How can you know…? People’s political views change over time._ #### Decentralization There is often a perception that synchronized states decentralize the power of their users. While they distribute participation in the STB to any number of permissionless and willing participants, they do not naturally decentralize power. Whether power is decentralized or not in a synchronized state depends not only on what’s inside the protocol, but also on the social layer existing outside of the protocol. _Both, the inside and outside sides would need to be and remain balanced to decentralize power._ There have been no cryptocurrencies or Web3 blockchains up to this point which decentralize power once we factor in social cabal dynamics. We have covered this topic previously in [Fake Everything](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/Fake+Everything+(Prelude)#**Blockchain+can+never+live+up+to+its+reputation+or+decentralized+vision+in+it%E2%80%99s+current+form.**), refer to the “_Blockchain can never live up to its reputation or decentralized vision in its current form”_ section. > **Decentralization as a concept can be broken down into two important functions:** > > 1. To make the organization lack one central point of failure (distributed) > 2. To keep the organization free of power capture by a few centralized parties (decentralized) > > The world has currently only managed to create distributed synchronized state organizations thus far. While the power sources have become worldwide and hard to track down (able to use opacity and jurisdictional arbitrage), **they are not meaningfully decentralized.** * * * At the end of the day, the mutability vs immutability, security vs insecurity, credible-neutrality vs favoritism, censorship resistance vs censorship, trustless or trusted nature, and decentralization vs centralization—are all derived from the desires of the social layer. What we find at the bottom—is that: synchronized states are simply humans who want to synchronize and coordinate around a shared reality**.** Oftentimes, the people not understanding this premise, promise things that sounds good…like immutability, credible neutrality, security via consensus, trustlessness, censorship resistance, and decentralization but their mouth can’t cash these checks. **It’s not how synchronized states fundamentally work.** **They only do one thing consistently: programmatically synchronize a shared reality for a social layer.** ## How can synchronized states help us share a STB? Whether we’re synchronizing a single 1D integer in a clock, a 2D matrix in Bitcoin, a cube of 3D objects in Ethereum, or a 4D model of a universe in Society Protocol: synchronized states can help us synchronize a shared reality globally via a STB. Using modern computer science and processing, humanity will end up synchronizing the vast majority of our reality by the end of the 21st century—within 75 years. _This will change the nature of reality. It will change the nature of shared reality. It will change the identities of individuals. It will change the nature of societies._ #### Epochs of synchronized states All synchronized states can help us store and synchronize a shared reality. As they evolve, the capacities of what they are able to store and synchronize have expanded during each epoch by expanding the dimensions in the STB. 1. **1-Dimensional: Clocks** 2. **2-Dimensional: Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin)** 3. **3-Dimensional: Web3 (Ethereum, CBDCs)** 4. **4-Dimensional: Web4 (Society Protocol)** ![[1D-2D-3D-4D Transition.png]] In all of the currently existing cases (from 1D-3D) the dominant systems have already eaten many shared reality alternatives to survive and grow into their positions. _The clock has eaten the many alternative versions of timekeeping systems. Bitcoin has eaten many alternative versions of POW chains shared realities. Ethereum has eaten many 3-Dimensional attempts at a shared reality._ ### 1-Dimensional: Clocks Clocks are cool. Although they can’t synchronize much in the shared reality—only read an integer. To arrive at the Julian Calendar, 24 hour days, 60 minutes per hour, 60 seconds per minute which we use today…clocks have eaten a lot of alternative synchronized shared realities around solar and lunar time. _We don’t concern ourselves with this or think about it much, but how many alternative timekeeping systems has our version of clocktime destroyed? We don’t know, because they mostly aren’t kept in the shared reality. The winning systems write shared reality, just like the winners write history._ Over time, humans strive towards the most neutral shared realities (enabling _fairness of representation_ and _legitimacy_ for everyone). This natural process of evolution goes from more exploitative realities towards something more balanced that everyone can agree on in a spiral of evolution. That’s the clock’s superpower: the sun’s external movement created an externally anchored system, which everyone could agree to use, without the fear of favoritism. **Problem is:** This shared reality is so small, we’re only able to synchronize one digit. ### 2-Dimensional: Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin) Bitcoin can read and write to the synchronized STB. It can facilitate economic transactions, store records, communicate messages, and read from the shared reality globally. It’s relatively new and relatively neutral due to the revolutionary nature of it and no pre-mines…but not as neutral as we would like it to be—quickly forming into its own cabal power structure emanating from the miners and the social layer. Participants exist at the behest of the cabal and how long there will be value to maintaining this shared reality is uncertain. We would like it to be more balanced, but this may be impossible with its pre-programmed economic formula of emissions and lack of governance mechanics to adjust its “immutable” pyramid structure. So far, there is a lot of value to maintaining it, and nothing else has arrived on the market with equal or greater ability to replace Bitcoin as a store of value (SOV)[^14]. For a better understanding of these dynamics, read [Fake Everything](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/Fake+Everything+(Prelude)). ![[sr-growing-conquering.excalidraw.png]] <center>Bitcoin as a STB has eaten a lot of weaker ones.</center> **Problem is:** This shared reality lacks depth, it can’t store objects. ### 3-Dimensional: Web3 (Ethereum, CBDCs) Web3 protocols like Ethereum and CBDCs allow participants to read, write, and own objects inside a 3D model of shared reality. Web3 is extremely new. It was originally created by Vitalik Buterin in 2015 \[@vitalikbuterinEthereumWhitepaper2014\]. It is 2025 as I write this, and the biggest economy in the world, the United States of America is transitioning its currency and equities markets onto the rails of Web3. _That’s powerful._ These protocols are poised to transform the world in the same way that the clock revolutionized timekeeping, spreading virally with explosive network and scale effects. Unlike Bitcoin, which has remained “legitimately immutable[^15]” throughout its lifetime, participants in Web3 have figured out that they are distributing the economic value of shared realities, and began manipulating them from both the inside (pre-mined distributions) and outside (social layer manipulation). Ethereum was launched 70% pre-mined to allocate most of the social value to early participants, underwent a transformational fork altering its entire shared reality during the infamous [DAO hack incident](https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/09/coindesk-turns-10-how-the-dao-hack-changed-ethereum-and-crypto), and undergoes routine updates altering the protocol’s shared reality from the social layer for everyone. ![[sr-fading-conquered.excalidraw.png]] <center>Ethereum hard fork, eating Ethereum Classic.</center> > While Bitcoin has remained “legitimately immutable” and Ethereum has not in practice, the underlying technology that enables their “immutability” is identical––both systems can undergo mutations. The difference is purely in the actions of the social layer sharing the STB. 2D & 3D synchronized states are static pyramids from their inception (with preset economic rules) and have a difficult, essentially impossible time rebalancing the socioeconomic value within their shared realities over the course of their lifetime. **Rebalancing is hard**[^16]. It’s exploitable by whoever controls it, not in the interests of any individual participant (while being in the interests of all participants), and ultimately requires governance (which ultimately requires identities). The thing is, 3D synchronized states don’t store identities of changing evolving entities, they are designed to store programmable 3D objects. > If you leave an identity in a desert for 100 days and come back, it will be dead. If you leave an account inside of a Web3 protocol and come back in 1000 days, the objects inside that account will remain the same (assuming the protocol is still there). **That is the difference between modeling a 3D cube and reality.** Everything in reality exists simultaneously as a physical object and the energetic waveforms flowing through them. Web3 protocols do not model this. They model a cube of programmable objects, not a living world. 2D & 3D synchronized states don’t offer a **full alignment** between participants and those who control the shared reality. Not all interests are equally represented, because they cannot facilitate governance, due to not being able to store identities. There cannot fundamentally be a fair representation of interests in such a synchronized shared reality. The governance must be moved to the social layer to achieve any “non-immutability” at all, and yet the social layer is unevenly coordinated itself and unable to facilitate governance in a way that either is well coordinated or fairly aligns the interests of all actors in the system. _It’s plainly, a cabal._ It’s primarily this lack of neutrality (_fairness of representation_, _legitimacy)_ that has spawned an intense competition for 3D synchronized state blockspace between many competing organizations. They’re all playing essentially the same game—each organization itself isn’t neutral, and pre-determines the value distribution and controls the economic value system by coordinating at the social layer. Ethereum currently maintains a significant edge in this mostly undifferentiated field as the originator, as 10 years in production without any downtime or vulnerabilities in the core protocol[^17] cannot be replicated without a time machine. Web3 STBs, in turn, fall more under control of their owners than the earlier example of Bitcoin, which was solo-launched by Satoshi Nakamoto before people understood the game theory of these designs. 3D synchronized states are newer, more powerful, and perceived to be less neutral (due to their social layers being more organized from the start, although it’s impossible to tell how neutral the imperceptible social layers of permissionless synchronized states are until it’s too late). 3D synchronized states are defined by their platform nature and interoperability. These communities don’t function as a single shared reality, but rather many intersecting communities holding up a singular shared reality. _In the case of Ethereum: Aave, Gnosis, ENS, Tornado Cash, Chainlink, and USDT…and many other entities all contribute to the beam upholding the shared reality and influencing it._ ![[Ethereum SR.excalidraw.png]] **Problem is:** This shared reality lacks identity, sybil-resistance, and the social layer. While the objects exist inside the shared reality, the people controlling them are still outside of the model. ### 4-Dimensional: Web4 (Society Protocol) Web4 protocols synchronize a 4-Dimensional model of reality, an alive energetic universe with people and objects inside it. Web4 protocols differentiate themselves in their ability to place the social layer inside the STB, allowing the social layer to step in from the alleyways and shadows behind the STB into the shared reality itself. Once we embed the social layer into the STB, we become able to coordinate that social layer. Thus, allowing Web4 to read, write, own, and coordinate participants who are all sharing the same Synchronized Social Contract (SSC). Society Protocol (SP) is the only known Web4 protocol. It is designed to optimally facilitate all the essential functions that participants want in a shared reality: survival, legitimacy, shared context, access control, coordination, fair representation of interests, synchronization, moats, and interoperability & ubiquity—allowing it to fulfill all the essential functions of a State, and making it the first true Synchronized State protocol in human history. The features it enables aren’t a revolution, they’re an evolution. Society Protocol enables features powerful enough to transition humanity into an entirely new age, _The Age of Synchronicity_, by synchronizing a shared reality for all participants. #### Social Layer (Identity) Society Protocol gives direct control of identity, property, and data directly to its owners’ as bearer instruments (for more details, read [The Sovereign Individual](https://societyprotocol.io/404)). Unlike the double-entry accounting age, everyone in the triple-entry accounting age interacts directly with the Synchronized Social Contract (SSC), removing the need for middle-men intermediaries from our basic societal interactions. **People are the most valuable asset.** Crypto protocols are neither trustless or immutable economic tools—they are community driven socioeconomic synchronized states, facilitating a synchronized shared reality. If the community can’t thrive and turns bad, the synchronized state facilitating them is ruined. **All value derives from the social layer.** A shared reality thriving or corrupting and dying largely depends on its purpose and the strength of its systems of coordination. Society Protocol is designed to give communities the optimal systems to coordinate—_allowing them to thrive_. #### Complete Alignment (Community) Unlike 2D-3D synchronized states, where people can destroy the STB and walk away unscathed with their identity. Inside Society Protocol instances, Actors would be required to destroy themselves (their identity) inside the protocol instance (which builds over time) to destroy the Synchronized State. Additionally, Society Protocol creates **full alignment** between all participants of the shared reality. Unlike previous systems of Statecraft, all identities existing inside a SP instance have direct access to the shared reality state, to governance, and can perceive and update the singular Synchronized Social Contract (SSC). _This design eliminates any unaligned advantages to forming cabals or cartels—enabling all participants to fairly share power in shaping their collective reality._ This creates profound effects in the shared reality—especially when combined with optimized algorithms to coordinate the community. By investing in our shared STB—we invest in ourselves and also in our Synchronized State. This investment reflects in ourselves, our surrounding social layer, and the wider Synchronized State[^18]. Here’s the catch: participants can only wholeheartedly make this investment in their shared reality if they have the safety of a completely aligned community (without an invisible cabal controlling the consensus[^19]. Otherwise, this investment in ourselves and our community is exploitable and can be harvested and exploited by those in control. _Complete alignment changes the game theory on how the social layer participates in shared reality—making profoundly better humans._ #### Rebalancing Pyramids Unlike 2D-3D synchronized states, Society Protocol is a not a pyramid. It is a rebalancing pyramid. Society Protocol instances continuously algorithmically rebalance socioeconomic value from Actors who aren’t bringing value to society towards those Actors who are. All shared realities want _a_ _fair representation of interests_ and _legitimacy_ as qualities. **Continuously accurately rebalancing the socioeconomic pyramid of social value is the only way to achieve this**. The prerequisite to achieving this is an accurate representation in governance. As we mentioned in the section above, 2D-3D synchronized states cannot effectively facilitate accurate governance because they must derive their governance from the opaque social layer. Additionally, we achieve this using algorithms. By combining subjective governance decisions + objective algorithmic enforcement—synchronized across the entire Synchronized State—we unlock the Rebalancing Pyramid effect. Society Protocol continuously redistributes social value in an automated fashion, ensuring each Individual Actor's Energy reflects their explicit socioeconomic value at every point in time. This Rebalancing Pyramid effect makes people incentivized to join Society Protocol instances at any point, not just at the beginning. Participants always receive their fair share of the shared reality. More information about this is covered in [Rebalancing Pyramids](https://societyprotocol.io/404). It also incentivizes Society Protocol instances to create Protocol Parameters, Levels, and Laws which are as close to _fair_ and _legitimate_ as possible—creating a competition between rival instances to attract users—in which the most balanced instances have a generic advantage and will win (with the general public) in the end—just like the clock we use today after a millennia of refinement. There is also room for wide variety of niche instances. #### The quality of state The underlying state Society Protocol instances generate and store forms identities, a social graph, a socioeconomic value system, objects as property, and a unified base information layer for society—which all participants and applications can equally access. Social media, ride sharing, babysitting applications, etc…can all finally share the same public data—_removing the need to duplicate the state_. The quality of the data (coming from sybil-resistant identities) SP instances generate is at a different level. It’s inherently extremely valuable, more real, and alive than any predecessor dataset. The whole Synchronized State turns out very alive and real, storing the entire shared reality and history of a social layer as it moves through time and space. Society Protocol allows us to synchronize, rather than duplicate our state at societal scale. This brings us into a whole new epoch of human civilization—_The Age of Synchronicity._ > **_This evolution will change the fundamental nature of people, as shared reality changes identity._** In Society Protocol, the Synchronized State participants can now perceive Actors identities as they move through time in the Timeline (STB). **This was never possible before.** For the first time, we can peer into the strength of the shared reality accurately. This was always invisible in previous epochs of accounting and 1-3D synchronized states. For example, we don’t know when someone joins and leaves the English language, our clock timekeeping system, or 2D-3D synchronized states. **The shared reality becomes a living breathing traceable thing.** **What is in the Society Protocol STB?** - **Energy**: Energy is simultaneously ownership, explicit societal status, money, currency, and access to control. - **Actor’s Identities**: Actors identities persist and evolve in Society Protocol instances over time in a sybil-resistant manner. - **Events**: Events are social activity within the protocol. Together Events form Historical Events and can be perceived as Flashbacks (as the entire public history of the society is verifiably stored). - **Societal Interactions**: The social interactions between Actors and Organizations can be shared globally, instantly. They form a verifiable social graph which persists in the public state stretching and expanding from the Genesis Event to the current Timeslot. - **Property**: All property rights are enforced cryptographically and ownership can be verified in the system at any point in time. - **Organizations**: Family Trees, Distributed Corporations (dCorps), and Cultural Agreements all exist seamlessly in the STB. Everyone can perceive which Actors have participated in which Organizations throughout history. - **Governance Decisions**: Governance decisions can be transparent or encrypted. In the transparent variant, everyone can see how all Actors and Organizations have behaved in the past throughout the entire history of the Synchronized State. - **Curation of all Actors, Property, and Organizations**: The subjective and objective ratings from participants in the system accumulated from the Genesis Event to the current Timeslot. **Problem is:** We haven’t built it yet. It is a long journey between designing the architecture and creating stable systems of Society Protocol which States can reliably use to facilitate their infrastructure. If you are interested in contributing to the creation of Society Protocol and would like to be a part of the journey, you can: [join our community](https://societyprotocol.io/), [invest in the movement](https://societyprotocol.io/), and [contribute to the architecture](https://societyprotocol.io/). ### Patterns of Synchronized Shared Realities: ![[Patterns of Synchronized Shared Realities.png]] ### Where does the shared reality come from? So we get back to the question: if it’s not you, then who controls the shared reality? Where does the consensus come from? The answer is…outside the scope of this article. > But, It sure as hell isn’t you. Hahahaha! 😂 😂 You can read [The state of The State](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/The+state+of+The+State+(History)) and [Synchronized States](https://societyprotocol.io/Published/Articles/Synchronized+States+(The+Golden+Record)) for more information. At Society Protocol, our belief and hope is that Synchronized States will facilitate an equitable way to distribute the shared reality for all participants in the upcoming _Age of Synchronicity_. ### If you die in the shared reality (Identity) People become bound to their shared reality (over time), this happens through the societal dynamic of indoctrination (and afterwards). If you die in the shared reality, it can be connected to actual death, or it can be connected to ego death…it is always connected to an identity shift. We don’t provide either of these things at Society Protocol. If you’re interested in more knowledge about society, identity, longevity, and purpose: take a look at [Virtuous Cycle](https://virtuouscycle.co) and [School of Change](https://schoolofchange.co). If you are looking for more content about the evolution of identities and Society Protocol, read [The Sovereign Individual](https://societyprotocol.io/404). ## Conclusion Our journey began with a simple question: what is reality, and who makes it? As we discovered, reality emerges from the complex dance between your private subjective truth and the shared consensus of your tribe. From birth, we're indoctrinated into a shared reality that allows coordination but demands compromise in perception, creating a duality that defines human existence. This state that binds (STB) has evolved through four epochs: from the malleable oral traditions where bards and elders controlled tribal memory, to the permanent stone tablets of pharaohs who declared themselves gods, to the duplicated contracts that enabled democratic governance. We are now on the verge of the next step, Synchronized States, triple-entry accounting, and the _Age of Synchronicity._ **_Each leap forward expanded our capacity to share a reality_**_._ The qualities people seek from shared reality remain constant: survival, legitimacy, shared context, access control, coordination, fair representation of interests, synchronization, moats, and interoperability & ubiquity. Yet every system and architecture falls short of achieving these aims perfectly. We have covered how States are just social layers which share a reality using a state mechanism and fight over the total global shared reality, and the characteristics that entails, including: gravitational pulls, network effects, momentum, as well as what happens during state splits. Today's blockchain systems suffer from the same fundamental flaw—without sybil-resistance and transparency around ownership, invisible cabals manipulate shared reality while participants operate under illusions of neutrality. The social layer, where real power resides, remains hidden in the shadows, quietly shaping the realities of our synchronized states while we focus on the assets residing within them. Society Protocol changes this dynamic by bringing the social layer itself into the synchronized STB. By creating 4-Dimensional Synchronized States that track not just assets but identities, relationships, and social coordination, we can fulfill all the functions of a State, facilitating coordination in ways that are superior and were impossible during past epochs of history. This evolution from Web3's static assets to Web4's living world represents humanity's next step toward optimizing societal coordination where each individual’s action aligns with the collective flourishing. --- ### Bibliography Bob Briscoe, Andrew Odlyzko, & Benjamin Tilly. (2006). _Metcalfe’s Law is Wrong - IEEE Spectrum_. https://spectrum.ieee.org/metcalfes-law-is-wrong. Buterin, V. (2014). Ethereum Whitepaper. In _ethereum.org_. https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/. Buterin, V. (2020). _Credible Neutrality As A Guiding Principle_. https://balajis.com/p/credible-neutrality. Satoshi Nakamoto. (2008). _Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System_. Torenberg, E. (2022). Beliefs are Fashions [Substack Newsletter]. In _Erik Torenberg_. ### Footnotes [^1]: This is why people need psychiatrists to understand themselves, because they’ve lost themselves as a consequence of the duality. [^2]: Eventually, this (consensus) forms into a (public state), which is essentially a (semi-private state) with middle-men who upkeep the shared reality (consensus). That is how our society stores public records. [^3]: Identities are heavily influenced by the shared reality. [^4]: This isn’t synonymous with control but is often confused with control… because those who control the levers of shared realities often exploit that control for an advantages…imbalancing the fairness of the STB for all other participants. [^5]: Currently, we are living in the double-entry accounting age (DEAA) of duplication, contracts, and middle-men. It is precisely these middle-men standing between our direct peer-to-peer (P2P) social interactions who are depriving us of our fair representation in the shared reality due to the mechanics of how duplicated contracts work. [^6]: It’s more effective to keep money within the State, that way everyone involved prospers from money acting as explicit value and strengthening the State. Citizens of the State do not want money to be escaping outwards. [^7]: This means is that the shared reality isn’t _accurately_ mapping to the private perceptions of most participants, because it’s being increasingly mapped by the perceptions of the centralized parties controlling it—_causing a schism_. [^8]: Perhaps this is even the essence of power. [^9]: Imagine Uber with only a handful of users using that STB…it wouldn’t be possible to find a ride quickly and effectively, which would make being a professional driver impossible. People would try find a ride unsuccessfully a few times, and then abandon the platform. _The shared reality would fade and die._ A vicious cycle of the chicken devolving back into an egg. A shared reality often requires scale or at minimum the belief of future scale to be valuable at all. _Network and scale effects often matter a lot more than the subtle differences in variations of the STB._ [^10]: If it splits, you’ll see two competing realities, but it will be very clear what’s going on in the past and present in each one. [^11]: There were consensus mechanisms out before 2008. Examples are: Paxos, Raft, and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance(PBFT) — but they weren’t permissionless and couldn’t scale. [^12]: The clock is a kind of weird special example in these cases. Clocks synchronize around a shared external point. 2D and 3D blockchains synchronize around a selected internal point in the network (the selected miner or staker to introduce the next block). **Immutability:** In a clock its owner is free to mutate the state. **Credible Neutrality**: The mechanism in the clock is designed to be as neutral as possible to all participants, that’s why it’s adopted by everyone. **Security**: Security of the shared reality comes from synchronizing with the social layer. Without consulting others, you wouldn’t have the same clocktime. (Your system would be different.) You may have the same time,date,and season but not year. **Trustlessness:** Clocks do distribute trust throughout the network to map to the same system for defining clocktime—facilitating interoperability to share a reality. **Censorship Resistance:** Clocks don’t write to the network at all, they are read only. So they cant censor. **Decentralization:** Clocks do effectively decentralize power for their users, because they are so neutral—everyone that joins the network accesses the power of reading the shared reality. Overall, clocks external synchronization point and permissionless nature gives them the most credible means of neutrally decentralizing the power of network. There are tricks that some users can play at the expense of others in the shared reality, but not many. [^13]: They won’t do this perfectly, each Society Protocol instance will have its own politics. [^14]: Producing value, doesn’t mean that the entities controlling Bitcoin don’t have the incentives to collapse it. The game theory here is interesting and complex, and basically involves a whole world of potential scenarios assailing this group to offer them alternative value versus them sticking together as an alliance to secure Bitcoin. [^15]: “Legitimately immutable” means never rearranging societal value in ways which could be perceived by participants as illegitimate. [^16]: It’s a whole social contract, but there must be a social contract in shared realities. The only question is the quality of the social contract. [^17]: Aside form the DAO hack hard fork, which isn’t a vulnerability in the protocol but affects legitimacy in the same way. [^18]: It also spirals, evolving, and magnifies over time society-wide…similar to compound interest. [^19]: If a cabal controls the community, they can take participants extra investments & commitments and exploitatively turn them into profits–fundamentally changing the game theory of participants wanting to invest in their community/society. Lowering the coordination value and game theory equilibrium for everyone in non Web4 Synchronized States.