[Why and how political ideas matter](https://www.optimallyirrational.com/p/why-and-how-political-ideas-matter) *This article very clearly outlines why movements need ideologies, and what an ideology should accomplish. (Ideologies serve to justify a coalitions claims externally and to coordinate and bind its members internally.)* ### Ideology of Society Protocol We are gathered because society is on the verge of a radical transformation driven by sheer technological innovation from Nation States to Synchronized States. We believe that Synchronized States are the evolution to Nation States because of clearly discernible advantages and offer the promise of a better world for humanity. We are gathered as a distributed and decentralized movement to fulfill the promise of accomplishing this transition while remaining true to its ideological foundations. ### Ideological Beliefs 1. **Fairness:** Each participant in society should retain status / value equal to their contribution to society, at each point in time. 2. **Alignment:** There are two inherently competing interests which must both be balanced and aligned: the individual desire and the societal interest. - The goal of alignment is to make it such that each individuals optimal game theoretic move is the same as the optimal move for the society as a whole. 3. **Agency:** We believe that agency and decentralization of control enables more potential actions for every individual, increasing human potential. 4. **Individuality:** All individuals are fundamentally different, and should look to contribute to society in their own unique ways, and not be treated as if they are the same. 5. **Meritocracy:** Our social contract incentivizes meritocracy (not democracy or autocracy). We aim for the best people for each specific problem to be making decisions about that issue (in the right quantity and optimized process (amount of resources)). The primary root of decisions to optimize for is the survival of the State. All subgroups of meritocracy (i.e. the meritocracy of blacksmithing, are subservient to the root: the survival of the State). 6. **Equal Rights**: All individuals, regardless of physical attributes or connections should have equal rights and privileges in public society. (no special privileges on some accounts vs others: equal rights). 7. **Censorship Resistance**: Society Protocol cannot work as a closed source program or if all public information isn't open to perception and discussion and ran as a dogma. We are against censorship, and rather for the incentivization of valuable expression and dis-incentivization of expression which isn't valuable (to society). 8. **Clear Edge:** We believe Synchronized States are the evolution to Nation States because of concrete advantages–it isn't magic and shouldn't be described as magic. Reasons should be proposed and trade-offs openly discussed. - We believe that the clear edge of Synchronized States is that they are able to synchronize all the state of the State for everyone—and everything that derives from that. 9. **Voyage:** We are moving to Synchronized States with the intention to never need to come back to the old structures of Nation States. 10. **Multiple Identities (Pseudoanonimity)**: People in society are restricted by their identities, which are held together by the community around them. People should be able to adopt multiple identities (both human and AI) independent of each other to participate in various situations—while keeping responsibility to every identity simultaneously. 11. **First-Principles Thinking**: past systems of governance and societies were constrained by certain limitations which are no longer a factor, and we need to let go of that baggage and take as much advantage as possible of the possibilities afforded to us by technology and an interlinked world today while acknowledging and understanding the historical importance of all the tethers involved in why certain parts emerged and what retains them in place. - This requires a historical understanding: to understand why certain parts emerged and what retains them in place. Without a good understanding, it's delusion and not first-principles thinking. 12. **Scientific Method:** There are patterns in nature and they can be verified and analyzed. We need to perceive them accurately to organize correctly. We believe in a need to understand and property identify, and not deny those patterns, using the scientific method. - Experimentation is necessary to solve a lot of issues, and should have the optimal process. 13. **Memory:** Preserving the past as accurately as possible is valuable. 14. **Game Theory: Balance vs Imbalance:** We believe that balanced game theoretical incentives are as close as we can come to forming a harmonious society (one which has fairness imbued in it for everyone), and that imbalancing towards more exploitative approaches is acceptable and optimal when there is a clear reason, but the largest generic societies will trend towards the most balanced ones. - An imbalance in game theory should exploit a clear weakness in an entity, without such a reason we strive for balance. 15. **Responsibility of the State:** People are programmed by the State and therefore it's important and a responsibility of the State to create the best (strongest) possible people it can. - Therefore, we believe the goal/role of the State is organizing/coordinating it's people as close to optimally as possible. 16. **Relationships:** Connections and relations matter and tell us something about individuals. We are not individual islands, and to some degree responsible for one another. 17. **Evolution:** We do not throw out history, previous things we’ve built upon, or past patterns in a blind sense: we evolve them. It’s an evolution, not a revolution. We don’t have a mentality that everything old must fall. We have a mentality that some things are outdated and can be replaced or discarded if evolved with better alternatives. - We also understand timing—that change is not all going to happen instantly, and that evolution is a process. 18. **Principle of Least Privilege:** There should be a mix of public, semi-private, and private information in society. It should be delineated correctly using the principle of least privilege. - Information which is not valuable to society should be disincentivized from appearing and overwhelming the public state. - There is a line that appears for information which is both valuable to society (not to retain control and surveillance of the ruling class, but for progressing societal interests as data) and valuable for the individual to keep private: in such cases we use governance and cryptography techniques to optimize for both the welfare of society and the private interests of the individual. 19. **Distribution:** This is a global movement worldwide, and we welcome people from every part of the world. 20. **Decentralization** provides resilience and redundancy. Decentralization does not mean that everyone is equal, it means that there is a balance of power (expected equilibrium around the pareto principle) and redundancy in the power structure. This isn’t a headless movement without structure, but the structure can seamlessly evolve to reconfigure. 21. **Credible Neutrality:** We believe in the separation between the people building Society Protocol, and those launching instances of Society Protocol — and that the people working on Society Protocol should be insulated from particular allegiances which would prevent them from remaining credibly neutral towards all instances of Society Protocol. - We believe incentives drive everything and credible neutrality can only be achieved by separation, and not intention. 22. **Plurality:** We do not believe in one central instance of Society Protocol, but rather multiple instances being formed and evolving over time. 23. **Incentives:** We don’t believe in empty statements and promises. Wherever possible, we aim to align acts through economic incentives by compounding subjective statements (words of our intentions) with incentives. Not just words (intent), and not just incentives (mechanic). Intent + Incentives. 24. **Inclusivity:** We are inclusive of everybody who plays by our rules. This is a horizontal inclusive ideology, not a vertical one.