Legal System in Transformation

Transcript

second to last uh keynote of this event. Uh today's speaker is uh Daniellea Gandalfer who's a legal scholar and uh a senior lecturer in law at the University of Westminster. And Danielle's work uh sits at a particularly interesting intersection of law, technology, political economy and governance. And um basically Daniel looks at how emerging technologies from blockchain and AI to new digital infrastructures are reshaping institutions uh through which we organize collective life and what new forms of governance might emerge uh alongside them. And I think that yeah this this work connects

really well with many of the questions we've been uh pondering here over the last weeks. So how institutions uh may change and need to change, how we govern new forms of collective organization and uh ultimately what kinds of legal frameworks a different society might require. So please give Daniel a hand. >> Um thank you very much. Um I am very uh excited to um share a few of the thoughts. Uh originally I wanted to talk about or deepen and how we think the future of legal systems could look like

and we still I will still do that a little bit but I think since it's the week for governance and we were talking about a lot of things from patriarchy to children to um history to uh yeah a lot of important things. I thought maybe it's most helpful to show a a little bit of of the things I looked into in terms of legal systems, where they're coming from, um, governance systems, what are the ideologies behind them, because I think then we can communicate clearer about what we want, what we don't want, or what we think about these things.

Um, yeah. Okay. Um so to start I think one of the things I heard a lot in these spaces including uh in our space um are questions about how should we govern? What is governance? It's a is it a tech stack? Is it uh a community that makes rules? Who makes decisions? Um but I think one thing that might be helpful to to discuss together is um the social contract or social contract theory. Now at any point if I tell you things you know already then just let me know I don't know everyone and therefore I I start there.

So that was enlightenment. Um end of 18th century. Uh imagine the middle ages being over. Um the nation state arising, monarchies falling in Europe, whole other thing uh in other parts of the world. And the question of these mainly white European philosophers were do we need a government? Do we need to be governed? And if so, why? So that's to me a very interesting discourse that we are having too because you know do we need rules? What kind of rules? Why should we obey anyone? Um what are the stakes? Should we or shouldn't we? Um so I show you the three main characters and I think we show we see them now in our

conversations also very strongly. We see them uh when we talk about exit yesterday. We see them and not only um we see them when we talk about community and how can we make decisions together and uh do away with hierarchies and we also see them with um Peter Theal uh and Peter Theal stands for the people around him and the companies uh uh he leads um and and why he thinks the way he thinks. So these are basically the three figures. Now first of all the state of nature the idea was okay let's start here if we say if you want to discuss whether or not we need a government or any form of governance then what would it be without

and that was called the state of nature which is just a thought experiment. No human being knows what it was before human beings existed logically. Um and so Hops very famously said it would be war. We would kill each other. Um we wouldn't be safe. uh life would be solitary, poor, nasty, um short, awful. So therefore there in the state of nature there is no state and by state it also means no government and nothing that governs, no entity and also not a lot of different ones just nothing, no rules and no property. So property not important to him. a little later lock which is very important for the US

American context and the constitution and the their rights framework um he said well actually it's not that brutal as hops thinks there are basic moral rules um without the government also but for him and that's the really important point property exists people work and through their work they begin to own things and the whole reason why we will kill each other is because no one protects our property, our life and our property. That's a very very important point because that explains why property is such a deep deep uh concept and so closely related to what it means to be free or have a life in societies that

are locked in. And then you have Rouso. Can you see? Okay. Um and then you have Rouso. um who thinks well humans start out alone but actually they all agree that it would be better to have some form of government or governance. However um very important um property is where in inequality begins because that's not communal anymore and that's why we begin to kill each other. So a state of nature three very different assumptions and you have three very different political models that end up now also as very different ideas of how the law of the

future or governance of the future could look like. So for lock the one who thinks we will kill each other um people left the state of nature and said uh due to fear and insecurity they simply didn't want to be killed and so they said fine we give all our rights uh except for our life to one sovereign that can be an assembly that can be a monarch that can be whatever um and and that's the price we pay our prices of freedom we have that's in a lot of authoritarian um regimes you can see that too even though it doesn't have to be authoritarian but it turns out to be that um then lock the one who thinks that property should be protected and then there will be peace and freedom um

they people left the state of nature for property and their lives to be protected. So there for him the government exists to protect what you already have. Now you will see parallels when you look at um the constitutions and legal systems in Europe and or civil law as well as them in in the US where it's where in the constitution that the protection of property is so important because it has to do with freedom. Also there are many more legal systems and thoughts in the world. I'm just talking about the the two or the three that dominate right now especially in the tech space. And then Wol says well people left the state of nature because it was socially uh inequ

unequal um because of property and we want we all decided let's let's decide to give power to some government um to have freedom and equality and to run you very quickly through what this means and that's the social contract leaving and signing up to some form of governance is the social contract. So for hops you surrender all your rights to the sovereign. Um the sovereign has to protect you ensure order. That's a lot of in a lot of dictatorships the narrative is we need a strong uh leader you know we need surveillance we need protection we need defense and partly yeah states do need that but that

narrative is here and very importantly the leader or ruler or government stands above the law. So Trump is such an easy example. There are many more but for him it's very important that he's above the law. He can he's also above international law because she can he can just fly um to other countries and kidnap their presidents. So that would be someone who stands above the law. Then for Loach again the guy that think property is is most important to be protected. Um for him you have a government to uh protect the basic rights which includes natural rights like life, liberty and property. Um importantly for him it's

important that people can overthrow a government if the government is not securing life, freedom and property. Again really I can't emphasize enough that property is really an important part of this. Uh and for Rouso, everyone gives up everything because we all want to live together and the most important thing is the common good. That doesn't mean communism. That just means that we don't live we we want to live together and we will we want to thrive together. So it's a different you also have three different forms of individualism in there. Well, a lacking one and two different ones.

And finally um what it means for individual rights. So there are for hops there are no individual rights outside of of the sovereign because the sovereign ensures stability but you give away all your rights. For lock um individuals have inaliable rights um and the government only exists to protect them which also means that the government does not exist to create the conditions for everyone to live well together. but to protect the individual and more precisely liberty, property and life. It's very individualistic.

Um and then oh you can't see the WhatsApp. Good. And then we saw individuals surrender their rights to their collective good and freedom comes from obeying the laws made by general will because for him we make all the laws together. So just as a a quick overview um and that that really also shows behind that the west basically took on these three attempts not only the west but these three and they are so inherently different and and when we talked about semantic difference these are not semantic differences between freedom and freedom or individual individual or property and property they are really

fundamentally different. Okay. So that said, the other point was Westfallian order. Now before in Europe where common civil law developed, before these legal systems, there was chaos. There really was chaos. you were either a prince or a landlord and this meant you had um knights or you had a kind of back then army and you defended your land and you defended your rights and was constant war, families, yeah, feudal lords, all kind of stuff. So the the the centralized legal systems which then brought the centralized governance

systems were response to that chaos. That doesn't mean that now we have no chaos, but it means that going back and thinking distributing and decentralizing would be the solution. Then history tells us maybe. But we really have to think a little bit more about that. And the West Failian order after the 30 years of war was also a result of this. There was war, war, war, killing, war and illnesses. And eventually in Europe the question was okay this is completely fragmented the borders are changing constantly whoever is in power is never clear so why don't we tie it to

territory and within your territory you rule whether you're a monarch whether you the church whatever but infringing on that territory means war not infringing on it means this is yours so that's the and that's when the ideas of territory was connected to power and to laws. That's when sovereignty meaning that you have um full control over the one territory and no one can infringe it. nation state later then um international law because that's the relation between sovereign states which is something that Balashi really is upset about because he also wants to be

part of the states negotiating and even the idea of public and private you know public state and the private company all of that goes back to that now I do agree that we are going through the biggest change in terms of legal systems and governance ever since the bestian order and that's huge. We are not tied to territory anymore. We have the tools to not be tied to territory. Um and which means all these concepts are changing and we are in the process of changing them. China is as much in the process as we are with our thoughts. Now China will have more power [laughter] but still um and so are the tech bros and so are a

lot of companies and so are universities. They're trying to figure out what comes next. Everyone is aware to some degree or another that everything is fundamentally changing. This means uh national legal systems, the state being in power. Um companies have way more power. Markets dictate more than states that it's it's it's a new wild world wild west in a way. Um so I agree with that and that's just uh one of the quotes. Kalo Schwab the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum already in 2016 made that observation that the power and also meant law um shifts from state to non-state actors and from established

institutions to lose networks which means that micro powers are constraining macro powers such as national governments and you know publishing a book even if you have a lot of money takes forever the whole process which means Since you can calculate 10 years before he already knew that this was happening. Now in our spaces be it the common spaces or the tech spaces and then mixture this is celebrated as something like down with the state down with the national government and I have to say to a degree yeah there are things that finally we can change and shift but also let's not forget um who are these macro powers these are companies these

are really large companies which means that the state either gives in to them which you can see with the UK and open AI um selling out health infrastructure or you have states becoming very authoritarian surveillance um control even tighter um uh laws um push against immigrants. So it's not it is a change and that's exciting but it's really a very very very tricky one. Um now for you for many of you this must this might not be new sometimes when I present to academics all of these terms are completely new that's why I have it

in but just to say we have other terminology now to me this is exciting to me there's a lot of potential with the tech with the mindset of the people that's more open with governments that suddenly want to work with us and even with uh corporations that fund us for various reasons for their own reasons and for the reasons we ask for. So that all of that is a fact and I think even with other speakers I agree it is changing and the world is chaotic has always been chaotic but there's something very fundamental changing and I think it's it's a normative legal structure. So for me this is even bigger than just you know down with the state or more power to companies or less power

to companies. It's really a fundamental question of how we structure our behaviors and how we live together. Um, some of you might have seen that it's it's referred to as the new governance frontier. Um, with its own terminology, maybe you heard of future key and prediction markets. They were cool a few years ago and now they are actually working more and more law as a service. I will talk about that. startup cities. We could add parallel societies, [laughter] network states. I mean, it's in there. It's in there. Competitive governance, um, and many, many more.

As as the reason I react to this also that the history of the frontier is even the Oxford, um, dictionary, English dictionary, which yes, I am a nerd and an academic and so I look it up. Um this is for you by the way since you know ethmology and stuff. So the the frontier goes back to um US US west. So the movement's west and a whole it comes with a whole bunch of ideas of partly colonialization but also other things like the the frontier spirit the manifest destiny a whole mindset that's there. So when we excited about the frontier and I think there's something at least I'm guilty I am a little

excited when I see new possibilities there's also a danger because at the frontier these are two of the scholars I really or three actually I have to say that I really like things happen so frontier dynamics dissolve existing social orders exciting but at the same time there are people who rely on these social orders um property systems exciting but at the same time you know people rely on those systems political jurisdictions rights and social contracts so all the excitement for me in practice as well as as a researcher and as well as as a philosopher it's really really heavy what's and and I feel like if law becomes a legal system

the court system becomes a frontier then a lot a lot is at stake and the second one is similar um so an for anat Think the frontier is an edge of space and time. So a zone of not yet or a gray zone not yet mapped not yet to regulated. It is made in the shifting terrain between legality and illegality, public and private ownership, restoration and extermination. And I think I don't know we might agree or to to a large degree that this is happening even if you only look at blockchain and governance legality legality um you know public private that's what makes it

exciting but also that's what makes it dangerous which is I think why these gatherings are important that we really take the time sit down and think very very closely about the implications and maybe against our nature and against or everything in us hold back the excitement um for a second be without without stifling it like I will I am excited I build uh I want to connect I want to do I want to change the world but just sitting down for a moment and and discussing these things together now I will not bore you so much with this why is this happening well first of all in a legal just legal perspective not given the mental health

that was discussed yesterday and so many more things. Um the the global legal orders are failing. So international law is failing and that's a big deal because even though it was very much dominated by the few uh five six people um states that have a vote it kind of held some kind of order that is now collapsing an unfair order but still so that um US believes its power matters more than international law it's it's a big deal because the US is also very powerful and has you know yeah it has produced a lot of wars but also kept kept a lot of them and kept you know the western idea of

peace um so they saying ah it doesn't you know I'm above that is it's a major it's a major threat for any kind of order which is also why those who are not as powerful in international law are pretty happy about that because yeah they they would benefit from that Yeah, cool. Cool. Bye-bye. >> Okay, I will go over this faster. But what's happening is we all know how markets and companies work. Where there's an opportunity, it needs to be captured. It needs to be hijacked, needs

to be used. So that gap that the the legal structure wherever the state cannot cope anymore, that's an opportunity. That's how it that's how it works. That's also not inherently bad. It's just how it works. Um so the private private actors were coming in more and more into this void like with the startup cities and the Bitcoin investor, the plans Caribbean community with its own court system. We might be used to that but to that rhetoric but the fact that this is happening is against any kind of law and legal order.

You cannot just take some land and declare sovereignty. Why? Because you're not a state and there are good reasons for you not being able to do that. Um but it's happening. So that's a big deal. Um yeah, Greenland and Gasa are sadly also part part of of that kind of negotiation. That's just to say companies are doing that. Now the the the part that is not so like I will go through this a little faster but I just want to show you what's happening like for real on the ground right now while we are enjoying or not enjoying constitutional rights. um um what is contra like

fundamental rights um protection of our property um employment rights whether we like them or not so these are the things that are happening and I think what is happening is a race for normativity normativity being a different word for law because I don't think it's law as such because law is state issued so I call it normativity you can also call it a race for governance a race for whatever you Um the ones that I identified that are most prevalent in the tech space and in these spaces are the corporate capture with the startup cities. Um the network state which is a corporate form of

sovereignty, the market as decision. Now this one is a little trickier because the market you cannot make up so many things there in histories. um collective governance which this is more like that I think um and then my argument being what we can do together is take from all of those and the state and see what works and what doesn't work and I I think my whole argument is we can just do more even with the parallel societies I think it's very important because these are new things happening and we are thinking through alternatives but then again I think we can do more but I also think we can do more once we understand more what the stakes are and

where they're coming from. Can I ask who is familiar with the startup cities? Okay, for example, Prosper Charter City, startup cities. Okay, so there's in general there's an understanding. Okay, then I can do it a little faster. So what's behind them? I mean they are privately built and governed jurisdictions that negotiate their own legal systems and courtrooms. Just to emphasize again that is the biggest change ever since the end of the Middle Ages because sovereignty as we saw with the West Failian peace is something that

only governments can have and reasons for that is also an idea of of keeping peace and and trying to manage trying to not disperse um power too much. Whether this is good or bad is a different thing. That's just historically why it's big. Now very important these startup cities run as businesses because even if you say you don't want to pay tax, you don't like the nation state, you don't like any kind of state, someone has to fund you, someone has to finance even the legal system. So those are run as as um businesses.

A very big thing is privatizing law. And instead of having a legal system, be it common law or civil law, you offer it. You have a company and you offer a legal system where people can opt in. When you think about arbitration, there you have this a little bit that um if you're a company, you can choose which law. Do you want to go to Dubai? Do you want to go to Switzerland? It exists. It does not exist for criminal law. It does not for good reason. It does not [laughter] exist for drug offenses.

It does not you cannot choose. So their argument is why wouldn't you you're born into a system why wouldn't you have the freedom to choose which as you can maybe see it's very close to choice property of your own life and so on and so forth. Um and it's built on competition. So you have many providers those who offer shitty legal systems. So the theory they will not have many subscribers and therefore they will go down and then the idea is that the market will um create the best legal system possible meaning the one with the most demand and strongest demand. So that's that's the market logic. I will not comment on what I think but this is this is what's

happening. One point I want to make it's really important that for the startup city people which are sometimes linked with the network state people there's a fundamental difference because they believe in competition and what's wrong about states is that there's no competition balashi the network states and antioeas are the opposite they think competition quote is for losers so they want monopolies uh and any political form that would and monopoly. So that's that's really important because I think they get mixed up and there's a fundamental difference.

So behind them are the narco capitalists. I think we spoke about them. I can send you the slides. I will not go too deep. But the idea is a a belief in an efficient free market. Meaning that a market is efficient and works and price always reflects value based on um supply and demand. Literature has shown that there is no efficient market unless it's governed, unless it's regulated, you can't build an efficient market where where at least the me mechanics of it are working, but that doesn't exist yet. So all of this is privately run and I show you um two quotes and one short video which I think

just says more and then everyone can you know make up their own minds. So David Freriedman um son of Milton Freriedman who won the Nobel Prize for um his economic capitalist economic structure and his market behaviors and then also the grandfather of battery freedman who finances all the startup cities and he said in such societies so the new ones who would make the laws actually think it's an interesting question because we never asked that because we used to the state make the laws or there are other power structures The answer is that systems of law would be produced for profit on the open market just as books and brass are

produced today. This is 1973 so brass were a big deal back then. You know feminism there could be competition among different brands of law just as there's competition among different brands of cars. So it's very clear it's a product law legal services courts judgments are product. And then Melanie Swan um the beginning of yeah 2015 was already talking about blockchain and what's so exciting and she says the end point is not lawless and anarchy but that legal frameworks become more granular and personalized to the situation parties agreeing to the contract.

Side note, of course it's only thought in terms of contract, but we know that this is just a tiny tiny tiny bit of the legal system. But um parties agreeing to the contract could choose a legal framework to be incorporated into the code. There could be multiple known vetted canned legal frameworks such that users pick a legal framework as a feature of a back then smart contract. Thus, there would be a multiplicity of legal frameworks just as there could be a multiplicity of currencies. And she calls it like like um you could deal with law like with Starbucks orders. You can personalize that. So, you get the idea. And this is five minutes. I know it's long, but I really think it's good.

This is David Freriedman um giving a talk I think 10 years ago or something talking about his book and the criticism he got and then explaining what he means by law as a service. Yeah. Audio. Which one? This one. Okay, fine. Then I send it send it to you. But >> okay, let me know.

>> Can you hear? That's the book. >> So that essentially everybody is the customer of one of a large number of private rights enforcement agencies. Uh he pays them an annual fee in exchange for which start by sketching the the system. I assume there are probably people in this room who alas have not read the machinery of freedom. Uh and so let me describe what I was imagining and that is you have >> we will do this

>> by sketching the system. >> What happens when I click You violated my rights. I claim you stole my television set. You claim you didn't. My rights enforcement agency wants to use force. >> No, I I would summarize.

>> You give the television set back and maybe compensate me. Your rights. >> Okay. What about my What about my >> Well, let me do this later.

The My sketching everybody immediately sees what happens. happens when I claim that you violated my rights. I claim you stole my television set. You claim you didn't. My rights enforcement agency wants to use force to make you give the television set back and maybe compensate me. Your rights enforcement agency wants

to defend its customer. The two agencies get into a fight. Doesn't that show the system doesn't work? And my view is no. That's an unlikely outcome of that system. that what actually happens is that because my agency and your agency realize that there will sometimes be conflicts between their customers and they realize that having their employees shoot at each other becomes very expensive pretty quickly. Not just the bullets but the risk pay. Uh therefore each pair of such agencies have an incentive to contract in advance on a private court and arbitration agency and agree to accept its settlement of disputes between them. And what enforces that contract given that there is no government up there to enforce

contracts? The answer is that it's enforced by what we like to refer to as the discipline of constant dealings. The fact that if my agency refuses to abide by the arbitrator's verdict when it goes against them, then your agency will not agree to go by that verdict when it goes the other way. And then we'll both be back shooting each other. and then we'll lose customers to other agencies that have a more responsible attitude to the product they're producing. So then what I predict uh in such a system is you will have a network of agreements such that every pair of agencies have agreed on a court. The courts then have an incentive to generate legal systems that agencies will choose will make them

choose that court. And since the agencies are really middlemen, what they're ultimately doing is selling the legal system to their customers. Because if I am a customer of that agency, I'll be under that arbitration agency's legal system. The arbitration agencies have an incentive to design law that people will want to live under. Uh and that was sort of the basic argument. And I sketched out a hypothetical case. Uh where you can imagine that the customers of one agency are in favor of capital punishment, customers the other agency are against it. And what happens as I imagine it the each agency calculates how much it's worth to its customers to get their way. So that agency one says how much more could we charge our

customers for our services if we could guarantee them that anybody who killed them and when convicted would get executed. And agency two say asks how much more could we ch charge our customers if we could guarantee them that if they are convicted of murder they won't be executed. If somebody's convicted of murdering them, you won't be substituted. If the pro- capital punishment agency is willing, values its rule more than the anti, then the bargaining between the two produces a pro capital punishment rule if the other way an anti. So you thus get loosely speaking legal rules that maximize economic efficiency where any change in the legal rule that produces larger benefits to the gains than losers losses to the to the losers will end up with

appropriate side payments being negotiated. That was the vague. >> Okay. I think it's good to hear whether you agree or not. It's just good to hear that this is not >> vague and maybe it's pretty clear what the idea is and it has been for a long time. Um >> yeah, let me um Okay, fine. Yeah. So you can imagine going back to the social contract that way of thinking is only possible if you think uh private

property and individual is the important unit. This is not about collective rights. This is not about community. In fact, whenever I ask these people, what do you do with criminal law? It's like, e, we deal with it later. Because criminal law is something you cannot contract out in the same way. You can give it to private police forces or ICE or something like that. But the outcome it's tricky. Whereas talking about business is easy because we all know business contracts what should happen you know so um no criminal law ever and that's also but you can see how this is more the lock in idea of the individual of privacy freedom meaning protect your

own privacy make your own money and so on and so forth so in that sense it's not completely ridiculous Yeah. And the death penalty. >> Thank you for allowing this interaction. Um my my my sense right is with this um but he he made an example right and my understanding is just um the person would who is willing to pay more and maybe is able to pay more would then get

their right whether stealing a television set was actually lawful or not. >> Yes. Right. >> Exactly. And thanks for the clarification because that makes it even clearer I think what the idea of justice behind is and you're right this is criminal law and so is the death penalty. Uh what I and really good pointing that out because it's a little absurd but when you right now like Prosper or other startup cities or Sansalu or Fumbatown then the conversation goes like we we deal with that later. So maybe they are not too open about what the end uh I shouldn't say that what what what the final idea is.

Um yeah it's yeah it's tricky. It's tricky. I will not explain this because it's bad and I didn't mean to. Um so one example one example is Prosper. Who knows Prosper or was there? Yeah. Okay. So I not I know the people I'm in touch with them all fine nice people. I'm talking more about what's the ideology behind it. Uh and I'm not talking about the transhumanism and the longevity.

It's its own thing. So the idea behind it behind Ponomous is to build a network of zones sharing rules and infrastructure a blueprint for efficient marketdriven governance. Now again whether we are in favor or not it must be clear what the idea the legal idea behind it is is law as a service competitive governance system and exactly what Freriedman said now maybe they are trusted you know this Freriedman is not the youngest so they we will for sure people will come out with different models and tech infused models but that's what the idea behind that is and that's also why they want um sovereignty because sovereignty means

you can have your own legal system, your own courts, your own military and so on and so forth. Now talking about law what happened um the um Prosper was a CD so a development zone legally and that was a right-wing government um needed money and that's just really a fact and sold out to Prospera Ltd to their company and said yes fine you can have that um sovereign territory they displaced 8,000 people um they also um they also changed so constitutional laws wouldn't didn't apply. Only three of them which didn't uh people going there on vacation didn't care so much about that but people

living around there did especially the workers which there are not many but still and when they voted center left um the center left party revoked uh that law that allowed the cities and their own legal status and then Prosper Ltd which is a company sued the state for 10.8 eight billions in arbitration. If that would go through, that country is broke. It's a third of its GDP. Yeah. For the Oh, loss of invest in it's international uh investment.

Yeah. Maybe for the audience, do you want to ask the question? So, what law they were invoking on that one? because I don't remember if it was international law of some sort. It was international investment law um in front of the arbitration court and it was a couple of points but altogether loss of investment because they need to trust if you make an international investment and the company basically made an international investment you have to trust that the contract is honored but by changing the constitution back they didn't honor the contract.

Um so it's one-third roughly of the country's GDP. We all know GDP is just the you know one of the metrics. It means that um about one in five people are calculated. I have to please don't quote me I have to look it up but one in five or six people would have absolutely nothing to eat. That's not even about health care. And now the big point I want to make is um this is a legal structure. This is a company sell um suing um a state and all its con all its um all its people. So this is a real big change in what is possible. Now we know Facebook is also with the EU and

there are a lot of things going on but this is a very this is really a legal case where a company has a court actually even if it's an arbitration court and legal grounds to sue a state and has simply so much more power. What will happen is that Honduras will have to settle. If they don't settle and lose, they're completely completely broke. And then legally the question is also uh what happens is Hondur is is the company now owning the country or what are we doing? So it's they have to settle. If they win, it's unlikely because it's a loss of of investment because they simply changed the constitution.

Um so they have to settle. They have to settle and they will have a big loss. Um but that's the most interesting thing for me about prosper not so much who is there what are the potential it's more what is what does it say about our legal systems and what does it mean if I know it's a cliche what if what does it mean if if uh Palanteer does it or Google does it or any Chinese company does it it's not that the states have so much more power they do as long as international law exists but it's it's tricky um how how where I'm in time. So just that I know how fast. What does this mean?

Okay. >> No no no no no no. I I hurry I hurry. So the second thing also super important is the idea of corporate sovereignty. We know who knows the network state. What about you, Reuben? I saw you on your phone. That's why. Um, so um, so most of you know the network state that grew out a little bit of that. So it's the same investors as the startup society movement. Not only, but they are they are overlapping circles.

Also, it happens with the crypto wealth and the new crypto wealth. So there's there's this blockchain, crypto wealth entanglement that because of private cities, they could not detach from territory. They needed territory. And now with um new digital tech, you can actually imagine something like a community that's not uh territory based. And this is where the network state came out of. And for him, just for if anyone doesn't know it, a network state is aligned online community that crowdfunds territory and petitions existing states for recognition. So they want to be sovereign, which a company cannot be and the network state is a company or strives to be a company. Now does any

can anyone tell me what um crowdfunding territory means? I asked this because I ask all my law students and no one knows. I bet you do. will own like land somewhere and then they say like oh you can have this house and you can have that house and you can have that farm. >> Exactly. None of the law students can fathom it and that's because they are trained in a ve very different way. But it means you have people with private property and land and then instead of saying okay this is you know owned by a centralized plesio um entity we just pretend this is our common territory now

that they still under they still have to follow national laws and international law it's simply ignored in the in theory but um this is this is the theory um the the mot societies as a service now the Interesting thing is the way he imagines it is laws are written in code and I have to say this is from his book. His book is a few years old as you know that has also evolved a little bit. The idea is a little bit more bless you better covered better better disguised. And what the important point is is this this is about exit and this is not about competition. Competition is

on the outside. So they want to be sovereign so they are not attacked under international law because if they are sovereign then if a country uses military or police force to go against that network state or company then it's basically a declaration of war and then other countries have to protect them. So that's why it's so important and and that will not happen in that way but still so it's competition on the outside but it's a hierarchy inside. So I show you how Um I think it's yeah so the this way the end point is not oh no

we forgot to copy the right one in anyway it's the wrong quote um I can summarize those so his idea in the book was this is and imagine this is you know how how how a person with that thinking and background imagines law to be so first of all we don't need international more it will all be servers and and technical engineers and they will engineer it so that um we don't have any issues anymore because the issues is because we don't trust tech the issue is that we have emotions and feelings and values and we can solve that with tech and instead of uh you know democratic party or or any any form of political formation you have the CEO with three

engineers tech engineers and that's the governance of that. So basically it's a firm very old idea of the firm with the firm hierarchy. So outside competi competition inside no competition. Do you know practis? You do. Yeah. Okay. Three people. Okay. So now with which accent mine no we don't want to have bubble no we want to keep that very researchy and not um so I think braxis is important because there's a

lot we can talk about balashi I think all of us have our opinions and experiences and what I think personally and seeing it from from the perspective of a legal scholar is that what he proposes are companies that are digit partly digitally, partly territorially based that compete uh against each other. And the idea is so how do you how do you win in this game? You become the one that dominates that market and so you create a monopoly and for him a monopoly is fine. It's okay because everyone can found a network state like everyone vegans can about veganism everyone can but of course we know that's not how it

works and you need wealth and you need yeah you cannot just I cannot just found the same powerful network state uh there's a lot of money going into this but even more interesting to me is where he's coming from because this is um one of Peter Theal is one of the people who funds practice and have a great interest And here the idea is to have uh this new network state uh in a territory and make it very exclusive like you can and the the original idea was Greenland which was also part of why the Trump administration was pushing for Greenland and I have also found documents that

document the same thing about Gaza and the real estate development because you know if you want to have a new state everything is sovereign territory you have to strip someone of territory and then you have ter that that was the idea did not work um so far. So looking at what they are saying um Trident Brown CEO says states merely exists states maintain but empires empires dream empires build empires unite empires transcend. A state operates within rules. An empire writes them. A state manages territory. An empire transforms civilization itself. When we say we are

building a network empire, we mean uh we mean we will create entirely new forms of human civilization. Um there's also a lot about whiteness and about you know being their chosen Christians and all the vocabulary you can imagine. But whenever that's also whenever I see the word civilization in in history when you go through that and Michelle this is not against you at all but this is usually it can't be a code for the superior civil civilization the civilized you know not the univilized like indigenous people and the whole continent of Africa which is not my opinion but meaning that was the

discourse. So this is not and also you can see uh reunite the west. Of course this is not everyone in the west. We we we know that and we see that even more when he says how many of you ever imagined you would found a new nation. Now that is exciting. Don't we all want something new? Yesterday we heard we need new. We need something new. Um perhaps you thought such moments belong to history books that the age of nation building was over. And yet here you are. It was the welcome speech because this is exactly what our moment demands. This is what we are building.

Not just the city but an idea powerful enough to fulfill our rightful destiny. Going back to the frontier with the grace of God. So there's a lot in there. There's a lot of history in that. It's coded. You know what it means? It means Yeah, it is. Um but also the investment was Slea listen. Um [snorts] so the investment was 530 million milestone based but still this is a lot of money for something that we might think yeah sure you know some crazy Americans not all of them think that just to be clear but um

it's it's pretty real. Um so that is to say uh I think you might know but Peter is very interested in that because this is the legal and societal form that counters the states um in the nation state but any other kind of state. Um also he has volunteer which means he will have a monopoly at some point because now he's also with the US government on weapons on surveillance on technology and he has many more endeavors where I think what he's doing is taking parts of what governance provide and building monopolies there which is why it's so dangerous that teal says competition is for losers we want monopolies and

thinking about the one thing is the ideology but these are real investments and these are real people on the ground and this is how the legal system is changing because these people are very powerful and they actually do something. I don't like it but they do they do realize that we need to do something and and I think we realize too. Um the other two things I go fast and then I will I will I can talk about our project another time. I don't think it's as important but of course there are other ways. market is decision you know future key models um prediction markets I think uh I don't think the market can solve things but I think markets are extremely interesting and there are ways to build

all kind of models partly blockchain secured partly not uh new option models like the new new the new technological means allow us to think finance differently too so I think there's a point um but the problem with that is that there and we heard it yesterday too that's why I pointed out here price is what governs so price is a reflection of a certain kind of truth and that truth is what governs um I can show you an example that is actually a little nicer um so not so critical but yeah let's in London every day 600 iPhones are being stolen mine has been stolen too um so

now the idea would be to reduce the proposal is to reduce phone theft. Now there's a policy proposal to disable stolen devices. You put it for voting and then traders predict the outcomes. Either adopt the market uh predicts thefts with rule or reject the market predict thefts without rule. Compare the forecast and then either enact or not and then you tie um financial incentives to it. So does this is this a good idea of just for justice? I don't think so. Is it a good idea for communities maybe to explore and maybe build some safety mechanisms in that are not market based?

Maybe. Maybe. Um and then this is what many of us are trying to do. Uh collective form of governance. Value is decided and not priced. I think that's very very important. even if we play with markets um and tech um there's a collective choice not competition and I think there's a lot going on that I haven't mapped so I see some of the deep pins are in that space others are not uh some of the um Dside decentralized science is there uh sorry thank you decentralized physical infrastructures is like a DA but based on infrastructure like sensors or telecom um um reception.

Um that's not a good map to be honest. I think these are okay, but there's there's so much more that we can do. And um my whole point is that all of these things have a really rich history and it's deeply ideological. There's nothing just semantic meaning it's just a question of what we mean by that. It's deep going. Um and there must be more to what we can do. Law schools must think about that, companies must think about that. We must think about that. I think we need to and what we do, we work with governments and we take from them the protection that we need. Uh sometimes also the community connection. We also work with corporations and companies

that have to fulfill their ESGs or sometimes, believe it or not, they do want to give money for something they find cool. and we work with communities and see how can communities and people participate in changing the legal structure. Now that's complex. we don't have a solution but I think that's the part where we should think more and all these terms like exit decentralization um poly this and poly that um I think they are cool but because they have the histories I think I think we should think about it and I think together we can do way cooler and more interesting systems I think I will leave it at that which

before this is just what we are doing. Yeah. Yeah. We're doing a lot of cool stuff. But actually, I can send this out. Everyone can find us. This is the ego part. We can >> Okay. Okay. So, what we did uh is we founded a nonprofit and a forprofit. The nonprofit was um we had support from Princeton and Harvard. And so we had this elite that helped a lot. And the idea was can we think about a decentralized right to breathe. Rights are not decentralized.

There is a long um uh a long process to create a right which is also good. And the idea of a right is to change the reality and the behaviors on the ground. So our idea was and not just ours you know we're big team. So if we change the behaviors and conditions on the ground. So the outcome is the same as if there would be a right to breathe then we are creating a normative order we get the same outcome without the punitive parts. For example for us it was air pollution. So in London you pay a tax when you go into London. So uh everyone who travels or who who um commutes is pissed because they need to pay now. Um at the same

time there are not enough air sensors and you know they don't like companies don't like when the government tells them to implement um air pollution sensors and actually I don't want the government to tell me what to wear. So that that was the idea and we worked on that um with this nonprofit for six years, seven years. We won a lot of prizes. Um we're invited to Southby and everywhere where you can imagine but there was no money. There was no money to build this and so we founded a nonprofit for profit. Um it's called Ketaro is the company and it's called Breeze. And that's the that's the same idea. Can we change the conditions on the ground so

that people don't have to breathe that air, but also companies don't lose as much and governments feel that we're doing something for them, too. And so we have a decentralized physical infrastructure. We have people, we develop mobile air sensors that sensor a lot of the parameters of the air and they have medical grade um watches for bi you don't need to for biometric data. Um and the whole idea is okay can people go around um there is an interaction between the biometrical data and the air sensing data. you get later on a map of you know air pollution that is very localized um and it's not as static as

the air sensors so you get that you can sell the data but everyone has a share on that data so most of the deep bins what they do is they tell people they get a token for the data then they give them the token that's maybe worth $10 maybe 20 some are nothing so that legal obligation is fulfilled and then they take the data put it into a company and sell that and thereby they don't have to give anything back to the community. So our idea is can we really empower them by helping them make money and make decisions about what's happening with the air quality. Governments are happy, the London city is happy because they have obligations to fulfill to create

better air quality. So for them we're doing actually free work. He's like, "Great, you help us, we get more funding." And the companies are interested because they have to because of the ESG, so the environmental stuff they have to fulfill instead of buying um any um carbon credits, they say, "Okay, fine. I mean, here you have 200,000, do your things, show us the sensors." And in that way, the idea is to create a different reality where no one is immediately offended. Um and you can you can change that. there's there's more to the app. there is a gamification but I think the important part we want to say is that I think we can build together differently instead of going

against the state or against the corporation against the market and outsmart them simply because we are we are a lot of people we have different experiences and then maybe we can test in little communities if we can do that and then see I'm not a fan of scaling but maybe we can multiply this and maybe then at some point we can it's all about counter Peter Teal. That's all it is for me. Or maybe we can push back. Okay. Thank you. [applause] >> You and my team.

Will there be questions or should we just sit down and have a conversation? >> The one question I wanted to ask is on on one of the slides when you were going through it was earlier. Um it was the first slide that said uh law as a service. Um when you opened up that slide there was uh a number of different elements on it but the first one that came up when you were scrolling through was firstly um no it was even before that I think was it um >> yeah it was one of these. It was Yeah.

If you go back another two Yeah. Okay. And now go forward again. Ah, it was there. And it came up first. This decentralized infrastructure. >> It's here >> on the next one. >> Yeah, there. >> The first time we went through it, it showed up on its own for us. Decentralized physical infrastructure. Why? Why did Why are you pulling that one out? >> Because Leica is an amazing graphic designer, but the one thing she never touches is the clicking, like the transition. And so it was Yeah, it was. No, it was our mistake.

>> Yeah, that would have been the end part, but I think I talked a lot, but But I agree. I think this is a different one and that's how I see it too. For me, this is more potential. The rest is is the same. Even though future keys is somewhere in the middle. >> Yes. I I think that Yes. I I think that maybe I mean looking at the philosophy this competitive governance stage could be also temporary you know in the wait for the next

monopoly. So maybe the the long plan is to yeah to recentralize Here we go. Yeah. Can you go to the slide?

Yes, that one. So um actually talking of air time but maybe it's because we lack um examples but it looks like all of these other the three first ones we have like clear uh examples with real experiments happening right now. Uh and when it comes to collective governance, we also have some experiments, but for some reason they don't seem that anyone is really sticky. Uh or at least what has been happening so far between Dows and stuff have kind of collapsed in many ways. Um and so it feels like oh the first three horses are still in the race, but the fourth one is has been you know is having a bit of a hard time. And

obviously I mean I'm on team four here. I think many of us are. Um, yeah, I I'd love to have a session on that particular one. I was hoping you could hold it or host it and >> yeah, I I would be interested in that too and and I think you I mean there are examples like Terra Zero, but the the truth is two things. Either there's not enough capital going there. Why not? because it doesn't have a business model that and that's and and that's our problem. That's our problem. Um and um the the other reasons they failed and they sold out like the deep ends that had this great idea about um Sencio I

think you know we will collect the noise levels in the city and and we will empower people because they they suffer noise pollution and then I just sold it to robotics and AI firms. So I think at some it's it's the financing that in the end let's say collapse. I think >> it's financing indeed. Absolutely. I think it's also indeed the lack of business model that will actually make sure that we have fuel to continue those experiments. But also I think like and we had this opportunity in the past few weeks to see like there was this longest uh international community in Germany that's been there right but I had never heard of it right. Uh and I think they they do amazing stuff. there is TDF it's been around for six years also quite

having hard times but also doing ex extraordinary things so the question maybe becomes how can we put more the spotlight on those things capture the learnings and make it as much as a big pillar in those four different uh ways of thinking about other ways to do legal systems >> I was literally just thinking about that like an hour ago yeah and um and uh just like that so like yeah there's a ton of money flowing through the veins of all those projects on on levels that even corporations themselves couldn't even think of, right? When you're talking about like Teal and Co. But I do think that like the one thing that that we really do have in the community is a lot of freaking programmers. And I'm

saying like if the network state imagines itself as being this kind of like digitallyworked group of people, I don't I doubt they're going to be like all open. But like even kind of joining forces in that sense like there is no existing popular digital archive with a kind of Google map embedded in it that shows all of the different popups that are dealing with team 4, what they did, who they are, what their contact is. um as a beginning to Huh. Okay, cool. John Lock, can you share?

Okay. Yeah. And maybe even like um like a congress or something that brings those people together. That's what I say. You can see the filters.

make Apologies. Yeah, I think I think that's a cool idea and I this is a personal thought and I haven't thought it through but I do wonder you know their alliances on the other ones they are partly ideologically really not the same but they see the

money and they say you know what let's you know let's go together until we don't like PayPal and that's fine and we are all I feel like there's less um compromise maybe in in these spaces and more still more competition than we might want to admit because everyone wants to come up with their thing. Maybe not internally, but it feels a little bit Yeah, which is an old problem I think. Well, I'm just thinking of like going back to the history that you've kind of talked to me about the EFF um and the Yeah, the found Am I >> Am I in? I feel like it's okay. Okay.

Sorry. I My ears are losing here. Okay. So, but I'm wondering like in in the same way that like in the same way that we're trying to develop for instance in our project in the deep end just explaining how we're trying to develop a kind of dow slashtoken slash whatever that um is able to still have contact with public and private actors and yet create a more just distribution system for the people actually contributing to it. So, it's like we have to imagine conceptualize and then and actually materially articulate what that is right and that's the kind of experiment that we're doing trying to learn from others but also trying to make it something

that will happen right push the other ones that weren't able to do it a little further in that same way I'm wondering if the vision that now I'm calling it team four since um Xavier yeah since Xavier mentioned it um that like maybe also our method of communication and like ways of like I don't know like like like we are not geographically bound either, you know, we're not geographically bound in that sense. And how do we develop a robust way of being on the same platform without like I don't know cutting each other's limbs off like there's there's governance systems that can also work between that to make it because we we're never going to make up that money. We're never going to come in with billions of bucks to

beat up. Well, we're not going to be prone to almost capital. I just don't think so. But meaning that can but but but we have other things there's other things to aggregate um and could be a strength. Um yeah, just to reiterate, I wouldn't give up on that thought. We need financial models. So maybe we can

mobilize also. And who knows? Um you know, we didn't build Wall Street, but I'm not saying we should rebuild it, but we can come up with ideas, too. Everyone is now throwing it in. Everything is a good idea. We might as well. >> Right. So if anyone's listening, got our >> This is our wallet. Anybody else first? Um, yeah. On the money thing, I think like Yeah. Um, I also think we need to move beyond this idea of accepting the money of the old world and that accepting that as the metric

that we need. I don't care that much about those dollars if they can only provide me can be only be redeemed for McDonald stuff right so I would rather have land uh great you know craftsmanship uh great food organic food and those type of things so that was a reaction let's let's optimize not for the one that actually funnel the most US dollars into our initiatives let's optimize and let's optimize for um capturing as much as possible as much as possible different forms of capital different forms of capital.

Just uh just uh yes. Yes. We should not be afraid. You should not be afraid yet because then you can use it to get land. Use it to get land. Build up the infrastruure. Build up the infrastructure to do great craftsmanship and to support livelihoods for everybody. Uh trying to live in uh world number. It's when we get into the money game, then we let that be the thing that we're orienting towards. that be the metric.

And so I agree I fully agree with you with the with the point with the point that we the aim has to be to do landing as funding to get the money for the land. So we are about the land and maybe there's another way to get to the land. >> It's not necessarily only about the land. >> Yes. And I also like to me the thing is let's get money and find ways to collectively own it and to use it for human ends. Not just like I'm all for getting land and for immediately turning money into use value. I'm also saying don't be afraid of keeping it as exchange value.

Use money to make more money. Do all the stuff that we are a victim because we are like oh that's what they do. We don't do it. We shouldn't be afraid to do it strategically as part of what we're doing as long as it goes towards human ends and we're building up commons with it. Money held in a commons is is is one asset but it's a a good one. It's an important one. >> Well, it is at present because of the the need for for fiat, right? Um but what I increasingly see and experience is the level of sophistication of thinking and the level of dedication of the people engaged in this space and the the openness to share

um leads to potential for innovation that in many ways far outstrips um the traditional markets. Um the plularity I hate that word pl the multitude of different people [laughter] that bring perspectives and everything else into the space. um you know it it just leaves us in a position where if we can you know make it relatively easy to codify the process of of registering IP and making it available to um centralized or not even centralized decentralized but commonsbased um you know financial and and legal

architecture over maybe like trusts or whatever and then being able to provide essentially off-the-shelf venture models um for entrepreneurs locally harnessing all of the assets and it needs to be full um stack of assets in terms of land, property, equipment. Um you know, and in the first place also fiat until we're in a place where the the commons can self-provision, you know, until then we I don't see us getting around cash just yet, you know, like that's going to take a while.

>> Yeah, I think so too. And I think we don't we can do different things like one can really try to work on the funding models where others you know try to what do we do without them. I think that's but I see there are two things for me. You can change systems by getting the mass of people. Um that's what fascism is doing and that is also propaganda is doing. But also you could use it for you know if you show people that the system you are building they benefit from it then and you have a mass of people then this will work. But how do you get a mass of people when the mass of people doesn't have money to eat and so I think this is where the the money thing comes in. You need for us, okay, but for people, for the masses to

afford living differently, I think you need to provide them with the means. You you need to buy them free from capitalism basically. And then you can that's why I I agree. I agree with all of you actually. It's just a matter of when we do what and and what are the what is the focus >> and that's where I've been looking at what gets referred to as systemic investing, right? uh not necessarily looking at individual solutions to individual problems, but what are those like overarching um you know issues and and by extension which potential solutions offer the broadest array of benefits if they get rolled out. So I'll just take the the

idea of like urban horiculture. Okay, you're you're the the array of of potential benefits. you're going from like reduced logistics um over um potentially nutrition uh food security, poverty alleviation um and then also reduced rape, right? Because you can just have guys and girls coming in doing natural work with their hands in a natural environment and just interacting naturally, right? And this this is one of the topics. I'm saying this because this came up around lunch today. Um and the potential also for making that

commercially viable is there you know. So if if we manage to to you know take a step back think systemically I I just tend to jump on this idea and the way reason I'm saying all of this is because you know we shouldn't we shouldn't rule anything out Xanti you know um except maybe you know the obvious ones >> you want to reply Um,

I I would just like to address again the the these four different models of the the future better way of organizing ourselves. Um, and to me the the three the first three ones are all examples of thinking within the existing paradigm and being like I would govern a state better so I'm going to do a market-based state. uh is like the same presumption that led to 20th century extremism of like I know what what utopia will look like if

everyone just did what I say or if it looked like the way I'm thinking it. The third the the the fourth option the reason maybe why we haven't seen it flourish so much is because it's radical. It's actually saying no don't look at the last 300 years. Let's look at previous history and let's look uh let's let's take a sort of uh larger larger view of history to understand um what are the underlying basic patterns and being the market the state and the

commons and what happens when each of these are healthy or unhealthy. acknowledging the fact that the market and the state are increasingly weak and well weak is the wrong word, dysfunctional. They're increasingly dysfunctional and thus the commons in the past has emerged in times when the market and the state were increasingly dysfunctional. And the problem with that is that you're trying to come up with architectures for that. So like why have Dows not succeeded?

Okay, first off you might say the underlying technology primitives are here, right? We have blockchain, we have cryptography, we have privacy tech, things like uh zero knowledge proofs. Why not? We can have voting, whistleblowing, um petitions with privacy with no central monopoly of information. Awesome. Yeah. Okay. But it's all kind of shaky. And uh, the the technology itself, I don't think the primitives are mature.

First problem. Second problem, arguably even bigger, is like, okay, let's say that you have the primitives, figuring out the right architectures that lead to the right game theoretic equilibria is even harder than just developing. So like, yeah, the first three, they're playing around with tools that we understand. They're trying to they're like almost boring known approaches and they're trying to I feel like they're repeating the same mistakes that have been happening for a century.

Whereas with the fourth with the collective governance community approach is is actually the radical one and it's the interesting one and it's the one that reflects a thousand-y year history. Look at like if you look at if you have a thousand-y year view of history or multi,000 year view of history then you see that that is what tends to emerge in these kind of phases. So if I may ask, why did you act it's not a communism?

>> Sorry, >> it's not a communism. >> Okay. >> Why did you stress that? >> Why? Why did >> Oh. Uh because I think sometimes I will be honest. I I sometimes give this talk in in the US and when I say centralized, it is seen as communist. And you know I just wanted to open up the possibility of of different forms of communities and that [laughter] yeah it can be uh but but I don't think Russo was communist. Um that is also to say that a whole line of thinkers are missing and also you know worldwide thinkers. I also want to say something to what you said. I think that for me is also the fundamental question. How do you s think something

new? because you can only always think based on what you know. So I think you need the collective to collectively break out of that pattern which is also why I'm not a fan of I have the solution and this is the one because the chances that you or me or anyone can think something we haven't somehow thought before is so small but that's also the exciting part and you're right I think in the community space there's a lot but even that um you know even refi is connecting refi wants to the good refi wants to change what value means. That's a big rethinking and I have respect for that. But also it needs to use the market. So in a way how much for me the

question is how far can we push it so something new can develop afterwards. So I agree with you in short >> behind you. >> Okay, now it's up. Hey everyone. Uh so I'm Rashmi. I've been in the Dows and uh governance and public goods ecosystem for a while. Um it's funny how the ecosystems that I worked in before don't really exist anymore in the large scheme of market like Dows where would you work in Dows and uh where would you work in

public goods even if in in a large scale if you want to be at a this thing that's why this like topic of the fourth horse as you put it is very interesting and um I feel I was writing about it like as Deca also mentioned the previous three are working on the existing tools and I feel like to put it in the same analogy the fourth horse wasn't trained to run. So what I mean by running is making good decisions at scale and also handling conflict being resilient as a community.

So um I'm preparing for my talk tomorrow. So I'm sorry I was supposed to give today but there were some reasons why I had to push it but um there are like protocol Dows and like place Dows uh in in protocol Dows where we deal with like digital comments where we are working on a protocol where we own a stake of protocol like say tokens or say if it's just an open source project you just uh contribute to it. when it comes to place the the parameters that we play with changes and here the decision- making also changes and when we when uh Daniela D did I get the name right sorry so

uh she was discussing like we come towards rights we come to who owns the land how can we collectively own a land and now even if we do get the step one of collectively owning a land how do we make decisions on what to do with it and uh corporations by the nature of their entity have been very successful in the in making these decisions quicker and um you know having from all levels and also being impactful in that decision- making so I feel this is where we have to like figure out first and there have been so much uh at Metag we've done research on why did Dows uh fail or farewell to Dows or do we need to say farewell to Dows or

something like that. But there is a lot of uh change in the other side of tech too on how we can make decisions with AI and agents and stuff. I am not a pro of like directly delegating decisions to just AI and like yeah let it do its thing but uh I think it can be impactful in tackling the voter apathy side of things that we that was a major problem in like Dows and community side of things. Um but yeah, I would love to hear your thoughts on on the run, helping the horse run or training the horse to run. What other aspects might be need to need to be solved here or something?

Thank you. Um, I think there's so much to add and nothing to add at the same time because I I agree with you and I'm I'm looking forward to your perspective tomorrow and it would be cool if we could have some kind of workshop then based based on that and what other people brought in. Um, yeah, I think I also think that you're you're researching Dows, right? That is your >> um I I'm not researching Dows like the collective that I work with has researched Dows. I primary came from a developer and uh research engineer sort of perspective. Oh, very cool.

>> Yeah, I do both but more in the engineering side than on research. >> Okay, perfect. >> So then I think we we will have a pretty interesting room with very different perspectives. So I don't want to add because I think you said so many important things and I'm simply looking forward to you know continuing on and that after your presentation tomorrow. >> Thank you. The one thing I would maybe and also to this and that is um so dows the one thing I was always deeply annoyed by and to be fair I did not come up with an alternative um the idea of voting and the idea of decision making as it's also what you said we know that is a way of decision- making and that's what the tech can incorporate so where's the tech that can

incorporate different forms of decision making and these are the things I think that are incredibly difficult ult but also worth diving into because in a way otherwise we're just the the tech already gives us the limits but we are building the tech like you're building the tech so in a way I think there's so much we can push through >> with some capital though [snorts] >> yes actually really love the the framing of the first three being basically falling back to what we already know and the way we've been solving those issues in the past. I think this is a very interesting frame. But then actually the fourth one is actually going back to indigenous

culture because the commons is the way we used to organize ourself before capitalism. It's just that we forgot because we don't have any lived experiences because it's been kind of couple of generation in the past. But so to me it's about like kind of rediscovering you know with the perspective that everything is a cycle. History doesn't repeat but often rhymes. And so it's about rediscovering with new tech. And that's why it takes a bit more time than the first three that are basically falling back to old ways that are probably going to lead to [screaming] [laughter] was a nice.

That's amazing though. I think that would be such a cool addition to have some of those sound sound effects as people say things like sound emojis. Love it. >> Okay, so let's play a game. Let's let's destroy the first three. >> Okay, >> we are not against them. We want to be for something. >> Huh? >> Why are you against my game? >> Well, I'm not against I don't want to be against anyone. I think it's it's negative energy. I want to be for something. So, I want to be rooting for the fourth horse. I don't want to sabotage the three first horses.

>> Not sabot. >> What? No, hold on. You you you're misrepresenting my proposal because you're taking seriously the comedic way in which I posed it. >> Okay, please go ahead. Okay, we just said and agreed that we're interested in, you said I'm team four, that we're interested in the collective governance approach and that the other three are repeating some of the same mistakes that we've been having for the last century. So my proposal is let's just look at the first three. What is it that actually doesn't work about them?

Why aren't they valid approaches? Okay, I want to start from three. if that's okay. So market as decisions in February I had lunch with Robin Hansen and I asked him wh why why can you explain to me how future key works for making governance decisions and he explained to me it's very easy a company wants to know about some truth so um they they so or like someone wants to know about some truth. So the the market

is created and people get to say and obviously whoever's right gets a payback. So you're incentivized to say what you think is right and I was like who provides liquidity? Oh easy the company or entity who wants to know about the truth. It's like okay that is a different use case from governance right if you have a company that wants to find some truth they can create a market and say I don't know like maybe their whole business model hinges on it being about temperature rising by two degrees and not five. So you put out a market you see how people reply and you

get a good benchmark for what is likely to happen. Perfectly valid. But then you need to fund the market yourself. It means that the market maker needs to be the company itself who wants to know the thing in a governance situation. How does that work? Who decides what to know about what? Like you like reducing everything to a market is a very neat idea. But but it it it like you need you need to observe every piece of the system. And one piece of that is like okay the value that people are providing by sharing their truth to the collective truth gets rewarded with

capital. Where does that capital come from in a governance system? I don't see where it comes from. So that's my objection to solution three. Well, specifically future key within solution three. Uh I think maybe I want to uh widen the game a little bit because for me um when you say ah the other ones are all solutions and they we all know the problem. For me it comes up. I think the fourth solution also like was tried a lot and for me the interesting question is to look there what are the things that have always not happened like because we or maybe you also want to

think about the fifth solution right not um because I have the feeling like I'm trying it in different communities and you see problems there and for me it's interesting to to have a look on this problems that are holding us back often and holding also other people back to get into it. for example, um I have the feeling to say there's no hierarchy or it's so dangerous because you realize in the social interactions there is some hierarchy created and then suddenly it doesn't work at all anymore because one person like what likes to be in the center um has the possibility to talk well and I don't know and

uh yeah I don't know these topics are very interesting for me and or personally I I want to focus more on this and yeah I don't know also here maybe to have a space and and talk to other people what experience you already have because there's for me there's so sociocrati is like a huge topic or it would be interesting to talk with you what what you think about these different concepts and yeah >> I want to I think continue a little bit on this and also um kind of reframe the your suggestion Could could we see again the Thank you. the So I guess instead of like destroying the others being for the fifth one

being for the fifth one. Um like what are the aspects of the first three that are working that we want to integrate? And if I just like very briefly kind of riff off of this, I think a firm has a functional structure to do something in the world that is of value. Let's have that as a feature that we do. Um the f the price and that the founder and the price are a bit more tricky I think to argue for. my sense and I'm like very curious to to hear this from from other people is in communities particularly in um egalitarian communities that you just spoke of we have often the situation that there's

that there is a pseudo hierarchy that like in hierarchy that is not acknowledged and thus shadow leader and other kind of difficult traits happening what I found um with like working with source and and other kind of frameworks is that there is an acknowledgement ment of someone who has founded something and everyone can be a founder for their own thing but if we're talking about X then yes there is a founder who's doing this in this time of their lives um and so I believe that that is an as a critical feature also acknowledging what we're doing um and then the price my sense is there's something you know like Milton Friedman his point as far as I understand Austin also the Austin school

of economics was talking about the truth finding of the market. The market is finding the the right price and I think there is some kind of truth finding that is beyond the the makeelie of group think that we want to have in communities. pause there. >> Sorry. And I just want to add the do price could be like a misleading indicator especially if the market is is liquid because I mean it could be the market could be easily manipulated and basically is actually not effective to give you any valuable sign.

>> Just a one liner that there's a lot of group think in markets as well. it. I don't think it necessarily especially these days when it's super financialized there's so much group thinking and also the the huge problem with prediction markets is that um you are creating a second order effect by which people have an incentive for their answer not to be the absolute truth but to be the socially accepted truth.

And therefore that that can change that can change the result and then the result is is affected by the desire to win peon reward and as a consequence it becomes oh but this is the truth we've all agreed on it and so it's so it's this perverse mechanism Um just want to say yeah that that's what Freriedman wanted but also was more Hayek then that and you said the Austrian school of economics uh and I think there's I am I am not a Hayek fan politically I think he didn't have any

foresight whatsoever however the idea that um a decentralized market holds information so people have information that they they have no incentive of sharing but if there's an incentive they share it through buying or selling and so that price shows something you otherwise cannot discover. I find that very interesting with climate deniers for example. You can play that system. Um but I share with you um and with you the the same issues and what you said about okay then is the market liquid is the arbitrage what is um and I also like the idea of of you know going through all of them and say where is the danger politically legally economically what

can we take like certain things also legal systems they they worked to a degree I mean the reason why we are all here to a certain degree is because no one you know he hurt us enough for us not being here. Um, so okay, but then also there are things we we don't want. So I I I like that approach. I don't want to summarize because I think it hopefully opened up a conversation that we can continue and also we will hear your input and then it would be cool to maybe think about what we want to do together since we are here together. So we can use that after after delicious food of course.

Thank you so much.