10. State
10.4 Example Communities
I believe examples are definitely needed here to visualize the effects of this state concept. And the crucial element I want to focus on are the communities. The ledger is a huge advantage in terms of resilience and speed for the state. Its processes should be well understandable since they are explicitly described in the constitution. The communities, on the other hand, are a completely new concept for which there is no equivalent in modern nation-states. And the constitution deliberately doesn’t describe their possibilities and processes, but rather focuses on restricting the options communities have as little as possible, to allow their evolution to unfold freely.
What would happen in the case of a community whose ideology is diametrically opposed to the goals of a modern, liberal society?
Religious Community
Let us take as an example a fundamentalist religious community. This community is a sect, led by a sect leader. The sect leader proclaims the rules that the members must live by. He regularly preaches about the philosophy of the sect, as do the priests he appoints. The sect leader demands absolute obedience and decides alone how this community behaves within the framework of the central state.
The members of the sect give almost all of their income to the sect, which in turn provides them with everything they need. The social contacts and employment of its members are determined by the sect.
The first line of defense that the constitution has against the sect is the question of its constitutionality. If the sect’s rules violate the constitution, then according to Article 5.8, the constitutional court can issue a ruling that sanctions or bans the sect (following the rules of the corresponding central law). This could be the case, for example, if the sect prevents its members from leaving the community (by imprisoning them) or prevents children from attending school.
Let us therefore assume that the sect adheres to the constitution and the central laws. In this case, it is a completely legitimate form of community. I see no danger that this sect will gain disproportionate influence over the central state. As far as I can see, it has no more power than its members would have in a representative democracy, in which they all vote for the party prescribed by the sect leader.
Influence of the sect’s voting weight on the central state: If the sect community has more than 1% of the voting weight, it can propose laws (Article 4.6). However, as long as it does not reach 12%, these proposals will not even come to a vote. And even if the proposal, perhaps with other supporters, surpasses 12% and therefore is voted on: it would need 60%(!) of the voting weight to reshape the laws of the central state according to its wishes (Article 5.3). However, according to the constitution, the sect can never achieve more than 29% of the voting weight, even if it has more members than 29% of the population (Article 4.4). The constitutional court would determine unconstitutionality (Article 5.8) if the sect attempted to split into two communities, both obeying the same sect leader. But honestly: if over 29% of the population flock to this sect, then a lot has gone very wrong in our state beforehand...
How difficult would it be for someone to leave this sect?
According to Article 5.7, a declaration of intent is sufficient to no longer be subject to the rules of a community. The sect must adhere to this if it does not want to be classified as unconstitutional. This means the sect can only banish the person from the community’s land. Essentially, this is no different from what sects can already do today: Sect members only have contact with each other. Those who leave the sect are shunned by all members and lose their entire social environment. The central state’s UBI significantly facilitates leaving the sect, as the individual will not suddenly be left completely without money. Additionally, there will surely be charitable organizations that help former sect members reintegrate into normal society.
What about children of sect members?
There is compulsory schooling (Article 8.1), the schools are operated by the central state. The sect will additionally educate the children of its members inside the sect to indoctrinate them. Nevertheless, it must allow the children to attend state school (if it does not want to violate the constitution). There, the children will inevitably come into contact with children from many other communities. The school system presented in the education chapter places great emphasis on encouraging children to think for themselves and to make their own decisions. The school enables children to learn successfully, regardless of how little support they receive from their parents. It is there for them without hesitation, no matter how much support they need. The school counselors will do their utmost to show a child alternatives, if they are unhappy in their current community. Once someone has completed mandatory education (which is possible before the age of 18), they can independently change communities. In extreme cases, a child can even live at the school until then. Alternatively, a different guardian can be appointed by judicial decision (with a corresponding central law defining the circumstances under which this is allowed—the consistent desire of the child will certainly be one such possibility).
Rejection of Technology
How would a community integrate into the state that has a problem with all the technological solutions we intend to use in the kinotarchy? With the decentralized ledger, the apps for various state functions, the digital identity of citizens?
A community whose core identity is the rejection of modern technology, comparable to the Amish? One that forms village communities where homes are not connected to the power grid and horses are the primary means of transportation?
The first question that arises is how members register their membership in this community. After all, every citizen does this in their own account on the ledger—so far under the assumption that a computer or smartphone is used for that.
However, there will also be public terminals as an alternative. At these terminals, one can obtain a chip card for a fee, which is linked to an existing or newly created account. A password and the card then grant access to the account at these terminals, allowing changes such as switching communities to be made.
These terminals will be installed in places where there is a state employee for citizen concerns. This employee can assist with any issues in operating the terminal. Thus, even people who want nothing to do with technology should be able to join this community.
Once they have done so, they will only need to interact with these terminals one more time: to record the completion of their mandatory education to receive the rights of full-citizens.
This brings us back to the topic of school attendance. For a technology-rejecting community, the same holds true as in the previous example: school attendance is mandatory, the community will be considered unconstitutional if their children do not go to state school. If the distance is too great to be covered by horse, the community will also have to allow the use of public transportation for this purpose. According to Article 1.3 (Right to Education), the community may not dictate to its members which school modules they are allowed to take.
Apart from the ledger and implicitly through school attendance, the constitution does not require citizens to interact with technology. What is provided for in laws is subject to the voting behavior of the communities. However, we can once again go through the futurities considered in 10.3 as examples:
• Universal Basic Income: There will certainly be banks that, for an additional fee, allow their members to interact with their accounts without technology. Salary, taxes, UBI, and so on can then be managed through this account.
• Culturepoints: This is inherently optional due to the anonymity of the system. If someone does not want to use the app, and thus doesn’t distribute culturepoints, they are free to do so. It does not disadvantage them.
• Healthcare: This concept will be implemented at the community level. A technology-rejecting community is therefore free to design a healthcare system that its members can use without technology. Additionally, the community is free not to perform treatments that it rejects. It will be up to the courts to determine the boundaries in relation to Article 1.2 (Right to Life and Physical Integrity), especially for children.
• Software: Such a community will not promote software development.
• Public Transportation: The community must allow transit. However, apart from school attendance, it is free to restrict when and where its members may use public transportation.
• PD System: If it wishes, a community can prescribe the format of power plugs on community land. That is, if it allows electricity at all...
• Water, Electricity, Internet, Capsulenet: Infrastructure in villages is managed by the leaseholders. The community can therefore limit where water, electricity, internet, and the capsulenet are available.
• Container Homes and Houses: This is only a norm. The community can prohibit the use of container homes.
• Land Ownership and Cities: Community members will not live in cities, as technology is unavoidable there. Leasing land will be possible without having to use technology (for example, through conversations with bank and state employees).
The kinotarchy employs significantly more technology than existing nation-states. Nevertheless, once they have finished school, members of a technology-rejecting community will be able to have far less interaction with technology in their lives than would be the case in other states.
The exception of school is important here so that every child becomes acquainted with the alternative, modern present. Only in this way can they make a conscious and informed choice to decide on a life without technology.
And of course, this was an extreme example. I can easily imagine communities that mostly live within modern society, yet avoid or ban specific technologies they consider harmful. For example, restrictions on when and for what purposes AI may be used. I consider this a much better solution than having to make these decisions centrally for all citizens. Instead, here too, a vote with one's feet is possible, by changing communities.
Liquid Democracy
So far, we’ve looked at two communities that are dissatisfied with the basic principals of the state. Now we need an example of a community that wants to implement new, progressive ideas. After all, the core idea of kinotarchy is to enable new and innovative communities. Consequently, we should look at least at one community with innovative ideas and check whether it could actually implement them within the framework established by our constitution.
As example for that, I want to look at a liquid democracy, a specialized form of direct democracy. Our example community has developed software that allows its members to vote on decisions—a kind of forum software where debates can take place and syntheses from various sources are formed, which are then voted on as proposals. Each proposal belongs to a specific field (e.g., healthcare).
Members of the community can vote on these proposals themselves. However, since this would be too much work for most, there is the option to delegate one's vote to another community member instead. This delegation can be done to different individuals depending on the field. People who collect many delegated votes are somewhat similar to politicians. Yet different, in that they do not receive money for these votes and often have influence only in one specific field. Additionally, every member can still decide for themselves in any vote (instead of letting their delegation take effect) if a topic sparks their interest. Citizens can filter proposals by field and other criteria (attention filters) to stay informed when something of interest to them is being debated and voted on.
The crucial related problem this community had to solve was figuring out how to accurately estimate the consequences of these proposals. Yes, prominent representatives have emerged in each field, with many votes delegated to them. Nevertheless, there is no civil service apparatus, which a government in a classic nation-state would have at its disposal to assess consequences through studies.
The community has found a very elegant solution to this: They have established prediction markets and support them with a small portion of their budget. These are virtual market platforms that predict the outcome of events. They allow participants, by wagering money, to estimate the effects of proposals or make other statements about the future (participants bet money on whether a specific statement will be true in the future or not). Prediction markets have been proven to be better at answering questions about the future than experts in their respective fields.[58] In this community, it quickly became standard practice that before voting on a proposal, either its assumptions were validated through a prediction market (e.g.: how life expectancy will develop) or the effects of the proposal itself.
This community will offer optional modules at school on topics like their forum software and prediction markets—subjects that aren’t part of the mandatory curriculum because these social systems work differently or don’t exist at all in other communities. Unlike the religious community, they can take this approach because it’s useful specialized knowledge rather than indoctrination. For this reason, the state schools are happy to offer these modules to all students.
Anyone who wishes to join the community as an adult must have attended these optional school modules. To those who haven’t, the community offers them as a course (perhaps simply as modules within adult education centers).
Anybody who violates the rules of the community must perform community service as punishment. If the violation is too severe or the person refuses to perform the service, they will be expelled from the community.
This community has—along with like-minded others—build the healthcare system that was introduced in Chapter 6. As a result, the healthcare system has far more members than this community alone, bringing economies of scale: it is significantly cheaper per person.
The healthcare system has been expanded with an important additional component: potentially harmful products and services can undergo testing for a fee. If they pass the test, they receive a quality seal. For members of the participating communities, there are several incentives to prefer products and services with these quality seals. The significant impact on sales creates a strong incentive for companies to acquire them.
As another example of an innovative idea implemented by this community, I would like to mention the annual Alien Invasion Rehearsal Festival. This is a holiday invented by this community. On this day, something unusual happens every year, and something different each time. A joint working group of the participating communities secretly plans it in advance. On the day itself, the alarm systems announce what "terrible" event has occurred: the aliens have taken over a specific town, a zombie apocalypse has broken out, the sun has suddenly disappeared, etc.
Now, all members of the participating communities must respond appropriately: gather in shelters, restore communication channels, assess resources, devise plans. This practices many important skills for these communities: ensuring the alarm systems work, that communication channels remain functional even when parts of them are (simulated as) down, that every member knows where to go in an emergency, that the emergency resources that should be there are actually available, that reasonable response plans are developed for the unreasonable situation. Once the aliens are successfully repelled, the community celebrates their "victory" at the end of the day.
If one day more than 60% of the citizens participate in this Alien Invasion Rehearsal Festival, it could be turned into law. Which would open up the possibility for the executive branch, military, and central police to also participate and test their response to unusual problems. Until then, however, the participating communities are content with keeping their own emergency preparations from rusting and giving their members every year a very unusual day.
The community has also tried out other ideas. Some of them were discarded because unexpected problems arose. Others were repeatedly modified until they fulfilled their intended purpose. And some of these ideas have not yet been thought of by anyone, which is why I cannot write them down.
This community is proud to always try new things and keep the ones that work best. And whoever doesn’t like that, whoever prefers to live each day in the same old routine, should go find another community!
Review of Requirements