Independent Subversive Networks
Hello again, brothers and sisters. Prepare to be radicalized 💥
I’ve warned you before. A part of my explicit goal in committing to a serialized collection of sermons is to make you an uncomfortable person. Yes that means you, reading this on your phone in bed or ignoring your work. I am making my honest attempt to breed dissatisfaction with a standard mode of living. Acting from the belief that the majority of humanity engages life from a state of semi-slumber the majority of the time, my desire is to be the klaxon insisting that you live. As you’re already no doubt aware, one of the main areas where I recommend fullest participation is your geographically local arena. And we’ve also discussed the modern technological paradigm which increasingly allows us to redraw the boundaries around “geographically local,” forming “overworlds” of cooperative agents working together to accomplish goals. But now let’s begin to connect these dots into something a bit more concrete, a bit less safely theoretical. I’ve been trying to iterate on my theory that web3 is providing us the toolbox to create alternative networks capable of providing things our current structures have failed to provide. How far can we put this into practice?
To see the status quo as unworkable and angrily demand change is understandable, but insufficient. The future belongs to the builders. To those willing to quietly toil in the night while others froth and despair, so that the morning greets their newly-formed networks ready to spread the word. To the duct-tape scientists and the close-enough planners. To those who have finally deafened themselves to the voice of paralyzing criticism. They are realizing that leverage is there to move heavy things, not just to spin up flywheels. At some point, they are not going to accept the illusion of powerlessness anymore.
Asserted: Pandora’s Box is Already Open
Realism first, before we look towards a hopeful future. Decentralized tools currently exist which make it possible for sufficiently motivated and radical people to build tiny self-sufficient feudal states on web3 networks. Yes, these are currently toys and used to do ludicrous and meaningless things. But one step past permissionless is irrevocable. The web2 internet was always this, but mostly for information and disorganized cash payments. Web3 tools allow for the creation of network states, pocket hierarchies, overworlds, and increasingly unique forms of human association. They allow us to (re)invent all the curious types of organization below the level of the governmental state. I already inhabit a world in which it is more feasible for me to plan, fund and execute community action alongside a Christian pastor in western Russian than to carry out similar work in concert with my local municipal government. This is not going to go away, any more than it was possible to un-invent the printing press. And in similar fashion, the results are not going to be entirely benign. Fracturing what appeared to be broad blocs of united citizens into myriads of tiny kingdoms is going to reveal many disturbing facts. But the process is not going to be wished away. If we return to more feudal ways of living, then we ought to expect a replicating plethora of power and resource networks vying to claim our attention, allegiance and efforts. Your choices are to ride out the waves or be pummeled by them. To my mind, the clear goal should be to find the small cadre of radicals who share your principles and craft a carefully designed parallel world of connection, commerce and knowledge. Build an overworld where everyone is able to recognize one another, unite around common work, and support one another. If you don’t nobody is coming to do the work for you. In fact, many bad actors are already surfacing who will attempt to bring members of your community into their fold, utilizing all of the tools that you fastidiously rejected.
This isn’t a statement about legal regulation, and it’s far from a political manifesto. It is a simple bet on the weight of history throwing itself behind the progress of technology. What seems unthinkable in one century is accomplished within the span of a decade in the next. The first act of the radical is the act of imagination. To envision the possibility of something beyond your current apparent reality being true. Those capable of this act of imagination will find that there is precious little arrayed against their action, for good or evil.
Asserted: False Dichotomies Serve Only the Fearful
You already know the voices that pour from the woodwork of Twitter to silence such dangerous ideas. Increasingly, I’ve recognized the demand for false dichotomies in matters of technological innovation as a way to stifle the movement of chaos. Whoever “They” might be in your context, they certainly don’t want you to know that it’s possible to do good things with dangerous tools.
Finger-pointing and splitting into teams of Luddites and Maxis simply creates an idea playground for technocrats who will continue building exactly the world they can profit from in relative obscurity. They would love to see you avoid all of their most powerful tools or obsess so much over the technology that you forget what it’s for. But we’re not going to do that. We are going to recall that it’s possible to harness unpredictable forces to benign ends. We will discipline ourselves to understand the complex new world unfolding before us. Become the operator, or be operated upon. There is a desperate need for practitioners, those who have studied and hacked until they’re proficient enough to break things and build better things.
Your small circle of radicals probably has a vision of the world you are trying to instantiate. How long are you going to wait for Them to approve, fund, staff and govern your endeavor? Are you really going to sacrifice your vision and throw your talents into the fray in service of the close-enough vision at one end of a false dichotomy? Are things really so good right now that you’re confident the existing hierarchies deserve a monopoly on organizational and communicative power? When everyone unites to tell you that a certain path is too dangerous to be tried, perhaps a little healthy suspicion is in order. Maybe it’s time to test just how much you could build before someone convinced you the effort wasn’t worth it or found a voice to tell you to stop.
Resolved: We’re Going to Build an Overworld
I promised practical, so let’s try to deliver. What does this look like in the real world? Our local church is an entity composed of people who are gradually becoming radicalized around the reality of Christianity and the idea that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only answer for the plight of our world. Our ultimate allegiance is to this paradigm and each other as the local instantiation of the global Church, rather than any other body or authority. Our small community of just under one hundred people self-funds the entire costs of a building, operations, charitable works, multimedia outreach, and the salary of a fulltime pastor. All of this is done on a completely volunteer basis by those in the congregation who are able to personally sacrifice to provide, often up to 10% of their gross income. We operate through the time and efforts of volunteers, whose activity is guided by a shared set of beliefs and the vision of a single accepted leader. I am confident in stating that should any part of what we do become for some outlandish reason illegal tomorrow, our work would barely experience a hiccup. We cannot be denied and can barely be hindered by the disapproval of incumbent entities that would prefer men in prison not be visited and single mothers not be cared for (if you disbelieve such people exist, you’ve clearly not been in church ministry). Everything we do could be instantly replicated anywhere in the world with minor changes. We are connected to global work that furthers our mission and have single-handedly started and maintained multiple community resources at home. We do all this with the barest understanding and use of Web2 technology, primarily using the nights, weekends and spare resources of a group of normal people.
What’s going to happen when we utilize decentralized systems to pair people in far-flung reaches of the globe? And not simply connect them through informational linkages, but allow them to cooperate together by checking shared resources out of a central pool. Making space for them to take their hopes from idea to applied reality without waiting to ask if the idea is feasible or permissible. Build resilient structures that give them the security to step into and out of their local networks at will. The toolbox is growing every day, giving us resources tailor-made for the design of self-sustaining and replicating communities of radicals. It’s becoming more possible to unite people by a series of symbols and memes so that they can recognize each other’s commitment to unique and rare ideals. We are becoming equipped to live as motes afloat in a broader sea, and yet instantaneously able to reach out to the other motes and coordinate our lives with theirs. Someday soon, you might not even have to pretend that your physical homeland is where your true heart’s allegiance is found. We might be very close to forsaking the nights and weekends model and actually freeing our communities from reliance on other sources of power. We don’t have to control a physical kingdom to drive the resources and results of one. This is something my people have been practicing for millennia, but each generation gets about the work with new tools. Can I let you in on the secret? The tools were never the magic ingredient.
Tell me again how hard it is to change the world? Maybe it’s time to dream a little bigger. And if your community cannot seem to marshal itself behind your vision or harness the tools necessary to create a permissionless overworld in plain sight of the powers that be, this in itself is a telling thing. May I gently suggest that it might be time to find a religion worth dying for.
WGMI 😎
Why are sectarian groups so good at providing concrete goods and services? Recall that the success of their core business rests upon their capacity to maintain credibility and minimize free riding. These are the very attributes that facilitate mutual insurance, philanthropy, and community action. Credibility is also critical in business dealings, trading networks, and social service provision. Thus, we should not be surprised to see sectarian communities successfully engaged in these activities, especially where poor government or civil disorder undermines the secular provision of schooling, health care, poverty programs, property rights, financial services, police protection, and so forth. ~ Eli Berman
But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” ~ Acts 5:29
Love the energy.
Go for it!