If so, you’ve come to the right place.
Though it might sound a little crazy we are creating a prototype for a global country -- a virtual nation.
Why?
How?
Wait, what?
Our Vision
The idea for a virtual nation has its roots in two problems:
(1) The world is facing unprecedented emergencies on global commons issues -- issues with impact across national borders like climate change, slavery and natural resource shortages; and
(2) The current political and commercial institutions looked upon to address these challenges are incapable of doing so on the needed timeframe. Nation states, the United Nations, large corporate interests, nonprofit organizations – all are hindered by self-interest,
slow consensus-building processes or fragmentation of effort.
In view of this reality, what should we do? The answer is “look to ourselves.” Cut out the middle man. Take direct action. As major online communities show, we have the ability to come together in virtual spaces to do
things that are important to us. Now we simply need to do so with a shared goal of resolving global commons problems as quickly as possible. In effect, we need to create a virtual nation,
not to replace national governments, which still serve an important purpose, but
to do what they cannot.
The (draft) idea here is to create a central online platform where citizens of the world from any existing country could come together to take simple mass actions in pursuit of shared interests. We think they would do
three simple things:
1. Pool Resources – Citizens of the virtual nation would make an annual donation (a voluntarily-given contribution amounting to some very small percentage of their annual income) to create joint resources and
purchasing power to ultimately put them on a par with existing nation states.
2. Review Objective Information – The virtual nation would supply its citizens with distilled, objective information (heuristics) about the most pressing global problems (as defined by potential harm, lives lost,
etc.) in order to efficiently inform their proposals and their decisions.
3. Take Mass Actions – When votes are taken and “action thresholds” are met (that is, when enough citizens agree upon a course of action) citizens of the virtual nation would either: buy out or boycott bad actors;
create and fund effective movements or mass actions; or provide a safety net for those suffering as a result of nation states’ inability to address global commons issues (for example, those in countries dealing with loss of land/livelihood as a result of severe
weather disasters).
We do not imagining profiting off of this initiative in any way. We might have to cover minimal operating expenses but these would be tightly and transparently managed.
Our Current Project
Our first step will be to prototype the virtual nation – a country we’ll call “ma.” We will bring together a small initial group of individuals to test the concept together. They will give feedback on the concept, review information in order to understand issues
of shared concern and try different approaches to voting.
Specifically, the prototype will seek to deepen knowledge on how best to:
*** Recruit (many) citizens as fast as possible;
*** Rapidly build revenue (e.g., testing a proportional “flat tax” for different segments of the population);
*** Present issues and display information;
*** Vote on distribution of aggregated funds;
*** Carry out mass actions.
This process will be very open ended. We expect our current vision to evolve significantly based upon feedback and testing. We will launch with a broader audience after the initial six-month test.
Our Background
In the last decade our team has worked on some of the largest social change initiatives in this country and around the world, tackling issues as diverse as homelessness, hospital safety, corrections and HIV/AIDS. We have developed a strong (possibly unprecedented)
toolset to help mobilize big groups of people to do big, meaningful things. This is our biggest challenge yet!
The Future
If we succeed, we imagine a new, legitimate form of self-government, a real nation that is taken seriously by others. A place where people do not feel hopeless about persistent, global problems. A place where they have a straightforward and efficient system
for taking action together to reduce suffering.
Importantly, we are not trying to radically disrupt the current system. We simply want to complement it with a helpful, positive solution that technology now makes possible.
It is time to take our first step. We need your help!
