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1. The Story
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48 | Our Declaration is a revision of John Perry Barlow’s 1996 {" "}
49 |
50 | Declaration for the Independence of Cyberspace (view the diff here).
51 | It is also a reaction to Facebook’s recent rebranding as Meta, and to the dominance of large, centralized companies on today’s Internet,
52 | those we refer to in the document as the "Closed Fiefdoms of the platform world".
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56 |
57 | Barlow’s Declaration quickly became part of the cyberpunk canon.1
58 | Today we sit at another inflection point in the trajectory of the internet.
59 | Facebook’s rebranding has made clear that they aim to control the contours of the online world. Barlow’s
60 | Declaration once captured dreams for a freer cyberspace, but today we find his document insufficient.
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65 | Barlow pits existing institutions against the internet; we see the key conflict not as old versus new, but as monopoly versus pluralism.
66 | That is, while Barlow’s “you” refers to the government, our “you” refers to corporate and political hegemonies of all kinds.
67 | Barlow emphasizes freedom of speech; we believe that this freedom must be accompanied with the freedom to design, govern, and own the environments that speech lives within.
68 | Barlow takes a highly individualistic framing; we believe in individual agency alongside mutualism, reciprocity, and collective creation.
69 | Barlow rejects embodiment; we recognize our digital identities and commitments to be interwoven with communities, societies,
70 | and relationships in the material world.
71 | Finally, Barlow’s Declaration was authored individually; this text was collaboratively written with dozens of people contributing prose and feedback,
72 | and will always be open for signing.
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77 | In short, we want independence, yes, but also interdependence.
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81 | In the spirit of the pluriverse, we recognize that our document represents a singular vision, even as a collectively written artifact.
82 | As such, we’ve built the infrastructure for others to author alternative verses now and into the future.2
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2. The Pattern
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88 | The ontology of this object, and how other related objects can be generated related to it, also reflects the ethos of our Declaration.
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92 | The text itself was collaboratively written, and entered into the permaweb on Oct 31, 2021, via Arweave.3
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96 | The Pluriverse allows for the coexistence of many worlds and value systems; in the same spirit,
97 | all forks of the Declaration will be linked below the text on our site.
98 | Each document, its signatures, and its forks are committed to an
99 | immutable, and decentralized historical archive that anyone can explore.
100 | Our site is one among many possible ways to interface with the texts created here.
101 | Soon after our public launch, we will be open-sourcing the code for this website.
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104 |
105 | Building towards the pluriverse means building with an ethos of interdependence, in a way that is open, interoperable, and supports the commons.
106 | It means not reifying moats, including data moats, that restrict the freedom of all peoples to choose, individually or collectively, any web of relations,
107 | but paving existing desire paths that others can freely choose to traverse, shape, and use.4
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111 | Anyone can show their support for our Declaration by signing with their cryptographic wallet, a completely free transaction.
112 | A volunteer-run server is used to handle the hosting and forking transaction costs on behalf of the readers, signers, and writers of the Declaration.5
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116 | If you have additions or challenges to the declaration, you are encouraged to articulate your own revisions
117 | by creating a fork .
118 | For example, the language in the declaration employs the terms you and yours in conflict with us and ours;
119 | a fork of this Declaration to change the pronouns and language has already been suggested and is an example of the type
120 | of rhetorical work and contestation that we want to support with the forking feature.
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124 | The Pluriverse allows for the coexistence of many worlds and value systems; in the same spirit, all forks will be linked below the Declaration on our site.
125 | Each document, its signatures, and its forks are committed to a permanent, immutable, and decentralized historical archive that anyone can view.
126 | Forks of the Declaration are automatically uploaded to Arweave upon creation; thus, our site is only one way among many possible ways to interface with that data.
127 | Upon our public launch, we will be open-sourcing the software for this website.6
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129 |
130 | {/*
131 | We believe that to build towards the pluriverse means building in a way that is open, interoperable, and supports the commons.
132 | It means building with an ethos of interdependence. It means not building moats, including data moats, that restrict the freedom of “all peoples to choose,
133 | individually or collectively, [any] relations”, but paving existing desire paths and tools that others can freely choose to traverse, shape, and use.
134 |
*/}
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3. The Process
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139 | Contributions came in a multitude of ways. People wrote, edited, and gave feedback.
140 | People provided technical guidance; others implemented this site you’re currently visiting.
141 | Some people came and simply expressed their care and encouragement.
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145 | This work is authorless because it is authored in the spiritual sense by so many more people than we could feasibly name.7
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148 | We owe debts to communities that we are part of, teachers who have guided us, and ancestors in various lineages that we now steward.
149 | This work is thus a gift from many to many.
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153 | This work is a story, a pattern, and a process of interdependence.
154 | By choosing to sign this document, you offer your support for the spirit of this work, and become part of the ongoing process of interdependence.
155 | We hope that this invites you to join the broader effort to co-create a more sustainable web of relations online.
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