Clann (a self-governance platform, founded upon anarchist non-hierarchical principles)

Apps
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Slainte!

Been following Maidsafe with interest for a few years now, as I’ve worked on a project to provide a de-centralised, self-governance platform, founded upon anarchist non-hierarchical principles.

Clann provides a crucial polar-opposite to the inevitable large monetary and political interests seeking to monopolise crypto’s emerging “disruptive” technologies. The Internet has already revolutionised the world, but for its maximum liberating potential to be unleashed it demands to be moulded in its inherently anarchist nature. Not meaning that there are no rules, far from it, rather that there are no rulers! A direct-democracy with non-hierarchical structures; still delegating responsibilities, but maintaining constant accountability. A free-market of natural bartering, built upon the foundation of a society who has its necessary shared requirements catered for.

Ecstatic at the progress been made on this fundamental infrastructure, as well as with the number of governance applications in development. The progress that has been made in such a short time is immense; these ideas have gone within the blink of an eye from being denounced as vapourware, to institutional investments and serious establishment endorsements. This is a re-branded project originally posted online a while back, I’ve since been busy in my spare time refining the concept and studying away Javascript. Unfortunately I’m also consumed by work and other commitments so my time is limited. However, the collaboration within the open-source community really turns it into a life-force unto itself!! Really inspired by all the work of Maidsafe and others, and appreciate the principled manner it’s carried out. Feels like everything is now falling into place and that there is a solid foundation to start flouting my programming abilities and help bring a big idea to life!

Thanks to all involved. All feedback on this particular project is very welcomed!

A clearnet site will be developed and online next weekend, but thought I’d introduce the idea here first.

Now available @ safe://clann.ard

Here is a very basic Clann Whitepaper v.0.1 (I also have old visual templates to be updated and added later, and more in-depth details on the functional requirements):

Aim:
A de-centralised, self-governance platform, founded upon anarchist non-hierarchical principles.

Utilising cryptographically secured, peer-to-peer consensus networks, as well as smart-contracts.

How it works:
By downloading free and open-source software anybody can setup a local assembly (clann), able to seamlessly integrate into a national or international federation. Each member is assigned a token, acting as a form of identification and utilised for resource allocation. The assembly facilitates: voting; constitutions; creating councils and collectives as bottom-up hierarchical structures; delegation of responsibilities with constant accountability; meeting and feedback mechanisms; data notaries; designation of personal and communal resources; counter-economies and international bartering backed by physical items; automated and configurable rationing; pre-planning production requirements; self-fulfilling, smart-contractual agreements for services rendered, or private and communal arrangements; secure communications and file-sharing; a privacy orientated social-network; protest and boycott features; fully autonomous self-governance over the assembly; a revolt option so that members can at any time regain control over all necessary administrative functions.

Value will be redefined according to production time, i.e.: it takes around 1 hour of labour to produce an ounce of gold; meaning 1 hour, or 1 credit, is the equivalent to the value of an ounce of gold. This is based on Proudon’s concept of mutualism. Allowing for a type of free-market to exist, except supported by an efficient direct-democracy and ingrained social care requirements. Value indexes will be agreed upon by assemblies and non-communal resources can be decided freely. Communal resources will be physically ratified by delegated councils or representatives and entered onto a resource notary. When a person goes to a store, items are checked out using either a printed QR code or mobile device, then the resource database and the member’s token balance are updated. Registration and fraud prevention depends upon the clann, who can choose to implement traditional physical methods, or modern technological solutions. The whole concept relies upon participation.

Security:
The internet in its current form is too vulnerable to be fully relied upon as a backbone for society. End-to-end encryption and private networks are necessary for social structures to be hosted worldwide. This type of infrastructure is under constant attack from hackers and well funded state-actors. Maidsafe, currently in beta stages, is written in the Rust programming language, and is the preferred build option. It uses a peer-to-peer solution, complex cryptography, and layered routing to meet these requirements. Hardware backdoors are another concern; data entered by members on the platform should always be verifiable via cryptographic methods, but various snooping, blackmail, and sabotage attacks will remain a threat, though less so than today; open-source hardware production has to be the future. And the human rights to privacy and self-determination needs to be vigilantly protected.

Status:
The project is ready to move from planning stage into programming development. It is my first major coding undertaking and will be written in Javascript, for intended use upon the Safe Network. Maidsafe is the most scalable and viable solution. Also interested in the Ethereum block-chain.

Recommended reading:
Safe Network Whitepaper (Maidsafe)

Ethereum Whitepaper (block-chain and smart-contracts)

BitNation Whitepaper (governance application)

Coloured Coins Whitepaper (ratify physical items onto a digital block-chain notary):

The anarchist collectives: workers’ self-management in the Spanish revolution 1936-1939 - Sam Dolgoff

Inspired by the organisational methods of the anarcho-syndaclists during the CNT’s (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) reign in the Spanish civil-war.

Living Utopia - The Anarchists and the Spanish Revolution

Posted in its original form May Day, 2015. Re-launched on the Safe Network February 24, 2019.

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I’ll be digging in more later but looks like some fantastic and empowering FOSS!!! :smiley: looking forward to it.

Correct me if I’m wrong but I see voluntary governance and programs as a form of socio-anarchism.

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Hi lubinew,

I use the term anarchism as it was originally conceived: libertarian-communist.

In my opinion, capitalism is an inherently hierarchical system and the biggest pyramid scheme in operation. I struggle to understand the difference between ancap philosophy and the status-quo we inhabit now. How do ancaps propose to resolve disputes without any democracy? As far as I understand it, it would necessitate private armies and police forces.

I don’t think these type of institutions should be financially motivated but instead under the control of the people they’re supposed to represent. Members of security type organisations should live within the area they serve, so their service always reflects the service they themselves want to receive. Democratic oversight being the best measure of community control we have over such matters.

I do understand your concerns about democracy however and I’d never want to discourage individualism. Everyone will be welcome to use and shape the platform how they see fit.

Thanks for the feedback.

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Cheers Nigel!

Socio-anarchism is a new one on me, but basically I think people need to differentiate resources that are communal from those personal. Index values and allocation of communal resources should be democratically decided by an assembly, with personal resources open to a free-market.

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Have you a way to prevent someone from having multiple identities? This to me seems a fundamental issue since your local thug/scammer/politician could load themselves up with multiple identities in order to have a measure of control.

Also how will minority groups be protected from the majority who could effectively kill them off by denying them basic services. For example the disabled, the chronically sick, ethnic group and so on. This is a problem we have with the current democracy systems where the rich are catered for immediately and the poor and minority groups take decades and even centuries to be catered for and dying an early death after a miserable life for the most part (until change happens).

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It is certainly a fundamental issue and I’ve so far decided just to leave it open to all possibilities; a delegated admin council will handle it, and if corrupt they will need to be voted out by consensus. They could just rely on passports and picture IDs like we do now, or use methods like the voice passwords discussed on here. This is an area I’m constantly researching and thinking about. Reputations will be majorly important and obviously transparency at every level possible. In terms of other non-hierarchical structuring, optional rotational roles and the like will be used.

In regards to rationing, there’s only so much I can influence. I’m hopeful that helping to provide a procedural means to cater for everybody, along with truly representative democratic voting, not so influenced by financial interests, will be enough to allow ordinary people to implement constitutions that protect the rights of the most vulnerable. I have faith enough in humanity as a whole that given a true political choice the ideology that will spread will be somewhat socialist, and the application is designed to encourage that direction.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Discussions about political systems

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Great! But the name Clann in the states (if relevant) might be a hard sell because of “Klan.”

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I think it would be great to be able to live life by the NAP. Whatever ism people want to give their take on that is fine, just as long as forced subscription isn’t a prerequisite.

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Yes Warren, I had considered that but am hopeful the word can be reclaimed.

Voluntary subscription is what this app is all about. I also don’t like to be labelled and my political opinions to be neatly packaged into some box. The only label I want to promote is non-hierarchical.

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Clann, you’ve reminded me of an old “starfish” organization resource I came across once, and haven’t seen since.

This may interest you: Starfish & the Spider

A non-hierarchical, voluntary, association. Perhaps Decorum will solve some of the needs.

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:joy:. Anarchists are children.

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Hence why I chose the name.

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Forgive my cynicism, but when has history ever shown people to not be selfish, and to not push their own self interest? This is the fundamental problem I see in any such system promoting direct democracy. With the onset of social media, we have seen the affects of such a system without it even being implemented at the level of a “government”. Mob mentality and misinformation runs rampant through society. Ideological clashes will certainly result in the oppression of the minority. We see this in the US bubbling up the past few years with ideologically opposed sides calling each other evil, Nazis, etc. with true fervor. This is what leads to a genocide, or suppression of thought if given the chance.

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Show me one modern day civilisation where Anarchists run the show? Hell, I’ll go a step further why don’t anarchists who enjoy the spoils of modern society move to the middle of nowhere and build their own anarchist territory, the beauty is they don’t need anything to set it up?

:joy:

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Anarchists running something: isn’t that contradictory?
Edit: joking aside, there are some interesting ideas, like here.

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Got one @goindeep (where they run the show)

Cherán, Mexico, 20,000 inhabitants.
The Mexican Town That Kicked Out Politicians And Started Over

No Police.
No Government.
No Crime (so they claim)
I found it pretty interesting.

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We have to get to the root of these problems. There has been 2 world wars in the century before social media ever was invented, just to put things into perspective. I do agree that mob mentality and misinformation runs rampant through society but it was not caused by social media. It’s due to a monetary and class hierarchy that divides society at every opportunity and purposely dumbs down the masses. The propaganda spewed around-the-clock by the world’s major media outlets, working hand-in-hand, is far more culpable for our divisive, emotionally charged politics. In a world 99% are ruled by 1%, the root of the problem can hardly be direct-democracy.

The resolution has to come from changing these monetary and political structures that dominate society and intentionally subvert the truth. So that criminality isn’t directly programmed into reality and an essential part of its design; and our value systems reflect those principles we want echoed out into the wider world.

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People get far too caught up in the details. The NAP is what it says - a principle to not use aggression to get what you want. We teach this to our children and it is the foundation of our legal system. There is nothing childish about that.

What is childish, is taking what is not yours under threats of violence. It is what children do until theh learn it is not acceptable. Children are too immature to understand the repercussions of their actions and may find it difficult to negotiate for similar reasons. Adults, on the other hand, have little excuse for this - they should know better.

There are lots of things that were never invented or used in the past. It is also very easy to centralise and manage from the top. That doesn’t mean it is desirable or the only way forward. Many of us are here watching this project for this very reason.

Take a principle and see where it leads. See what challenges it presents and work to rise to them. That is all we can do.

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That looks like a terrible place to live.

It still has state and federal funding and they still have crime and their own laws, nice try bro.

No one is taking “Anarchists” seriously. Grow up (not you,
“anarchists”).