Merge pull request #295 from vbuterin/3-0-split

Added new plurality intro chapter

contents/english/02-01-a-view-from-yu-shan.md

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+# A View from Yu Shan
+
+> Swirling ocean, beautiful islands;<br />
+> a transcultural republic of citizens.
+
+Standing at the summit of Yushan, the highest peak in East Asia, one can not only overlook the terrain of Taiwan but also perceive how this small, mountainous island nation is intricately connected to the world. Located at the intersection of the Eurasian and the Pacific tectonic plates, Taiwan's geological fault lines have not only elevated Yushan but have also fostered a diverse and resilient society amid the clash of cultures and values.
+
+Taiwan has combined advanced technology and the plural spirit of the digital realm with the philosophy of broadband human rights and social resilience, transforming them into tools that promote inter-group connectivity and warmth. This is confirmed by Taiwan's role in the global digital network topology: Not just a "republic of citizens" but also a global carrier of diverse values and the spirit of collaboration.
+
+In recent years, the global landscape has entered an era of multi-polar ideological divisions, especially in a post-pandemic world rife with uncertainty. This shift not only highlights the importance of digital technology but also reminds us that, when facing phenomena like polarized divisions and fragmented information, global society needs more proactive, open, and inclusive forms of actionable democratic dialogue, allowing the international community to reassess and adjust global governance structures.
+
+In response to the multipolar authoritarianism and social fractures, our answer is a form of understated yet resolute pacifism—an action guide based on steadfast faith and the pursuit of coexistence. The true diversity and inclusion we seek allows for every voice to be heard and seen and penetrates the surface illusion of complex issues to create a collaborative consensus.
+
+Important milestones in Taiwan's digital democracy include the 318 Sunflower Movement, the establishment of PDIS, and the Digital Ministry. Open dialogues between the government and civil society, along with active participation from multiple stakeholders, have proven that "digital democracy" is not only feasible but can also be innovative in turning conflicts into co-creations.
+
+The world faces numerous challenges, including pandemics, climate crises, and inequality. Yet, like Yushan, Taiwan is becoming a supporting force in tackling these issues through its spirit of diversity and openness. As the preface of this book says, "The advent of the internet unfurled the world, illuminating paths forward," it also reflects the contours of Taiwan. This island nation's significant contributions to global society make it an indomitable force that cannot be ignored.
+
+[COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS BEGIN HERE]
+
+### Sun Yat-Sen to Sunflower
+
+[Sun Yat-sen's association with Georgism, the Japanese colonial era (Taiwan Cultural Association, etc.) and the political environment of the Minguo era, the Nanking Decade and the subsequent relocation to Taiwan...]
+
+[All of these eras ultimately influenced the formation of modern Taiwan and the political transformations of the 1980-1990 era around the lifting of the martial law, culminating in the political environment that exists today.]
+
+### Roads to Pluralist Democracy
+
+[Illustrations of exciting things that have happened in the space in Taiwan]
+
+### A Decade of Accomplishments
+
+[Quantitative data showing the uniqueness of Taiwan’s accomplishment]
+
+### Moving Forward
+
+[Qualifications and nuances of how this is a work in progress, how many people are not yet engaged, etc.]

contents/english/03-00-a-view-from-yu-shan.md

@@ -1,36 +1,43 @@
-# A View from Yu Shan
+# What is plurality?
 
-> Swirling ocean, beautiful islands;<br />
-> a transcultural republic of citizens.
+"Democracy is a technology. Like any technology, it gets better when more people strive to improve it." - Audrey Tang[^Audrey]
 
-Standing at the summit of Yushan, the highest peak in East Asia, one can not only overlook the terrain of Taiwan but also perceive how this small, mountainous island nation is intricately connected to the world. Located at the intersection of the Eurasian and the Pacific tectonic plates, Taiwan's geological fault lines have not only elevated Yushan but have also fostered a diverse and resilient society amid the clash of cultures and values.
+"Action, the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter, corresponds to the human condition of plurality … this plurality is specifically the condition — not only the conditio sine qua non, but the conditio per quam — of all political life." - Hannah Arendt[^Arendt]
 
-Taiwan has combined advanced technology and the plural spirit of the digital realm with the philosophy of broadband human rights and social resilience, transforming them into tools that promote inter-group connectivity and warmth. This is confirmed by Taiwan's role in the global digital network topology: Not just a "republic of citizens" but also a global carrier of diverse values and the spirit of collaboration.
+In the previous chapter, we discussed the growing conflict between technology - or, more precisely, technology as implemented largely by profit-seeking corporations, and democracy - or, more precisely, democracy as implemented by top-down centralized nation states, and how these two forces seem to be pulling in opposite directions. To develop an approach that moves beyond this toxic binary, it helps to first acknowledge and understand the thing that the two sides have _in common_. This is a complex topic, but in our view a reasonable summary can be made as follows: the thing that the two perspectives we previously labeled "Libertarianism" and "Technocracy" have in common is a **monist view of the world that sees the social world as a two-level structure of "individuals" and a monolith called "society"**.
 
-In recent years, the global landscape has entered an era of multi-polar ideological divisions, especially in a post-pandemic world rife with uncertainty. This shift not only highlights the importance of digital technology but also reminds us that, when facing phenomena like polarized divisions and fragmented information, global society needs more proactive, open, and inclusive forms of actionable democratic dialogue, allowing the international community to reassess and adjust global governance structures.
+If one accepts such a framework, the necessity of the two-century-old fight of Jeffersonianism vs Hamiltonianism, markets versus democracy, fear of big government vs fear of big business, and now in our telling technology versus democracy, follows as an almost immediate conclusion. If you believe that the most important categories that count are "individuals" and "society", then politics reduces to a single-dimensional slider that can be shifted left or right to reflect how much emphasis you want to give each one.
 
-In response to the multipolar authoritarianism and social fractures, our answer is a form of understated yet resolute pacifism—an action guide based on steadfast faith and the pursuit of coexistence. The true diversity and inclusion we seek allows for every voice to be heard and seen and penetrates the surface illusion of complex issues to create a collaborative consensus.
+Our approach, centered around the idea of **plurality**, rejects this divide and seeks to create a richer framework. Rather than seeing the most important structures as being individuals at one end, and "society" at the other end, we see a diverse and highly intersecting array of organizations of different scopes and different sizes.
 
-Important milestones in Taiwan's digital democracy include the 318 Sunflower Movement, the establishment of PDIS, and the Digital Ministry. Open dialogues between the government and civil society, along with active participation from multiple stakeholders, have proven that "digital democracy" is not only feasible but can also be innovative in turning conflicts into co-creations.
+Note that this view differs from a historically common approach to adding nuance to the "individuals vs society" divide in a key way: if individuals are points, and groups are circles, **our circles are not concentric**.
 
-The world faces numerous challenges, including pandemics, climate crises, and inequality. Yet, like Yushan, Taiwan is becoming a supporting force in tackling these issues through its spirit of diversity and openness. As the preface of this book says, "The advent of the internet unfurled the world, illuminating paths forward," it also reflects the contours of Taiwan. This island nation's significant contributions to global society make it an indomitable force that cannot be ignored.
+<table><tr><td style="width:50%">
 
-[COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTIONS BEGIN HERE]
+<img src="../../figs/circles1.png"/>
 
-### Sun Yat-Sen to Sunflower
+</td><td>
+
+<img src="../../figs/circles2.png"/>
+
+</td></tr><tr><td style="width:50%">
 
-[Sun Yat-sen's association with Georgism, the Japanese colonial era (Taiwan Cultural Association, etc.) and the political environment of the Minguo era, the Nanking Decade and the subsequent relocation to Taiwan...]
+Left: a concentric circle view of society, from [a sociology paper in 2004](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/A-Dynamic%2C-Multi%E2%80%90Level-Model-of-Culture%3A-From-the-a-Erez-Gati/50c014cf2c4e5095a49d5315a150cd4491f0cecd)
+
+</td><td>
 
-[All of these eras ultimately influenced the formation of modern Taiwan and the political transformations of the 1980-1990 era around the lifting of the martial law, culminating in the political environment that exists today.]
+Right: a plural view of society.
+
+</td></tr></table>
 
-### Roads to Pluralist Democracy
+Interactions between circles are complex, and much of what is beautiful about our world comes from various interactions - as well as many of our conflicts. Each individual has all kinds of loyalties to all kinds of groups, and efforts to try to strip away this plural loyalty in favor of either unbridled valorizing of self-interest or demanding supreme loyalty to some overarching structure representing "all of society" (or "all of humanity" etc), are the cause of many of the problems that we see today. Profit-making corporations, and the workflows and the technologies that they build, often cause the most damage by stripping away this complexity. Meanwhile, democracy, seeing itself as trying to create a counter-pressure, often ends up making a second punch against these diverse groups and communities by demanding that these workflows and technologies operate in ways determined and standardized at very large scales by a centralized state.
 
-[Illustrations of exciting things that have happened in the space in Taiwan]
+### What is Plurality?
 
-### A Decade of Accomplishments
+Our vision of Plurality can be described succinctly in three parts:
 
-[Quantitative data showing the uniqueness of Taiwan’s accomplishment]
+* **Plurality is here.** The extreme diversity of the ways in which different people interact with the world and with each other, is a deep feature of the human world that cannot be taken away. This is not even something especially particular to humanity: there are deep analogues of similar ideas across the natural sciences.
+* **Plurality can be harnessed, but it must be respected.**  The diversity both of us as individuals and of our combinations is like fire: it can warm us, or it can burn us. Difference often is a source of conflict. But much like making our atoms stop would freeze us to death, attempting to smooth out our differences would create a cold and likely brittle society. There is a multi-century long school of philosophy that has attempted to describe and perfect the art of harnessing our diversity as a strength; this school can be revived and pushed much further.
+* **Technology must take center stage in Plurality, and plurality must take center stage in technology.** Digital technology is and will be at the center of how we interact with each other, but it will be far better placed to improve the world if works with our diversity, rather than working around it or fighting against it.
 
-### Moving Forward
-
-[Qualifications and nuances of how this is a work in progress, how many people are not yet engaged, etc.]
+Each of the next three chapters will go through one of these ideas in much more detail.