Logos: The Philosophical Foundation for a New Social Order
Technology and Ethics of the Logos Movement
Easton
Ancient Greeks defined logos as ‘divine reason’ or ‘cosmic wisdom’, and used the term to describe the way all things in reality are unified — even when they are opposites. The Logos project is a unified stack of technology created to support a philosophically-aligned society in their pursuit of a network state. As such, the spirit of logos permeates the Logos project.
Introduction
Blockchain technology is a tool, and like all tools has the potential to be used for good or evil. Perhaps the best example, nuclear fission, is simultaneously the most destructive force humankind has ever known, and our most efficient and reliable source of energy. Per the NEI, one thimble-sized uranium fuel pellet creates as much energy as one ton of coal. It is not difficult to imagine the results of that energy once released — both sides, the creative and the cataclysmic — but all too often humans picture the results and judge the tool, not the wielder of it. This is understandable given the extremes, but anyone taking a rational view knows a tool cannot animate itself. Thus, the human who employs the tool is responsible for how it is used and what results, and if we know the ethics of the human we might be able to predict the outcome.
However in some cases it is possible to inject ethics into the tool as it is being created — to intercede long before any effect is felt, or anyone has a chance to deploy it maliciously. This is true in blockchain, which is why creators and builders, developers and researchers have great influence over how their technology is used. It is up to these teams to take their own philosophical journey to discover their ethics. The more work they do here, the more likely their technology will produce outcomes that align to their values.
The culture supporting Logos understands the above and is committed to infusing ethics into the technology we create. In order to do that, we must start from first principles to define what those ethics are. It begins with ‘logos’ as a concept; a realisation that all things contained in reality are connected. From there, a philosophical journey of discovery unfolds.
Logos as a concept
How does one get down to the spirit of things that are metaphysical and ancient? In early Greek philosophy logos meant ‘divine reason’ or ‘cosmic wisdom’. To the Greeks, logos was the philosophical underpinning that prescribed how the universe would unfold. It was not just ‘a plan’ but ‘the plan’; the one a higher universal power would conceive of and then carry out. Looking at it from a different angle, logos was both a description of reality and that which gave reality a purpose. To them, logos explained why all things in reality are connected.
From what we know, logos as a concept was first adopted by Greek philosophers along with the Stoics. When reflecting on the nature of the universe, Heraclitus is said to have been struck by how opposites were connected because they defined each other. Hot defines cold, and the reverse is true. As does good and evil. How could we possibly know what is ethical without defining its opposite in the process?
Heraclitus also looked at the duality of matter and how a substance could be poison for one life, but beneficial for another. As drinking seawater is to humans, but the opposite to fish. These relationships are seemingly chaotic, and so is the natural world to a viewer from the ground in a storm. But just as opposites define each other and therefore cannot exist on their own, so does substance dualism. We can only define salt water as poison to a human if we understand the nature of a poison’s opposite. Thus how a fish reacts submerged in the sea is an example of how we do not. One explains the other.
If connections exist between elements in the physical realm, even between opposites, then surely there’s a coherence to reality. Which means from that we can deduce physical law, and from that philosophy. The logic goes: if nature exists, and we exist with it, then we can attribute a philosophical quality to existence. Because there is a firm footing to base our observations, we are able to describe who and what we are, how we fit, and what we believe. What is true and what is ethical. This comes from logos.
Here’s what we can derive: all else being equal, to exist is preferable to not existing, because without existing we cannot experience anything. Therefore life and the pursuit of it is a moral good, and that which impairs one in their pursuit of life is immoral. Without being able to see or touch logos, we can still study it to understand its effect on reality and philosophy.
And because we believe logos is true — that reality is connected and coherent — we know fundamental truths are discoverable. Logos the project seeks to find the fundamental truths in regards to human morality and civil liberties, and build technology to support them.
Heraclitus is credited with asserting that you cannot step into the same river twice since everything is in a constant state of flux. This is the idea of Panta rhei. The person and the river are never the same from one moment to the next. However, what is unchangeable is the principle that everything changes. This acknowledgement is logos. The world is a collection of unified things, structurally arranged and connected by logos.
Logos as a project
Logos as a project is a collection of unified, privacy-focused, decentralised protocols, connected by a philosophical imperative to build liberty-preserving tools. The protocols include: a multi-blockchain ecosystem called “Nomos”, a private storage layer called “Codex”, and an encrypted peer-to-peer messaging network called “Waku”. When combined, these three protocols provide the technology needed to build private, decentralised coordination tools, with which we can create new social, economic, and political institutions including network states.
But to understand Logos in terms of technology is to miss the point. What does a private, decentralised tech stack allow us to manifest, given our new hyper-digital reality composed of extra-nationally connected communities?
We know that humans with different cultures and skills must collaborate to build a world that best suits us all. If we believe “that which impairs one in their pursuit of life is immoral” we can then conclude that forced collaboration is immoral as well. When it comes to association, any measure of force is inconsistent with human-centred ethics. Based on those realisations — humans must work together, but only through voluntary associations — we find it necessary to create institutions that foster voluntary collaboration, so that we may pursue a prosperous and peaceful life together. That is the purpose of Logos.
Throughout history these types of institutions were largely based on force. As discussed in the prophetic book ‘The Sovereign Individual,’ by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg, when humanity transitioned from migratory hunter-gatherer societies into stay-at-home communities, wealth — in the modern sense of it — was generated and saved in considerable quantities for the first time. To have a home means it’s possible to hold property and store units of value. But soon thereafter, as it became known that property contained valuables, early communities turned into honeypots. Ripe for pillage.
Prior to anchored life, unmoored people were largely free from inter-clan violence because there was no incentive to attack a community if they didn’t own property. The risk far outweighed the reward, since you could find what you needed to survive by moving a few acres over. Why risk death by combat when food was plentiful all around? But with property and savings, marauders saw that a potential score was worth the risk as long as they had a large enough force.
Then it became a competition between rival gangs, one offering protection from the other — for a price. And if that price was not met; well it would be one way or another. Over time a marauding force turned into an occupying one, with a leadership structure. Perhaps a king, perhaps a vote, but royalty and democracy are based on the same foundation. The only difference is how many people control the superior force, and what happens to those who oppose it. Villages became cities, then kingdoms, then countries, but the structure is the same: a monopoly of force controls a land mass along with all the people and value locked inside.
There is a better way to organise society, with social, economic, and political institutions that uphold human liberty for everyone. For the first time in human history technology is now advanced enough where we can take action and rebuild society, one with an inversion of the logic of violence, a diffusion of powers, a reversal to mass surveillance and big tech censorship, and an end to economic exile. Logos is a technology stack, but transcends it. It is the infrastructure for a new social order and a unified cultural movement connected by the principles of liberty.
Logos as institutions
Logos’ technology can be used to build new social, economic, and political institutions — institutions like education systems, healthcare services, commerce marketplaces, governance structures, and mediation to name a few. In the developed world, many are quick to point out that these institutions already exist. But that’s not true for the majority of the world’s population. And when they exist, they come with a steep price.
It’s been 10 years since the public became acutely aware of the creation of the Surveillance State; of the deployment of mass surveillance and censorship around the world, and with it, an erosion of our civil liberties. Freedom of speech, right to associate, economic freedom, and self-determination all have been impacted.
Through Covid we watched supposedly free societies lock down, forcing many small businesses into bankruptcy and keeping families and friends apart. For years human contact was demonised by the political elite and corporate media, and loved ones were unable to celebrate and mourn life’s most profound moments together. There were medical mandates and travel restrictions often irrationally implemented if not immoral, but made worse by asymmetrical enforcement. We all saw videos of beach-goers arrested while the elite partied at clubs and private events; packed-in, maskless, and free.
This is what a monopoly of force looks like when societal challenges arise — a split society with a concentration of power in the hands of a minority. The breakdown of checks and balances. A widening gap between the powerful and the powerless. A system in which protest falls on deaf ears.
Connected elites who operate above the law are not only unimpacted by such events, they thrive. The largest corporations in the world profited mightily through Covid. Lawmakers grew their net worth. This is only possible because our social, political, and economic institutions face no competition and are captured by those who wish to benefit themselves, while their communities bear the costs.
Presently we see the advent of, and global deployment of CBDCs up to the level of the IMF. We see attempts like the UK Online Safety Bill, the sanctioning of open source technology, the persecution of programmers like Alexey Pertsev, and the silencing of political dissidents. We are kept distracted, our vices weaponised, while both fear and passivity is bred into the population — all for political control. Our present reality is not fit for humanity to thrive in, and it is not the future we want for our children.
Thomas Jefferson said ‘When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.’ The infrastructure and capacity for an unprecedented technological tyranny is in place, and it is only a matter of time before the tools that have enabled us to be more connected than ever before become our prison.
We know surveillance, censorship, and persecution are unjust. Through surveillance malicious state actors may plan for our every move, and have the capability to psychologically manipulate and divide us. Reform is the ideal solution, but it appears no longer a viable option. We cannot afford to wait any longer — we must act.
Logos as a plan
We must create parallel institutions to compete with those offered by nation states, as a means to usher in a voluntaryist social order. Institutions based on ‘consent’. A major attribute is the ability to exit; to say ‘no’. We are born into a nation state with a set of rules created by the lawmakers of generations past. Rules we had no say in drafting and did not consent to. Exiting from that type of system is onerous — you would have to move to a different country leaving your family and friends behind. Often you would pay an exit tax.
But a voluntary relationship with social, economic, and political institutions means being able to easily leave if the services they provide no longer suit you. It brings market-incentives to what has otherwise been reserved for monopolies. In that reality those institutions would have to work hard to keep you as a ‘customer’ — lest you leave for another provider. The Logos technical stack will animate this reality; one that favours individual sovereignty.
Aristotle understood logos as reason and rationality, especially in the ethical sense. Logos the project builds ethics into its technology, to protect civil liberties like privacy and defence against coercion at the protocol level. This enables communities to create institutions that inherently do the same. Imagine a society established with politically-neutral systems where identity and participation are concealed, even at the node level. Coercion from bad actors would be nearly impossible since they wouldn’t know who to attack. This robustness guards institutions from capture by special interests — the type of capture that plagues all nation states of the world.
Logos is an optimistic experiment; the design of a new political system. One that will realise a latent cypherpunk dream seen by the likes of Leslie Lamport, John Barlow, Jerry Everard, and even Satoshi Nakamoto. A dream that has been perceived as a cyberstate, a virtual state, and more recently, a network state.
Our ancestors looked to the natural world to discover meaning and found connections and structure linking all things, whether similar or different. They found coherence to reality through acknowledgement of logos. With modern tools we now have the ability to connect highly-aligned individuals into sovereign societies, to provide the structure on which new social, economic, and political institutions may rest. It is our hope that our technology will attract a community of innovators who will build a new society embedded with our values, so that a peaceful, prosperous future will prevail.
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Logos
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