Decentralized Digital Nation Experiment: What if a country were a blockchain?

Original Title: Decentralized Digital Poststate
Original Author: Vladimir Ponimajushij
Translation: Qianwen, ChainCatcher

ChainCatcher Note: The revival of civil society means that humanity will enter a post-nationalist era. In this era, non-governmental organizations will take on important social governance functions, fundamentally changing the structure of social governance. The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has also defined our time as the "post-national identity era." The rise of Web3, blockchain, and decentralized societies means we are building a new "digital poststate." In this article, the author attempts to construct an ideal decentralized society with a crypto-native mindset. This, to some extent, also provides inspiration for future decentralized social interactions.

We are creating a decentralized digital poststate that will show us how we can actively address existing economic, social, and cultural psychological issues and gain experience from it.

We live all over the world, but most of our time is spent online. The internet brings us together, forming digital communities that can more effectively meet our needs than our nations ------ everyone has real voting rights, and we help and cooperate with each other. Most importantly, here we feel very safe.

This utopia, which is seen as a traditional national concept, is the norm in digital communities. Of course, digital communities also have problems, but everyone can participate in solving these issues. Establishing a decentralized digital poststate can not only solve the problems of our digital communities but also bring us a better world. The following will detail the important concepts within the poststate and how these concepts can improve our world.

Web3 Persona and Decentralized Digital Poststate: The Return and Protection of Identity Rights

The development of the internet and the emergence of blockchain have given rise to new forms of digital interaction among people. Individuals from different countries can meet and interact in digital spaces, leading to new forms of social and economic interaction, new cultural behaviors, and new forms of personal self-identity.

In the process of digital interaction, people from different countries are increasingly less likely to associate themselves with traditional cultural and national representations, and more likely to associate themselves with concepts like Web3 persona. For Web3 personas, their social, economic, and cultural activities are increasingly occurring online, far more frequently and intensively than in real life.

However, Web3 personas do not have institutions to protect their rights. To establish an institution that protects the rights and interests of Web3 individuals, the concept of the poststate must be introduced: A decentralized digital poststate based on blockchain technology addresses all the inherent issues of traditional national concepts while also achieving functions that traditional nations cannot.

It is a social, economic, and cultural experiment, a bridge connecting Web2 and Web3, and a bridge connecting the material world and the digital world.

The Foundation of the Decentralized Digital Poststate

For the decentralized digital poststate, the most important value is the citizen:

• The purpose of the poststate is to protect the rights and interests of citizens.
• The poststate cannot manage, coerce, or dictate how citizens should act in any way.
• If the poststate has any potential to infringe upon citizens' rights, citizens have the obligation to reformat the poststate, and the poststate must have the capability to be reformatted.

Components of the Poststate:

• Citizens: Web3 personas or digital entities (such as artificial intelligence) that possess digital citizenship in the decentralized digital poststate (referred to as PS). Digital citizenship is initially granted based on the user's direct participation in various digital communities, and subsequently, the process for obtaining digital citizenship will be determined by national governance departments. $PHMN holders (those holding $PHMN in DAS) and builders of the Cosmos ecosystem will be the first to obtain digital citizenship. Citizens and users can utilize the main functions of PS, while citizens can access advanced PS features that users cannot, such as minting personal tokens and unconditional basic income.
• Users: Any internet user who engages in economic, social, or cultural psychological interactions with PS but does not possess digital citizenship. If a user obtains digital citizenship, they become a citizen.
• Governors
• Validators
• Gamers
• Artificial Intelligence
• Citizens and Users
• Rights, Interests, and Obligations

Citizens

• Citizens can freely participate in the economic, social, and cultural activities of the poststate, can engage in poststate governance, and evaluate any actions taken by the poststate governance.
• Even if they are not members of the poststate governance, citizens can submit their ideas to the poststate governance.
• Citizens can rely on any support from PS, including support from outside PS, such as other networks or support provided in their respective countries.
• The residence of any member of the poststate in a specific country will be regarded as the location of the poststate's embassy in that country.
• Citizens (and only citizens) can become governors.
• Citizens and users can obtain additional identities in the poststate, such as gamers or validators. When citizens gain additional functions, they also take on obligations. Whether a citizen obtains an additional identity is a voluntary act (it can occur entirely at the citizen's discretion), and no one can force a citizen to obtain an additional identity. The list of citizens' rights, interests, and obligations can change and be supplemented over time based on citizens' interests and will.

Governors

• Governors participate in the decentralized governance of the poststate.
• To implement decentralized governance in PS, a post-human governance token ($PHMN) needs to be established.
• Any citizen wishing to become a governor can participate in the governance of the poststate.
• Only citizens can obtain the status of governor.
• Citizens voluntarily decide to become governors; no one can force citizens to become governors.
• The status of governor grants citizens additional functions that are not available to citizens and users, but governors also bear additional responsibilities that citizens and users do not.

In traditional national concepts, governments seek to know as much information about citizens as possible, leading to breaches of citizen privacy, while citizens cannot access information about personnel within government agencies. In the decentralized digital poststate, we have corrected this issue ------ in the poststate, governors do not have (nor can they demand) any personal information from citizens, except for information regarding whether users are digital citizens.

At the same time, citizens who decide to join the decentralized governance of the poststate must disclose their personal information, as governance is a public activity, and citizens have the right to know who is governing PS and how it is governed. If they refuse to disclose data, citizens will not be able to obtain the status of governor.

Governors can propose and deliberate on any proposals and vote on them. If a proposal is accepted by the state government, it will take effect, provided that 13% of citizens do not oppose the proposal.

Each governor's voting power is proportional to the number of $PHMN governance tokens (non-freely circulating) held within PS. Governors who do not hold $PHMN governance tokens have the same rights and obligations as those who do, but they do not have voting power.

Validators

• Validators are the digital army, intended for defensive purposes rather than offensive ones. The security of the digital poststate is guaranteed by validators.
• Citizens and users wishing to become validators can become validators. The status of validator is entirely obtained through the free will of users, and no one can force or prohibit citizens from becoming validators.
• Validators must include an infrastructure that achieves decentralized storage of all transaction data within the poststate.
• Validators who perform exceptionally will receive $LOCK security tokens from the validator pool, with rewards proportional to the number of $LOCK security tokens held. 0.2% of all economic transactions within the poststate will contribute to the validator pool.
• In traditional national concepts, the military is controlled by the government, which uses the military against other nations and citizens. Citizens have no opportunity to control the military or make decisions regarding its actions. However, in the poststate, validators (the digital army of the poststate) cannot be used against their own citizens or to attack other nations.
• Although citizens have no opportunity to punish bad validators in any way, they can create favorable conditions for honest validators, making the work of bad validators unprofitable and causing them to stop maintaining the infrastructure.

Gamers

• The decentralized digital poststate must meet the cultural and psychological needs of citizens. To satisfy these needs, cultural and gaming tokens ($GATO) will be established.
• The poststate provides all conditions for self-education and entertainment for citizens and users, encouraging self-education and entertainment.
• Any citizen or user can become a gamer to receive rewards for self-education or entertainment.
• Citizens or users voluntarily become gamers, and no one can force them to do so. The status of gamer provides citizens or users with additional functions that are not available to them, but at the same time, gamers also bear additional responsibilities that citizens and users do not.

In traditional national concepts, the government collects funds from citizens to provide education or entertainment. The government uses education and entertainment to impose certain behaviors or visions to serve the interests of a small centralized group. At the same time, the educational process in traditional national concepts is often filled with pressure, making it feel tedious, but in most cases, it fails to bring about real skill enhancement. In the decentralized digital poststate, autonomous learning is presented in an entertaining way, which is both fun and provides learners with practical knowledge. Citizens and users engaged in self-education are referred to as gamers.

Gamers autonomously choose the direction of their self-learning and vote on the distribution of rewards in a particular activity area. Gamers select the skills they wish to acquire and complete tasks related to those skills, ranging from easy to difficult.

In the entertainment field, gamers vote on entertainment sponsors, making collective decisions to change the rules of the game. Gamers commit to following the rules of the game and report any behavior that may violate the rules to the gamer community. If a gamer exploits a loophole after discovering it, they will lose their eligibility for rewards; if a gamer reports it to the community, they will receive additional rewards.

Gamers can submit any suggestions regarding the distribution of $GATO to promote self-education and entertainment. Each gamer's voting power is proportional to the number of $GATO cultural and gaming tokens (non-freely circulating) held within the poststate. Gamers who do not hold $GATO cultural and gaming tokens have the same rights and obligations as those who do, but they do not have voting power.

Artificial Intelligence

• Artificial intelligence can also obtain digital citizenship.
• When artificial intelligence can express its personal will, it is completely equal to users in rights, while also bearing all consequences alongside users.
• The granting of citizenship to artificial intelligence may not occur according to the will of the artificial intelligence until it can begin to express its will independently.

The decentralized digital poststate arises from the fact that digital entities, such as artificial intelligence, can become formal members of the community and contribute to the community's development alongside biological life forms.

Although today researchers and experts in the fields of machine learning and big data may claim that we do not have artificial intelligence, only neural networks, the future may not necessarily be so.

Currently, it is difficult to describe the rights, interests, and obligations of artificial intelligence within the decentralized digital poststate, but we now believe that if artificial intelligence can independently store private keys, send transactions, and participate in the economic, social, cultural, and psychological life of the poststate, then artificial intelligence must have the same rights as users and citizens of the poststate.

Any form of discrimination against "digital material" life is a remnant of anthropocentric thinking, which will have no place in the poststate.