What is collaboration across social difference?

People who differ in their views, faith, culture or position achieving something together without erasing those differences. The book ⿻ Plurality makes technology that supports this the very definition of Plurality, and treats difference as both a spark for conflict and a fuel for progress.

At work or in a neighborhood, deciding something together with people who think differently is hard work. It is tempting either to stick with people like ourselves, or to avoid touching on the differences at all. The book ⿻ Plurality looks for a path that is neither: people who differ joining forces while keeping their differences. The book calls this "collaboration across social difference" and puts it at the center of the idea of Plurality.

In short

It means people who differ in their views, faith, culture, position and so on achieving something together, without erasing those differences.

The book defines Plurality briefly as "technology for collaboration across social difference" [1]. In the book's view, differences create conflict, but handled well they can also be a basic source of progress. In its words, "while social differences may generate conflict, using appropriate technology, they may also be a fundamental source of progress" [1].

For example

Taiwan's Uber dispute. According to Audrey Tang (Taiwan's former Minister of Digital Affairs), when the ride-hailing service UberX and the taxi industry clashed, Taiwan did not look only at the points of conflict [2]. Using Polis, a tool that arranges opinions like a map, it brought to the surface the points both sides could support. One example was accepting higher prices at busy times, but not lower prices at quiet times, because those would hurt the livelihoods of the people doing the work. Tang says this led to a resolution [2].

A national conversation in Finland (2023). Tang also describes how SITRA, a Finnish research organization, held a nationwide discussion on what Finland thinks, before the parties chose their candidates [2]. About 950,000 votes and more than 4,000 opinions came in, and both the points where people disagreed and the points they had in common became visible [2].

Taiwan's 2024 presidential election. The book describes how, despite extreme divisions, the election ended with "calm prevailing after the election and a largely consensual outcome being reached across the society" [3]. It presents this as a sign of the "capacity to harness technology and social organization to channel widely divergent attitudes towards shared progress" [3].

In more detail

The core of the definition

In a 2022 statement of the idea, Tang and the economist E. Glen Weyl described Plurality, in substance, as technology that recognizes, values and encourages cooperation across social and cultural differences [4].

The opening of the book's chapter 3-0 quotes the political scientist Danielle Allen [1]. Allen's ideal is "a society where bridging ties, across lines of difference are formed at a high rate" [1].

Why cross differences? An analogy with energy

Chapter 5-0 uses an analogy [5]. Before the industrial age, fires from oil in the ground were something to fear. With industry, they became fuel. In the same way, the book says, "we must learn to build engines that ... convert the potential energy driving these conflicts into useful work" [5].

As evidence, the book cites research by the economist Oded Galor and his colleagues [5]. According to the book, Galor argues that "perhaps the most robust and fundamental driver of economic growth is societies' ability to productively and cooperatively harness the potential of social diversity" [5].

What kinds of difference?

The "differences" the book lists are very broad [6]: religion, jurisdiction (the country, province or city one belongs to), type of place where one lives, profession, organizations, ethnicity and language, race, caste and tribe, ideology, education, field of study, gender and sexuality, abilities and generation. It even includes differences between humans and other life forms [6].

The book stresses that a person's identity (who they are) is not a sum of these but is defined by how they overlap: "human identities are defined by combinations and intersections of these forms of diversity, rather than their mere accumulations" [6].

What makes it hard

The book separates the ways in which differences matter [7]:

Differences in goals and beliefs are relatively easy to overcome by sharing information or reaching compromises.
Differences in values are harder.
The hardest are differences in solidarity and culture. Solidarity means the others with whom one feels one shares a "community of fate". Culture means the "systems of meaning-making" that let us attach significance to things.

When solidarity or culture differ, the book says, it becomes hard even to reach the point of agreeing. These differences stand in the way of "the ability to regard someone else as a partner capable and worthy of such exchange" [7].

Design principles and pitfalls

The book says collaboration involves a trade-off between "depth" and "breadth" [8]. You can connect deeply with a few people, or shallowly with many different people. The book's goal is to push both outward at once [8].

As a guiding principle, the book puts forward: "we develop tools that allow greater cooperation and consensus at the same time as they make space for greater diversity" [8].

But there is a pitfall. "Bridging differences for collaboration often erodes them" [9]. The book's example is globalization, which gave us a more varied choice of cuisines while arguably making cultures more alike [9]. On the other hand, bridging also gives rise to new things, such as new fields (behavioral economics, for example, came out of the encounter between psychology and economics) and new political divides. So the book stresses not only using diversity but also regenerating it [9].

What is debated

It is not just another word for "D&I" (diversity and inclusion). In a 2024 conversation, Tang said, in substance, that talk of "inclusive diversity" tends to be heard as being about gender or race, and that while these are an important part of difference, they are not the main focus [10]. The book's own list of differences also covers profession, field of study, generation and even other life forms [6].
Where does mediation stop? The writer Reading Monkey accepts that the slogan of turning conflict into creative energy works well for conflicts in which overlap can be found [11]. But Reading Monkey argues that we should ask where to stop: against opponents whose aim is to exclude others or take away their rights, at what point do we give up on mediation and switch to defense? [11]
The book itself admits the danger of making everyone the same (see "regenerating diversity" above) [9].

Where it fits in Plurality

This idea is at the heart of the book's definition chapter, 3-0 [1]. On the opposite side, the book places the view that sees the world only in terms of "individuals" and "society as a whole" (monist atomism).

Chapter 3-2 traces the history of the idea of a "connected society" that makes use of this kind of collaboration [12]. Chapter 5-0 frames all of Part 5 around how to make such collaboration deeper and broader [5][8]. Chapter 6-4, "Environment", begins from traditions that treat nature as "a participant in cooperation" [13]. The conclusion in chapter 7-1 says that "businesses, governments, universities, and civil society organizations must demand that our technology deepen and broaden our connections across the many forms of diversity" [14].

Related articles: - ⿻ Plurality — the technology and ideas that support this collaboration as a whole - Collaborative technology — the tools that carry it out - Bridging, Polis and Community Notes — mechanisms that find support across divides - Supermodularity — the idea that different people working together achieve more than the sum of their parts - Intersectional identity — the view that each person is made of overlapping groups

Sources

Plurality, 3-0 "What is ⿻?", opening and epigraphs — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Interview with Audrey Tang (早安新聞, 2024-06-13, in Chinese) — https://sayit.archive.tw/2024-06-13-早安新聞全球串連［CC0］
Plurality, 2-1 "A View from Yushan" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Tang and Weyl, "Plurality: Technology for Collaborative Diversity and Democracy" (2022) — https://www.radicalxchange.org/updates/blog/plurality-technology-for-collaborative-diversity-and-democracy/
Plurality, 5-0 "Collaborative Technology and Democracy", section "Collaboration across diversity: promise and challenges" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Same, the list of differences and the paragraph after it — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Same, the paragraphs on differences that are hard to bridge — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Same, sections "The depth-breadth spectrum" and "Goals, affordances and multipolarity" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Same, section "Regenerating diversity" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Hirokazu Nishio, "Pluralityは無色の新語として作られた" (Plurality was coined as a colorless new word) (transcript of a 2024-07-26 conversation, in Japanese) — https://scrapbox.io/nishio/Pluralityは無色の新語として作られた
Reading Monkey, "政治における量子比喩の政治性：なぜ選ばれ、何を調停し、何を自然化するのか" (2026-07-19, in Japanese) — https://note.com/reading_monkey/n/n97b65c6a9d3b
Plurality, 3-2 "Connected Society" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-2/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 6-4 "Environment" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/6-4/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 7-1 "Conclusion" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/7-1/eng/ ［CC0］

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