What is ⿻ Plurality?

Technology — and a way of thinking about it — that helps people with different views and backgrounds work together instead of clashing. Audrey Tang of Taiwan and the economist Glen Weyl define it in their book of the same name as "technology for collaboration across social difference".

The internet connected people who live far apart. Yet the same technology has also split people into small islands of like-minded opinion and become a tool for stoking conflict. Does technology have to divide us, or can it be made to help us cooperate across our differences? Plurality answers: it can, and it should be built to do so.

In short

Plurality is technology, and a way of thinking about technology, that helps people with different views and backgrounds work together instead of clashing. The book ⿻ Plurality, by Audrey Tang (Taiwan's first Minister of Digital Affairs) and E. Glen Weyl (an economist), defines it briefly as "technology for collaboration across social difference" [1]. In other words, technology that helps people work together across differences in thinking, upbringing and position ("social difference").

The key point is that it neither erases differences nor simply leaves them alone. It aims to turn difference itself into energy for moving forward [1].

For example

Taiwan's Uber dispute (around 2015). When the ride-hailing service UberX clashed with the taxi industry, Taiwan debated the issue on vTaiwan, a platform for public discussion, using Polis, a tool that lays out opinions like a map. According to Tang, while other countries emphasized the conflict, Taiwan brought to the surface points that many people on different sides could agree on — for example, that raising fares at busy times is fine, but cutting fares at quiet times is not, because it squeezes the livelihoods of drivers. That became the basis of an agreement. Tang gives this as an example of what Plurality looks like in practice [2].

The "Plurality" section of Taiwan's government (2022). Taiwan's newly created Ministry of Digital Affairs included a section named after Plurality, called 多元宇宙科 (多元宇宙 is one of the Chinese names for Plurality). Tang explained that Plurality is the counterpart to "the singularity" (the point at which AI and other technology are said to surpass humans and transform society): instead of society adapting to technology, technology adapts to society's values. An opposition legislator, on the other hand, complained that nobody could understand what Minister Tang was talking about [3].

Spreading to Japan (2024 onward). Ken Suzuki, who wrote the commentary for the Japanese edition of Plurality, described the AI engineer Takahiro Anno's 2024 run for Governor of Tokyo as a new development in the Plurality movement, one drawing strong attention worldwide [4].

In more detail

Three meanings

The book splits Plurality into three parts — how things are, how they should be, and what to do — each linked to one of three thinkers who have used the word [1].

How society is. Following the philosopher Hannah Arendt, society is neither a loose collection of isolated individuals nor a single monolithic whole. In the book's words, it is "a fabric of diverse and intersecting affiliations that define both our personal identities and our collective organization."
How society should be. This view follows the political philosopher Danielle Allen. In the book's words: "Diversity is the fuel of social progress and while it may explode like any fuel (into conflict), societies succeed largely to the extent they manage to instead harness its potential energy for growth."
What to build. This view follows Tang. In the book's words: "Digital technology should aspire to build the engines that harness and avoid conflagration of diversity, much as industrial technology built the engines that harnessed physical fuel and contained its explosions."

The name and the symbol ⿻

The book uses the symbol ⿻, made of overlapping squares, in place of the word "Plurality" and also in place of the word 數位 (shuwei) [1]. In Taiwan's Mandarin, 數位 means "digital". According to the book, when used of people it also means "plural". So the word captures the core idea of Plurality in one phrase: being digital is being plural. The article 數位 and ⿻ explains this further.

A frequently cited source of the name is a poem Tang wrote in 2016 as a description of her own job, when she became digital minister. Its closing lines, quoted at the start of chapter 2-2 of the book, read: "When we hear 'the singularity is near' — let us remember: The Plurality is here." [5]

What it stands against

The book sorts today's visions of the future of technology and society into three broad camps [6]:

Technocracy (rule by experts) — a future in which AI creates abundance and a small group of experts controls and distributes it.
Libertarianism (putting individual freedom above all) — a future in which cryptography and similar tools free individuals from the state, each living separately.
Digital Democracy — the future Plurality aims for, in which different people cooperate through technology.

The book's concluding chapter calls ⿻ "the third way beyond Libertarianism and Technocracy" [7]. The book criticizes a view the two share: both see the world as made up only of isolated individuals and one social whole, and overlook the groups in between, such as families, workplaces and local communities. The book calls this view "monist atomism" [1]. The article the three paths covers this contrast in more detail.

What it sets out to build

The structure of the book doubles as a blueprint for Plurality [8]:

First, build the basic systems that act as "rights" in a digital society: showing who you are online (identity), gathering with others, exchanging money and goods, making agreements, and being able to reach information (Part 4).
On top of those, add tools for collaboration that let people connect deeply across differences (Part 5).
Carry them into real settings such as the workplace, health, media, the environment and learning (Part 6).
Spread all of this not by top-down command or by market force, but as a movement of many different communities (Part 7).

The book itself waives copyright (under a license called CC0), so anyone can freely share or rewrite it, and it was written with contributions from dozens of people around the world [8].

What is debated

Isn't this just "pluralism"? The book says liberal democracies celebrate themselves as pluralistic, yet their actual institutions have been homogenized and simplified [9]. Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, frames Plurality as going beyond merely accepting diversity to actively making use of it, and notes that a distinctive feature is that one person can belong to many groups at once [10].
Isn't this just electronic voting, or "digital democracy"? Plurality is not only about government elections. It covers every part of society, including the workplace, health and media [8]. Tang herself has said that "digital democracy" tends to make people think of electronic voting machines, so she chose a new word without that coloring [11].
Hard to understand. In Taiwan's legislature, critics said nobody could understand what was being said [3]. Buterin also writes that he sometimes feels the "Plurality" umbrella gathers together claims of quite different kinds [10].
Optimism about technology, and reliance on Taiwan. In a book review, Ralf Grötker pointed out that the success of Polis, the opinion-mapping tool at the center of the book, depends on whether governments are willing to take it up seriously; without that will, nothing happens [12]. Grötker went on to argue that democracy is ultimately about how power is distributed, so there is no technological fix for either democracy or the internet, and called the book "good old solutionism" (here, the idea that the problems of democracy can be fixed with technology) [12]. Sara Newland, a researcher of Chinese and Taiwanese politics, told the US magazine TIME that the impact of Taiwan's digital democracy should not be overstated [13]. The initiatives may contribute to Taiwan's success, but it is also possible that they came about because Taiwan is well governed [13]. Newland added that the book's vision borders on utopian, and that Taiwan's case alone may not be enough evidence that it is feasible [13].

A fuller collection of criticisms is in Criticisms of Plurality.

Where it fits in Plurality

Plurality is the subject of the whole book. The definition comes in the first chapter of Part 3 (3-0). Part 2, before it, describes Taiwan's practice; Parts 4 to 7, after it, lay out the concrete mechanisms and how to spread them.

Good articles to read next: - Collaboration across social difference — what the definition means - Collaborative technology — the tools that carry it out - vTaiwan and Polis — practice in Taiwan - The three paths — what it stands against

Sources

Plurality, 3-0 "What is ⿻?" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Interview with Audrey Tang (Good Morning News, 2024-06-13, transcript in Chinese) — https://sayit.archive.tw/2024-06-13-早安新聞全球串連［CC0］
TVBS News report on the Plurality section of the Ministry of Digital Affairs (in Chinese) — https://news.tvbs.com.tw/politics/1895042
Ken Suzuki, commentary on the Japanese edition of Plurality (in Japanese) — https://note.com/digitaldemocracy/n/nb8b59a6b775d
Plurality, 2-2 "The Life of a Digital Democracy", epigraph — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-2/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 2-0 "Information Technology and Democracy: A Widening Gulf" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 7-1 "Conclusion" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/7-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, part summaries and book description — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/blob/86158859464aee75633acd854c656928121a7fd8/contents/english/8-blurb.md ［CC0］
Plurality, 3-3 "The Lost Dao" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-3/eng/ ［CC0］
Vitalik Buterin, "Plurality philosophy in an incredibly oversized nutshell" (2024-08-21) — https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/08/21/plurality.html
Hirokazu Nishio, "Plurality was created 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
Ralf Grötker, "Why Technology Can't 'Fix' Democracy" (Netopia, book review) — https://www.netopia.eu/why-technology-cant-fix-democracy/
Will Henshall, "Inside Audrey Tang's Plan to Align Technology with Democracy" (TIME, interview article) — https://time.com/6979012/audrey-tang-interview-plurality-democracy/

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