What are the "three paths"?

A map drawn in the book Plurality that sorts where technology could take society into three directions — "Technocracy", in which AI and experts plan; "Libertarianism", in which cryptography frees individuals; and "⿻" (Digital Democracy), in which technology helps different people work together. The book chooses the third.

What will society look like once AI gets much smarter? Will a few experts and their AI systems plan everything for us? Or will individuals live freely, no longer relying on governments or organizations? The book ⿻ Plurality sets a third option beside these two familiar pictures of the future. Together they are the "three paths".

In short

The book Plurality lays out three ways of thinking about where society goes as technology advances [1][2]:

Technocracy — AI and a small number of experts plan well and hand out the abundance that results.
Libertarianism — cryptography sets individuals free from governments and other groups.
⿻ (Digital Democracy) — technology is used so that people who differ from one another can cooperate.

The book chooses the third [1][2].

For example

The video game Civilization VI. The names come from Sid Meier's strategy game Civilization VI, and specifically its "Gathering Storm" expansion [1]. In the game's "Information Era", the player chooses among three systems of government: "Synthetic Technocracy", "Corporate Libertarianism" and "Digital Democracy" [1]. The book borrows these as a rough map of today's great debate about technology and ideas. In its words, they describe "in broad strokes, like Communism, Fascism and Democracy in the 20th century, the great techno-ideological debate of our time" [1].

Sam Altman's "Moore's Law for Everything". As an example of Technocracy, the book points to "Moore's Law for Everything", a 2021 essay by Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI [3][4]. The idea is that AI makes everything cheap and abundant, doing away with material scarcity at least in principle. But because that value may pile up in the small group that controls AI, it has to be shared out again, for example through a universal basic income (UBI: a fixed sum of money paid to everyone) [3][4].

The Network State. As the "canon" of Libertarianism (the books most widely read and cited in that community), the book lists The Sovereign Individual, the writings of Curtis Yarvin, and Balaji Srinivasan's The Network State, among others [5]. It sees the investor Peter Thiel as the camp's central intellectual leader [5].

In more detail

The direction of technology can be chosen

Chapter 2-0 of the book argues that the path of technology is not fixed. It is chosen by where societies put their money and effort. In the book's words, the range of futures "is not unlimited or infinitely malleable", "But neither is it predetermined" [1]. To think about the options, the book says, the comparison with "ideologies" (whole systems of political ideas) is useful, and it presents the three paths [1].

Technocracy

According to the book, this is the most widely discussed picture of the future today [3]. At its center is the idea of "Artificial General Intelligence" (AGI): "machines that exceed human capabilities in some generalized way, leaving little measurable utility in human individual or collective cognition" [3]. In plainer terms, machines that make human thinking, alone or together, largely unnecessary.

It has two main concerns [3]. One is how to share out the abundance AI creates (for example through UBI). The other is the risk that AI escapes human control and threatens humanity, and with it the need for "strong and often centralized control" over these technologies [3].

The book names as its leading figures in Silicon Valley Altman, Reid Hoffman, and, until recently, Elon Musk [3]. It also mentions Jack Ma and the Chinese government's official AI development plan in China, as well as OpenAI, DeepMind and Andrew Yang's election campaign in the United States [3].

Libertarianism

This view holds that cryptography and networking protocols (shared technical rules) will take over the role that people's collective organization and politics play today [5]. It aims to free individuals from government and other collective "coercion", so that they can take part in unregulated markets [5].

The book writes that the novels of Ayn Rand and Neal Stephenson have been a source of inspiration [5]. Examples include the immersive virtual world (the "metaverse") in Snow Crash, digital currencies independent of governments, cities floating on the sea ("seasteads") and strong cryptography. The book's analysis is that Bitcoin, Web3 (a vision of the internet built on blockchains), the message board 4chan and similar communities are the social base of this view [5].

What the two have in common

Chapters 3-0 and 3-1 argue that the two views share a foundation [6][7]. They differ over whether authority belongs to the individual or to the whole. But both see the world as made of only two things: separate individuals ("atoms") and a single social whole. The book calls this "monist atomism" [6].

In the book's view, Technocracy covers over society's diversity with a "massive-scale, unified, rational, scientific, artificially intelligent planning system" [7]. Libertarianism makes the freedom of the separate individual the final goal, and in it social relations "are best understood in terms of 'customers', 'exit' and other capitalist dynamics" [7].

⿻ as the "third way"

The book's conclusion asks: "Should we, as Libertarians like Peter Thiel, Marc Andreesen, and Balaji Srinivasan would have us do, liberate individuals to be atomistic agents, free of constraints or responsibilities? Should we, as Technocrats like Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman would have us do, allow technologists to solve our problems, plan our future, and distribute to us the material comfort it creates?" [2]. Its answer is "neither!" [2].

Life thrives between rigid order and complete chaos, on the "edge of chaos". In the same way, the book says, "⿻ is thus the third way beyond Libertarianism and Technocracy, just as life is the third way beyond rigid order and chaos" [2].

An earlier version in Weyl's essay

E. Glen Weyl, one of the book's authors, compared the same three camps point by point in a 2022 essay, "Political Ideologies for the 21st Century" [8]. The essay has a table setting out each camp's values, where it places sovereignty, the technologies it favors, its canon and its leading figures [8].

For Corporate Libertarianism it lists Thiel, Srinivasan, Marc Andreessen, Yarvin and others. For Synthetic Technocracy, Altman, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Hoffman and others. For Digital Democracy, Audrey Tang, Jaron Lanier, Danielle Allen and Weyl himself, among others [8]. Weyl also writes that most people sit somewhere between the three [8].

What is debated

It is not against AI or cryptography. Chapter 3-3 says that many Web3 projects have been influenced by Libertarianism and "hyper-financialization" [9]. But it also says that projects which grew up under the leadership of Vitalik Buterin, such as Gitcoin and decentralized identity, are "central inspirations for ⿻ today" [9]. The difference between the three paths is presented not as a difference in the kind of technology, but in what the technology is used for.
Buterin's summary. In his review of the book, Buterin sums up Weyl as seeing ⿻ as a path that avoids three failures at once [10]: the coordination failures and conflict that Libertarianism leads to, the centralization and authoritarianism that Technocracy leads to, and the stagnation that old-fashioned democracy leads to. Buterin also contrasts Srinivasan's vision, which he describes as growing new institutions and communities in a protected space, with Tang and Weyl's, which he describes as folding improvements that branched off on a small scale back into the mainstream of society [10].
Criticism of the network state. Divya Siddarth, Weyl and Anne-Marie Slaughter criticized the ideas in The Network State as centered on "exit" (leaving) [11]. Their point is that a right to leave is needed, but so is somewhere to go. Their essay's title sums up the proposal: "We need network societies, not network states" [11]. This is a criticism from the ⿻ side.
The names changed between versions. In notes by Jeffrey Fossett, who read a version of the book before its release, the two rival visions are called "Abundance Technocracy" and "Entrepreneurial Sovereignty" [12]. A paragraph in the German translation's chapter 2-0 still uses these older names [13].
How it was received in Taiwan. A Taiwanese review by Chang Yin-hui sums up the scheme as two poles, thorough laissez-faire and rule by experts [14]. It presents the first as inviting unpredictable disasters and the second as lacking real participation by citizens [14].

Where it fits in Plurality

The three paths are introduced in chapter 2-0, "Information Technology and Democracy: A Widening Gulf" [1]. The chapter points out that personal computers, the internet and smartphones fit neither story [15]. They were "technologies that augmented human creativity, often called 'intelligence augmentation' or IA, rather than AI", and "emerged from a very different tradition than either of these two" [15]. Chapter 3-3, "The Lost Dao", tells the story of that tradition.

Chapters 3-0 and 3-1 show the shared foundation of the two paths (monist atomism) [6][7], and the conclusion in chapter 7-1 wraps up with ⿻ as the "third way" [2].

Related articles: - ⿻ Plurality — the third path itself - Digital Democracy — the name for the third path, taken from the game's system of government - Monist atomism — the view the other two paths share - The Lost Dao — the tradition of intelligence-augmenting technology - The network state — a leading vision on the Libertarian side

Sources

Plurality, 2-0 "Information Technology and Democracy: A Widening Gulf", section "Ideologies of the twenty-first century" — 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, 2-0, subsection "Artificial Intelligence and technocracy" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Sam Altman, "Moore's Law for Everything" (2021) — https://moores.samaltman.com/
Plurality, 2-0, subsection "Crypto and hyper-capitalism" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 3-0 "What is ⿻?" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-0/eng/ ［CC0］
Plurality, 3-1 "Living in a ⿻ World", section "A future ⿻?" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-1/eng/ ［CC0］
Glen Weyl, "Political Ideologies for the 21st Century" (RadicalxChange, 2022) — https://www.radicalxchange.org/updates/blog/political-ideologies-for-the-21st-century/
Plurality, 3-3 "The Lost Dao", subsection "Nodes of light" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/3-3/eng/ ［CC0］
Vitalik Buterin, "Plurality philosophy in an incredibly oversized nutshell", section "What are the megapolitics of Plurality?" — https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/08/21/plurality.html
Divya Siddarth, Glen Weyl, Anne-Marie Slaughter, "We need network societies, not network states" (The Collective Intelligence Project) — https://www.cip.org/blog/network-societies
Jeffrey Fossett, "Notes on the Plurality Book (Weyl & Tang)" (2023-12-27) — https://jeffreyfossett.com/2023/12/27/notes-on-plurality-book.html
Plurality, German translation, 2-0 (in German) — https://github.com/GermanPluralityBook/pluralitaet ［CC0］
Chang Yin-hui, "科技不會扼殺民主？──唐鳳、衛谷倫的《多元宇宙》" (Voicettank, 2024-07-15, in Chinese) — https://voicettank.org/20240715-1/
Plurality, 2-0, section "Stagnation and inequality" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/2-0/eng/ ［CC0］

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