Vitalik Buterin, in “Plurality philosophy in an incredibly oversized nutshell” (2024-08-21), explains plurality in one sentence and then breaks it down into four sections

How would I define Plurality in one sentence?

How would you define plurality in one sentence? In his 2022 essay “Why I Am A Pluralist,” Glenn Weil defines pluralism most succinctly as

  • I understand Plurality to be a social philosophy that recognizes and promotes the flourishing and cooperation of diverse socio-cultural groups/systems.

If I had to expand it a bit and define the “plurality” of this book in four bullet points, I would say

  • Glen’s Megapolitics is the idea that today’s world is stuck in a narrow corridor between conflict and centralization and needs a new, upgraded, high-performance form of digital democracy to replace both.

  • Plurality as Vibe: the general theme is that (i) we should understand the world through a patchwork combination of models and not try to stretch any single model beyond its natural applicability and (ii) we should really take the connections between individuals seriously and work to expand and that we should work to strengthen them.

  • Plurality-inspired mechanism design: there is a set of principled mathematical methods that can design social, political, and economic mechanisms that treat not only individuals but also connections among individuals as first-class objects. This can create new forms of markets and democracies that solve problems common to markets and democracies today, especially those surrounding bridging tribal divisions and polarization.

  • Audrey’s work experience in Taiwan: Audrey has already incorporated many ideas along the lines of pluralism while serving as Digital Minister in Taiwan, and this is a starting point from which we can learn and build.

The following “What are the megapolitics of Plurality?” What are the megapolitics of Plurality? section summarizes Glen’s megapolitics in Vitalik’s words

  • Digital Democracy/Purality: Using Internet-enabled technologies, create much higher bandwidth democratic mechanisms that can aggregate preferences from very broad groups of people, and use these mechanisms to create a much more powerful and effective “third sector” or “civil society” and can make much better decisions.


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