The Constitution of Consent
Last updated
Last updated
Co-written by Gavriel Shaw and Sterlin Lujan, October 2023
To each the government of his dreams.”
~K. H. Z. Solneman (Kurt H. Zube, An Anarchist Manifesto)
Natural law, Nonviolent Communication, and network state infrastructure combine to create the foundation of this constitution and usher in a new age of consent-based, emotionally intelligent governance. The authors assume today’s establishment will collapse (or be underthrown) this decade, catalysing a chance for rebirth and renewal of what it means to be a civilized society or civilization.
This constitution is geared toward forming a network state on emergent blockchain infrastructure in development by logos.co or other collectives.
Centralized national governments and Hobbesian “social contracts” have emerged as flawed and corruptible governance experiments. This corruptibility has been amplified by modern territorial-based Westphalian nation states, where power accretes for those in high-ranking positions. A shift in how we relate to each other and incentivize behavior must be adopted to embrace the unfolding, interconnected, and individuated global village. The US Constitution came close, but we can do better.
The Constitution of Consent praxis hinges on creating a network state that abides by nonviolent action and communication principles.
Per the Logos collective (logos.co), ‘A network state is an online community of highly aligned “subscriber citizens” who organise to build social, political, and economic institutions that operate independently of nation states.’
The constitution references its beneficiaries — called “subscriber citizens” — who adhere to a network state model underpinned by the “prime law” (initially conceived as the fundamental of protection by the Twelve Visions Party). The Prime Law is this community’s one commandant (per Balaji S. Srinivasan) and its human interaction and relational behaviour model.
The prime law is the fundamental principle of consent, which denotes that a person cannot be forced or coerced by any other person or group to do something against their will. Every action between people and groups must be a function of their willfulness, volition, and voluntary effort. In this sense, the primary method of relating or seeding specific relations is via contract law and corresponding smart contracts within the network state.
The network state will live in the cloud as an online governance mechanism where smart contracts help manage contract law. Subscriber citizens can subscribe to the network state via an online directory, “Network Prime,” with a focus on the one commandant of the prime law. Subscriber citizens can live anywhere worldwide, as the central gathering place is in the cloud. However, the subscriber citizens can, if they wish, crowdfund territory and bring their collective from the cloud to the ground. The authors' ultimate vision is to unleash a society of panarchy, where peoples of all creeds, customs, and backgrounds live in harmony and choose their governance models at their discretion. Hence, this vision of our collective future hinges inextricably on the prime law and its concomitant principles.
No force. Except in defence of those who initiate force or fraud.
This axiom is the prime law of consent.
It is enforceable via a protection-only military, police and court system (Dispute resolution organisation and common law territorial resolutions).
Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you — the golden rule expressed in Negative Rights per Robert Nozick. “A negative right restrains other persons or governments by limiting their actions toward or against the right holder.”
Similarly, so-called ‘positive rights’ that claim people have an inherent right to resources or opportunities lay claim to those benefits at someone else's expense. This approach to ‘human rights’ becomes a violation through feel-good surface logic typically advocated by politicians and leads to a wrongly vindicated tyranny of the majority.
Humankind has sought to make agreements, to reach consensus, to ‘be right’ and ensure by enforcement that others follow along. However, regulations and taxes dictated by majority rule have failed. These one-size-fits-all mandates do not work given the cosmopolitan nature of humanity, whether in family situations or for villages, communities, or cities — much less in countries or the whole world. Instead, consent at the individual level becomes the prime law and necessary principle underpinning a civilised society.
We can frame the overarching moral stance of this constitution as such: Might does not make right. Consent makes right. And this constitution embodies that axiom. The following principles stem from the core idea that consent makes right.
“Consensus means a decision is made when everyone agrees. Consent means a decision is made when no one objects.” — SociocracyForAll.org
There is no chance nor need for ‘everyone to agree’. We only need to allow a fertile environment for consent and consensus between people to blossom, providing that no party causes harm to one another.
Some might disagree on what counts as ‘harm to others, and that is where fractional communities and network states form around specific values and perspectives. These ‘network states’ are microcosmic experiments of living together based on a mix of values respecting individual autonomy. This “network prime” experiment is just one in the petri dish of governance modelling and constitution crafting. Under this constitution, the authors identify ‘harm’ as physical force or fraud against a nonconsenting person.
As network states emerge and become more organized, communities will use smart contracts to agree and enable precise, specific details, such as business agreements, quality of service delivery, code of conduct, etc. These agreements hinge on consent and consensus at every level of the network state — and can be built to interact with other network states and their constitutions — forming a new kind of “digital march law,” explored in principle 7.
The authors believe a large majority of humans are inherently good-natured. Given the chance at a fair opportunity and supportive community, people will mostly do the right thing. A clear set of bylaws will address the following (and clarify the functions and parameters of “consent” as a practical concept):
No one has an automatic or inherent claim over the time, privacy or property of anyone else.
People do as they wish in the region they inhabit besides where objected to by others. Objections are defined as a claim of likely harm to people.
An arbitration system clarifies contractual consensus on definitions of ‘harm’ in each case.
Harm primarily relates to physical harm, not hurt feelings. However, any locality can form a community contract in which those involved must embrace consent based on differing definitions of “harm.”
There is a smart contract amendment process where bylaws may be edited or augmented.
An example:
Billy in the Blue House likes to party until 3 a.m., with sound pollution affecting his neighbours.
Jennifer in the Yellow House suffers insomnia and increasing anxiety due to the disturbance of Billy’s loud parties.
They live within a community zone where each resident agrees to a contract of living amicably and cordially with fellow neighbours.
As such, Jennifer complains, Billy then has a choice to stop the parties or be subject to restrictions that he agreed to in the clauses of the community contract that he signed when he moved into the community.
Jennifer is also particularly sound-sensitive and likes to sleep by 9 p.m. most nights using earplugs. She had the foresight to pay for a new insurance policy that guaranteed she would not suffer noise levels above 60 decibels for more than 30 minutes per night. If so, the insurance company is liable to make reparations as deemed appropriate by an arbitration committee.
Jennifer complains about Billy to the insurance company, who immediately responds by installing white noise soundproofing speakers like an invisible sound defence wall around Jennifer’s garden. Billy agrees to lower the volume of his parties enough so that the sound cancellation speaker system will ensure that the sound does not penetrate Jennifer’s sleeping quarters.
Billy, Jennifer, the community arbitration team, and the insurance company have helped ensure that Billy gets to party, while Jennifer sleeps peacefully. The parties achieve mutual agreement with a contract of consent between them. No centralised authoritarian ruler is needed.
There is no ‘central authority’. There is mutual agreement between people who know what they agree to and accept. Thus, contract law will help ensure agreement adherence between parties — in physical and digital spaces.
People’s reputations will form the basis for a network state of consent. The community will acknowledge and account for code of conduct, broken contracts, and unpaid damages through smart contracts. It will limit subscriber citizen access depending on the nature of the contract violation.
If people do not like what happens in a community, they can leave. They don't have to subscribe if they don’t want or like a service.
Furthermore, suppose communities of people do not like what someone does (typically via breaching the constitution). The network state community can ostracise them, blocking them from services or experiences based on a violation against a community member or breach of contract.
This ‘punishment or ‘ostracism’’ via reputation management can be seen as a form of digital exile, where a user gets banned from the network state and its constitutional agreement. The idea of ‘exile’ over ‘punishment’ has been common throughout history and practised as a part of polycentric law. In Gaelic Ireland, the community would exile those who disagreed with the Brehon’s decision. If they committed murder or serious harm against another person, the tribe could mark them for retribution with a charge of ‘wergeld,’ meaning man money or man payment.
While ‘ostracism’ may sound intolerant on the surface, even offensive or hurtful, this is the problem humanity must address with care. There is nothing inherently wrong with choosing the people we associate with; that is our moral right to freedom of choice. We make those choices in our everyday lives all the time. Freedom of association hinges on the notion of rules without rulers.
The network state will affirm consent via smart contracts with both parties agreeing to its adherence based on penalties for non-adherence, which forms the basis of contract law.
Without a central authority dictating the use of communal resources, society will need other checks and balances.
One such area is the use of advanced insurance services. Insurance companies provide security and protection for accidental or even intentional damages to public and private property.
Insurers will then become subversive innovators of technology to help mitigate the risks of payout claims they would otherwise need to make. Some adjacent services will form around network states and their relevant blockchains to provide this service application.
One example is for insurance of sound pollution from neighbouring properties. Insurance companies could provide soundproofing technologies such as white noise speaker systems that buffer noise beyond a certain level of decibels (mentioned in the previous example). Examples like this are countless and a vast space of innovation in our consent-based civil society.
A term derived from ancient Sanskrit, ahimsa, supposedly the concept of ‘toleration’ through non-harm, is a double-edged sword. In a society where 6% of people are supposed to be clinically diagnosable as sociopathic (lacking empathy), it can be dangerous for society to tolerate such people's corruption. Read psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen ‘The Science of Evil’ for more information on this phenomenon.
The Constitution of Consent helps ensure a balanced approach to toleration in which we learn to live with each other's differences while collectively ensuring that initiatory force (violence) or fraud (theft, deceit) are not tolerated. The above principles and bylaws capture the authors’ view on rightful toleration.
If people find each other ‘intolerable’, we expect they will not want to inhabit the same physical or digital space or participate in the same communal events.
The community and network states advocating the prime law allow individuals to stop those who violate it with initiatory force (violence) with an equal or greater amount of force, I.E., self-defence. This self-defence applies to threats of force (coercion) and fraud (hidden force against someone's property or freedom of choice via deceit).
Force is morally and legally justified to protect the innocent from those who attempt to impose themselves through violence. No individual, group, or entity is above the prime law.
The prime law constitution, as presented by the Twelve Visions Party as an amendment to the US Constitution, has three and only three articles:
Article 1: No person, group of persons, or government shall initiate force, threat of force, or fraud against any individual’s self, property, or contract.
Article 2: Force is morally and legally justified only for protection from those who violate Article 1.
Article 3: No exceptions shall exist for Articles 1 and 2.
Anyone not consenting to the constitution (or associated contracts and smart contracts) within or outside this network state is still afforded fundamental rights by natural law. For clarity, natural law means a legal system based on close observation of human nature and behaviour, which generally includes self-ownership, the right to (or stewardship) over property, and the right to opt out of relationships. Thus, individuals can resolve disagreements or violations of (natural) rights from disputes within a coterminous territory with the help of a network arbitrator.
A network arbitrator (or panel of arbitrators) act as the judge for a victim or claimant who chooses to resolve a dispute. Disputants voluntarily select network arbitrators within or outside a network state and its constitution within a bounded territory.
The arbitrator is independent and objective and, once selected, has the power to make determinations on various issues. For those unwilling to settle disputes with network arbitrators, see Principle 3 for possible consequences or outcomes. Common law becomes more relevant and essential when network states overlap within a “nation-state” jurisdiction or other bounded governance models. Further, for network state disagreement, communities can enact a ‘digital march law,’ where they effectively enjoin their constitutions and one commandment, allowing them all to share common law decisions between network arbitrators, especially where parties not affiliated with Network Prime have disputes or grievances with Network Prime members.
Note: this constitutional agreement prohibits Network Prime or any of its community from creating or attempting to enact statute laws. All forms of Justinian, centralized-legal mandates or edicts by a small group of admins or leaders, are incompatible with this network state and its constitution.
Enumerated Common Law Rights:
Common law human rights vary by region, territory, and culture — and are primarily based on natural law. However, through an understanding of natural law, a shared agreement on common law rights is generally accepted as universally true. Natural and common law also share the same central idea of consent as the primary underlying principle. Generally speaking, consent and human rights are intimately tied together. These consent-based rights make up the scaffolding of common law (but are not necessarily limited to only these):
Self-ownership: A person has ownership over their person. No one can coerce or command them to do something against their will. Self-ownership is also defined as self-government or self-sovereignty. Self-ownership also includes the concept of cognitive liberty, which means a person has the right to alter their consciousness with prayer, meditation, chemicals, plants, or any other means.
Right to property: A person can hold, maintain, modify, or relinquish their property at their behest. No other party has an automatic claim to that property unless through a contractual claim.
Freedom of communication: A person can publish and speak freely. Communication also includes memes, media, press, radio, podcasts, and other novel forms of communication.
Spiritual and religious liberation: People can worship a God or freely adhere to any spiritual or metaphysical belief as they see fit.
Right to privacy: Individuals can selectively reveal themselves at their discretion. Their privacy is their choice, not that of any other party, governance apparatus, or individual.
Right of accused: A person has the right to a fair hearing by private network arbitrators, who will always be selected voluntarily on the market by victims or claimants.
Equal protection: All network state subscriber citizens gain equal protection under any system. They are afforded the same rights regardless of which network state or governance system they subscribe to (payments for equal protection within this network state are funded from the treasury, but equal protection is largely a common law agreement).
Compensative justice: Individuals are entitled to just compensation and to be made whole if victimised or aggressed against. Network arbitrators determine if the aggressor or disputant owes the claimant recompense, and their decision is final, but the disputant may appeal the decision via the network state.
Unjust searches or seizures: Network arbitrators and dispute resolution organisations operating in physical space cannot seize a person or their possessions without just cause, typically including having caused harm or broken the prime law against another individual.
Due process: Network arbitrators provide individuals with due process before enacting a restorative justice decision for any individual charged with committing harm against another or otherwise violating the prime law.
(It should be noted that since common law differs slightly by local territory and custom, it is up to various network states and their regional adherents to form common law and contractual agreements. Also, note that the prime law — the law of consent — should be the measuring stick for Network Prime contributors and members. Any dispute should be handled with the mentioned Digital March Law agreements between participating network states, especially for issues arising from physical territories and spaces).
Principle 8: Freedom of Money
Any individual or group has the right to mint, create, or print forms of money to circulate on the open market — so long as they do not force its use on anyone else (See the Prime Law). Their money can contain whatever properties, features, or economics they want. This network state and community have no right to force the use of any specific currency. Competing currencies on the open market inspire innovation in the currency space and keep all economic actors honest.
That stated, the Network Prime network state possesses its inherent token, the Network Prime Token (NPT). Users of the Network Prime network state have the right to allocate this token by consensus and leverage voting mechanisms. However, the Network Prime blockchain has an open tokeneconomic model that allows users to leverage various cryptocurrencies and tokens to administrate the system, keeping the community in line with the Prime Law.
The network prime community manages its treasury of tokens through consensus, voting, and agreements.
This network state will not confiscate money or levy taxes, as force-backed taxation violates the prime law of consent. All contributions to physical, social, or digital infrastructure are determined by consensus via network state technology and infrastructure. Smart contracts and market activity determine where the network state allocates funds from its treasury.
The same rule applies to crowdfunded territory. If the network state acquires physical land, all development, infrastructure, and capital allocation will occur without expropriation or taxes. All subscriber citizens are encouraged to spontaneously conduct the work via the contract law and consensus principles laid out by this constitution and network state.
No taxes. No legal theft. The prime law guides all transactions and interactions.
The constitution of consent will not typically require amendments (changes to the principles or additions to them) because all subscriber citizens understand and embrace the prime law. In other words, everything hinges on consent, consensus, and reducing harm as previously defined.
However, if subscriber citizens require changes to the principles or bylaws, they must reach a consensus via the network prime voting and consensus mechanisms. These smart contracts and consensus algorithms ensure fairness in changes/amendments to the constitution and make changes and amendments difficult to enact by design.
Once subscriber citizens come to a consensus on necessary amendments — the citizens can then update the constitution of consent, which lives on the Network Prime blockchain.
Anyone who joins the authors’ network state and embraces its constitution of consent as a subscriber citizen always maintains the right to exit. There is an “unsubscribe” button.
Governments keep exit costs high in the current world of nation states to lock people into Westphalian territorial rule. There is no easy “unsubscribe” button for the application called ‘nation state’ or ‘democratic republic.’
Being able to exit maintains market pressure on the network state to adhere to its constitution lest it loses citizens to other, more honest network states and associated bodies.
As an aside, to “exit” does not mean someone must relocate physically. First and foremost, these territories are based virtually in the cloud, and to exit them means unsubscribing from a specific network state.
No cost will be associated with exiting this network state and its associated constitution, and former subscriber citizens retain the value and ownership over any NPT tokens they possess. All contracts with individuals, of course, remain valid unless nullified or contested on some ground.
These principles lead us to a very clear-cut Constitution of Consent as follows.
I agree with individuals' autonomy to go about their business and pursue their interests however they choose, providing it does not initiate force or commit fraud against others.
I hold no inherent claim over the time, privacy or property of anyone else.
I hold a claim on time or property within the bounds of mutually agreed contracts that I entered into without coercion and in complete conscious understanding of the requirements and penalties for lack of adherence.
I can object to proposals or behaviours where I perceive a threat of harm within a jurisdiction where I am a direct stakeholder.
I agree to arbitration to help resolve disputes over harm and impose mutually agreed contract stipulations.
In practical terms, the authors see a shift in governance in every type of institution, from significant transactional governance to small business enterprises and everything in between.
Organisational cultures will transition from top-down command and control to a rehumanised and reimagined approach to collaboration by distributing decision-making power to those most directly accountable or influenced by those decisions. Example:
Consent at work will emerge through ideas like Brian Robertson’s notion of holacracy. Under a holacratic work structure, individuals organise into spheres of influence, where they work with teams consensually. These types of organisations align with how network unions or collectives organise around consent-based structures rather than traditional hierarchical models.
Furthermore, we enter a time of what author Clay Shirky calls a “cognitive surplus.” We are embracing a future where we are leveraging machines and sophisticated processes to maximise our time, which leaves us with a lot of wiggle room for creativity and generosity in the connected age, as Shirky calls it. This excess time and generosity imply that humanity will have more time to spend together, thus providing everyone with the bandwidth to connect more deeply and emotionally, hence the vital nature of consent at work and home.
Managing affairs at home with the principles of consent is more tricky than knowing how to run a society. On what basis can or should parents control their children? On what basis should this constitution provide guidelines for how parents parent?
For instance, the authors agree that harming children psychologically/emotionally is a form of force against them (often done through coercive threats or forms of emotional bullying), and evidence suggests it could lead to long-term neurologic and psychological impairment. Children are also agential actors included within this network state’s constitution of consent, and all subscriber citizens must also protect them.
Spanking and hitting children (including the threat of) per this constitution is considered anti-consensual and is antithetical to the Prime Law.
Refer to “The Emotional Life of Nations” by Lloyd De Mause to learn more about how mistreated, abused, and spanked children mould the emotional lives of nations/states. The anger and vengeance instilled in children during upbringing help make up the nation-state's psychic life, often leading to political grandstanding, warmongering, destruction, and death.
In this regard, consent at home and with children is an essential and non-controversial part of this network state of consent constitution. This critical protection of children is also why learning the communication of consent is an imperative part of our network contract.
The spirit of consent will spread the more it is discussed throughout society. The inherent violence of making demands on people in the community or at work will diminish as we learn to speak more respectfully to each other in our homes.
Marshal Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication will become ubiquitous as people break free from the current order. Modern “governments” and “nation states” rely on cold bureaucracy as part of their process. They put political expediency above personal and emotional experience. This constitution rejects that modus operandi and instead promotes nonviolent communication to resolve disputes and move society forward, hoping that network states do not devolve into rabid politicking and violence (it also helps one better understand and work with children to prevent harming them).
Here are the four steps of NVC:
1. Observe without judging. “Sally, half of your clothes are spread across your bedroom floor, and you are using your books as a doorstop..”
2. Express feelings. “I am feeling bothered by this because you have exams next month, and I want you to be in a clear and organised space to study well.“
3. Express and clarify your needs. “It is crucial for me to know you are supported to succeed at school“.
4. Express specific requests. “That’s why I am asking you to tidy up this weekend. Is that acceptable for you?”
This type of dialogue changes a demand to a thoughtful, heartfelt, empathic request that both parties can learn from rather than simply an exchange of dominance or authority. As humans, we have much to learn in how we communicate.
In the above example, Sally could rightfully object (as children often do) by claiming that the clothes don’t bother her concentration nearly as much as they seem to bother her parent’s obsession with order. And the books used as book stops are last year's textbooks, and she does not need them for study. Sally goes on to agree to clear space around her desk from clothes.
This approach to communication teaches toleration, empathic connection, expression of needs, and making agreements based on consent. If more of us learned this at home, our institutions would be better for it as each generation matures into the adult workforce.
Since Pericles perfected the art of sophistic rhetoric in ancient Athens, demagogues have twisted the concepts of Democracy from ‘everyone rules equally’ to ‘majority imposes rule against minorities’.
We can correct that 2,500-year-old hiatus of civilised governance with the Constitution of Consent, which recognises that people have a right to be left alone and to do as they please, providing that no one rightfully objects to a claim of non-consensual harm.
Removing tolerance for sociopathy in society is a step change that humanity must face and be empowered to enact before the birth of Artificial General Intelligence. AI will surely amplify the good and the bad within society. We have a window of opportunity to nudge things in favour of enduring benevolence.
We believe the onset of the Network State with the use of smart contracts and a ‘consciousness of consent’, with governance underpinned by non-violent communication, will carry us forward into an era of honour, dignity, and liberty — a genuinely civilised and future-oriented society.
This constitution is not a living document. Readers must take it at face value and understand it does not require regular “amendments.” This Constitution is focused solely on voluntary interaction, cosmopolitanism, and the consciousness of consent. Nothing needs to be inferred or altered regarding this constitution except where gaps could hypothetically appear, although the authors made a painstaking effort to fill those gaps.
Further, smart contracts, common law, and contract law based on sound market principles and network state dynamics will help iron out any seeming complexity or lifeboat scenarios. All matters should be considered private, and there is no such thing as crimes against Network Prime, a network state, or any state. All matters are individual matters, which parties should resolve via the network state consensus mechanisms or various contract/common law formulations. Contact a private “network arbitrator” via our “Network Prime” directory for assistance.
