Mini-thread: against the "One Commandment"

Balaji's The Network State (see my review https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/07/13/networkstates.html ) has a concept called "the one commandment": a new startup society should have one key moral value that differs from the outside world. I argue that this is wrong.

Good thread. TLDR: one commandment is an oversimplification, but a useful oversimplification.

One way to think about it: when you pitch your community to a new recruit, how do you describe it?

Culdesac: car-free
Kift: van life
Praxis: vitalist

Note what this is *not*. It's not an economic pitch. It's a values pitch.

Your thread is good, but I think of it as addressing the third order failure mode, which is doing a tech community and then focusing TOO much on a very explicit, non-economic core value.

But the problem with today's startup societies is not an excess of focus on non-economic community values. It's the opposite.

To elaborate a little, why is doing a vanilla tech company non-ideal in 2023?

Because we don't live in the states of 2003, we live in the networks of 2023. You aren't interacting with your geographical neighbors, but with your network neighbors.

Ah, but WHO are your network neighbors? That's where values come in.

And on the 2nd failure mode...why do people do tech communities rather than tech companies, but focus on economics solely and not values?

Because economics is easy! As per Idiocracy, "you like money? wow, me too!"

Everyone likes money. But money runs out.
Values polarize. Scary! But are still there in a market crash

So, how do we compactly tell people to (a) do a tech community rather than a tech company and (b) to articulate a set of values for that community rather than the purely economic — values that give a reason for the community to exist in a bear market other than "wen airdrop"?

That's the purpose of the one commandmen

There's a lot of history that I've compacted down into this section, but in short: communities with non-economic reasons to succeed often beat those that are purely economic.

The Puritans were zealots, while purely for-profit colonies didn't make it through the winters.
https://thenetworkstate.com/the-one-commandment

That said, most people haven't thought explicitly about values, and are loath to preach their "religion" (though often eager to evangelize their politics!)

In between the reticence to religiously evangelize and the zeal to politically evangelize — between 0 and infinity — I recommend one (1) explicit commandment.

Once people have thought through that one explicit commandment — perhaps it's Praxis's "vitalism is good" or Culdesac's "car free is good" or Kift's "van life is good", there's much they can do beyond that.

They can layer on explicit 2nd commandments, or all manner of implicit/illegible things as @vitalik.eth points out.

The reason to just do "one" commandment is the same reason you just do one product as a startup. One is already a lot! It's essentially working through how every aspect of society changes in response to a moral innovation.

The dietary ones are the easiest to see: veganism or carnivory both change every single meal.

Yes: you can add 2nd commandments, and of course illegible bits too

But without being able to explicitly articulate *some* reason why your community must exist, why it morally improves on the mainstream…you'll eventually succumb to the mainstream, which has N very explicit commandments! https://i.imgur.com/vtW0nIh.p

TLDR

If you don't have explicit values, you'll lose to those that do.

Consider the sign with N explicit establishment commandments & the responses. Some are funny! Yet by referencing the original, all operate implicitly within its frame.

A strong one commandment can break that frame.
 https://i.imgur.com/yxPNPYF.jpg

The first failure mode is just doing a vanilla tech company. This presumes a values neutrality that no longer exists.

The second is to do a tech community, but without articulating what values you stand for — or to do a DAO that's just pure economics ("wen airdrop").

The one commandment pushes back on both of these

from personal experience applying the framework - one commandment is a good alignment litmus test that polarises outsiders either in or out. Similar to company values during an interview - they don’t explicitly define the vibe of the company but they do help scale hiring

France: egalite, fraternite et liberte

US: freedum!

The beauty of a one commandment is the same as that of slogans. They can become mantras, fit t-shirts, be part of chants. But then they can be expanded to mean something nuanced. Think of examples like "free speech" or BLM (off the top of my head). They have as many meanings as people interpreting them.