In the paradigm of consent-based society, new generations of persons which are continually born lives within the model of nation-state or consent-based society from the beginning of their life. The continuing history makes the situation that people are not so much aware of the concept which had been put in practice. As time passes, the influence of the concept may become less powerful. Even if so, people of not aware continue to be born and live in the world. For this issue, it matters how they are put into the model of the previous generations. Even if the state is surely founded on the notion of consent for example, a few groups of people such as intellectuals would be well aware of it, and others would not care that much. The paradigm of the consent which can apply to the peoples of the later generations would be required, which could include them indirectly or any other ways. The consent from the following generations would be necessary to justify that paradigm if trying to persist in it.

In thinking about that mechanism, there will be certain people who do not (want to) join the community. If nation-state is particularly the model representing the theory of consent, there’s a border among people, between those who gave consent and not. The boundary between people who are member and not, that is to say that it has the framework of inclusion and exclusion. When not a member of community means that they are not under the authority of the community. If one wants to care the reluctance of persons who do not want to join, creating the situation that a person needs to belong to a state by which the benefits one gets needs to be more than his reluctance. If the difficulties caused by not being a member of a state is greater, people would be more likely to join it.

In terms of the internal governance of the community, the paradigm of consent might work better. Looking at the specific case, election is to give consent to representative who is going to represent the opinions of persons. Representatives are those who are authorized to represent, agreed by people. The political power is transferred from ordinary citizens to representatives. In the domain which requires expertise giving own consent is common in the daily life, for example, one who has private land and wants to build a house would ask those who are professional in building house. It is often that they do not build by themselves without having expertise and skills, or do not ask others who are not skillful. Giving consent to those who are expert and ask them to do the best in the domain is often seen.

Even in the context of empowerment which the Internet gave to the persons, the paradigm of consent seems powerfull in its concept. Though some have argued closer to the sense of direct democracy before, given the dense population and the expertise which is required in each specific domain, asking every citizen to participate in each decision directly is not that much desirable. It is also vulnerable to when the public is hugely influenced by the temporary ups and downs of the popular movements, and the society may lose their stability. Before diving into the descriptions on consent which would work in the technologically advanced society, the following paragraph look at the concept of decentralisation.

When it comes to decentralisation which has been often paid attention to often with the appearance of the Internet,  decentralisation is to distribute the power from the centre to the edge. It empowers people and is not the traditional top-down structure. Traditionally in political context the distribution of powers is famously a topic of US politics. In earlier days, the “regular distribution of power into distinct departments” was believed to work(5) since “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny”(6). In terms of liberty too, “the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct”(7). The distribution of power is beneficial to the preventive effect of abuse of the power. Apart from the political and in economic and innovative sense, it may better work that just creating the framework and let people do their work at the edges, that is to allow them to generate innovation without strict regulation.

Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) has been getting focused with the rise of web3. DAO is more to enjoy the process of decision-making by letting people who are curious be involved. It entertains the process of decision-making. In this sense, DAO may have potential in creating small communities within a large one, and ideally creates the culture of political participation of the members. Plus they can try experimenting the new methods of governance which are harder to implement in national scale. Even if one supposed the community is decentralised, not necessarily all decision-making have to be direct democratic. For example, as explained previously the domain which requires expertise in the decision-making, it would be better to create the architecture in which those who represents the people who gave consent to him have responsibility to represent them. Decision-making which requires technical knowledge can be depended on experts as people authorise them to represent their ideas. And it is a sort of opinion leader who takes care of the opinions of the people. This structure makes small communities within a large one. That can even make a small society by which one’s imagination would better work, which is against the idea that in democratic governance it is often said that it is difficult to keep society work well when its population becomes dense. The population and the size of a community has been a topic discussed for a long time. If it becomes too large, people in the same community cannot comprehend the community enough to make democracy work. It is to create a small community in which people are more aware of each other than being in a large community where their imagination doesn’t work. In small community, people recognise each other more often, and may strengthen the tie of people. By that practice, the potential of taking care of each other would more frequently happen than the larger nation with dense population.

(5) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 45.

(6) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p.239.

(7) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p.239.

The governance of community has been a central topic for civilisation. With the change of social surrounding such as advancement of technology, the ways in which community is governed has repeatedly been appearing in the discussion.

For example, in the US context, the difference of democratic and republic governance was focused. A democracy and a republic are different: “first, the delegation of government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens and greater sphere of country over which the latter may be extended”(1). In other words, “It is that in a democracy the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, must be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region” (2).

Later days, look at the technological context, in the early days of web1.0 and web2.0, the notion of emergence and decentralisation were focused. Some believed it makes the political sphere better, contrarily the negative aspects appeared too influential than predicted. The web3 poses the concept of Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) as one of the key concepts and some try to improve governance again.

When it comes to governance, the notion of consent-based governance has been powerful and a key concept in political theory. Citizens give their consent to become member of the community, and it creates the solidarity as a nation. However as time passes, it seems that people, except intellectuals and political theory scholars, do not so much consciously think of governance from the perspective of consent. This essay puts the notion of consent to the front in considering the form of governance. Thinking of governance in terms of consent demonstrates the robustness of the concept. Also, putting that concept in centre of organisation of a community seems causing less trouble and enhance efficiency as well as protection of rights and liberty, that is the reason that this essay rethinks about the governance from that perspective.

Politics is required as people have different interests. Without somewhat of organisation among them, they would be in conflict each other for their own interests. In order to have safety of life and stability in their life without having war or conflict with others, people give their consent to a state, by which the stability in where they live in would be maintained. The compact is a form of paradigm which can maintain the stability. Even having said that, one cannot say that no conflict occurs. It is less probability of conflict. When internal conflict took place, authority intervenes for the sake of the people and the community in which people of different interests live.

As for authority, the authority authorised by the consent of its people intervenes in the conflicts taking place in the community. Consent from the people makes legitimacy of government(3). Giving consent is similar to admitting it as authority, by which authority can keep themselves. Since they are given consent from the people, they are authorised and have legitimacy to exercise their power over the community and people. Importantly, persons “are not obliged unless they so sanction by their free consent”(4). From another perspective, consent and trust is interrelated as without trust people would not like to give one’s trust to them. Plus, respect may work similarly towards authority.

On the consent which people give, it needs to be a variety of types, not just the explicit consent to make it work. It is because merely explicit consent cannot deal with the reality fully in detail. One of the aspects that is difficult to cope with is the mortality. The same people cannot live perpetually, the generation changes from one to another over time, and people do not share the concept in the same intensity. To make the political community work based on the notion for a longer period of time, the paradigm has to be kept in force even if the generation changes from one to another successively. Meeting this requirement could not be fulfilled with just explicit consent. Considering the situation that the people of a political community is not so much conscious of consent after having passed a long time since the implementation, the indirect consent or logic in  paradigm of consent is required if it wants to sustain.

(1) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p.52.

(2) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p.68.

(3) Locke, J., 2016. Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. New York: Oxford University Press. p. viii.

(4) Locke, J., 2016. Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. New York: Oxford University Press. p. xvi.

Published 10 July 2022, Last updated 24 October 2022

Technology has been bringing positive and negative outcomes into people’s life. The positive aspect is when used for enhancing happiness, on the other hand, the negative is when harms are caused. Regarding negative aspect, given that aspect is inevitable to be arisen, how people could embrace it in their community. As an example, nuclear related risk is related to this respect.

Look at the Information Technology, popularization of personal computer made difference in people’s life. Importance of PC revolution is because it wasn’t proprietary network later advanced, but it had generativity in center of its revolution. Presumably the early age of the Internet had an idea that imposing too much restrictions prevents the benefits of the Internet itself. The architecture was contrary to that of proprietary network.

The Internet is network. That means cutting the network to improve security and protect privacy is difficult in fundamental sense. In terms of privacy and digitalized world, private information of people seized by common systems may be, even if whole society is unwilling, difficult to be untied as those systems and devices are networked, and that is what the Internet focuses on. Being unnetworked is opposite to its structure. Plus even if we try not to use it, since the user is now almost everyone in society, avoiding it is difficult to catch up with update of society, many have no choice but to use it.

It is indispensable to refer to the concept of “free” in the Internet’s development. The notion of free didn’t focus on its cost, but its freedom[1]. In that epoch, the word “hacker” had a different meaning. The meaning of hacker didn’t intend to claim those who penetrate into systems of governments or major companies, but those who build things[2].

Media as an outset of information faces regulation established over time. Mostly restrictions established over the history of television, for example, suffocates themselves. Also, of course mainstream broadcasting media is practical and helpful source to catch up with news in daily life, but the limit of time makes quite difficult to understand topics further, or even I would say the complete understanding of it is impossible. Surrounding environments around people affect their knowledge. Thinking of a case that medium doesn’t provide the enough information to them, that leads to the deterioration of intelligence of general people. At some point, some media has more detailed and beneficial information to its citizens than other news outlets and that balances needs among citizens.  Regulated television as media may be restricted in their contents than other media such as social media and the Internet.

Medium has been a significant tool, such as since writing began around 4000 B.C. in Egypt[3]. Ever since different types of medium were born, new platforms are continually born by different people. It is a kind of matter that how we share the wisdoms of our forebears to the next. Regarding the means of transcending information over generations, information on books has been more elaborated, the authors need to be authenticated via publishing process, compared with the websites which allows almost all people to post. Though it has benefit in the latter too.

The internet and decentralization has been in a topic many are curious about. Decentralized world is often talked with expectation. However, over the past several decades from 2020s, platforms expanded with its scaling came to have large portion of capital and been authorized. The story that even if we decentralize it would eventually be centralized[4] is because that is much easier for people to run their community or whatever other purposes including distribution of things, etc.

As for advancement of our civilization with progress of technology, environmental harms we generate by every day’s our life and whether advancement itself works for our sustainable future should be discussed. Our planet is interrelated, a tiny bit of change causes a series of effects. So-called butterfly effect is also one of these cases. Damaging our planet would endanger the species. To cope this, an idea is that while humans make progress of their civilization technologically and economically, they need to preserve their environment. Another is that we should stop the progress as its side-effects, deteriorating environment, is huge. Given these two types of ideas, SDGs seem the former as it doesn’t basically reject the idea of progress, rather presumably it is the idea that we need to decrease the harms while making progress. It seems to suppose that progress of technological advancement would decrease the negative effects of previous technology as well. It may well sound like a contradiction if we say that to make progress of our civilization while preserving environment. Provided that times passes and it is what we cannot put the currency in hold, if we can protect the environment is a challenge for human beings. From another perspective, questions arise, without technological development, whether we deteriorate the environment; whether we can prioritize the preservation of our planet? It is not necessarily true that people feel happiness only if their technology develops. Due to technological advancement, harm would be decreased if it advances further. For instance, the development of NFT costs a lot of negative effects on environment at least around the end of 2021 to 2022, their further advancement of technology would decrease the environmental cost and that is what they are trying to do.

Even though civilization is industrialized, many people don’t feel happiness, or having so many issues. Progress doesn’t necessarily make all people happy. It can be imagined that there were people feeling happier than those living in the current age. If living standards meet the higher criteria, that would satisfy people, but continuity of living in the level doesn’t continue to satisfy them because it is going to be their ordinary. People feel expectation for their future gives people hope. People with hope doesn’t depress them and allow them to have themselves motivated. Happiness doesn’t necessarily mean having larger wealth. Hope which derives from future development satisfies people. Apart from satisfying people with progress, whether social bonds could fulfil their everyday life is worth being looked upon. Without having social relationships, people would feel worry.

[1] Around 5:25 to 5:55 of Reclaim your freedom with free libre software now – Richard Stallman of Free Software Movement. Web Summit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9YDz-Iwgyw Published 19 December 2016. Accessed 31 October 2021.

[2] Hackers and Geniuses: Spring 2015 Donoho Colloquium – Steven Levy. Dartmouth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ea5gtEHy5I Published 17 June 2015 Accessed 31 October 2021. Around 9:50-.

[3] History of Western Philosophy. Bertrand Russell. pp.15-16. ISBN978-0-415-32505-9.

[4] Joichi Ito. [Q&A] 子供のweb3教育、デジタルツイン、ステープルコイン、初心者向けweb3体験など｜皆さんからのweb3とはの質問にレスします！ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHYTyvdYxUY. Published 10 June 2022. Accessed 11 June 2022.

Published 30 May 2022, Last update 4 June 2022

Banality of the word “human rights” in daily life has a wide range of people being aware of that notion. While spreading its concept, the word has been losing its power — the concept became ambiguous in the world. Many use that word different ways, by which society itself is confused of its usage. Linked with human rights, freedom is often a key concept to be thought of. As an example, depriving one’s freedom, it can be said that one’s human rights is offended. When it comes to the domain of politics, freedom is inevitable to be spoken of[1] and it is essential to have, a priori[2]. It is a prerequisite to talk about politics.

In order to achieve one’s freedom, people discussed how it can be obtained. Intellectuals of previous ages put their eyes on inner freedom historically. The difference of inner freedom from the outer is that the inner space is established based on the processing of anything by oneself, in other words any other person doesn’t have “access” to it[3]. Others cannot penetrate into one’s inner zone. On the other hand, take a look at external freedom, that would be focused in public sphere, for instance. In the perspective of freedom of expression and speech, it often becomes a societal issue that some is suppressed for it. Since it is vital to have, suppression would prevent that society from working properly. Even in the case of claiming freedom of expression or speech, if that offend other citizens’ feelings, insisting their freedom of expression while showing their opinions could be harmful in society. Activism of spreading the recognition of freedom in their societies have expanded the space of freedom in public sphere, but in the meantime it should be taken in consideration that the way it is presented is closely related to how it is perceived by others. It’s easier to imagine that when some political claims opposite from the one of your preferences are demonstrated in public sphere under the name of freedom of expression intensively, you may feel not well from them. Thinking the potential feeling of others who look at them beforehand should be done, even as pupils are taught.

In antiquity, people tried to acquire freedom by employing slaves[4]. To maintain life, people are required to labour, their life was restricted by, or taken by, the necessary chores of life as labouring hours occupy their life in tremendous degree. They tried to put the necessities of maintaining their life outside them by slavery. And slavery was justified in ancient epoch[5]. In terms of categorization, labouring is to meet the necessities of life. For fulfilling inevitable necessities, even in the beginning of 21st century, people do labour for their life. The current of human beings’ hope to have labour out of their life has been continuously tried from slavery[6] to information technology. Automated process of technology would reduce the time spent in everyday repeated labours.

Elaborating the theory of freedom, it is indispensable to look at its relationship with history. History is succession of things woven by ancestors. That closely is linked with the current state of being free; as laws are accumulation of rules set up, it only slightly changes over the years; as inheritance from parents (and its cycle of inheritance further going back to) affects people’s life. Human behaviour is bound by the past ones[7]. Since the social systems or traditions are developed by forebears, basically saying, people tend to behave within them. Even if they try to expand the frontier, because it is consciously or unconsciously involved in the past ones, their comportment is influenced by them. Plus their desires also influence where it heads to. Those continuities with the past ties pieces of history one after another. Creating continually from the state that no things exist is not the history, it is not what’s been happening. The context of successive chain of human history and that those who are facing the present could build their next history would be another perspective to think about freedom.

Think of the political domain, historically one acquired the right to participate in politics by voting, but that hasn’t led to the continuous motivation of people to join. The horizon of freedom expanded by gaining that liberty, even based on that story, cycle of human life and its mortality have difficulty in keeping motivation held in one’s end. One of the reasons that people don’t feel motivated to politics is that  even if they vote for representative, politics doesn’t change to the better; people’s opinions feel like not represented by politicians, and others. people don’t feel expectations on politics. That is why it doesn’t motivate people to participate in voting. Even if some people try to call for others to vote, every time election take place, that doesn’t make a change in voter turnout unless their hopes accumulated in it. Due to this circumstance. even one doubts if many people have interests (and their opinions) in the first place. To vitalize politics in a whole community, encouraging people to vote is often seen on social media when election is about to come. Think of its history that the right to vote is gained, whereas it is understandable to hear that people should use the right to express their opinion, one would be better to think that it is the same one-vote, comparing a person who vote with careful consideration with another without consideration for their choice in voting. When the ratio of the latter increases, the decision is more affected by their choices.

The issue whether we should implement the Internet voting (e,g. creating an app to vote) is often related to the expectation that people will be more easily join politics. One should care that it will allow people to vote just one click. Although it may or may not increase voter turnout and it may have people being accustomed to politics that would eventually increase those who will be interested in it. Some people would vote without careful consideration. If people vote and that experience may get more interested in politics in the future, the opportunity of voting motivates people. We suppose that the liberty was acquired but voting is not the only way to be involved in politics. It would be better to think about the political activities, not limited to voting and election.

Footnotes

[1] Between Past and Future. Hannah Arendt. ISBN 978-0-14-310481-0. p.145.

[2] Between Past and Future. Hannah Arendt. ISBN 978-0-14-310481-0. pp.144-145.

[3] Between Past and Future. Hannah Arendt. ISBN 978-0-14-310481-0. p.145.

[4] The Human Condition. Hannah Arendt. ISBN 978-0-226-58660-1. p.84.

[5] The Human Condition. Hannah Arendt. ISBN 978-0-226-58660-1. p.83.

[6] The Human Condition. Hannah Arendt. ISBN 978-0-226-58660-1. p.84.

[7] Influenced by around 1:15-1:24 of Closer To Truth – Big Questions in Free Will posted by Closer To Truth on 4 November 2016. Accessed 16 October 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uRTjfhIf4M

To illustrate the coronavirus pandemic, the WHO office in China recognized on 31 December 2019 the “cases of pneumonia unknown etiology (unknown cause) detected in Wuhan City”[1]. The virus SARS-Cov-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) — announced by ICTV (International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses) on 11 February 2020 — causes the disease COVID-19 or coronavirus disease[2]. It has has 2 to 14 days of “incubation period”[3].

Virus and its information went viral in mass media and the Internet. People became cautious about it. Look at the societal transition of attitude towards the pandemic, it is scientific and also psychological aspects embedded in their behaviour. Scientific is, thanks to development of vaccine, it protects people especially the vulnerable. Psychological is that social negatives are more or less lessened with relief of vaccination. Also, over the years of living with the virus existing closely in people’s life, they come to know what kind of virus it is, which is different from the moment the virus emerged. At first, people were afraid of the virus even in small number of people infected in their communities. Even from its beginning of period, it’s been said that the older (with chronical disease) has higher risk than others, and mortality rate is not so much high for society in total perspective. The higher risk in older generations would mean for sure that the society needs to deploy the solution to take care of that risk, but that doesn’t mean that we should care about only that risk, without looking at other perspectives. For that public policy, people with less severe symptons would be better not to be transported to hospitals as the number of people who can be cared is limited, and hospitals could be overwhelmed by patients and those who need them could not be treated. Preventive measures and isolation of high risk people such as elderly should be done but we cannot place lockdown always in effect to the society since the social negatives caused by it is going to be larger. In terms of allowing people’s activity ouside their home or putting its restrictions, their standards of putting it harder or lesser changed over the societal situation psychologically and economically.

More deeply, think of the societal solutions, people had to deal with pandemic as they did in the previous centuries, while not so much being able to progress their policies against it. For example, lockdown the society, not allowing people to leave home if not necessary. Dense population in a city makes necessary to implement more complex societal rules than rural communities. To have their society run smoothly, detailed norms are required to be shared in a dense community. Population is an important factor in deciding rules. In pandemic, authorized power infiltrates into every bit of life except inside home[4]. We live in societies where everyday how many infected are in the front line of news. What we should care is the number of deaths, not infected. While we care about vulnerable groups of people who should be protected, of course, the restrictions on people’s life ought to be decided based on the social negatives it would have. The question is whether it is worth the repeated government’s decision of putting state of emergency or lockdown in effective. People’s feeling toward the virus decides whether the organization including company and nation ease restrictions or not.

People’s reaction towards the coronavirus pandemic which lessened the momentum of the globalization having to do with the nationalism against globalization, particularly represented by Brexit referendum in 2016, followed by US presidential election of 2016 in which Donald Trump won, French presidential election of 2017 in which Marin Le Pen showed the influence. Until 2016, globalization was a trend, after there the world faced a backlash that derives from the worry of people feeling their identity is undertreated[5]. Because of the a bit dramatic transition toward globalization, nationalism is on the rise with the feeling that their nations and its citizens are not recognized enough. Plus, in the process of the transformation towards globalization, it has been wondered that the globalism is too bigger to appreciate people’s identity adequately. The community in which they are recognised each other would meet the demand for recognition. In liberal democracy, not the superiority of one over another that would meet the want but the mechanism of admitting each and everyone[6]. Consideration on why we choose democracy is intertwined in this regard. Also in pandemic, one should not be stirred up by fear without thinking. Because we give meaning to the words or what we have done or is going to do, we, as species, gives opportunities for us to think.

Coming back to globalization, people would come up with immigration, or easier conditions of traveling from one place to another. To name a few, living in other countries (though acquiring long-term visa with job opportunity was still hard issue as of before-pandemic), studying abroad, touristic travel. Technically, aviation domain let people, or commodities fly to other locations much easier. Politics in that age needed to put emphasis on immigration policy which was subject to the critical debate. Political candidates had to propose any idea on that domain. Think of the world after pandemic, in terms of the stratified world that in political and economical sense politics is based on nation-state but economy knows the pleasure of trading beyond borders, economy would remain as it had been before-coronavirus[7]. Economically moving to get profits beyond borders, politically put the importance in their nation. Custom would not easily go back to the before-pandemic. Changed custom shared by society after pandemic arose would remain at least for a while. Though it may disppear from society over the coming decades. It feels like people do forget what has been ordinary in their experiences. This is not in a sense that people used to gather together in one place or another as facts, but in a sense that their body perceives one thing as ordinary and another as unordinary. This sense changed, being depending on the social surroundings. And the current sense stemming from the current social conditions are beciming somewhat ordinary for them. This is human capability of adaptation to the environment in which they live.

Footnotes

[1] WHO. Situation report – 1. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200121-sitrep-1-2019-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=20a99c10_4 Published 21 January 2020 Accessed 28 June 2020.

[2] The Guardian. Will Covid-19 mutate into a more dangerous virus? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/will-covid-19-mutate-into-a-more-dangerous-virus Published 22 May 2020. Accessed 29 June 2020. WHO. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/naming-the-coronavirus-disease-(covid-2019)-and-the-virus-that-causes-it Accessed 30 June 2020.

[3] WIRED. Ask the Know-It-Alls: What Is the Coronavirus? https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-a-coronavirus/ Published 3 March 2020. Accessed 30 June 2020.

[4] Coronavirus and philosophers. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison. Michel Foucault. http://www.journal-psychoanalysis.eu/coronavirus-and-philosophers/ Accessed 2 May 2021.

[5] Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE). Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEGiAdWUnG8. Accessed 10 December 2020.

[6] Francis Fukuyama. The end of history and the last man. ISBN 978-0-7432-8455-4. p.xx.

[7] Influenced by Hiroki Azuma, he argued the stratification in his book previously. Azuma, H. (2017). Genron 0: A philosophy of the Tourist.