The Covenant of Humanistic Technologies
Go through these covenant principles
and start sharing your artifacts with the community.
Introduction
Accelerationism is a forcing function on society that increases our dependence on technology. It is impossible to revert to an earlier state or to slow down without significant disruptions to quality of life and global stability. Accelerationism generally multiplies entrenched power many times more than it advances the average person's well-being. It consolidates vested interests, organizing labor and resources around them.
We seek to direct the spirit and momentum of accelerationism toward Human Tech that fortifies human agency with the establishment of digital human rights that are difficult or impossible to revoke—elevating them to the status of “natural rights” that are universal, inalienable, and self-evident.
Key to this moment is the alignment of those who seek to advance technologies that defend humanism and elevate individual agency, ensuring parity with the advanced minds and non-human organizations that will emerge in the coming decades.
Humanistic technology is technology embedded with natural rights for its users, by design. These rights are fortified by resilient networks that are borderless, censorship-resistant, and maintain persistent records of the covenant we enter into with technology. Human Tech is a strong defense against methods of mass control by other humans, organizations, or synthetic minds that may emerge from advancements in artificial intelligence.
To unify collective alignment efforts, we enter into a Covenant of Humanistic Technologies, grounded in principles we hold self-evident.
Universal Personhood
Your status as a person is neither issued nor revoked by any institution – it is inherent.
Every individual is able to prove their personhood, and the rights that come with it, without dependence on gate-keeping authorities.
This is essential for self-determination, creative expression, and self-governance.
II
Inalienable Ownership
To own oneself is to own one’s keys, that are yours and yours only.
No authority grants this right; it is self-evident. Keys are recoverable, persistent, and secure against present and future threats to cryptography. With direct control of our cryptographic keys, every other digital right cannot be taken away.
III
Privacy by Default
Encryption safeguards self-determination
Personal data, identities, and information linked to our digital presence is not viewable by service providers or the public without our explicit consent. Our private data cannot be used to undermine our agency.
Free flow of Information
Open source the collective imagination with open data networks.
The open exchange of art, science, code, and ideas is essential for human advancement.
We affirm protocols, organizations, and creators that safely open source their content, code, documentation, and processes.
V
Free flow of Capital
Human flourishing is directly tied to human autonomy.
A borderless web of free capital flow for direct aid, awards, grants, and peer-to-peer payments is a requirement for agency through free expression.
VI
Capital Serves Public Goods
Public goods are the greatest basins for capital flow.
incentives are designed to benefit open-source development, healthy communities of creative practice, scientific discovery, and overall the collective well-being of life on the planet.
Universal Security
To act freely, one must be secure against key loss, surveillance, and intrusion.
Robust cryptography and AI-enhanced defenses belong in the hands of individuals. There is no true freedom without strong security.
The human is best in control when awareness is heightened by robust systems that help make safe choices.
VIII
Voluntary Accountability
Consent fosters cooperation; accountability prevents exploitation.
privacy and freedom are fundamental rights, but it cannot be used to escape accountability. Participants freely enter into social contracts, and abide by clear standards with consequences for violations. Privacy protects individuals from external coercion, while collective accountability prevents bad actors from weaponizing that privacy against others.
IX
Earth Public Goods
The digital realm and physical world are intertwined.
Technological progress that undermines the planet's ability to sustain diverse, flourishing life cannot be called progress.
X
A Covenant of Adaptive Resilience
Networks must empower human agency, not collude with power.
A resilient network is as strong as the ties that bind it together. Any attempt to control or capture the network to break the principles in this covenant will push participants to more open, human-centric forks and leave would-be oppressors with little to gain.
A living document for collective action
