Distributed Everything

Redesigning the Internet for Participatory Democracy and Mutual Aid

In what follows, I am going to offer my thoughts on how the Internet could be reinvented to provide the infrastructure we need for our collective evolution and survival over the next decades, as the biospheric emergency intensifies. Obviously, I do not think this is going to happen tomorrow. But I still think it is valuable to have a model in our minds of what will be needed in the near future. Please feel free to argue against, dissent from, augment or support the ideas in the comments.

I realize it almost seems too late to reclaim the Internet, but this is not something we can afford to abandon. Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification” to describe the degradation of once-useful tools like Google Search as corporations seek to maximize profit extraction. Artificial Intelligence adds to the chaos by unleashing masses of second-rate, derivative content. Despite this, we must still imagine transforming the Internet into what it once promised: a necessary infrastructure for collective evolution. Achieving this would require a social movement with shared goals, aimed at using the Internet to accomplish goals such as decentralized democracy and mutual aid.

Thinking ahead, we may eventually need to transition to something like the resource-based economy envisioned by Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project. According to Fresco, in a resource-based economy, money would be replaced by a system that manages and shares the Earth’s resources intelligently and without waste, liberating people from unnecessary scarcity as well as excess. Such a system would allow us to address the eco-systemic collapse triggered by industrial society.

As basic goods such as fresh water and food become scarce in the next decades, we will need to move energy and resources efficiently, without friction, wherever they need to go, to save endangered populations and salvage ecosystems. To take one example, there is no way to address the burning of the Amazon rainforest under the current economic system. It requires planetary coordination based on long-term stewardship.

One idea I propose in How Soon Is Now is that humanity and the Earth, together, constitute a planetary super-organism undergoing an evolutionary process toward a new state of being. In the same way micro-organisms learned to work together to form more complex structures such as our internal organs and sensory organs, humanity as one entity seems intent on developing technological prostheses that extend our capabilities (a satellite dish extends the eye, AI extends our intelligence). I have noted that multinational corporations function like the nascent organs in humanity’s collective body. For instance, an energy company is like the circulation system, moving energy through the body. A media corporation is like a sensory organ which gathers raw data and converts it into memes — stories or narratives — which the body then acts upon. The global financial system functions like the nervous system, distributed through the body of the super-organism, responding instantly to stimuli.

Biologists have found that evolution leads from immature ecosystems, characterized by aggression and competition, to mature ecosystems characterized by cooperation and symbiosis. Trees, for example, are miracles of symbiosis, providing shelter and nourishment for thousands of other species, such as insects, fungi, squirrels and birds. If humanity is going to have a long-term tenure on Earth, we are going to have to shift from domination to planetary symbiosis. My sense is that we have unleashed an existential emergency for our species which will either lead to our extinction or our evolution into symbiosis. This evolutionary crisis is built into our evolutionary program, just as fetal development leads either to birth or death, or as a caterpillar devours all the resources within its cocoon before emerging as a new entity.

The prospect of building an infrastructure for planetary cooperation seems impossible from where we are today because we are trapped in ideologies of short-term self-interest, mistrust, factionalism, and greed. If we didn’t have divisive ideologies, it would be self-evident that this is the path forward. We would do it immediately.

When we share a coherent understand of what we need to do together to safeguard our future on Earth, we can then define and execute a strategy for undoing the current ideological programming. This requires media, educational tools, and initiatory processes to help people access phenomenological experiences of transcendent or unity consciousness, along with a shared context or interpretative framework.

The Internet was originally built by the US Defense Department as a decentralized platform for research-sharing and emergency communication in the event of nuclear war. As mycologist Paul Stamets has noted, it follows an evolutionary paradigm, evincing the same distributed architecture we find in mycelial networks and in our own brains. Over the past forty years, the Internet has grown into a vast global infrastructure, underpinning nearly every aspect of modern life—communication, commerce, culture, and governance. Although it began as a taxpayer-funded initiative, the Internet is now largely dominated and controlled by a handful of private interests who, as Ben Tarnoff chronicles in Internet for the People, were handed control without public oversight or referendum. As a result of this largesse, platform owners were able to amass vast fortunes.

As Yannis Varoufakis argues, the unchecked power of “Big Tech” has led to what he calls “Technofeudalism,” where corporate platform owners wield more power than many governments. Corporations control data flows and increasingly own the physical infrastructure—cables, switching centers, and satellites. Surveillance Capitalism, rooted in the attention economy, allows companies to extract profit from every click while imposing rent on new innovations and applications.

Media technologies shape political and social systems. Historically, major shifts in media eventually lead to societal transformation. This happened with ancient empires like Rome or Egypt, when the new media technology of writing enabled the codification of laws over large areas. The printing press laid the groundwork for the revolutions of the 18th Century and the transition from autocracy to democracy.

Because of its capacity to allow for immediate peer-to-peer communication, the Internet has an inherently participatory and democratic potential. New platforms could enable rapid knowledge-sharing, evolutionary learning, direct democracy, and the equitable redistribution of resources. This is, of course, far from its current state, distorted by corporate power and capital.

In repurposing the Internet, we could reshape our society to better face existential threats like climate change and ecosystem collapse. As Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman suggest in Spontaneous Evolution, nature evolves through crises, moving from competition to cooperation. The same argument is made by biologist Lynn Margulis, one of the scientists responsible for the Gaia hypothesis, in Microcosmos, which emphasized mutualism as the foundation of life. Human civilization has unleashed an existential crisis that will require a rapid evolution from competitive and aggressive behavior to cooperation and symbiosis. This follows the paradigm of past thresholds and bifurcations, as Margulis and Lipton explore.

One essential shift we need to make is from today’s hierarchical, top-down structures to a participatory, bottom-up orchestration where individuals and communities have power. This would involve moving from a private ownership model to one of stewardship, following the principle of usufruct—people can use land or tools as long as they use them productively. A decentralized, peer-to-peer system would make decision-making transparent and rapidly responsive to local needs.

A key part of this transition would be redefining democracy. Our current system of representation—voting for officials every few years who then make decisions on our behalf—worked well enough for the last few centuries, but now it is obsolete. With this kind of representational system, we simply cannot adequately address the complex, fast-changing problems we face today due to climate crisis, rapid technological change and dangerous geopolitical shifts. As we see today, the system is too easily corrupted by lobbyists and corporate interests.

One concern is that participatory systems might devolve into “mob rule” or empower demagogues, but these are design challenges that can be addressed. Distributed networks could enable more direct forms of democracy, where citizens vote on specific issues rather than relying solely on representatives. Liquid democracy, for instance, allows individuals to vote on issues themselves or delegate their vote to a trusted expert. This delegation is flexible, and voters can retract it at any time based on new information. Blockchain technology could secure votes and ensure transparency, making liquid democracy a dynamic, responsive system.

Decentralized decision-making, secured through blockchain, could also enhance resilience and reduce corruption. Every vote, policy suggestion, or petition would be transparently logged in an immutable, tamper-proof manner. This system could extend from local to global governance, empowering citizens to participate in decisions on everything from budget allocations to environmental policies.

Alongside political transformation, the Internet could drive economic change, shifting society away from the extractive, profit-driven model we have today. The current Internet economy thrives on data harvesting and wealth concentration, but decentralized technologies like blockchain offer the potential for more equitable resource distribution. In a decentralized system, individuals could exchange goods and services without intermediaries, dissolving corporate structures and creating new pathways for community-driven economic activity.

A rational evolution of the Internet, in other words, would be the basis for what Pyotr Kropotkin defined as anarchism. He envisioned anarchism as “the most complete development of individuality combined with the highest development of voluntary association in all its aspects, in all possible degrees, for all imaginable aims; ever-changing, ever-modified associations which carry in themselves the elements of their durability and constantly assume new forms which answer best to the multiple aspirations of all.” An anarchist society would be one “to which pre-established forms, crystallized by law, are repugnant; which looks for harmony in an ever-changing and fugitive equilibrium between a multitude of varied forces and influences of every kind, following their own course.” For Kropotkin, who was a biologist, such a society would be one that followed nature’s inherent design principles. These fluidic voluntary associations, oriented toward the common good and based on planetary stewardship, would supersede our current corporations, focused on short-term profit and shareholder value.

Our current platforms — extractive monopolies — would be redesigned as cooperatives, where citizens democratically resolve issues around practices, redistributing value among participants. Smart contracts—self-executing agreements encoded in blockchain—could ensure fairness and transparency without needing central authorities. Peer-to-peer systems can support local resilience and reduce waste by making it easy for people to share and exchange resources. The model of “platform cooperatives” has been explored in depth by Nathan Schneider in Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition that Is Shaping the Next Economy.

Blockchain technology could finally find its proper use case by facilitating the distribution of a universal basic income (UBI) in a decentralized manner. Smart contracts could ensure that every citizen receives a fair, automatic distribution, bypassing bureaucratic inefficiencies. By securing a minimum economic floor, UBI would reduce (and eventually eliminate) poverty. This would allow individuals to contribute meaningfully to society without the constant pressure of survival. Early pilot projects have already shown this to be highly effective, and it could be a step toward the resource-based economy envisioned by Fresco.

Lynn Margulis reminds us that mutualism, not competition, drives evolution. Similarly, a cooperative economic model based on decentralized platforms could outcompete traditional corporate capitalism if given the chance. This shift would also align with principles of the circular economy, where resources are reused and repurposed rather than extracted and discarded.

Governance, too, could evolve through open-source principles. Just as open-source software thrives on collaborative contributions, the Internet could enable open-source governance, where citizens collectively propose, debate, and refine policies. Platforms like GitHub could serve as models for collaborative policymaking, with citizens participating in transparent, iterative processes. Smart contracts could enforce accountability, ensuring that political promises are kept, and public resources are used responsibly.

Participatory budgeting is another area where the Internet’s potential can be realized. Citizens would submit and vote on proposals for allocating public funds, ensuring resources are distributed equitably and in ways that directly benefit communities. This approach could scale to address global challenges like climate change, housing, or renewable energy development.

Social networks, which today fuel outrage and division, would be redesigned to encourage civic engagement and collective action. Algorithms would prioritize content that fosters collaboration and problem-solving, transforming passive consumption into active participation. In this vision, the Internet becomes a platform for global cooperation, ecological regeneration, and deepening social trust.

All the tools to undertake this transformation already exist, but the will, the belief, and the capital is lacking. By harnessing the Internet’s decentralized architecture, we could build a participatory, transparent, just, and responsive political and economic system. This would allow us to address the urgent challenges of our time, from ecological collapse to extreme wealth inequality, and create a society with justice, equality, and ecological harmony as its foundation.

I know such a transition seems highly unlikely from where we are now, but impossible things do happen. In fact, you reading this text on your computer screen or your phone is extraordinary magic. Who knows what else the universe has in store for us?