IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2022 - 7

the first fifth of the 21st century, each of those preconditions
is under considerable threat. The consequence
has been the increasing distrust (of politicians) and
disengagement (from political processes) in the physical
world; but this has been matched by an increasing
migration to digital platforms, where the opportunities
for citizen assemblies and civic engagement are
evident (e.g., [17]). However, many social media
platforms have run into problems as a result of testing
and optimising for engagement: the most sensationalist
material gets the most views and so the learning
algorithms recommend increasingly sensationalist
material; this is even without targeted advertising, psychological
targeting of political messages (sometimes
based on privacy-violating data harvesting), and wilful
use of misinformation and disinformation.
Alternatively, by abstracting from the design of
decentralized solutions for cyber-physical systems
[18], we propose a socio-technical design ethos for
digital platforms based on a " calculated technology
of self-determination, " or self-determination by technology.
This design ethos is complementary to the
programme for the design of public interest technology
[19], and is based on a political philosophy of
cyber-anarcho-socialism. " Anarchy " and " socialism, "
as properly construed, or at least as construed in this
context, are not dangerous concepts, but instead are
the root of security, prosperity and liberty in cyberspace,
whether these are collectivities of software
agents, or of people, or a mix of both.
The principles of cyber-anarcho-socialism, and how
they could-perhaps should-inform the design, operationalisation
and runtime self-organisation of cyber-
physical and socio-technical systems are as follows:
1. Anarchy is not " no rules. " The derivation of " anarchy "
is from " without ruler, " which is consistent
with the avoidance of tyranny, and is not necessarily
the same as saying " without rules. " Rather than
anarchy being a state of chaos and disorder with
no rules, it can be seen as a state of (quasi) stability
with no rules that cannot justify themselves.
The requirement of rules to justify themselves can
be satisfied by reflective self-governance, and is
intended to avoid the opposite end of the spectrum
involving the immutability of rules and the
implacable mindset of the utopia of rules [20].
Anarchy should not be thought of as the absolute
destruction of systems of self-governance
through socially constructed political institutions.
March 2022
In addition, its motivation for self-organization
and mutuality based on voluntary association
and equal participation is far removed from the
nihilistic economic ideologies based on " sovereign
individuals "
as
" conservatism. "
2. Buy-in to the Rule of Law. Having just said there is
" no ruler " and " no rule immutability, " the second
principle is the trick of the mind that maintains
the pretence of everyone being governed by an
immutable external authority (called " The Law "
or " The Constitution " ), while at the same time
knowing that authority ( " Law, " " Constitution " ) is
socially constructed (i.e., internal), mutable (by
mutual agreement of constitutional amendment),
and yet without authority, in the sense that it has
no actual capacity to enforce compliance, only
peers acting on its (nonexistent) behalf can do
this. This requires a collective " buy in " to ensure
constraints on power, in particular the arbitrary
abuse of power, are mutual and nonrepudiable.
This is one of the reasons why responsibility and
accountability, like other socially constructed
relations such as trust, are so important. These
relations offer not only self-organizing mechanisms
for self and systemic improvement, but also
act as essential guardrails for operating within
accepted parameters. The corrosion of the social
fabric when " inside " individuals repudiate the
Rule of Law without repercussion can be more
damaging than " outside " threats and attacks.
3. Independence implies interdependence. The quest
for personal freedom is age-old, but this includes
both " freedom to " (e.g., pursue life, liberty and happiness)
as well as " freedom from " (insecurity, poverty,
and tyranny). The key observation of Snyder
[21] is that to be free (freedom to do) depends on
one's health, and that health (freedom from illness)
depends on others. He argues that the relationship
between patient and practitioner should be primarily
about medicine, with some transactional component,
but the forces of privatisation have made it
primarily a transaction, with some medical component.
More generally, for any individual to be " free "
in any domain of meaningful activity (health, education,
the pursuit of happiness, etc.) depends on
the pro-social behavior of others. Similarly, online
presence is not a presence in a vacuum or a property
of an avatar: presence implies others, and others
imply dependency. Relationships in cyberspace
7
masquerading hypocritically
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2022

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