daos & redefining the 'local'
how will geography define our sense of locality in the networked age?
This is essay 2 of 7 essays for The Tech Progressive Writing Challenge. Join the conversation in the build_ Discord.
In my previous post, I wrote about local currencies and their vision to revitalise local economies. But, is a resurgence of local currencies (an approach that has existed for hundreds of years, without becoming mainstream) the right path forward for the digital era? Perhaps the right approach is to reevaluate what we mean by local.
The Cambridge dictionary defines local as "from, existing in, serving, or responsible for a small area, especially of a country".
It also defines community as: "all the people who live in a particular area, or a group of people who are considered as a unit because of their shared interests or background"
There's clearly a significant overlap between these two definitions. The local & the community share the same geography, tax codes, governments, regulations. The local community is made up of people we nod to in the street and vote alongside in elections.
We don't choose our bonds with the local community. It is just chance. Same place, at the same time. And yet, geography has historically defined more of an individual's value code and wealth than any other factor.
The internet changes this. We aren't bound by geography. Our community is agnostic to the space the surrounds us, and instead we can define our own digital space. As Balaji and Paraq Khanna wrote in a recent piece in Foreign Policy:
Network proximity is now on par with physical geography, and basic geopolitical assumptions about citizenship, migration, power projection, and the use of force need to be rethought for the digital world.
DAOs as a political entity
DAOs are an example where geographical proximity becomes void, but community becomes key. As Lisa Xu wrote, "DAOs are communities at their core, so building a successful community is a first priority of the organization." Individuals can unite to form DAOs from anywhere in the world and collectively define their membership rights, voting structures, governance procedures. A DAO's digital community is a far purer form of community than a geographical one.
Citizenship is one of the main functions of our community - albeit national rather than local. We're born into it and changing it is a complex task. But, can we rethink citizenship and participation? NFT projects like CityDAO are experimenting with citizenship on chain. A citizenship can be verified in seconds, allowing the citizen to then participate in specific actions. The liquidity of my citizenship NFT also means that the citizen can have financialized skin-in-the-game within the broader community.
Think about the most impressive growth stories of cities over the last few hundred years. I could be living in Singapore and seeing the city grow as a citizen of Singapore. As the city develops, it builds better regulations, a thriving business ecosystem, fair education and opportunities for all. Over time, more people seek to become part of the ecosystem, creating an increase in demand for citizenship.
Historically, there's no way for the market to value my citizenship as an asset nor a market for me to trade it if need be. With an NFT citizenship, there is a market for the citizenship and a value. I can simply list it on an NFT marketplace to give someone else access to the voting rights and other on-chain benefits that it brings.
The future isn't going to be built by retrofitting the old. We need to take a step back and radically rethink what a community, citizenship, governance, and other structures truly means. There is an unprecedented opportunity to redefine these institutions, we just need to try and forget about our learned assumptions about how the world works.
Further reading: