Everyone decides everything
All Earthlings have the right to vote on any question put to the Assembly. No binding decision is taken without the participation of the community, and no structure votes in the community's place.
Principles, architecture, and governance in the decentralized system of the Earthlings people
This document describes how collective decision-making is arranged. The rules, thresholds, quorums, and procedures are laid down by the Earthlings Charter; this document explains them and does not change them. Where they diverge, the Charter applies; where the Charter diverges from the Declaration, the Declaration applies.
The Earthlings DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization, the institutional core of governance for the Earthlings people. It secures collective decision-making, transparent allocation of resources, and coordination of action among participants and Cells without centralized authority, parties, or officeholders.
The DAO Assembly is the sole body that takes binding decisions. All the other structures provided for by the Charter provide technical support and emergency protection of the system, or give recommendations, but take no decisions on behalf of the people and cannot block the Assembly's decisions.
Unlike classical hierarchical systems, the Earthlings DAO rests on three supports: the confirmed uniqueness of every participant, the principle of "one person, one vote", and predictable procedural rules applied equally to all. The DAO does not replace states and international institutions; it creates an additional layer of coordination in the transnational space of the people.
Key processes - from votes to the allocation of resources - are recorded in verifiable logs and, where required, in a distributed ledger. The rules are open to analysis, and voting results can be independently re-checked by any participant or external auditor. There are no closed procedures and no hidden protocols.
Transparency, however, extends to the actions of institutions, not to the personal data of people: the expression of will of a particular person may be closed where openness would put them at risk (section 05).
Every earthling has an equal vote on the principle of "one person, one vote". Reputation, contribution, and experience may be taken into account in discussion, but are not converted into additional voting weight, do not open access to any role, and create no privileged classes of participant.
The vote is inalienable. The right to vote cannot be taken away or suspended for a person's views, for how they voted, for disagreement with decisions, or as a general measure of liability (Declaration, Article 10; Charter, Articles 17 and 37). The restrictions provided for by Article 22 of the Charter affect participation in Cells, the right to submit proposals, and access to particular services, but not the vote.
The single exception is proven acts aimed at undermining the integrity of the voting itself: collusion, buying or selling a vote, coercing others, circumventing the rule of "one person, one passport" (Charter, Article 22 bis). Views, how a person voted, and disagreement with decisions are not a ground on any construction whatever.
There is no single centre of governance. Decisions are taken in distributed fashion: through the participation of Cells, the voting of participants, and procedural mechanisms. This lowers the risk of capture and makes the system resilient to local failures.
The logic of decision-making is fixed in advance: who may initiate a question, what thresholds apply, how results are handled. This minimizes the space for arbitrariness.
The DAO is not tied to a jurisdiction and admits the participation of any person holding earthling status. Geography, citizenship, social position, and material wealth confer no institutional privileges.
Decisions, discussions, and their consequences are preserved in a single historical context. This makes it possible to analyse the evolution of norms, to learn from mistakes, and not to forget inconvenient episodes - unlike systems with changing regimes.
Identity layer. Every vote is tied to a confirmed participant whose status is fixed by a non-transferable passport. This secures the principle of "one person, one vote" and makes the creation of multiple accounts practically impossible.
Governance layer. The processes of initiating, discussing, and taking decisions are formalized. Every earthling is entitled to submit proposals, take part in votes, and initiate a review of decisions previously taken.
Incentive layer. The internal unit of account is used for coordination and for assessing contribution. It gives no additional votes and does not become a source of power however much of it a person holds.
Coordination layer. Cells use the DAO infrastructure to coordinate their actions. Decisions are formed from the bottom up: through the activity of Cells and the participation of people.
The architecture is arranged so that no technical subsystem - a server, an interface, a particular module - becomes the single point of control. Governance rests on procedure and on earthling status, not on ownership of infrastructure.
All Earthlings have the right to vote on any question put to the Assembly. No binding decision is taken without the participation of the community, and no structure votes in the community's place.
Any earthling may receive delegated votes from other participants in a particular area and take part in more frequent operational decisions.
Delegation is not representation. It is given by area, not for a term; it is revoked immediately, without giving reasons and without the consent of the person the vote was given to; it creates no office and gives the delegate no rights beyond casting the votes transferred to them. A delegate may at any time be left without a single delegated vote, and that is the mechanism working normally.
The restrictions laid down by Article 7 of the Charter and checked technically:
Any earthling may be a delegate: the only selection is the choice made by the delegator.
By decision of the Assembly, working groups performing an analytical function may be created by field - economy, security, law, ecology, and others.
Their design is subject to three rules:
Separately from them there is the Independent Council - an advisory body provided for by Article 4 of the Charter. Its opinions are likewise purely advisory: it has no right of veto, cannot block decisions of the Assembly, and takes no part in managing finances.
Participation, contribution, and competence are recorded in inalienable marks tied to identity: participation in development, research, and audit; the quality of past proposals; confirmed professional competences.
These marks give nothing but information. The list of what reputation does not do is exhaustive: Charter, Article 8. Any mechanism in which reputation opens access to accumulating influence turns it into a hidden voting weight and is therefore excluded.
1. Initiation. Any earthling submits a proposal. No prior approval, collection of signatures, or threshold of support is required for submission: the right of initiative belongs to everyone (Declaration, Article 10). A proposal is accompanied by a description of the aim, the context, the alternatives, the risks, and the expected impact.
2. Discussion. A period of public discussion during which participants ask questions, propose amendments, and criticize the premises. The periods are set by the Charter.
3. Analysis. Working groups and the Independent Council are entitled to publish an opinion on the risks and soundness of a proposal. This is a right, not a condition: the absence of an opinion does not prevent a question from being put to a vote, and no structure can delay it by not publishing.
4. Voting. Conducted according to the thresholds and quorums laid down by the Charter.
The requirements as to majority and quorum depend exclusively on the subject matter of the decision and are fixed by the Charter. Neither working groups, nor the Independent Council, nor any other structure changes thresholds or can change them.
A published expert opinion is an argument in the discussion, carrying the weight that participants themselves give it, and nothing more. This is the boundary between a well-founded decision and epistocracy: the quality of arguments influences people, but not the arithmetic.
As a general rule votes are open: the fact of participation and the expression of will are available for verification. Openness is the way to be sure the count is honest.
But there are questions where openness of a person's expression of will does not protect them but exposes them to risk. For these, a secret ballot with a verifiable count applies; the list of such questions and the procedure are laid down by the Charter, Article 6.
A secret ballot is mandatory when a restriction of powers is under consideration and on the annulment of an invalid passport issuance, and by decision of the Assembly for particular questions or categories, in particular those touching the people's position on the acts of states.
Proposals are displayed in chronological order of submission. The author's reputation does not affect a proposal's place in the feed. Automatic prioritization would form the agenda without any formal responsibility for it and is therefore not applied.
The Earthlings DAO acknowledges that any decision-making system can err. The architecture includes mechanisms for limiting damage and for protection against capture.
For major decisions the following are set: criteria for assessing results over different horizons, permissible ranges of deviation, and conditions for review defined in advance.
Procedures are provided for reviewing decisions that lead to unacceptable results: partial rollback, a change of parameters, or complete cancellation. Only the Assembly is entitled to cancel or change a decision. The Emergency Multisig may suspend particular smart contracts in the event of a critical vulnerability or an attack, but such action requires a public report within 48 hours and confirmation by the Assembly within 7 days, failing which it is reversed.
A delegation ceiling. No participant may hold more than 5 per cent of delegated votes, the ceiling is in any case no lower than 10 delegators, self-delegation is impossible, and chains are prohibited. This turns the principle of "no parties and no factions" from a declaration into a verifiable quantitative limit.
Instant revocability. Delegation creates no office and is revoked in one step. Accumulated influence can vanish in a minute without anyone's permission - and that is the principal protection, more effective than any rotation.
Rotation and recall of the elected. The Core Nodes rotate every 6 months, and at each rotation at least two members of the Emergency Multisig are replaced. Both structures are recalled by a simple majority at any time - by the same threshold that elects them: removing someone from a mandate cannot be harder than appointing them.
Control of conflicts of interest. Mandatory declaration and recusal in votes on the allocation of funds (section 11).
A right of initiative for everyone. Any earthling brings a question forward for discussion and a vote with no threshold of support and without anyone's approval.
The principal protection here is not procedural but structural: the vote is inalienable. A majority, however qualified, cannot deprive a dissenter of the right to vote on account of their dissent, expel them from the people, or annul their belonging. The single ground for suspending a vote is proven undermining of the integrity of the voting mechanism itself (Article 22 bis of the Charter), and it is built so as to be inapplicable to a dissenter: a specific act against the mechanism must be proven, not an opinion about a person.
To this are added higher thresholds for decisions touching the foundations, and the unamendable core of the Declaration, which no majority repeals.
The model rests on two complementary traditions.
Epistemic democracy treats collective decision-making as an instrument for finding better-founded decisions, not only as a mechanism for aggregating preferences. Hence the working groups, the structured procedures, and the criteria for assessing quality.
Deliberative democracy stresses the importance of open discussion and argument. Hence the mandatory periods of discussion, the right to criticize, the inclusion of different groups, and the transparency of arguments.
Together they yield a hybrid model in which decisions are both discussed and tested for quality. But the relation between them is fixed strictly and in one direction: expertise influences arguments, not thresholds; persuasion, not arithmetic. A specialist's opinion carries exactly the weight that participants themselves give it. Any other construction would turn an advisory body into a governing one.
To this are added the principles of separating functions and of mutual checks, adapted to a decentralized environment.
The Earthlings DAO does not claim to be an ideal system that excludes error. Its aim is an architecture that reduces the frequency and scale of poor decisions, makes the causes of errors visible and open to discussion, and makes it possible to correct course without destroying the basic principles.
Digital infrastructure and predictable procedures make it possible to take decisions without departmental sign-offs and without waiting for sessions. The periods, however, are set by the Charter and include mandatory periods of discussion: speed here is achieved by removing intermediaries, not by cutting the time for reflection.
The DAO does not claim to replace states or to hold political sovereignty. It acts as an additional level of coordination where state institutions objectively do not cover transnational activity: global initiatives, networked projects, distributed research and humanitarian programmes.
In the longer term the Earthlings people may seek consultative formats of participation with international organizations - through a bearer legal entity, as is arranged for peoples everywhere - acting on behalf of those who have joined it, and not on behalf of transnational civil society as a whole, and not as a state.
Listed below are possible fields in which the infrastructure may be applied. These are not finished services but scenarios that may be implemented as pilot projects, subject in every case to the requirements of national and international law.
Healthcare. A technological basis for pilot models of direct interaction between people, specialists, and support funds, in strict compliance with the medical and insurance legislation of the countries where participants are located.
Education. Support for decentralized learning programmes, collective development of courses, and confirmation of skills through participation in the community's activity, without supplanting state systems of accreditation.
Work. Transparent allocation of tasks, roles, and rewards within Cells. The system is not an employer and does not replace national labour law.
Ecology. Collective selection, funding, and monitoring of initiatives, raising the transparency of resource use and accountability.
The economy of participation. Management of internal funds and allocation of resources. The DAO is not a bank, a payment system, or an investment intermediary, and does not replace external financial institutions.
Every Cell is autonomous, but uses the DAO as common infrastructure for bringing questions forward for collective agreement.
Submitting initiatives. Cells put initiatives forward for consideration in order to obtain support, funding, or coordination with other Cells.
Votes. Participants vote on questions concerning the whole people or particular fields. People vote; a Cell has no collective vote.
Feedback. The results of decisions return to the Cells, where they are put into practice. The experience gained may become a ground for renewed discussion and for refining the rules.
The autonomy of Cells and the common architecture are in a relation of complementarity, not subordination: Cells are independent in the substance of their activity, while the DAO secures consistency in decisions affecting the whole people.
Sanctions against a Cell provided for by Article 25 of the Charter do not entail restrictions on the rights of its participants as Earthlings: restricting the powers of an individual is possible only under Article 22 and does not affect the right to vote.
Before voting on questions affecting particular persons, initiatives, or the allocation of resources, an earthling assesses whether they have a conflict of interest.
Mandatory declaration is required if a participant is the initiator or the beneficiary of a proposal; is in an employment, partnership, or contractual relationship with the organization concerned; or has received or expects remuneration from interested parties.
Procedure. The declaration is published in the discussion system before voting begins and becomes part of the public history of the decision.
Voluntary recusal is always possible and does not affect the calculation of the quorum.
Mandatory recusal applies, in votes on the allocation of funds, to the persons listed in Article 16 of the Charter: an applicant or co-author of an application, a member of a project team, a close relative or counterparty of an applicant. No other grounds for excluding a vote exist: an earthling's vote is not excluded from the count by decision of a majority.
Any substantial change to procedures, including voting thresholds and the format of participation, goes through the same transparent procedure of discussion and voting as other decisions - and cannot contradict the Charter, while the Charter cannot contradict the Declaration.
Where there is conflict over the correctness of decisions, internal procedures of review, repeat voting, or independent analysis apply. The DAO does not supplant courts and state legal mechanisms and provides no arbitration outside its own ecosystem.
In the event of technical failures the priority is restoring the correct state and, if necessary, running procedures again. Participants are responsible for the security of their accounts, devices, and keys.
The DAO relies on minimizing the data collected and protecting participants' confidentiality in accordance with international standards.
Data in the distributed ledger. Votes, transactions, and decisions are recorded using pseudonymous identifiers and cryptographic methods. No permanent link between a record and a person is stored; identity verification is performed by the people's own system, without external providers. In votes conducted secretly, the link between a vote and the voter is disclosed to no one, while the count remains verifiable.
Personal data. Identity verification and document verification are performed by the people's own system in accordance with the GDPR and other applicable legislation. The people and the DAO store no photographs, scans, real names, or biometric templates: biometrics are processed at the moment of verification and are not retained. What exactly is retained to prevent repeat registration is in the Biometric Verification Policy. Account data - email, pseudonym, settings - are processed to the minimum extent.
Minimization. Only the data necessary for the voting, authentication, and interface procedures to work are collected. They are not used for hidden profiling, sale to third parties, or commercial monetization.
Your control. You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of the personal data processed by the platform. Entries in a distributed ledger are by technical definition unalterable - and that is precisely why there are no personal data in them: they hold pseudonymous addresses and marks of actions. In analytical and public representations such entries are used only in anonymized or aggregated form.
Security by architecture. Protection is provided by a combination of cryptography, distributed infrastructure, and data minimization. The key logic does not rest on a single critical point, which lowers the risk of the infrastructure being broken into or seized in a single action.