The Founding Period

A people that creates itself must itself adopt the rules on which it will be founded.

Earthlings therefore begins with a founding period.

Today the Declaration exists as an initial edition, prepared for founding the people. It states the principles on which we propose to create the people, but it is not yet the final founding act.

It is not the Declaration alone that is open. The whole corpus is open to proposals - twenty-five documents that describe the people in full, together with the three annexes to the document Civic Voice: the Charter with its procedures and thresholds, the design of the treasury and the unit of account, the procedure for identity verification, the work of Cells, the roadmap, ethics, the legal basis. The Declaration is the principal document among them, but it does not describe the people by itself: it establishes the foundations and the limits, while the other documents set out how all of this works from day to day.

We say this plainly, because otherwise the false impression arises that people are invited to amend one text while the rest will be handed to them finished. That is not so: any document of the corpus can be amended. What differs is not a person's right to submit a proposal but what happens next to an accepted proposal - section 02 deals with this.

At the end of this period the Declaration will be put to a collective vote; the period will end when the vote has finally decided whether or not the text is adopted. If it is adopted, it will become the founding document of the people, and the principles of the Declaration's unamendable core will become irrevocable forever.

This is a matter of principle.

We do not want first to create a people with ready-made rules and then invite its participants to agree to them. We want the very process of founding to be collective.

Every person can therefore propose a change. Every proposal will be considered and published together with a reply to it. And the final decision will be taken by the participants in the founding themselves.

After adoption the principles of Part I of the Declaration become unamendable precisely because the Declaration was adopted by those whom it unites.

What remains amendable are the institutions, the procedures, the economic mechanisms, and the ways of working together. They must develop along with the people.

What remains unamendable is only the people's founding basis - the principles set out in Part I of the Declaration: it is on them that a person's voluntary belonging to this people rests.

This is how we want Earthlings to be created: not for people, but by people themselves.

Current state. The passport registry contract, identity verification, Cells, and the accounting of the internal economy are deployed and working; the public voting channel is deployed, but no substantive votes have yet been held in it, there is no tool for secret voting yet, and the founding vote will be held openly, and the Treasury smart contracts have not been deployed (the document "Where We Are Now"). What has not been adopted is the founding text.

From 22 November 2026 to 20 February 2027 the whole corpus is open to proposals - the Declaration, the Charter, the other twenty-three documents, and the three annexes to the document Civic Voice. Any person may submit proposals. On 3 April 2027 the text is put to a vote of those who have confirmed their identity. Once it is adopted, the principles of Part I of the Declaration are never repealed, and their wording and the rest of the text are changed only by the people itself - by two thirds of the votes cast, subject to a quorum, and only so that no principle is narrowed and no guarantee to any person becomes weaker.

After adoption the principles of Part I of the Declaration will be unamendable because the Declaration will have been adopted by those whom it unites.

There is a second reason. A people built on shared participation cannot be handed to people ready-made. Until the texts are adopted, everyone has the opportunity to influence them - and that opportunity is real, not for show: what goes into the Declaration will apply without a time limit, what goes into the Charter will take effect as part of the Charter together with the Declaration, and what goes into the other documents will apply at once.

The whole corpus is open, including this document. A proposal may be submitted to any document, and everyone has the same right to submit one. The consequences will differ, because the documents do not have the same force; the limits on amending Part 2 of this document are set out in that Part itself (section 2).

The Declaration

The founding document. To be put to a vote on 3 April 2027.

The wording is open in its entirety. The composition of the unamendable core is open too - proposals to add to it are considered on the same footing as the rest and are included if they pass the test in section 04. The only proposals not considered are those to repeal or limit the principles of the core themselves; refining their wording may be proposed.

After adoption the principles of the core are never repealed, while the people itself changes the other provisions - by two thirds of the votes and only so that no guarantee to any person becomes weaker.

The Charter

The principal organizational document: the age of participation, voting thresholds, time limits, the appeals procedure, the restriction of powers, the procedure for annulling the issuance of a passport.

The Declaration entrusts the Charter with setting out almost everything that happens in practice, so the Charter takes effect together with it: without the Charter there would not be a single operative procedure on the first day. It is not adopted by a separate vote, but proposals to it are accepted on the same footing as proposals to the Declaration and are included in the edition published on 13 March 2027.

Thereafter the Charter is changed by the people itself - by decision of the Assembly, at any time and in the manner the Charter itself sets out. The Charter cannot lower the requirements of the Declaration under any circumstances.

Design documents

How the DAO, the Cells, the treasury, the EC unit of account, the Independent Council, the digital platform, the SBT passport, the earthling path, the roadmap, and ethics are structured and how they work.

These documents are not adopted by a vote: they describe mechanisms, and mechanisms must develop along with the people. Accepted proposals are entered into them at once, without waiting for 3 April. After the founding they are changed by the Assembly under the Charter.

Documents for the outside world and reference documents

The privacy policy, the terms of use, the biometric verification policy, the legal information - and also "Civic Voice", the legal basis, the objections and answers, "How a Subject of Law Arises", the frequently asked questions, "About Us", the working agenda, "Where We Are Now".

Proposals to them are accepted and published with a reply, just as proposals to all the others are. But the first four have a feature of their own, and we name it plainly: they face not inward, towards the people, but outward, towards individuals, laws, and supervisory authorities, and part of their content is prescribed by personal data legislation. Such content cannot be changed by a vote - what can be changed is what is left to our discretion.

What is not part of the corpus

The Address to Everyone, placed on the main page, is not part of the corpus. Proposals to it are not accepted, and it is not put to a vote.

The reason is not that it is more important or more untouchable than the rest. On the contrary, it establishes nothing. It creates neither rights nor duties, nothing follows from it, and it is not what the people adopts. It is an address to everyone from those who started all this - and it is signed by its authors, not by the people. Voting on an address would be as odd as voting on someone else's letter.

Everything that has force is in the corpus and is open to proposals in full.

In summary

Five principal provisions are not up for discussion under any circumstances. A people that can be bargained out of them is no different from what already exists.

• One person, one vote. A vote cannot be bought, sold, accumulated, or irrevocably transferred.
• There is no power of some over others. No one holds a position above another earthling; powers are limited, revocable, and verifiable, and a mandate does not become an office.
• Money is separated from the vote. Property, contributions, and input give no additional rights in governance.
• Exit is free. At any moment, without giving reasons. Expulsion from the people does not exist.
• The people speaks but does not coerce. Violence is excluded without exception.

All five are written into Part I of the Declaration and listed in Article 11 as the principal ones among the principles of the unamendable core, while the core itself is formed by the whole of Part I. Proposals aimed at repealing or limiting the principles of Part I are not considered. Proposals to refine the wording and to add to the core are considered on the same footing as all the others.

What is unamendable are the principles themselves, not the letter in which they are written. The wording may be refined if the refinement does not narrow the principle and lowers no guarantee to any person; where there is doubt it is deemed to lower it and is not accepted. The people is entitled to change, add to, and shorten the rest of the text of the Declaration - by two thirds of the votes and only so that no guarantee becomes weaker.

A principle that has entered the unamendable core can never be repealed. A proposal is therefore included in the core only if it meets all four conditions at once:

1. it protects every person from the power of the people itself, rather than describing what the people does;
2. it is formulated as a prohibition, not as a task;
3. it is verifiable: it can be established whether it has been breached or not;
4. it remains true even if we were wrong in our assessment of circumstances.

"A vote cannot be bought" meets all four. "The people works on climate" meets none: it is a task, tasks change, and they belong in the Charter.

There are two paths, and they are not the same thing.

Send an objection or a proposal. To any document of the corpus, not only to the Declaration. Entering the people, verifying your identity, and agreeing with our conclusions are not required for this. It is enough to name the document and the place in it; if you do not know what the document is called, describe it in words - we will work it out ourselves. Every proposal is published together with a reply - both accepted and rejected, with the reason for rejection given.

Take part in adopting the text. For this you need to confirm your identity before the day of adoption: those who vote are those confirmed to be one living human being. Confirmation is free and is not entry into the people - it gives the temporary status of a participant in the founding and the right to vote on the day of adoption.

About a wallet. To receive the temporary document you need a crypto wallet to which it is tied - this is needed so that only a confirmed participant can cast a vote, and only once. The vote on adoption is open: each vote is visible to all, and anyone can check the count. If you have no wallet and do not know how to create one, the identity verification form includes Web3Auth, which creates a wallet automatically when you log in with email, Google, or Apple, with no seed phrase.

In which language. In any of the nine in which the corpus exists: English, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and Georgian. You do not need to translate your proposal yourself, and a proposal is not rejected because of its language.

The reply is published in English and in the language of the proposal. We will say straight away what would otherwise be asked: for Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and Georgian we do not yet have native speakers, and the reply in those languages may be less smooth than in English. This does not change the meaning of the reply, and there will be no difference of substance between the versions.

There is a second reason for opening up all nine languages, besides the obvious one. A person reading the Declaration in their own language notices things in the translation that we do not see. Such observations are no less valuable to us than objections on the merits, and we ask you to send them.

Taking part in the founding gives no advantages afterwards. There will be no class of founders in this people: this is written into Article 8 of the Declaration and follows from the Declaration's unamendable core - under Article 4, the weight of a vote depends neither on length of participation nor on merit.

Nothing will happen against your will.

Before adoption you are a participant in the founding, not an earthling: there is nothing to sign yet. On the day of adoption you vote. If the adopted text does not suit you, you simply do not sign it and you leave - at any time, without giving reasons and without anyone's consent.

No decision taken before you give your consent binds you to anything.

• 22 November 2026 - proposals open across the whole corpus.
• 20 February 2027 - proposals close.
• 13 March 2027 - the record is published: all proposals received and the replies to them. On the same day the final edition of the Declaration put to the vote and the final edition of the Charter, which takes effect together with the Declaration, are published in Russian and English.
• 3 April 2027 - the vote on the adoption of the Declaration.

Amendments to the other documents of the corpus are made in the course of the period rather than on these dates: they are not adopted by a vote, and there is no reason for them to wait for 3 April.

By email to team@earth-lings.org. One word in the subject line is enough: objection.

All proposals and the replies to them are kept in an open registry: https://github.com/earthlingsorg/earthlings-documents. Anyone can view it without registering; proposals can also be submitted there directly, if that is more convenient for you, but this requires a GitHub account; without one, an email is enough. The registry holds the whole corpus, not the Declaration alone, and every change to any document is visible in it line by line and linked to the proposal that led to it.

We answer everything and publish everything, including what does not favour us. We wrote every argument known to us against our own scheme ourselves, before asking others to do so.

Proposals are accepted from 22 November 2026 to 20 February 2027 inclusive.

Any person is entitled to submit a proposal. Entering the people, verifying identity, making payments, and agreeing with the provisions of the Declaration are not required for this.

A proposal is accepted in respect of any document of the corpus. It is desirable to name the document and the place in it; if they are not named, the document is determined from the content of the proposal, and a proposal is not rejected on grounds of form. The place is named by the Russian or the English text: these are recognized as authentic (Declaration, Article 11). A proposal about a translation names the place in the language it concerns - the numbering of sections and paragraphs in translations may differ.

A proposal is accepted in writing at the address given in the section "Where to send them". No particular format is required. Anonymous proposals are accepted and considered on the same footing as the rest.

A proposal is accepted in any of the nine languages of the corpus: English, Russian, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, and Georgian. The person submitting a proposal is not required to translate it into another language, and a proposal is not rejected on grounds of language.

The reply is published in English and in the language of the proposal.

Two kinds of proposal, and their consequences differ.

A proposal on the merits changes the meaning of the text. It is entered into the Russian master text, reproduced in the English one, and then carried across into the other seven languages. The language in which the proposal arrived has no bearing on this.

A proposal on translation points out that a translation conveys the meaning inaccurately. It corrects only the text in the language to which it relates and does not change the meaning of the document. It is not a proposal to amend the Declaration and is not put to a vote.

Which kind a proposal belongs to is determined by its content, not by how it is labelled. If a proposal on translation reveals an ambiguity in the master text itself, it is also considered as a proposal on the merits.

Which text is the subject of the vote. The vote of 3 April 2027 is held on the Russian and English texts: they are recognized as authentic (Declaration, Article 11). The texts in the other seven languages are official translations. One may read and vote relying on any of them, but where a translation diverges from the Russian and English texts, those two texts prevail, and where the two diverge from each other, the interpretation giving every person the higher protection prevails; if a comparison of the texts does not resolve the divergence, the meaning of the Russian text prevails.

Readiness of the translations. The English text of the corpus is brought into line with the Russian master texts before proposals open on 22 November 2026; while a translation into another language lags behind the master text, its page says so, and where they diverge the Russian master text prevails, except that for the Declaration the rule set out above applies. The final editions put to the vote are published in Russian and English on 13 March 2027, and the translations into the other seven languages by the same date. If any translation is not ready by that day, this is stated plainly, with the language and the reason named; we will not pass off an unfinished translation as a finished one.

Every proposal received is published together with a reply to it - both accepted and rejected, with the reason for rejection given. The reply is published no later than thirty days after the day the proposal is received, and for proposals received in the last thirty days of the submission period, no later than the day the record is published.

Proposals and replies are published in the open registry named in the section "Where to send them". Every proposal is entered there as a separate item, the reply is attached to it, and every amendment to any document of the corpus is linked to the proposal that gave rise to it. The registry itself shows who influenced the text and with what, and this does not depend on whether we remember to say so.

The decision to include a proposal in the text, for every document of the corpus, is taken by the author of the Declaration. This is the only discretionary power of the founding period with regard to the texts, and it is named here plainly (the points at which the founder has to be trusted before adoption are set out in the document "Where We Are Now"): before the text is adopted there is no people that could decide in the author's place, and handing this decision to a group would make founders of those invited rather than of the participants.

The power is limited in three ways: every rejection is published with the reason; every proposal remains in the open record and can be submitted again; and the final text of the Declaration is adopted not by the author but by a vote, and can be rejected.

An included proposal to the Declaration or the Charter enters the edition published on 13 March 2027. An included proposal to the other documents is entered at once, and from that day the published text applies: these documents are not adopted by a vote, and there is no reason to hold back an amendment until 3 April. An amendment to Part 2 of this document made after proposals open does not move the dates of the close of proposals, the publication of the record, the announcement of how the vote is conducted, or the vote itself; it does not change the conditions of adoption or of postponement, does not remove the openness of the vote or the provability of the outcome, and does not narrow who is entitled to vote. Such an amendment is published no later than 13 March 2027.

The author's power ends together with the founding period. If the text is adopted, from that day any document of the corpus is changed only by the Assembly.

The record of all proposals received and the replies to them is published on 13 March 2027 and remains open indefinitely. The record covers the whole corpus: proposals to the Declaration, to the Charter, and to each of the other documents.

Proposals aimed at repealing or limiting the principles set out in Part I of the Declaration (the principal ones are listed in its Article 11) are not considered. Proposals to refine the wording of Part I are considered on the same footing as the rest.

Proposals to add to the unamendable core are considered on the same footing as the rest and are included only if they meet all four conditions of the test set out above.

The rules of Article 8 of this edition of the Declaration apply temporarily to identity verification during the founding period. Verification rests on an identity document: a person without documents cannot pass it today. This contradicts Article 8 of the Declaration and remains an open question: the guarantee is written down but not yet fulfilled.

Signing the Declaration and entering the people are suspended for the duration of the founding period: there is nothing to sign yet, and a people defined by an adopted text does not yet exist.

Identity verification is carried out free of charge and continues throughout the period. On its completion a temporary document of a participant in the founding is issued - it neither replaces nor anticipates the earthling passport, which will begin to be issued after the text is adopted, under the main regime. The status of a participant in the founding can be given up at any time: the holder burns the temporary document themselves, with their own key, and no one can prevent this. Against the holder's will, the temporary document is burned only on one of the three grounds of Article 8 of the Declaration: more than one valid document has been issued to one person (all but the one issued first are burned), identity verification was obtained using false information or another person's identity, or the document was issued to a person under the age of 18. The decision on burning - and, where the ground is age, also on deleting the data (Privacy Policy, section 10) - is taken by the author of the Declaration: the holder is informed of the ground and of the period for objections, the objections are answered (Declaration, Article 4), and the document is burned only if the ground is confirmed after they have been considered; until the Declaration is adopted, there is no body to which an appeal can be made. This power is not discretionary: there are three grounds, and there are no others.

The text is adopted by a vote on 3 April 2027. Those who vote are people who have confirmed their identity, on the principle of "one person, one vote". The vote is open: each vote and the voter's address are visible to all, and anyone can recount the outcome themselves without trusting us. This has been decided deliberately. The Declaration (Article 9) requires a secret personal vote, but it enters into force upon adoption: a founding act is not bound by the procedure that it itself creates. For this vote openness is also fitting - there is one question, no one gains from it, and what matters most about a founding act is that it can be verified. The secrecy of the personal vote takes effect after adoption. How the vote is conducted is announced on 13 March 2027, together with the final editions. If the vote cannot be held on the appointed day for a technical reason, it is held on the first day after that reason has been removed, but no more than fourteen days after the appointed day; the reason and the new day are published before voting begins. Such a postponement is not counted as a postponement under section 7. If the reason is not removed within fourteen days, the day of adoption is postponed under section 7, and that postponement counts as one of the two. If both postponements under section 7 have already been used, the day of adoption is postponed once more, by three months, on the conditions that section 7 sets for a vote after the second postponement; if even then the technical reason is not removed within fourteen days, the text is not adopted, this is published no later than the following day, and with that publication the founding period ends and the author's power ends.

The vote is held on two texts at once - Russian and English. Both are adopted as authentic (Declaration, Article 11), so the English text must be ready and published no later than the day the record is published, 13 March 2027: one can vote only for what can be read in advance.

The text is deemed adopted when three conditions are met at the same time (for the exception applying to a vote after the second postponement, see section 7):

1. no fewer than two thirds of the votes cast are in favour of adoption;
2. no fewer than one hundred confirmed participants took part in the vote;
3. no fewer than thirty per cent of the total number of confirmed participants as at the day of the vote took part in the vote; only holders of a valid temporary document are included in that total.

If no proposals are received, or if none of those received is included in the text, this edition is put to the vote unchanged.

If the condition on participation (condition 2 or 3) is not met, the day of adoption is postponed by three months; postponement is permitted no more than twice. Three months, because a shortfall in participation is remedied by inviting people, and that is the work of months, not weeks: a shorter postponement would use up an attempt without changing anything. No more than twice, because without a limit "let us wait a little longer" is indistinguishable from "we will never put it to the vote". If the conditions on participation are met but fewer than two thirds of the votes cast are in favour of adoption, the text is not adopted.

If even after the second postponement the condition on participation is not met, only the requirement as to the share is relaxed: the text is deemed adopted if no fewer than one hundred confirmed participants and no fewer than twenty per cent of the total number of confirmed participants as at the day of the vote took part in the vote, and no fewer than two thirds of the votes cast are in favour of it; otherwise the text is not adopted. The requirement of participation by no fewer than one hundred confirmed participants is not waived.

The other requirements are not lowered under any circumstances. If the text is not adopted, the outcome is published together with the details of the vote no later than the day after voting closes, and with that publication the founding period ends and the author's power ends; a new founding is possible only through a new founding period, with a new round of proposals.

These rules apply from the day proposals open and cease to have effect from the moment the text is adopted or, if the text is not adopted, from the publication that it has not been adopted.

On the day of adoption, Article 12 of the Declaration is filled in with the actual details of the vote and remains in the text forever. The section "Status of This Edition" is not reproduced in the adopted edition.