Agora's mission ⭕

What is Agora?

Agora is a digital society, created by Boundless Humanity Initiative. 

Agora's purpose

Agora exists to demonstrate the full potential of a digital society. 

Why demonstrate its potential?

• To prove the value of Cyber Sovereignty

• To incubate and showcase Synapse.

What is a digital society?

A digital society is a group of people with distinct values and ideas organizing for their own mutual benefit.

Agora's mission

To demonstrate the potential of what a community can become, Boundless has delegated the mission of fighting for human life and freedom through digital worlds to Agora. 

So, whereas Boundless purely builds technology, Agora is a movement to fight for the actual rights and freedoms of those online. 

Why Agora fights

Agora believes every human being, regardless of race, creed, or nationality is inherently valuable and that human dignity demands certain fundamental rights.

These rights are essential to ensure human life and freedom reign in a new digital age: 

(1) Freedom of speech

Agora fights for a world in which everyone online is free to speak their mind without fear. 

Limits

Agora believes online speech should only be limited by calls for direct physical and not emotional harm. 

Disallowed

• Direct calls for violence

• Planning, coordinating, or conspiring to commit crimes

• The limits of a private establishment on it's own private property. 

Examples of direct calls for violence:

• Allowed: "John is a cursed human being who would be better off dead"

• Banned: "Bob should go to town and hit John."

Allowed and protected speech

• Criticism of political leaders and public figures

• Religious debate and critique

• The critique of ideas and values

• Advocacy of controversial scientific or historical theories, ideas and opinions

• Satire and parody

• Speech that provokes emotional discomfort and offense

• Speech that challenges democratic ideals

• Speech that indirectly leads to self-harm without explicit encouragement

• Every other form of speech not banned here.

Contrast to modern philosophy

Agora understands that speech boundaries are necessary to create functional spaces like workplaces or classrooms or even a single Polis but when one set of values are lifted to the status of government or general online law, censorship follows. 

In a world that is increasingly clamping down on the basic freedom of expression, Agora stands for a world in which free expression reigns through the internet. 

(2) Freedom of access

Agora believes all people have the fundamental human right to traverse the internet and consume it's information without fear or hindrance, equally. 

Limits

The limits must be: 

1. Protected private spaces such as company servers not meant for public consumption

2. Reading plans on how to build a strategic weapon of mass destruction.

Allowed access

• Copyrighted content

• Pornography of all kinds

• Materials from divisive ideologies

• All other content not listed here. 

Contrast to modern philosophy

• Enforcement must focus on those who distribute protected content, not consume it, unless individuals are invading a protected computer. 

• Sovereign firewalls should be banned on principle. 

(2.1) Freedom of association 

The right of a person to connect with and associate with others online without fear of government-related repercussions.

(3) The right to privacy

In order to create a world in which people feel free to express themselves, Agora stands for a right to privacy online. 

These hard-fought freedoms must be applied in accordance with their original intent to our digital lives just as our physical ones. This includes freedom from arbitrary investigation of private information wherever it may be held. 

Contrast to modern philosophy

Agora believes large-scale dragnet surveillance is a fundamental violation of a human's right to privacy. The act of gathering intelligence on individuals must be limited in the same way suggested by the US constitution without modern exceptions. 

Goal of privacy 

The goal of the right to privacy is to allow people to be themselves without fear of serious and legitimate repercussions. 

 

(4) Freedom of action

Cyber-sovereigntists believe people should have the right to engage in activities without excessive interference.

Activities

Activities include the ability to take advantage of all other listed rights and to engage in activism, business, trade and commerce. 

Excessive interference

Legislation must be intelligible to a reasonable subject matter expert without council, at a scope in which a reasonable person can comply with their collective requirements and should not together produce a burden of compliance greater in effort than the activity undertaken. 

(5) Freedom to benefit from one's own labor 

Cyber-sovereigntists oppose unreasonable restrictions on the ability of an individual to profit from their own labor. 

Unreasonable 

At least 60% of the value a person generates should be retained by that individual.

 

(4) The right to anonymity

All users of the internet should have the right to access, associate, and speak online without revealing their identity unless they choose to do so.

This right is essential to the criticism of power without the fear of retribution. Maintaining this right ensures freedom will always have a voice.

Contrast to modern philosophy

• Agora opposes teen social media restrictions as they would force all users to reveal government ID to prove they’re not minors. 

• Attempts to hinder people's ability to move from one place to another place on the internet by governments are against Agora's philosophy. 

(5) The right to digital property

All people deserve legal respect for their digital possessions. 

• The right not to be arbitrarily deprived of the value or ownership of money or property

• The right to reasonably benefit from the fruits of one's labor. 

(6) Copyright reform 

Agora believes virtual spaces will dominate humanity's future. As these spaces become more and more immersive, the designed will begin to replace the preexisting. 

Namely, nature, the sky and the world we inhabit could become replaced by a virtual world for a larger and larger portion of people's life. 

This means everything in the world will be somebody's property if we take copyright as literally as we take it today. Taking a single photograph might require the authorization of 60 to 150 people.

Today, people get copyright by default for anything they design, even if they don't want it.  Agora proposes switching the default from automatic copyright to opt-in via one click. 

Agora fights for the right for everyone to express themselves online through media without overly burdensome copyright restrictions. 

 

Agora's view of rights

The rights listed are a cry for human liberty, to fight for the freedom of expression through the internet. They are primarily aimed at restricting those that can impose the greatest restrictions on what has been a free realm on the internet. They are not intended to be interpreted in such a way that would inhibit human progress by placing large-scale regulations on small businesses. 

 

How Agora fights for these rights

Agorans fight for these rights by raising awareness through means such as media creation and activism.