DAO Politics — a ForkLog podcast series in which we, together with invited experts, examine how DAO are structured, and discuss their conceptual and technological foundations. In this episode we continue the discussion of decentralization with philosopher Ivan Belonogov, while also exploring what time-based autonomous zones are and what sustains the power of Big Brother.
How Virtuality Is Structured?
In Gilles Deleuze’s terms, the virtual is more accurately described as the reality of simulacra. By this term we are used to understanding something negative, counterfeit. But Deleuze argues: it is about something else. The original and the copy relate to one another by similarity, while simulacra relate to one another by differences. My favorite example is Pokémon. Anyone can draw a new “Pocket Monster,” the main thing is that it does not resemble existing ones. This is the ontology of difference.
The reality of simulacra is produced by processes that are unrelated to it. When we see a living bird, we know it has organs. When we see the same bird, but virtual, we know there is nothing inside it. The processes that generate it have nothing to do with flesh, feathers, or bones. In other words, simulacral birds have no essence. They are like Magritte’s painting of a smoking pipe with the caption: “This is not a pipe.”
For Deleuze, the virtual is what exists but is not presently actual. Imagine I have a USB flash drive. The actual is a bit of plastic and metal. The virtual holds 40 GB of useful content. Another example: remember your childhood? Perhaps some fragments or images surface. Virtually — you remember childhood, but it is not presently actual. For Deleuze, the virtual is part of a triad: there is the real, divided into the actual — present here — and the virtual — that which we do not see now, but exists.
Let me mention another term — the potential. The actual — you are reading this text. Potentially — you could launch rockets into space. Philosophy as a practice of living reminds us: if we confine ourselves to the actual, we will never see all the freedom that is available to us as possibility.
If we create a DAO, and look at the current smart protocols, we might be disappointed: “Nothing suits our purposes!” “So what,” the philosopher would say, “tomorrow you will create new ones.”
For Deleuze, the virtual is potential. That which could be but is not here.
How to Kill Big Brother Within Yourself?
The main idea of classical anarchism was that Big Brother must be overthrown. Modern postanarchists ask: what if someone wants to remain under control? We will not forcibly liberate anyone, say the postanarchists through the post-Deleuzian. We will create temporary autonomous zones — so the philosopher called small spaces of freedom for those who want to try being with us. If you don’t like it — go to another autonomous zone or stay in the “normal world.” The most successful example of a TAZ is Burning Man.
Personally, I think the most important thing is to kill Big Brother within yourself. I see a freedom where we say: “Who wants to come — come. Who doesn’t — go about your business.” and no one will hinder another. I also cite Genesis P‑Orridge and the Temple of Psychic Youth. In their book Thee Psychick Bible (the Russian translation can be read here) not once is it said: “The aim of our organization is to collapse one day.” You cannot fixate on anything; everything can change.
We draft protocols, but we already understand that the day after tomorrow we will rewrite them all. Perhaps we will achieve the goal. Perhaps not. But the main thing is to maintain pliability. Today we solve this problem; tomorrow we will tackle another that comes tomorrow. And it’s not a problem that we tear apart the current machine to make a combine, and the day after tomorrow tear that apart too to make a helicopter and fly somewhere. Yes, it will be sad each time. You make some work, fall in love with it, and say: “Okay, don’t breathe, don’t change anything, let it stay as it is.” That desire is precisely Big Brother’s will. After all, what does control want? Control wants to fix one order once and for all.
Why Normal People Are the Evil?
Any computer game is ideology. You start it, and it immediately tells you: here is your enemy. The same in life. What is Big Brother? The phrase “Live like normal people”.
Has anyone ever seen a single normal person? Perhaps they live completely madly, in their own way, in every apartment. Big Brother and its all‑powerful might are a presumption. And the same goes for its “emissaries”: tax collectors, police. These are not machines, but living people with their own desires and peculiarities. The script of interacting with them is not reduced to subordination; it can be turned inside out.
Jacques Lacan, Deleuze’s teacher, said that totalitarianism begins when the enforcers begin to count themselves as the embodiment of the law. And if the bearer of power remembers that he is merely a servant, then everything is fine. He understands that he is not Big Brother, but simply a body with a rank. I think everyone recalls that there have been cases where representatives of power removed their uniforms, refused to obey orders. There were decent people among them. And they can be found. But from the outset one must speak to them as a person to a person. That is what I call “killing Big Brother within yourself.”
How Will the World Change for the Better?
I see the future as a large RPG. We will have many different organizations, including hierarchical ones — why not? It will be more fun. Hierarchy, too, will become a small gaming field. And old systems will destroy themselves. They are already doing so. Because a totalitarian fixed hierarchy, in the face of accelerating progress, kills those inside it.
We need several phases. First, people open to novelty must emerge. Primatologists know: infant primates won’t taste red berries until the bravest one does—and dies. If someone demonstrates that decentralized autonomous organizations do not kill people, some observers will breathe a sigh of relief and be ready to join. New values and practices spread. One day a critical mass will accumulate — when people simply know that life can be different. And then they will try. Already now experiments with unconditional basic income show that once basic needs are met, people do not squander the money but invest them in projects. I also recommend André Gorza’s “Immaterial Knowledge, Value and Capital.” Now is the time to acquaint yourself with it.
How to Read Deleuze?
Many complain that Gilles Deleuze writes unclearly. It’s a habit. I would instead recommend his most opaque book “A Thousand Plateaus.” Just read one chapter when you want. Read it once and try to imagine what he is saying. It doesn’t matter whether you understand it or not. If you feel like it, reread this chapter or the adjacent one. The aim is that, by simply rereading in circles, we get used to another way of thinking — and one day it will become comprehensible. And this is exactly what is worth knowing about education.
Why Do We Need Philosophy?
To imagine realistically, to desire the unreal, or to desire in earnest. We think beyond what we live thanks to philosophy, and that helps us not to get lost in the accelerating world around us.