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# **Teaser: Why the Successor to the State Is Being Born**

The contemporary state is an outdated tool that cannot cope with the modern digital world and responds by trying to restrain it and impose restrictions.

At the core of the problem does not lie politics, but **an asymmetry of power** and the fact that an ordinary person has no simple way to:

- obtain _quick redress_ for a wrong,
- verify the reliability of others,
- see _what_ and _to whom_ the money taken in taxes flows,
- influence an organization that presents itself as a public service but behaves like a monopoly.

By its nature, the state cannot be a predominantly voluntary structure. However, today’s technologies make it possible to build something previously impossible: a **decentralized reputation network** that returns value back to human relationships and creates a new way of keeping power in check without a single central gate. We need decentralized identity — not only as a path to privacy, but also as a means of having visibility into ourselves and our actions (I do not judge whether this is good or bad, but people *do* want a certain degree of mutual visibility).

This is where the proposal for a successor system begins.

### **The Reputation Network as “Social Gravity”**

Imagine a global network where people don’t post status updates, but **auditable feedback**: wrongdoings, fulfilled commitments, corrected injustices, breached agreements. Writing into it is expensive → it discourages noise and chatter (it only makes sense to record what is expensive to enforce in today’s justice system, which often tries to avoid dealing with wrongs altogether). Reading from it is cheap. Verification is performed by economically motivated verifiers selected by an algorithm based on the content of the information → there is no central editorial board. And reputation is not a social ornament but a **currency of trust** that influences every future interaction (a democratization of what banks do: risk management).

Such a network does not need state permission. The only way to stop it would be by regressing into a pre-internet age. Participation in this network is not mandatory, and one’s actions determine whether information about them will exist within it.

### **A Finger in the State’s Open Wound**

Once the reputation network exists (a useful tool on its own that allows people to organize quietly in the background into an economically significant minority), we need a methodology for using it — without triggering a revolution. Not only justice, but also a parallel **next-generation tax system** would be extremely useful. Transparent, auditable, simple, and gradually shifting toward voluntary participation. With the option to direct a small portion of one’s taxes — a portion that increases year by year — the state would be economically diminished.

Alongside this emerges a kind of **reverse EET for the state**: every expenditure must have its intended purpose published in advance (a treasure trove of data for taxpayers and their advisors, helping identify which expenses should disappear immediately and which public-sector services could be replaced by market alternatives). Nonsensical items disappear before they even reach public funds. Political parties transform into providers of analysis and related services. And the state apparatus gradually shrinks because it loses places to hide inefficiency.

### **Evolution, Not Revolution**

The new system runs in parallel, gaining participants by being — at every moment — just a little more advantageous than the old one, creating a motivation to onboard. The state cannot be “defeated,” but it can be consumed — and forced into cooperation through economic pressure. An economically significant minority is enough to compel the state to change its behavior (incentives), not its ideals.

This is not an anarchist manifesto. It is a manual for using human nature — including the less flattering parts — to create a more dynamic society that stabilizes itself, corrects itself, and refuses to be ruled without oversight.