Introducing: Sublime Society
Editor’s Note: To be clear from the outset, Sublime Society — a name you’ll become familiar with later on — is a big project with bold ambitions. Our plan is to create the first framework for a decentralised society — one that works in the best interests of people and the planet. It’s going to have its ups and downs. It’s going to *royally* piss some people off. There’ll be some unknowns that we don’t or can’t know yet. But we will get there. The reality is: We don’t have a choice.
What is society, and why does it need to change?
A society is a group of people who share common interests, culture, beliefs, and sometimes ancestry. In the world we live in today, our societies have formed — for the most part — geographically. They have evolved and developed through centralised structures such as religion, education, media, economy and government.
These pillars of control rarely work in the best interests of people. On the contrary, they are systems designed to keep people within a narrow and predictable channel. That is, these pillars create and maintain narratives that keep the population in check. More often than not, they also line the pockets of the few; control is historically an extremely valuable resource.
As we all know, humanity is headed in the wrong direction. The choices being made on our behalf are unilaterally damaging, and the tiny cadre of people making these decisions unilaterally don’t care. If we fail to do something about it, the future looks bleak. There are millions who feel the same way, but despite good intentions and best efforts, lack of global coordination, lack of strategic focus, and frequent attempts to dismantle such initiatives prevent any meaningful progress from being made.
We now have the power to make a change
We have within our grasp the tools to create a better solution. A better system. One that arrests control of our destiny and enables us to devise the foundation of a better society — for humanity, and the planet we occupy.
Decentralisation is the cornerstone of this new approach.
By decentralising society’s historic pillars of control, we enable the people to define what works. We uproot the few and their selfish squabbles, greed and bloodlust. And we construct a better way to live in the best interests of the common good, sidestepping any biased, manipulative or ideological interference.
To achieve this we must:
A) address each of the constituent parts of society individually.
B) consider how to improve upon them using a decentralised alternative.
Building a Sublime Society
Our name is inspired by an 18th Century London-based club called The Sublime Society of the Beefsteak. The Beefsteaks were a motley crew of eccentrics and creatives who met weekly to drink port, eat steak and sing songs.
Theirs was an exclusive club, though. Ours welcomes anyone and everyone with open arms. Our ambition is to create the framework for a ‘sublime society’ in its most literal sense.
There are five parts to the Sublime Society:
- Identity
- Governance
- Economy
- Creativity
- Education
Identity
To engage with the community at any level, members will need to mint a Soulbound Token (SBT). This will be linked to their profile page. Like an ordinary NFT, SBTs are unique. However, unlike ordinary NFTs, once committed to a wallet, they cannot be traded. This paves the way for a range of functions and utilities that will make our society work.
Within the Sublime Society ecosystem our IDENTITIES will act like our passports, CVs and many other things. People will be rewarded through their contributions to the communities they choose to engage with, and to society as a whole.
We are adopting the concept of AI generated cats as our common form of visual identity. Society members are free to design their cat however they choose, expressing individual personality traits or aligned to specific skill sets.
Governance
Every aspect of Sublime Society will be managed fairly through an open governance system. The purpose of the governance layer is to create an open forum for rational/objective debate and discussion. The ultimate aim will be to establish a global consensus, framework and standard about how any potential decentralised society should function, across all of its various parts.
From the outset, we will create a community owned multi-sig wallet, controlled through a consensus-based voting mechanic. We will collectively define and implement a governance structure for our society and put in place the requisite platforms for discourse. For reference, we can call this Step One.
Economy
The global economy is dominated by a handful of mega corporations. This is illustrated by the fact that just 10 companies control almost every large food and beverage brand in the world. It does not take a genius to realise that these organisations are more concerned with shareholder profit than the welfare of people and the planet.
Sublime Society will foster a community of makers who will collaborate to create products and services that compete with what’s currently available.
We will start small and focused, but as time goes by our economy will expand to address any vertical we desire.
Anyone within the community can propose ideas for products and services. Providing they can gather the community investment and resources, we will be able to make their ideas happen.
Revenue generated through any idea that materialises through our economy will be shared fairly based on metrics agreed by the community, with particular emphasis on rewarding contribution.
Creativity
Mainstream media and celebrity culture has created a planet of zombies. We are distracted from the reality of existence through mind-numbing content, streamed at 440hz into our brains 24/7.
As artificial intelligence continues is rapid ascension, the automation economy will continue to gobble up traditional roles within society. The final bastion of human superiority over AI is our creativity.
Whilst Chat GPT can write poetry or screen plays, it will never compete with the nuances and details that derive from the imagination of humans.
“Everything you can imagine is real.” — Pablo Picasso
The creativity component of Sublime Society will comprise two distinct parts:
- Creator platform for collaborative development of art across multiple genres
- Content and streaming platform
Education
Education is broken and is not serving humanity in a positive way. Over the decades, global curriculums have been manipulated in an attempt to slowly erode critical thinking and imagination from future generations of the labour force. Students are told what to remember and rewarded for doing what they are told.
The schooling system does not encourage pupils to collaborate in collective problem solving nor focus on nurturing any individual’s skills and abilities.
This is, of course, by design. In the infamous words of John D. Rockefeller, “I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers”.
Furthermore, the perception of education amongst society in general is that it is something you do as a child and a young adult before entering the employment economy. In our view, education and the quest of knowledge is something that should be instilled within society as an ongoing pursuit at all stages of life. It’s imperative that as a society we foster a sense of curiosity that extends to all ages.
Sublime Society will create an alternative framework for education based on an open curriculum; one unbiased by political or religious ideological interference.
The platform will evolve to cover a broad range of subjects, and collectively as a community, we will explore and define a curriculum based on consensus established through logical debate and open discourse.
In particular, the platform will address subject areas that nurture critical thinking and imagination, focusing on things such as the seven liberal arts, which Plato suggested constituted all the essential skills and fields of knowledge required by a free, well-educated citizen.
In addition to the open curriculum, there will be an application layer for teachers to create digital classrooms for educating curious minds across the planet, democratising education and creating a more level playing field that maximises the potential of our most valuable resource. Us.
Wrapping up (for now)
There is a great deal more to say and do. When it comes to society, change takes time, effort, resources and willpower. This is us putting a stake in the ground. From here, we aim to start small, but start we will. To that end, keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming Discord server and Telegram group, where you’ll be able to jump into this adventure first, alongside your brothers and sisters in love, art and wisdom. We also have an article in the works that describes our approach to tokenomics.
If you’re an eager beaver and you want to hit the ground running in the meantime…
Cats have a huge amount of symbology, particularly in Egypt, of course, where love, art and wisdom were key pillars of ancient society, so we feel they’re a great fit for us here. Eventually, you’ll be able to mint your PFP as your SBT, so it’ll pay to spend some time creating one you love. If you’re unsure, head over to the MidJourney Discord, and use something like the following as your prompt:
Cat / Human Hybrid, {Insert your description here}, Ultra Realistic, Full HD 8K, Cinematic, Octane Render
Have fun with your PFPs; we’d love to see what you come up with. Until then, thanks for reading. We can’t wait to update you with more soon.
