Truces / grand bargains

Left & Right (culture warriors)

Come together around shared interest in thriving families

Tech industry & Everyone who thinks tech has overstepped

U.S. economy is dependent on success of tech companies. True.

Normal people see tech companies as soulless predators. True.

New Athens grand bargain: we’re going to regulate possession of hardware within our physical borders. starting with nobody gets to carry tech. doing this because it’s actually possible at local level. and because it’s a new philosophical approach: it says devices are not morally neutral, but have own moral character. and it’s normal and good for democratic process to ask and answer moral questions. also because it doesn’t impact you outside our borders. because you know deep down this will lead to more kids being born, which you don’t have a solution to and have been avoiding thinking about because it makes you uncomfortable. also because this is an indirect case AGAINST age-ID laws, which may well prevent social harms but will also truly ruin everything good about the internet. also good for you: it will get you (tech ecosystem) out of the addiction business, which pushes well-meaning founders to do things that hurt people.

how we regulate hardware? by company? device category? power of sensors? who gets stuff and who doesn’t? not sure yet. it’s our job to figure it out, and if we fail YOU will not fail. this is a good experiment.

good for tech because redirects entrepreneurs away from praying on the general public’s worst instincts. puts nerds back to work improving lives.

Government & Activists pushing revolution

Government afraid of political radicals

Radicals have legit grievances…but solutions go too far

this is deescalation. today politics feels all or nothing. New Athens lowers the stakes: it lets people try big ideas fast without risking the whole place.

The deal: give revolutionaries wide power—just not over the whole thing. more like states as incubators of democracy. Cynically, this is a way to get radicals off your back and into ghettos of their own creation. you are also indirectly agreeing the radicals are right about a lot of things. insofar as you have sympathies, this is how you can let your radical friends prove themselves and even give you cover for doing things at federal level.

For radicals, this is way to quickly succeed and gain credability—and prove they’ve been right all along.

Deal for the revolutionaries: the upside is you get to try stuff fast and prove you’re right. Downside is you don’t get to take over and/or dismantle the entire united states. if you agree, you’re agreeing the US, this grand experinemtn in self governance, should endure and is worth fighting for.

New Athens & State Government

You give up territory. You get money.

more a grand bargain than a truce