Cooperation is our superpower - our remarkable ability to advance our knowledge and wellbeing by working together. It has enabled us, an unassuming species from sub-Saharan Africa, to inhabit locations all across the planet, build the pyramids, discover atoms and DNA, and even venture into space.
What sets humans apart is our unique capacity to cooperate in highly creative ways with an infinite number of individuals — even those we have never met before, and who we may never see again, irrespective of their location.
We believe that tools for thought, freedom, and trust are what have enabled us to create all the art, science, technologies, devices, and structures we see around us. They allowed us to build cities and reach for the stars.
To achieve this level of cooperation, we mastered language. Language was a tool for thought that allowed us to create stories, some of which are social innovations - powerful inter-subjective realities that exist only when enough people believe in them. Humans found a way to use these stories to build trust and freedom at the same time. To achieve greater cooperation, we need both. If we have trust but lack freedom, it results in a dictatorship; if we have a lot of freedom but lack trust, it leads to anarchy.
We see the web as the main tool for thought, freedom and trust today and our aim is to upgrade it:
We are of the view that with better tools for thought, freedom, and trust, we could accomplish even more. We could chart a course towards true sustainability, with cooperation at its core.