Core convictions
Unlike our principles, our core convictions form the unchanging foundation of our entire organization.
Siloism
The internet opens up the possibility of creating a global society with a single set of values and goal. However, studies show that even exposure to different systems of values alone tends to increase polarity through the "backfire effect".
Boundless believes the irreconcilable nature of human values should lead to a more pragmatic approach. Instead of creating one society and set of values, it's most practical to create room for multiple value systems allowing each to flourish without interference from the others.
Instead of bringing together human values into one great society, we fight for an online world in which each online community determines it's own rules.
Siloism in the context of Synapse
Boundless fights for a world in which people determine the rules they live by via Synapse.
Synapse allows for the creation of digital silos called "Poleis" and also acts as the road between Poleis. It provides the template by which each society can determine and implement it's own system of values.
However, it's designed to limit the ultimate reach of those moderation tools creating the demarcation line between moderation and oppression.
The goal is to allow communities to set their own standard—but with reasonable limits.
Limits of Siloism
Siloism encourages each community to live by it's own rules and uses Synapse to advocate for a world that creates freedom through movement opportunity.
Freedom of digital movement
Boundless stands for the fundamental human right to traverse the internet and consume it's information without fear or unnecessary hindrance.
Limits
It's critical to define the limits to every freedom as it's the limits that define the rule.
The limits must be:
- Protected private spaces such as company servers not meant for public consumption
- Reading plans on how to build a strategic weapon of mass destruction.
People should have the right to access
- Copyrighted content
- Pornography
- Materials from divisive ideologies.
Unrestricted access to controversial subject matter is essential to preserve the principle of individual freedom.
Contrast to modern philosophy
Boundless opposes:
- Copyright enforcement on the consumption of copyrighted content rather than it's distributors
- Sovereign firewalls
- ID-limited internet or website access by government decree.
How real-world ID led to greater online control in history
​China’s introduction of the Online Game Anti-Addiction System in 2007 marked the first large-scale use of real-name registration online, requiring gamers to input their national ID numbers to access games. While framed as a public health measure to curb youth gaming addiction, it proved the state could link digital activity to real-world identities at scale. This success provided the technical and bureaucratic blueprint for the expansion of real-name systems beyond gaming. By 2012, China mandated real-name registration across all major online platforms, including social media, forums, and messaging apps.
This expansion was rolled out in the name of public safety and social harmony. With anonymity stripped away, citizens began to self-censor, knowing that their comments, criticisms, or even jokes could be traced directly to them. The result was a chilling effect on public discourse: dissenting voices went quiet, satire disappeared, and critical conversations moved underground or vanished altogether.
In the context of Synapse
Individuals must be free to move between Poleis just like they move between websites, without any form of hindrance.
Hindrance examples:
- Reputation loss on inactivity
- Inability to convert currency or onerous tax on the same.
By nature, Synapse will make these hindrances difficult to accomplish while enabling easy passage between Poleis. However, Boundless stands for the value, in Synapse and outside of it, for people to traverse and unrestricted digital space.
Freedom of speech
Boundless fights for a world where everyone is able to speak their mind without fear. Freedom of speech is non-negotiable for flourishing human society.
Limits
Boundless believes online speech should only be limited by direct physical and not emotional harm.
Disallowed:
- Direct calls for violence
- Planning, coordinating, or conspiring to commit crimes
- The limits of a private establishment on it's own private property.
Examples of direct calls for violence:
- Allowed: "John is a cursed human being who would be better off dead"
- Banned: "Bob should go to town and hit John."
Protected speech that should be allowed:
- Criticism of political leaders and public figures
- Religious debate and critique
- The critique of ideas and values
- The discussion of controversial scientific theories and historical opinions
- Satire and parody
- Advocacy of controversial ideas and opinions
- Speech that provokes emotional discomfort and offense
- Speech that challenges democratic ideals
- Speech that indirectly leads to self-harm without explicit encouragement.
We believe defamation must be a civil issue and that SLAPP suits must be avoided.*
Politics
Boundless advocates for a world with minimal top-down rules are imposed on cyberspace and Silos are free to live by their own rules.
NOTE TO SELF: This needs rework to super-impose itself on the below:
In the context of Synapse
Boundless understands that speech rules are necessary to create functional spaces like workplaces or classrooms but it protects people's rights and privacy by ensuring the appropriate boundary between meaningful moderation and censorship, through Synapse.
Privacy
Government surveillance capability and power has grown significantly in recent years. For the first time ever, people are truly afraid that what they post on social media might lead to severe physical consequences. As our lives migrate more and more from the physical to the digital, it becomes ever important that the right to privacy is protected even when the content is distributed on public platforms.
The biggest threat caused by a lack of privacy is not that you'll be sold products you're interested in, but that you will be afraid to speak what you believe is true for fear of consequences.
Here are legitimate fears that would stop people being themselves. Fear of:
- Insurance/loan rate increases
- Identity theft
- Local law enforcement
- Federal law enforcement.
If, in the name of security, we allow intrusion on personal conversations, we risk a generation growing up without knowing what it truly means to express themselves freely online.
Boundless believes people must never be held to account for what they say via their own voice to others online other than by the people they say it to. This maintains the same balance of power as physical life conversations, requiring somebody to speak up, rather than an AI to listen in, if we desire security.
If we allow our private conversations to be spied on for "our security" we will put ourselves at the mercy of those who, may not have our best interest in mind.
Encryption
We believe the best way to protect people's freedom to speak is to technologically safeguard their day-to-day speech and related sensitive data from intrusion.
Namely, data that concerns who people meet and what they say in those meetings and sensitive political and religious data must be protected.
Politics
Boundless fights for the freedom of your speech by pushing for legislation that limits spying on local voice communication to human operators only. Namely, those who listen in to a conversation you have must be the only people to report on what you say, no company or AI may be mined for this data.
Community sovereignty
Human beliefs are incredibly diverse and, if history teaches us anything, it is that human beliefs are irreconcilably different. As a species, we have spent hundreds of years going to war over seemingly inconsequential arguments and minor differences in religion, values, and viewpoints. Seeking to reconcile the beliefs themselves is an impossible task.
Instead, we believe the future of human society would be best served if no one set of values or beliefs reigned supreme over them all. Power should be handed to individual communities to govern themselves by their own rules and values, with people free to navigate between them.
limiting it's own capabilities at key boundaries.
and Synapse creates the tools by which such rules can be imposed. However, it provides these tools on the legal condition that the basic freedom of movement is protected ensuring that speech finds it's appropriate home.
Synapse also creates freedom by choosing where the boundary lies between meaningful moderation and censorship, limiting it's own capabilities at key boundaries.
Finally, Synapse is also the means by which users can escape one Polis and to another while keeping as much as can be transferred between Polies.