Three Fundamental Questions About Plurality

The Plurality Book is an open source project that outlines many key ideas in the Plurality space and is the go-to resource for answering fundamental questions about Plurality. The book is available for free online here and here in English and Mandarin (with additional translations forthcoming); hard copies are available here

  • Why does Plurality matter in the current moment? 
    • Section 2-0 - Information Technology and Democracy: A Widening Gulf: this introductory section describes the contemporary tensions between democracy and digital technology development. Weyl and Tang argue that this conflict is not inevitable and present “Plurality” as an alternative pathway to align digital technology with democracy and cooperation. 
  • What is Plurality?
    • Section 3-0 - What is Plurality?: this section defines Plurality as "technology for collaboration across social difference," describing its descriptive, normative, and prescriptive components. The section also discusses key intellectual influences including Hannah Arendt, Danielle Allen, and Audrey Tang. 
  • What does Plurality mean in practice?
    • Section 5-0 - Collaborative Technology & Democracy: this section explains how technological tools can help mitigate the tradeoff between the depth and breadth of human collaboration, enabling more effective cooperation between larger and more diverse groups. Within this framework, Weyl and Tang illustrate how plurality can inform technological design across various areas, including immersive shared reality, augmented deliberation, and plural voting. The remainder of Part 5 discusses these applications in more detail. 

Additionally, there is a set of chapter summaries for the book available here.