Planet
Material life, resources, labour and future generations. Technology does not operate outside the world we inhabit.
Who governs the state?
And who governs truth?
Veronocracy argues that power must be read through the authority to define and validate reality (including both formally recognised authority and de facto power), alongside territory and capital.
As the location of power changes, so does the question of who governs it.
What a network amplifies, which information a model treats as credible, which voices a platform makes visible: each participates in how people understand their world. Veronocracy begins where treating these decisions as purely technical choices becomes insufficient.
This perspective does not declare the disappearance of the state, the economy or conventional politics. It seeks to make visible forms of power that operate alongside them and sometimes reorganise the space in which they make decisions.
What if protecting truth becomes a new form of domination?
The character of an order is shaped by the possibility of challenging a decision as much as by its outcome.
Three familiar concepts.
A new responsibility.
Freedom
Can it be complete without meaningful agency over data?
Equality
How can it be achieved when access to the networks of opportunity is unequal?
Justice
What sustains it when the grounds for a decision cannot be seen and its outcome cannot be challenged?
PLANET · DATA · MIND
Inseparable dimensions
of the same world.
Data
A domain of power encompassing the decision-making infrastructures that record and classify information and influence who is visible and who has a voice, including Big Tech’s platforms, cloud services and data centres.
Mind
Attention, belief, education and consciousness. The possibility of recognising and changing the conditions of our lives.
A TEST OF THE ARGUMENT
The limits of protecting truth
This question is central to Veronocracy. Verification must remain plural. Institutions, platforms and algorithmic systems that assess credibility or determine visibility must themselves be open to scrutiny, and people must be able to challenge their decisions.
Read the principles and their limitsRESEARCH HORIZONS
Which questions
come after the book?
Three directions in which the work of Veronocracy could develop.
- Technology governanceHow can algorithmic power be held accountable?
- A more equal futureWho benefits when data becomes power?
- Verifiable trustHow can the infrastructure of verification remain plural?