The philosophy of the Zero State movement is summarized in a set of eight Principles. Each Principle has a single, simple word as its title, but may be
comprised of a number of points. Each Principle listed below is linked to a blog post in which the Principle's component points and intended spirit are
explained:
1. CHANGE
"Zero" means total renewal : social, political, technological, environmental, and spiritual. A technologically driven, total societal "reset" to zero must include new approaches to government, individual empowerment, accelerating technological advance, and approaches to the world's problems founded in a new psychology.
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2. LIBERTY
Personal liberty and equality of opportunity are of paramount importance within the Zero State, and always apply insofar as such freedoms do not reduce the freedoms of others, whether deliberately or accidentally.
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3. CONSTRUCTION
We are not nihilists, in that we believe in working with and using those aspects of society which have value, in order to address those which do not. For example, we are not in any way "anti-human", but we believe that we can, and should, improve the human condition and environment using technology. This desire to develop the positive and eliminate the negative should be understood as being in the spirit of positive, creative, and constructive effort.
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4. ACTION
Philosophy and ideology must serve action toward achieving our goals, rather than distracting from such action. Debate and consideration are good, as long as they are grounded in concrete effort based upon clear planning. Responsibility for taking action and the consequences of that action must be assumed by each individual, working to lead efforts themselves rather than waiting to be told what to do. This point can be summarized simply as: Just Do It.
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5. COMMUNITY
Zero State is a futurist movement, exploring the impact of accelerating technological growth on society, economics, politics, and the human condition, through science and art. We are working to build a Distributed Autonomous Community (DAC) - the Zero State - and to ensure fair treatment and mutual support for its citizens. "Mutual support" means that ZS citizens should help each other as a matter of priority when such help can be given without any significant cost to themselves.
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6. WORK
We want a new, healthy society - a new future - which embraces the compassionate use of technology to solve problems, reject Authoritarianism and uncontrolled Capitalism, and embrace the principles of freedom, democracy, and transparency of government.
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7. BALANCE
Philosophies which assert the complete primacy of a single idea, method, force, principle, person, or faction are inherently unbalanced. They sacrifice entire systems or societies for their own, limited concerns. Balance of forces and concerns is critical to the success of any system, and to the wellbeing of citizens in any society.
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8. FOCUS
So that our Principles may be easily kept in mind and acted upon, they are conceived of as together constituting a single symbol. That symbol is the number 25 – sometimes depicted as a capital letter “Z” and its mirror image, touching back-to-back, which is also known as the ZS symbol.
Apart from the fact that "25" and "ZS" look similar, the numbers 2 & 5 remind us of the 7 previous Principles; 2 philosophical (CHANGE & LIBERTY), and 5 pragmatic (CONSTRUCTION, ACTION, COMMUNITY, WORK, & BALANCE).
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