Demoscoin

Around two hundred Demos activists gathered under the venerable trees at Gezi Park.

Each carried a small device, a cryptocurrency wallet no bigger than lipstick.

Their individual attendance at the gathering was recorded on the blockchain and they received an equal share of Demoscoin.

•

At first, of course, Demoscoin was worthless.

The executive presidency was in ascendancy and few thought the Demos democracy movement would go anywhere significant.

The movement’s founders, the true believers who kept on attending the Demos gatherings, doggedly accumulated large hordes of Demoscoin in exchange for their active presence.

Demos gatherings were vital spaces of revolutionary debate. What form of government should replace the current regime? What rights should be guaranteed in the new constitution? And how can we increase the efficacy of our movement? It was all discussed despite the most repressive domestic political situation.

••

Then one day authorities grew tired of the Demos gatherings and forcefully removed us from Gezi..

And that is when the flippening happened.

Activists abroad had been watching the livestream and when they saw our movement getting suppressed they started buying Demoscoins on decentralized exchanges as a way to support the movement's early adopters.

The more intense the repression, the more revolutionary their actions, the more valuable Demoscoin became. Early founders now had a warchest: just by selling a few hundred coins on anonymous exchanges they raised millions of dollars to fund the revolution.

And because activists acquired Demoscoin by participating in Demos gatherings, the movement grew faster than imaginable.

(Shadowy foundations and quasi-state organizations started pouring money into accumulating Demoscoin as well.)

Demos had financialized global revolution with the blockchain. A new people struggled for sovereignty.

•••

Make this story real by funding the development of Demoscoin, an ethereum smart contract that rewards activists for participating in early-stage revolutionary movements.

Donate to Demoscoin’s development by sending ETH to 0x50c4Bd2533943cF4e44B459C4388618F658985Be

Ballot

I'm sitting there near you, people watching and skimming the news, outraged and struggling with feelings of powerless, when a woman in a distinctive scarf glides into the cafe.

The glint in her eye catches my attention. She looks determined and out of place. So I keep my head down, hoping not to be too obvious while I watch unfold what is about to unfold.

•

Life is a politically charged, protests are happening weekly and my first thought is that she might be one of those people who cajole strangers to sign a petition to save the whales or defend human rights or some other admirable but toothless proposal.

I am right that she's gathering petition signatures. But instead of soliciting us collectively, she scans the room, finds the person she is looking for (he is waving courteously and seems like a nice fellow), hands him a clipboard, watches him sign, taps her phone and abruptly leaves.

I am intrigued. So just as casually as I can, I ask the guy what just happened. He tells me all about Ballot app.

••

Later I download Ballot. What I see changes my political life, or how I channel my rage into social change. 

Opening the Ballot app on my phone I see a list of radical proposals vying for signatures. A proposal needs around 600,000 signatures to get on the ballot for a state-wide vote in California (where I live).

All kinds of proposals are being made and debated. 

A few that vie for my support: California should institute a citizen income; Corporations chartered in California should be required to have a board of directors that is 50% female; the state should institute radically new forms of decision making processes to craft legislation. And my instant favorite: the state should become its own independent country.

The magic happened when I picked a couple proposals to sign. Five minutes later a man in the same distinctive blue scarf I'd seen earlier walked up and kindly collected my signature.

Wow. I'd picked some majorly revolutionary proposals — the kind of constitutional amendments that would redistribute wealth and power — and within minutes I was able to move those proposals one step closer to being actually up for a vote.  

•••

My identity and voter registration was already verified by Ballot. And because Ballot supplied signature collectors with my location — similar to how Uber summons me a driver — the process was smooth and cost efficient. 

Collectors that used to harangue people on the streets, now busily dart from activist to activist throughout the city.  They now earn a nice income collecting signatures for an ideological rainbow of proposals.

It wasn't long before everyone was talking about, and using, Ballot. Especially when we collectively gasped when hundreds of thousands of signatures were collected for explicitly revolutionary constitutional amendments that were frighteningly democratic. 

Ballot opened a Pandora’s Box. Some people were scared of how it would change things. Others exhilarated by the possibilities.

I knew there was no going back.

Options

We're giving new meaning to activist investor with this protest tactic that borrows a tool from the financier elite. I'm talking about options.

Options are the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell shares of a stock at a specified price on or before a chosen future date.

Activists that purchase options on evildoer stocks prior to unleashing a social protest will profit if their protests influence the corporation's stock price.

And while it might not be easy for activists to impact stock prices, it has been accomplished many times before. For example, Goldman Sach's stock crashed a staggering 40% during Occupy Wall Street.

The beauty of this options tactic is that the more effective the protest—the more profitable the protest. Elegant!

Kill Wells Fargo

I hear September 2018 will be a hot month of social unrest. If so, let's direct some rage against Wells Fargo, an undeniably evil corporation.

Among it's many crimes: defrauding millions of Americans, funding the Dakota Access Pipeline and financing the destruction of public housing in New York City. Wells Fargo deserves the death penalty.

I'm thinking that visceral street protest demanding the nationalization of Wells Fargo combined with a canny options strategy that profits as the stock moves would be an explosive mixture... Can we pull it off?