Autonomous Systems and Collective Agency

How can systems support coordination without surveillance? How can they enable autonomy without isolation? This essay explores the design space between individual sovereignty and collective action.

The Coordination Problem

Collective action typically requires shared state: who is participating, what resources are available, what decisions have been made. Traditional systems achieve this through centralized authorities who can observe everything.

The question is whether coordination can exist without creating observability that undermines the autonomy of participants.

Surveillance-Free Coordination Patterns

Threshold Operations

Decisions require multiple parties but no single party learns the inputs of others. Cryptographic threshold schemes enable collective action without mutual visibility.

Blind Matching

Participants can find each other based on shared criteria without revealing criteria that do not match. Privacy-preserving set intersection enables discovery without disclosure.

Anonymous Credentials

Prove membership or attributes without revealing identity. Participate in collective systems while maintaining unlinkability.

Federated Identity

Identity established through relationship rather than central registry. Trust is local and transferable without global visibility.

Autonomy Without Isolation

Pure autonomy—complete independence from all systems and actors—is neither achievable nor desirable. Humans are social. Systems exist in context.

Meaningful autonomy is the ability to choose dependencies, exit relationships, and participate on terms you understand and accept.

Exit Rights

Can you leave? Can you take your data? Can you continue without the system?

Transparency of Terms

Are the rules visible? Are they stable? Can you verify compliance?

Minimal Dependency

What do you depend on? What happens if it fails? Can you substitute alternatives?

OnionHat's Position

OnionHat builds infrastructure that enables participation without requiring surrender of agency. Users can:

• Participate without identification
• Verify system behavior without trusting claims
• Exit without penalty or data loss
• Understand the terms of participation

Autonomy is not isolation. It is the power to choose your dependencies and the freedom to change them.