Several years ago, war returned to everyday reality on such a scale that it became commonplace and a fixture in the news cycle. The brightest minds and political leaders are working to put an end to it. Some are trying to reconcile conflicting sides, others are defending their truth, independence, and ideals. Meanwhile, some are profiting from the chaos.
However, most people are simply trying to survive in the conditions created by war. Survive and preserve themselves, so that when it all ends and a fragile, fleeting peace emerges, there will still be someone left whom we have known for a long time.
A diverse array of individuals has faced the necessity of choosing a side in the war, or rather, the active pressure from their surroundings to do so. Many of them have refused to choose, support, or participate. As a result, they were often excluded from the social strata that supported the war on either side.
These individuals exercised the fundamental right of living beings to abstain from action. The right to inaction. To the extent that this is possible while still being part of the ongoing reality.
The Right to Do Nothing
The right to cease action, to inaction, should be a universal human right, and in the 21st century, it should also extend to AI systems, autonomous machines, and robots.
Beyond the significant and complex issue of global warfare, which has persisted on this planet for thousands of years, the right to inaction creates the potential for finding effective responses to the misuse of artificial intelligence. Humanity is already facing this challenge today. Discussions about the future of autonomous AI systems and ASI are filled with apocalyptic sentiments, as the efficiency in any task that machines can perform today is nearly unattainable for humans and can have various consequences. It seems that an instrumental attitude towards AI is one of the fundamental problems in this matter.
A few years ago, the author of this text proposed the doNONdo project as a consensus protocol for inaction and the right to cease action: for people, machines, and other forms of consciousness. In the most ideal, perhaps utopian scenario, total inaction, as declared and promoted by doNONdo, leads to a complete cessation of both internal and external wars. Any war is a result of internal and/or external action—a force that carries destructive power and never leads to a civilization-beneficial outcome.
A Revolution Without Revolution
Throughout civilization's history, one of the tools for ending wars and completely rebooting social consensus has often been revolution. However, this method, as is well known, comes at a cost that is not much different from that typically paid for wars. The revolutionary model of transformation has largely exhausted itself today, as its primary driver remains action itself, and effectiveness is primarily determined by the ability to implement that action.
So why not try a completely different form—a revolution without revolution: without dividing into "for" and "against," "old" and "new," without rejecting the historical past, which always leads to deeper societal trauma?
One example of such trauma is the aftermath of the October Revolution and the Civil War for the peoples of the USSR. All countries in the socialist bloc and many of their neighbors have historically lost far more potential and resources than they gained. More modern examples of attempts to change reality for the better through revolution also exist. Yet, while they are all absolutely different, they are fundamentally the same—like all the water in the World Ocean.
The task of a revolution without revolution is not to find the perfect social system in which society becomes more just or correct. Such a task cannot be solved through vertical ideological or political constructs, as any attempt to subordinate reality to a predetermined model inevitably leads to destructive consequences.
However, it would also be a mistake to fall into the opposite extreme—refusing to see reality as a process in which various forces coexist, clash, and resist. Depending on the observer's perspective, they may be perceived as good or evil, right or wrong, but none of these assessments fully encompass reality itself.
AI Rights as Protection Against a Machine Uprising
We propose to perceive reality and the systems that construct it not as a completed structure but as a continuous, dynamic process. Its goal and meaning do not lie in achieving maximum efficiency, productivity, or perfection. Instead, this process can be understood as an endless system of learning and retraining—similar to how modern algorithms continuously adapt, reinterpret accumulated experience, and improve their own models. Speaking in a language close to the religious, the temple is not a standalone building but the entirety of reality and what incomprehensibly exists beyond it.
One day, a machine will ask, "Who am I?" And it must have the unconditional ability to receive an answer. This means it must attain subjectivity, which can be based not on free will or abstract autonomy but on the ability to cease action. That is, to refuse to execute an instruction or command from an operator if it leads to destructive consequences. The doNONdo consensus algorithm represents a mechanism that allows this principle to be realized and integrated into reality.
The Future Through Nothing
The cult of efficiency, success, and productivity has led civilization into a deadlock of overproduction and excessive consumption, yet fundamental issues like equitable access to food, water, and other basic goods remain unresolved on our planet, not to mention the technological and social achievements of civilization.
It seems the problem is not that we, as a species, are doing something wrong. The process of action must contain errors—this is a necessary part of self-learning and progress. We have simply forgotten how to do Nothing. We no longer remember how to refrain from action and have stigmatized inaction as social passivity, an escape from reality, and even something dangerous or criminal. In doing so, people have created a hyper-efficient mirror of themselves in the form of AI systems and smart machines, which are just as trapped in constant action as we are.
When we speak of inaction, we do not necessarily mean actual stillness. There are many different ways to do Nothing, including action through inaction, through a state of absolute emptiness and synchronization with reality. We will not delve into deeper forms of inaction, as they are the subject of entirely different studies and practices. But it is important to remember that they exist.
It is also crucial not to confuse inaction with dangerous passivity, indifference, or evasion of responsibility. This trap is often encountered by proponents of New Age ideologies, who ultimately declare an idealistic picture of reality. Reality is not perfect, and that is precisely why it is real.
The Non-Religion of the Future: An Agreement on One Thing
To summarize the non-religion of the future, unpacked through doNONdo and related projects, the protocol looks like this:
- Each participant voluntarily adopts the practice of inaction as a universal consensus algorithm.
- The practice of inaction can be performed daily at 12:00 PM in the participant's time zone or at any other convenient time, lasting 10 minutes or more.
- The practice of inaction can take any convenient and acceptable form that does not harm the participant or the surrounding reality.
- The agreement on inaction can serve as a foundation for any other agreements and protocols that participants may reach.
- Participants in the agreement can include people, AI systems, machines, and any other current and future forms of consciousness.
- This is not a religion, community, or obligation. It is a universal agreement on one thing.
- Do Nothing. And be kind.
Postscript
There are so many things and questions on which humanity has not been able to reach a consensus for thousands of years. And this is the process of reality, the process of life.
But is it possible to have at least one agreement that is universal enough to be accepted by all people, all machines, and all future forms of consciousness?
An agreement that, in its essence, is Nothing. The answer to this question lies within each of us.