omniharmonicTechnological Sovereignty
Technological sovereignty is the capacity of a community or society to understand, govern, and shape the technological systems upon which it depends. It goes beyond merely using technology to encompass the ability to choose, modify, build, and refuse technologies based on community values and needs rather than market forces or imperial interests.
The absence of technological sovereignty is one of the defining features of the current crisis. Communities depend on digital infrastructure controlled by a handful of corporations whose interests are structurally misaligned with community well-being. Social media platforms optimize for addiction. Cloud services create dependency. Algorithmic systems make consequential decisions without accountability. Surveillance infrastructure erodes the conditions for democratic life. Without the capacity to govern these systems, communities are subjects of technological power rather than agents of technological choice.
Achieving technological sovereignty requires action at multiple levels: building open-source alternatives and community-governed digital infrastructure (ethereum-localism); enabling non-technical community members to create their own tools (vibe-coding); deploying privacy-preserving technologies like zero-knowledge-proofs and self-sovereign-identity that prevent surveillance capture; and developing the cultural and educational capacity to make informed collective decisions about technology adoption. Technological sovereignty is the digital dimension of cosmolocalism — it ensures that while knowledge and protocols circulate globally, the power to govern technological systems remains with the communities they serve.