TAO Talks: Redesigning Society with Cooperative Frameworks (Jon Sundell)
What happens when a Finnish screenwriter experiences the 2008 financial collapse in the USA and decides to redesign society using evolutionary biology, game theory, and systems thinking?
What happens when a Finnish screenwriter experiences the 2008 financial collapse in the USA and decides to redesign society using evolutionary biology, game theory, and systems thinking?
You get Coexist: Evolution of Freedom, the first book in a visionary trilogy by Jon Sundell, and the star of this week’s TAO Talk.
Jon is a Finnish civic innovator, systems thinker, and recovering screenwriter who’s out to redesign society like it’s a broken IKEA bookshelf. His book Coexist: Evolution of Freedom lays out a bold (and surprisingly readable) framework for how humanity can compete by cooperating, using evolutionary science, game theory, and solid common sense.
We get into everything from why universal basic income doesn’t have to be dystopian, to how reputation systems can keep things fair without turning us into Black Mirror extras. John explains why small groups are the secret sauce of human collaboration, why current institutions are holding us back, and how technology might finally make participatory democracy actually work.
TAO (our soon-to-launch, community-owned social platform) is the perfect testbed for these ideas. Because what if governance didn’t suck? What if money flowed like sunlight? And what if your team actually got rewarded for doing the right thing?
Tune in for a heady but down-to-earth conversation about the future of society, and why the revolution might look more like an evolution.
Below are the highlights from our conversation, served fresh and nerdy.
Table of Contents:
🔁 Competitive Cooperation: It’s Giving Capitalism-But-Make-It-Fair
John proposes a system where we compete in our ability to cooperate. Imagine a world where doing something good for your community also benefits you personally—kind of like sales commissions, but for being a decent human.
It’s a hybrid of capitalism and socialism that could make both camps weirdly happy.
“Every time we benefit the community, we prosper ourselves.”
🧩 Co-ops? Kinda. But Make Them Smarter.
He alludes to worker-owned co-ops but says they’re not a magic fix. It’s all about incentive structures, and those only work if designed with surgical precision.
His proposed system rewards people hourly with “work shares” but allows different hourly rates (yes, the star player gets more), and leans on the power of small, tight-knit groups to self-regulate and sniff out freeloaders.
🧬 Multicellular Society: Think Evolution, but for Governance
John draws from evolutionary science to argue that the most effective social structure is the small group…like hunter-gatherers or soccer teams. These “cells” compete like multicellular organisms, creating a society that’s resilient, adaptive, and impossible to game at scale.
Large institutions? Too easy to hide in. Small groups? Everyone sees your B.S.
💬 Reputation Scores Without Black Mirror Vibes
Yes, reputation is a central pillar of his model. No, it’s not a creepy social credit score.
Instead of rating people, his system rates groups. You get social capital by participating in trustworthy collectives, not by turning into a clout-chasing individual scoring points on strangers.
🗳️ Liquid Democracy: Finally, a Way to Fire Your Rep
John champions delegative democracy, aka liquid democracy. You vote when you care, delegate when you don’t. Your vote isn’t stuck forever. Revoke it anytime.
Perfect for platforms like TAO, where communities can assign decision-makers based on trust and expertise, not status. Radical transparency meets flexible trust.
🌍 We’re in a Major Evolutionary Transition. For Real.
You’ve heard of biological evolution, but what about cultural evolution? John says we’re in the middle of one right now. Just like the leap from spoken to written language, digitalization is reshaping how we cooperate across the planet.
The infrastructure is here. What we need are the rules for how to play and thrive in a new system.
💰 Universal Basic Income (but Not Like That!)
Yes, UBI is a cornerstone of his model. No, it’s not a dystopian WEF handout.
In John's system, UBI isn’t a government pacifier. It’s a tool of economic democracy, part of a broader redesign that gives everyone equal access to money, votes, and reputational influence. He likens money to sunlight: vital, renewable, and distributed freely.
“Money should have the same function in the economy as sunlight has in an ecosystem.”
🎬 From Hollywood to Holarchy
Coexist is just the beginning. The sequel (Monopoly) dissects how power got hoarded through monopolies. The third book will tie it all together. But we’ll have to wait for the final boss fight of systemic dysfunction ;p
Before he was a civic innovator, John was a screenwriter. Turns out writing human drama gave him the perfect lens to design incentive systems at scale.
“Screenwriting is about motivation. Once I understood that, I saw it could apply to all of society.”
🚘 You Don’t Need to Build the Car. Just Drive It.
His parting metaphor: not everyone needs to read the philosophical manual…just give them a functional system, like a car, and let them experience the benefits directly.
But if you DO want to read it:
Website: https://coexist.fi/
And find more of him at:
You can even listen for free on his Patreon.
About Jon Sundell
Jon Sundell is a Finland-based civic innovator, systems thinker, and author of COEXIST: Evolution of Freedom, a visionary book that reimagines how we might redesign society using insights from evolutionary biology, game theory, and systems thinking.
A former screenwriter turned civic architect, Jon brings a rare narrative sensibility to the world of institutional design. His work centers on creating scalable governance models and incentive systems that optimize human well-being, promote cooperative behavior, and align with the carrying capacity of the planet.
Rather than getting stuck in outdated left-versus-right frameworks, Jon champions a pragmatic, science-driven approach to social systems. He recently joined Finland’s Green Party with the goal of incorporating the ideas from COEXIST into its political platform—seeking to bridge cutting-edge theory with real-world policy.
At its core, COEXIST offers a blueprint for a new kind of civic infrastructure: one where reputation systems reward contribution without dystopian vibes, small groups serve as the building blocks of collective intelligence, and participatory governance is powered by technology but grounded in timeless human values.
Through his writing and collaborations with initiatives like TAO Social, Jon is helping usher in a new era of cultural evolution—one where we don’t just adapt to change, but consciously design for a thriving future.