The first two chapters in part 3 have looked backward at how SSI has roots in open source technology, cryptography, and the cypherpunk movement. In this chapter, we look forward at one of the key potential implications for SSI: that it may make a significant contribution to world peace. Our guide in this chapter, Markus Sabadello, is deeply qualified to write about this subject in two respects. First, he is one of the foremost technical experts on the subject— co-editor of the W3C DID Core Specification (and co-author of chapter 8 of this book), co-chair of the Identifiers & Discovery Working Group at the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF), and a founding member of the Technical Governance Board at the Sovrin Foundation. At the same time, Markus is a graduate of the European Peace University, where he has an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies.
In our efforts to implement decentralized identity technologies, we are trying to build better tools for individuals and organizations, and many of us also aspire to create something beneficial to humanity as a whole. In this chapter, we specifically explore how the self-sovereign identity (SSI) paradigm can serve the ideal of peace, which we understand not only in the sense of negative peace (the absence of physical violence) but also as positive peace (a state in which all people are content and their needs are served).