Liberatory
Intelligence
Laboratories
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Venture Lab
meets Studio
Liberatory Intelligence Laboratories, Co. (LIL Co.) exists to design, build, and steward systems that preserve human agency and resist the structural reproduction of domination through infrastructure.
As the founding practioners of Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID), an emerging discipline that integrates critical theory, systems thinking, political economy, and applied design practice, our work is grounded in principles of agency, legitimacy, and durability.
We operate in a hybrid structure: a Venture Laboratory which develops, validates, and deploys post-imperial system interventions, and a Venture Studio that originates and co-founds equity-aligned ventures where governance, ownership, and legitimacy are in scope from the start, which allows us to sustain deep technical practice through real builds while still pursuing long-horizon, equity-aligned system design.
Post-Imperial Systems
Intervention & Design
/ The discipline
Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID) is an emerging interdisciplinary discipline concerned with the design, intervention, governance, and stewardship of socio-technical systems after and against imperial and techno-imperial domination.
PSID responds to a core failure of modern systems: their inability to preserve human agency, legitimacy, and collective self-determination under conditions of scale, capital pressure, and institutional power.
Rather than reforming imperial systems, PSID focuses on intervention and reconstruction: examining existing systems, diagnosing embedded power, and redesigning or replacing the structures that reproduce domination with autonomous ones.
PSID integrates critical theory, systems thinking, political economy, and applied design practice to produce durable counter-infrastructure, not symbolic resistance.
Core Principles
Agency
Systems must preserve the capacity of individuals and collectives to act, decide, and exit without coercion.
Legitimacy
Authority must be grounded in real consent, not manufactured compliance or structural dependency.
Consent
Participation must be voluntary, informed, and revocable. Systems should never lock users into dependency.
Durability
Systems must be designed to sustain their core values under pressure, scale, and adversarial conditions.
Venture Laboratory
/ How we work
The Venture Laboratory is where Applied Liberatory Intelligence (ALI) is applied, tested, and sustained through real builds.
The Lab supports both internal initiatives and commissioned work for aligned partners, allowing LIL Co. to maintain deep technical practice without collapsing the Venture Studio into a consultancy.
Lab work may be contract-based, time-bounded, or exploratory.
Across both internal initiatives and commissioned work, the Lab operates across four core domains of practice:
- Product & Systems Development
- Creative & Design Engineering
- Visual & Experience Design
- Governance & Incentive Design
Lab Engagement Modes
Internal Lab Initiatives
Discipline-driven products, tools, and systems developed to advance and inform the evolution of the discipline itself.
Applied Research & Prototyping
Short-term, exploratory engagements to test feasibility, architecture, or governance models prior to deeper commitment.
Commissioned Builds
Selective and discipline-aligned product, toosl, or systems work for aligned organizations where governance-aware design is required, but equity partnership is not appropriate.
Forward-deployed systems intervention
Embedded, time-bounded deployments of discipline-aligned practitioners into partner organizations to intervene in live systems and support real-time redesign.
Venture Studio
/ How we intervene
The Venture Studio is LIL Co.'s venture formation arm, carrying systems built in the Product + Systems Lab into the world.
We partner selectively on long-horizon, equity-aligned ventures where Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID) can shape the system at a foundational level, governance, incentives, architecture, and ownership included.
This is not client work. It is co-creation.
Our studio engagements are reserved for ventures where success depends not only on execution, but on how power, coordination, and legitimacy are structured from the start. We work alongside founders and institutions to originate, co-found, or fundamentally reconstruct systems that must hold under political, economic, and social pressure.
Venture Studio Engagements
The Studio intervenes at the level of system formation, including:
- Venture origination and co-founding
- Platform and protocol conception
- Governance and incentive architecture
- Technical and organizational co-design
- Institutional and ecosystem formation
These engagements are discipline-led, not market-driven. Not all opportunities qualify.
Engagement Characteristics
- Equity-based or equity-first structures
- Long-term collaboration
- Deep architectural influence
- Governance and ownership in scope
- High alignment threshold
The Venture Studio exists to ensure that systems with outsized impact are designed to preserve human agency, enable legitimate coordination, and resist coercive and extractive dynamics before those dynamics become irreversible.
Work
/ What we're building
Venture Laboratory
/ Repos & tools
LIL OS²
Open-Source Operating System for AI-Assisted Software Development
ALIAS
An ALI Auditing System for PSID-aligned socio-technical system assessment
Venture Studio
/ Products & Systems
TOMS
Talent Operations Management System for the full talent lifecycle from application to payroll
A spatial thinking environment for knowledge work
UPND
Universal Protocol for truth, identity, and digital dignity
CRVCT
A bias-free on-chain Tech & Venture Ecosystem for outliers
Co-Founding
ALAO
A digital asset and estate planning platform for creators
MIMIYA
A health & wellness maintanence tool designed for postpartum brain
Team
/ People & Partners
M.J. Zilla
/ Founder + Chief Architect
M.J. Zilla is the founder of Liberatory Intelligence Laboratories, Co., a founding practitioner of Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID), and the originator of Applied Liberatory Intelligence (ALI).
With over 15 years of experience across advertising design, product design engineering, and socio-technical coordination, M.J.'s work at LIL Co. centers Liberatory Reconstruction: the practice of intervening in how platforms, protocols, and institutional systems reproduce domination at scale, and deliberately redesigning them to preserve human agency, protect civil liberties, and enable collective self-determination.
As Chief Architect, M.J. is responsible for maintaining canonical integrity across PSID and ALI, guiding methodological evolution, and overseeing the design of technologies, protocols, and systems developed across both studio partnerships and internal lab initiatives.
MoCADA
/ Strategic Partner + Fiscal Sponsor
In partnership with The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), a trusted and community-anchored institution in Central Brooklyn, Liberatory Intelligence Laboratories, Co. develops tools, publications, and programs that translate liberatory theory into applied infrastructure.
Together, this partnership supports applied research, public-facing publications, workshops, and AI-enabled workforce pathways for low-income and underrepresented communities. The work directly addresses systemic barriers to economic mobility by establishing a community-rooted pipeline into the technology sector grounded in education, accountability, and long-term institutional trust.
Join LIL Co.
/ A Pathway to Liberatory Reconstruction
We are always looking to grow the Liberatory Intelligentsia: a values-aligned collective of creative, strategic and technical talent seeking to become credentialed practitioners of Post-Imperial Systems Intervention & Design (PSID), Applied Liberatory Intelligence (ALI), and the practice of Liberatory Reconstruction.
If you're motivated by work that intervenes in real systems, and you bring craft, rigor, or technical fluency as a designer, developer, researcher, strategist, or collaborator, we'd love to hear from you.
NOTE: Advancement within the Liberatory Intelligentsia is earned through demonstrated alignment, contribution, and disciplined application of PSID and ALI over time.
Technical Roles
Full-stack developers, systems architects, DevOps engineers, and security specialists
Creative Roles
Product designers, UX researchers, visual designers, and design strategists
Systems Roles
Product managers, researchers, community builders, and operations specialists
Let's
Connect
/ Get in touch
hello@lilco.io
New York, NY