"Crypto" people need to understand one thing: the real world does not give a shit what your blockchain says. For your crypto-based project to have any effect on the real world, you need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state of the blockchain with the state of the real world... at which point you may just let the trusted party run a good old database.
"Paper" people need to understand one thing: the real world does not give a shit what your paper stack says. For your paper-based project to have any effect on the real world, you need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state of the paper with the state of the real world... at which point you may just let the trusted party rely on a good old stone tablet.
Very much agree. The only cryptocurrency that does not require a trusted third party is Bitcoin - and that is because it uses energy as a link to the real world. All the PoS crap is just various trusted third parties, which the fiat system already has (governments, banks...) and works better and is well regulated and well understood. Zero added value.
Balaji sounds bizarre. The strangeness of the idea that Bitcoin is conservative is eclipsed only by the idea everything is run by the CCP, Crypto, and the NYT. I read Vitalik's take as a soft rebuke while trying to give honest consideration to the concept of a Network State.
However, for me 'Network State' only seems to be a new term for a Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) that provides services typically provided by a government. I would have liked a term that highlights this connection more, perhaps something like Governing Autonomous Organization (GAO). Due apologies to the Government Account Office (also GAO).
I think better than Balaji takes on the concept can be found in the works of two science fiction authors, Neal Stephenson and Charlie Stross.
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash [1] (e.g., Distributed Republics [2]). May be of interest, but Stephenson is building a metaverse that may incorporate some of these concepts, called Laminal [3].
Accelerando [4], by Charlie Stross, takes the concept even further. It has literal distributed autonomous companies acting as shell corporations, executors, and more.
[2] Perry, Richard Warren (2000). "Governmentalities in City-scapes: Introduction to the Symposium". Political and Legal Anthropology Review. 23 (1): 65–72. doi:10.1525/pol.2000.23.1.65. ISSN 1081-6976. JSTOR 24497832.
I agree, I was early in the 1729 community and there were a lot of interesting discussions but it got so muddled by Balaji with both crypto and hatred towards a biased media that I think the idea of network states sort of folded in on itself. Why on earth do you need an on-chain census to try to become a nation state verified by the U.N.? Really, I think this is a perfect example of what happens with a pretty genius mind that gets stuck in an area of expertise and tries to shoehorn everything into that frame of mind.
Just to add to your books, Diamond Age by Stephenson was also good although nation states weren't the main topic but Malka Older's Infomocracy series which talks a lot about microstates and a body like the UN that controls the world's information was a phenomenal read (and pretty quick).
Overall, the book was a major disappointment, same with the community and his investment in Praxis-- the book could have been Sovereign Individual 2.0 with the right editor and more thought into the structure but ended up being a long-form rambling essay with the same examples (keto community!) re-used again and again
It's just some showy twitter influencer dream speak. He has to put forth bold ideas that get likes and rt's. In reality, how many of the local/state/federal laws that are implemented by real people working together in the real world does he depend on to survive? Pure libertarianism never works, things just tribalize and then externalities are pushed on the rest. If you are at the top, things are good, if you are at the bottom things are terrible. In our current system it's like this too, but at least the worst things can get have a floor imposed by our laws.
Plus face to face interactions have so much value. Online interactions are just so transactional and so much of what evolved into our DNA is lost.
I've also never understood what could enforce online contracts in the real world. Like who verifies the NFT is for a house etc.
I used to know a guy that smoked >2g of meth per day that would talk nonstop about shit like this. He lived in a makeshift shed at the bottom of a dry river bed. He’s long dead now but he’d have gotten a kick out of “keto kosher” for sure!
The line between insane and genius is indeed seemingly small.
Reminds me of when I talked with a quantum scientist. Most of what he said, sounded like ramblings from a coke head, but seemingly others around him understood what he said and continued the discussion, so I can only assume they were actually having a real conversation.
If I'd met the guy under different circumstances, I'd definitely wouldn't have believed any of it was actually real.
It took an epic ego combined with a highly selective interpretation of history to write this book. America in particular has a rich history of utopian separatist movements. The internet doesn't bring anything new to the table, apart from the facility to organize from afar, which has certain advantages but also many drawbacks.
I encourage experimentation. Maybe Balaji can get it right where all the others have gotten it wrong. But, I find this book highly unconvincing. Modest, secular federalism has proven itself to me in principal, and I much prefer to fix the problems we have rather than scrap the whole system.
The fundamental foundation of USofA is that it tries to bind together a core minimum values and agreements, along with checks to that power to allow pursuit of the individual and of individual states. This is the result of despair to that, or not recognizing this. But this paper, if I read it correctly, rather then pointing to a shared reality, points to shared perceptions. As if the word of man makes reality. This is always doomed to fail because eventually reality will assert itself.
Seems founded on a totally unmaterialist and unscientific understanding of how societies persist themselves.
This is evident in Balaji’s fixation on the psychology of the individuals involved. E.g., saying intentional communities have failed because they didn’t have a religious devotion to the project, like “Zionism without Judaism”.
Instead he should talk about “Zionism without the British empire and the Holocaust”, both of which were much bigger factors in sustaining the project than the psychology of early zionists. Of course this played a role, but not a determinative one.
Another indicator of the lack of materialist understanding: who is keeping the lights on for these delusional societies? Where does the food come from? Where do the electronics they use come from?
Edit: reading further (against my better judgement…) it’s clear that the whole line of thinking is rooted in a misunderstanding of history and a parochial worldview that can barely see the world outside Twitter.
There’s a lot here that’s entirely unnecessary but I’ve wondered recently if a “network state”-like thing devoted to certain public services might be beneficial. In particular, a large enough group could likely negotiate better rates for health insurance than an individual in the same way a large employer does, and could provide a stronger social safety net (maybe even potentially a UBI?) in the same way some governments do. Doing so would require e.g. countering benefit tourism (you couldn’t have someone join when they’re laid off just for some benefits and leave immediately after they find a new one, you’d never be able to keep it funded that way), but I think that’s surmountable.
In other words, if we don’t believe the government we have right now is likely to provide many essential services, even if we ultimately believe it should, is it possible to organize privately for the same benefits? I think it might be.
The idea that really any state on this planet would recognize such a "state" as independent and would not treat it as a terrorist/criminal organisation is laughable and reeks of the typical tech-bro mindset that I have come to expect of any individual who willingly associates themselves with the crypto-bubble.
Here's something some software engineers need to understand: Most things in society and the world are not technical problems. Just because you can invert a binary tree doesn't mean you understand how society works.
It seems like some people, just because they are smart in one area, think they know everything. We see this with many VCs, Elon Musk, Vitalik etc.
Reading this post, I don't even know where to begin. This sounds like the ramblings of a kid that never had any real friends and community, and never lived in the real world. But maybe we have peaked as a society (at least in the US), and it's all going downhill from here?
The SMOM isn't a network state (it doesn't have pockets of sole sovereign territory spread across the world granted by different states as a result of ground-up political pressure from its members), though it is a sovereign entity that is not a traditional state (specifically, lacking any sole sovereign territory, though it has some diplomatic extraterritorial enclaves and some co-soveriegn territory with Italy.)
I'm going to write the first part of this comment after reading the first paragraph, then I'll revisit when I finish the article: This is going to be a lot of words that eventually concludes with someone not paying their taxes.
Ok, I've read it now (well, 90% of it, I started skimming towards the end). I was being too generous, there really is nothing of value there. It's just bollocks. Honestly, if you put a chart in your book making an argument about some correlation and your r-squared is 0.37 you just don't deserve to be taken seriously. It's a stupid mix of Randian "going galt" and confused inconsistent rubbish. You're going to opt out of FDA regulations. Great, that's the big idea. But with blockchain. You're going to form a decentralized online community to organise a sugar-free community. What about this has anything to do with technology, governance or anything? Your big idea is to start a specialty restaurant. As we all know, there are 3 political organisations, the Chinese communist party, Bitcoin, and the NYT (which runs America). This is just deranged.
I think Vitalik is way too generous to Balaji in this analysis. I still think the only thing that will ever come to fruition branded as a "Network state" will be an attempt to skirt regulations or dodge taxes.
A state is in large part defined by having a monopoly over taxes and a military, neither of which any group within an existing state can ever have. So these network states can at most land somewhere between a political party or an online club. Does Balaji address this?
Network states are online communities that have collective agency (governance of some kind) that eventually try to materialize on land in the physical world. A DAO, could potentially become a network state but it could also in theory emerge from a subreddit or some other online community organized around a specific thing.
Balaji has a particular vision for these network states that sees cryptocurrency as being an integral part of them. It also presupposes that these network states need to have a moral imperative to be long lasting (I.e a strong purpose like a religious community, being against the FDA, dietary etc)
An important point to note is that a network state is not inherently a “right wing” or libertarian idea. In fact Vitalik references another more left leaning author, David de Ugarte, who explores similar ideas from a different perspective in his book Phyles: Economic Democracy in the Twenty First Century.
It’s entirely possible to disagree with many of Balaji’s previous positions and see this as a useful playbook for implementing a network state that aligns with your world views.
A large part of his book seems to be laying out a justification for this vision as well as it’s theoretical underpinnings. I.e why this needs to exist and why this would be better than say moving to an existing city state etc.
Apart from that it’s basically a playbook for how a community could in theory go from lose collection of individuals on discords to a mini city with its own regulations and laws.
Vitalik is sympathetic to much of the book but calls out 4 main issues he has with it:
1)The "founder" thing - why do network states need a recognized founder to be so central?
2)What if network states end up only serving the wealthy?
3)"Exit" alone is not sufficient to stabilize global politics. So if exit is everyone's first choice, what happens?
4)What about global negative externalities more generally?
Of these critiques the ones that resonated with me so far are 2 and 4. I’m only about 25% through his book. In terms of 4, I think this exists today with nation states and hence I think it’s a little unfair to expect this to be addressed in this book.
In terms of 2. I think this book is written for middle class and wealthy people who can easily move cities and or countries. I.e software engineers and scientists.
A big question for me is, assuming network states are a thing that happen and are wide spread. What happens to all the displaced unskilled or semi skilled global poor? What will their likely relationships be with these new network states?
How do millions of people displaced by wars like in Syria or the Ukraine fit into or impact this network state model? People who are forced to exit as opposed to having the luxury of choosing to exit. This seems like a bit of a blind spot if even from just a network state game theory perspective.
In general I’m enjoying this book so far and would recommend people read it if they are interested in subjects like charter cities or DAOs.
I treat it as a thought provoking work that’s not mean spirited in tone like the sovereign individual.
Within my lifetime I expect to see people try and create new charter cities bootstrapped from online communities. I think this book offers a lot of useful advice on how to think about forming these communities.
But Balaji's book isn't really a playbook for how a community could go from loose collection of individuals on discord to a mini city! If it was that, it would be a far more compelling read, instead the first 50% could be summed up as, "institutions bad, crypto will save us all, media is biased, America is just as bad as China, and India is rising." And the back half while more interesting basically rehashes similar examples over and over (keto community) without many tangible details on going from 0 to 1. Could have been far more interesting, talked about things like Sovereign Military order of Malta, Charter Cities, SEZ's, and other interim ways for a network state to come to be but instead was just repeated ramblings and definitions.
The biggest mistake of this idea is the libertarian-leftover concept that such a group needs to become it's own sovereign nation. Libertarians depend on that impossible outcome because of their ultra-hardline anti-tax, anti-police, anti-social-service perspectives.
However, almost all rational groups of thinkers would still happily pay taxes to have access to hospitals, be issued useful passports, to not have to defend their borders with weapons, etc. Further, literally no country, however desperate, is going to be willing to sell off it's sovereignty. We've seen so many libertarian attempts to negotiate that fail.
Instead of network states, they should be seeking network municipalities. Municipalities can control most daily life decisions, even having their own police. There are also many nations that would provide good terms to attract a techno-city.
Realistically speaking: take a multinational corporation, dial up their employee care package (potentially to include all costs of living), and then (???) circumvent all local regulations, declare independence, etc.
Why and how do you do the last parts?
This is libertarian/Trotskyist utopianism with a copious helping of cryptomania.
Multinationals arent "run" for the good of their people and don't seem to have any central value which motivates their being.
And crypto here is simply a tool to enforce whatever rules they have to run their org (in the same sense that no-one can take your btc, but a government can take your fiat if they wanted to).
> Zelensky would of course win a fair one-on-one fight
Why "of course"? Putin does martial arts as a hobby, while Zelensky is a comedic actor. (Zelensky looks tougher on screen, but that's literally his profession.)
Clearly the state media building Putin's image has been effective. If his martial arts ability is anything like the propaganda clips state media shows of his "daily" gym routine - where his form suggests it's the first time he's ever stepped in one - I don't think Zelenskyy has much to worry about.
I took it as an attempt at levity for something that obviously doesn't matter and will never happen, but maybe also because Putin is almost 70 and at a certain point lots of training doesn't help the fact your body is degrading rapidly.
[+] [-] Nextgrid|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ls15|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bloppe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerrre|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|3 years ago|reply
"My program would be so great if I didn't have to do I/O"
I made essentially this comment yesterday on the corncob article, but now realize it's the essence of crypto/dao fandom.
[+] [-] ibz|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conorcleary|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Communitivity|3 years ago|reply
However, for me 'Network State' only seems to be a new term for a Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) that provides services typically provided by a government. I would have liked a term that highlights this connection more, perhaps something like Governing Autonomous Organization (GAO). Due apologies to the Government Account Office (also GAO).
I think better than Balaji takes on the concept can be found in the works of two science fiction authors, Neal Stephenson and Charlie Stross.
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash [1] (e.g., Distributed Republics [2]). May be of interest, but Stephenson is building a metaverse that may incorporate some of these concepts, called Laminal [3].
Accelerando [4], by Charlie Stross, takes the concept even further. It has literal distributed autonomous companies acting as shell corporations, executors, and more.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJCJE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...
[2] Perry, Richard Warren (2000). "Governmentalities in City-scapes: Introduction to the Symposium". Political and Legal Anthropology Review. 23 (1): 65–72. doi:10.1525/pol.2000.23.1.65. ISSN 1081-6976. JSTOR 24497832.
[3] https://decrypt.co/102646/snow-crash-author-neal-stephenson-...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando
[+] [-] atlasunshrugged|3 years ago|reply
Just to add to your books, Diamond Age by Stephenson was also good although nation states weren't the main topic but Malka Older's Infomocracy series which talks a lot about microstates and a body like the UN that controls the world's information was a phenomenal read (and pretty quick).
Overall, the book was a major disappointment, same with the community and his investment in Praxis-- the book could have been Sovereign Individual 2.0 with the right editor and more thought into the structure but ended up being a long-form rambling essay with the same examples (keto community!) re-used again and again
[+] [-] 7373737373|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mkka|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randomopining|3 years ago|reply
Plus face to face interactions have so much value. Online interactions are just so transactional and so much of what evolved into our DNA is lost.
I've also never understood what could enforce online contracts in the real world. Like who verifies the NFT is for a house etc.
[+] [-] gerikson|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] braingenious|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] capableweb|3 years ago|reply
Reminds me of when I talked with a quantum scientist. Most of what he said, sounded like ramblings from a coke head, but seemingly others around him understood what he said and continued the discussion, so I can only assume they were actually having a real conversation.
If I'd met the guy under different circumstances, I'd definitely wouldn't have believed any of it was actually real.
[+] [-] bloppe|3 years ago|reply
I encourage experimentation. Maybe Balaji can get it right where all the others have gotten it wrong. But, I find this book highly unconvincing. Modest, secular federalism has proven itself to me in principal, and I much prefer to fix the problems we have rather than scrap the whole system.
[+] [-] kardianos|3 years ago|reply
I would prefer to articulate and achieve a shared foundation for the future: https://corinth.kardianos.com/latest.pdf
[+] [-] ihm|3 years ago|reply
This is evident in Balaji’s fixation on the psychology of the individuals involved. E.g., saying intentional communities have failed because they didn’t have a religious devotion to the project, like “Zionism without Judaism”.
Instead he should talk about “Zionism without the British empire and the Holocaust”, both of which were much bigger factors in sustaining the project than the psychology of early zionists. Of course this played a role, but not a determinative one.
Another indicator of the lack of materialist understanding: who is keeping the lights on for these delusional societies? Where does the food come from? Where do the electronics they use come from?
Edit: reading further (against my better judgement…) it’s clear that the whole line of thinking is rooted in a misunderstanding of history and a parochial worldview that can barely see the world outside Twitter.
[+] [-] henearkr|3 years ago|reply
I think we should move towards a more integrated Earth, not more partitioning.
[+] [-] ipiz0618|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryukafalz|3 years ago|reply
In other words, if we don’t believe the government we have right now is likely to provide many essential services, even if we ultimately believe it should, is it possible to organize privately for the same benefits? I think it might be.
[+] [-] hjanssen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] shafyy|3 years ago|reply
It seems like some people, just because they are smart in one area, think they know everything. We see this with many VCs, Elon Musk, Vitalik etc.
Reading this post, I don't even know where to begin. This sounds like the ramblings of a kid that never had any real friends and community, and never lived in the real world. But maybe we have peaked as a society (at least in the US), and it's all going downhill from here?
[+] [-] jshaqaw|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0llusk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zajio1am|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SilverBirch|3 years ago|reply
Ok, I've read it now (well, 90% of it, I started skimming towards the end). I was being too generous, there really is nothing of value there. It's just bollocks. Honestly, if you put a chart in your book making an argument about some correlation and your r-squared is 0.37 you just don't deserve to be taken seriously. It's a stupid mix of Randian "going galt" and confused inconsistent rubbish. You're going to opt out of FDA regulations. Great, that's the big idea. But with blockchain. You're going to form a decentralized online community to organise a sugar-free community. What about this has anything to do with technology, governance or anything? Your big idea is to start a specialty restaurant. As we all know, there are 3 political organisations, the Chinese communist party, Bitcoin, and the NYT (which runs America). This is just deranged.
I think Vitalik is way too generous to Balaji in this analysis. I still think the only thing that will ever come to fruition branded as a "Network state" will be an attempt to skirt regulations or dodge taxes.
[+] [-] siavosh|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] htormey|3 years ago|reply
Balaji has a particular vision for these network states that sees cryptocurrency as being an integral part of them. It also presupposes that these network states need to have a moral imperative to be long lasting (I.e a strong purpose like a religious community, being against the FDA, dietary etc)
An important point to note is that a network state is not inherently a “right wing” or libertarian idea. In fact Vitalik references another more left leaning author, David de Ugarte, who explores similar ideas from a different perspective in his book Phyles: Economic Democracy in the Twenty First Century.
It’s entirely possible to disagree with many of Balaji’s previous positions and see this as a useful playbook for implementing a network state that aligns with your world views.
A large part of his book seems to be laying out a justification for this vision as well as it’s theoretical underpinnings. I.e why this needs to exist and why this would be better than say moving to an existing city state etc.
Apart from that it’s basically a playbook for how a community could in theory go from lose collection of individuals on discords to a mini city with its own regulations and laws.
Vitalik is sympathetic to much of the book but calls out 4 main issues he has with it:
1)The "founder" thing - why do network states need a recognized founder to be so central?
2)What if network states end up only serving the wealthy?
3)"Exit" alone is not sufficient to stabilize global politics. So if exit is everyone's first choice, what happens?
4)What about global negative externalities more generally?
Of these critiques the ones that resonated with me so far are 2 and 4. I’m only about 25% through his book. In terms of 4, I think this exists today with nation states and hence I think it’s a little unfair to expect this to be addressed in this book.
In terms of 2. I think this book is written for middle class and wealthy people who can easily move cities and or countries. I.e software engineers and scientists.
A big question for me is, assuming network states are a thing that happen and are wide spread. What happens to all the displaced unskilled or semi skilled global poor? What will their likely relationships be with these new network states?
How do millions of people displaced by wars like in Syria or the Ukraine fit into or impact this network state model? People who are forced to exit as opposed to having the luxury of choosing to exit. This seems like a bit of a blind spot if even from just a network state game theory perspective.
In general I’m enjoying this book so far and would recommend people read it if they are interested in subjects like charter cities or DAOs.
I treat it as a thought provoking work that’s not mean spirited in tone like the sovereign individual.
Within my lifetime I expect to see people try and create new charter cities bootstrapped from online communities. I think this book offers a lot of useful advice on how to think about forming these communities.
[+] [-] atlasunshrugged|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elif|3 years ago|reply
However, almost all rational groups of thinkers would still happily pay taxes to have access to hospitals, be issued useful passports, to not have to defend their borders with weapons, etc. Further, literally no country, however desperate, is going to be willing to sell off it's sovereignty. We've seen so many libertarian attempts to negotiate that fail.
Instead of network states, they should be seeking network municipalities. Municipalities can control most daily life decisions, even having their own police. There are also many nations that would provide good terms to attract a techno-city.
[+] [-] annoyingnoob|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pphysch|3 years ago|reply
Why and how do you do the last parts?
This is libertarian/Trotskyist utopianism with a copious helping of cryptomania.
[+] [-] kreetx|3 years ago|reply
And crypto here is simply a tool to enforce whatever rules they have to run their org (in the same sense that no-one can take your btc, but a government can take your fiat if they wanted to).
[+] [-] otabdeveloper4|3 years ago|reply
Why "of course"? Putin does martial arts as a hobby, while Zelensky is a comedic actor. (Zelensky looks tougher on screen, but that's literally his profession.)
[+] [-] system16|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atlasunshrugged|3 years ago|reply