One of the problems that I *believe* we face is that to have political power, in any given region, is the number of people who join us. While 50,000 people wouldn't be so hard to attain, they would have to be VOTING CITIZENS of that particular country/jurisdiction. History has shown that while large numbers are valuable, if they can't vote to elect a particular politician into office and keep that politician in office/power, then what use are these people to that politician? Politicians, historically, trade their ability to represent a given demographic with that demographic's ability to keep them in office; otherwise, that population has no use to that politician.
Not yet. Speaking to the ppl there about helping with a first energy project. I will say the political leadership team is quite committed - tireless even - and I believe something will come out of it.
The general solution you propose has been, in one form or another, implemented many times. As far back as we have historical records we have records of groups which:
* are outside the entrenched power structure
* have shared interests
* discover their interests can better be protected by pooling resources
* evolve a control structure which allows leverage of the the pooled resources
Their stories are many and varied, as are their levels of success. Some went on to become the entrenched power. Some were quickly crushed and disbanded. Many, maybe most, found some success early only to be be eroded from the inside.
I've been following DAOs for a long time. Like you and the ideas you reference, I see that the technologies of blockchain and ubiquitous internet give us an opportunity to create influential structures untethered to geography and difficult to control by the self-delineating autonomy of nation states (where the real power still resides). The potential is awesome, but the visionaries see only why they will succeed and never why they will fail.
You mentioned, almost in passing, that there would "dedicated account" and "community leaders". Yes these are necessary. You mentioned transparency and governance, again required elements. But this is where all the visionaries have stopped, and never, I mean n-e-v-e-r, actually solved the real problem.
There is an assumption among all crypto/DAO proponents that all you need is democratization and transparency and the governance will sort itself out. This is like a religious belief in that it is, in their minds, the final answer, and that no amount of actual evidence from the real world will sway their belief.
As soon as you create common resources, influence, and roles with authority, you create an irresistible conflict of interest which will either corrupt the role holder(s) or attract ruthless people to assume those roles. Once there is enough power and influence in the roles, the roles themselves will resist any further bounding. This means that if you don't solve the conflict of interest problem prior to anyone assuming a leadership role, you've sown the seeds of the groups demise.
I think your ideas are fantastic, and I don't see them limited to digital nomads, though your reasons why digital nomads are a great candidate are valid. What I don't see is a solution to the age-old problem of how we pool resources and influence without putting someone into a position which where their personal interest is not aligned with the groups interest.
In fact, this problem will be solved by an important feature of the new world that is emerging: mobility.
It will be taken into account from the outset in the design of network states, so that it will be considered obvious from the start that citizens of network states will leave if the quality/price ratio of the services provided is poor.
This is what will align the incentives of leaders with those of citizens—network states will function as private governance service providers.
They will have to be managed like companies that provide services to their customers. If the leaders of a network state start to look after their own interests and reduce the quality/price ratio, other network states will fight to attract their customers and offer them a better service.
This new social contract is already in place in Dubai, Singapore, and Prospera, and is working very well.
Very interesting take. I need to think more about this, but is it a problem if this structure doesn't solve this particular problem ? There are many other problems it can solve.
Sure but it's self limiting. Less power means easy to fend off corruption using standard governance techniques, but less the organization can do for its members.
Conversely, more power means more benefit to the members but only if the members' interests remains the focus of the representatives.
I'm a member of TrustedHouseSitters, through which I get a great deal of value but in a very narrow domain, and one in which there is little to no value in trying to influence the governance. The organization itself is messy for profit company and almost worthless, other than maintaining the website. But that relationship is sustainable - as long as the website works I'll keep paying my annual fee, as long as maintaining the website costs less than the aggregate annual fees TrustedHouseSitters will keep doing it.
If TrustedHouseSitters ever tries to be anything else, like negotiating favorable rates for something, or changing some country's visa policies, they will change and complicate their value proposition, necessarily expending resources on the new direction and putting the original stable relationship at great risk.
If we pick a specific problem and see a way to reach the sufferers with a solution, we could create a stable organization. But that's probably best done by existing companies or entrepreneurs. To create a community with clout, and I'm with you that it can and should be done, we have to start with the governance first, then solve the other problems after that.
P.S. I think healthcare is the killer app of a distributed community. It's need is universal as is the availability of healthcare resources. It could get a community off the ground by itself, but (I've been in healthcare for 30 years) healthcare is complicated. If only we had some new technology which models complex terrain and can produce agents for answering questions and solving problems :-).
Simplistic nonsense. Digital nomads have almost no financial clout, are generally asset poor and represent a skewed demographic. Whilst a workspace hub club might seem attractive and have some merit, it all comes down to visas and tax and even very poor countries are much more interested in retirees than nomads. Who is going to put the person who steals your macbook in jail or provide your social security when you can't work through illness? Insurers aren't really interested in that sort of thing for such a tiny market. The Balinese, Thais and Mexicans want your rent and your business, but when the cash flow stops, they want you gone. I've been a nomad of sorts for around 15 years, and whilst it can be a great lifestyle, it doesn't confer super powers on what is a small, largely irrelevant, niche economic group.
Oliver, Let's say that you are right and Digital Nomads are estimated to be 40 million. The problem here is that the world has 8.2 billion people. That would make us 0.005 % of the world's population. That is not a large voting bloc.
Let's also assume that you are right about having an income of $120,000.00 (USD) each. That would make our combined income roughly 4.8 trillion dollars.
Now, if all of that spending power was located in one place, say.... Malaysia, we MIGHT stand a chance of having some impact, but as a group, we are spread throughout the world, so that dilutes our purchasing power & our ability to impact political power to get representation.
Also, keep this in mind, generally speaking, we are not citizens of the countries we reside. Therefore, we have no voting power. For a politician to want to represent us, we would have to have the ability to keep such a politician in office through our vote. And, again, as a group, we currently can't do that.
This is an incredibly insightful and well thought out vision! But I can't help but wonder if the global elite would ever allow this to happen. Seems to me it doesn't serve their purposes of keeping us isolated, distracted and sick. It would need to serve their purposes or there would need to be a major disruption to the balance of power.
"9th principle to be learned from history (and which also applies to the example of the Catholic Church shared above): when an established power is disrupted, it does not surrender without a fight, even if the outcome of the battle is set by external conditions over which it has no power."
For the possibility that the global elite would try to prevent this, see the 4th principle : "States that win temporarily by succeeding in banning or stifling a technology lose in the long term because they do not benefit from the fruits of that technology, to the extent that centuries later, the consequences of the accumulated backwardness are still visible."
As someone who's spent a long time thinking about political institutions and remains deeply skeptical of BS and his what, why, and how for the Network State...this post made me soften my perspectives on a few things.
I appreciate that you start out with a description that amounts to organizing people to take collective action to secure better terms from corporations (and possibly even governments). That's a different presentation of the idea than the typical "failure mode for western civilization" rhetoric that often gets deployed. Actually, if you read Yoni Applebaum's book, Stuck, he makes reference to a whole ecosystem of community groups (Rotary, trade unions, etc) which used to be in every major metro in the U.S. and that people relied on as they'd relocate to wherever happened to be booming economically at the time.
Again, I think the thing you're doing here that's interesting is articulating specific use cases (health insurance, affordable lodging, right of entry) that are real and tangible in a way that's often missing in these conversations.
I'm struggling to understand the logic behind this idea. I'm assuming that a 'network state' aims to provide the benefits of a nation-state (land, healthcare, services), without the traditional land borders and national identity that comes with traditional nation-states. However, I also don't see how network states could be much more than just networks of people with a shared profession. For example, digital nomads only really share the identity/values of global nomadism, which presumably means having little attachment to 'place', or a physical community, and a shared (high income) profession. I don't think that digital communication, a shared sense of 'belonging to nowhere', and buying into a network (paid membership), provides a stable enough foundation for community-building in the same way as physical communities rooted in a sense of 'place' (with shared hardships and obligations).
Also, I really believe that in countries where these 'network states' would be established, local people will be alienated and angered. I don't think that local communities would be partial to rich Westerners paying governments and piggybacking onto local services, buying up land and housing (and driving up prices) and establishing 'special economic zones with tax benefits'. Digital nomads have no real stake in the surrounding communities, and the ability to pack up and leave if things get tough. Honestly, the whole idea starts to look a bit like entitlement and 'tech bro' utopian fantasies.
Hey Faye, thank you for your comprehensive comment and thoughts.
The first concept to grasp is that the very notion of a nation and the feeling of belonging to one is among the many things disrupted in the age of the internet and globalization. I've written an extensive article on this topic, which you can see here : https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/how-the-internet-is-eroding-nationalism.
Today, we can observe that many people feel closer to members of their online community than to their own neighbors. Moreover, a United Nations study indicates that the more frequently someone uses the internet, the less they feel a sense of national belonging, and the more they consider themselves global citizens. You can view the reference in article linked above.
Given these factors, it's not a significant leap to extrapolate current trends and realize that the idea of primarily belonging to a nation—historically strongly linked to a territory, although also tied to a common culture—is becoming less important.
From this point, it isn't difficult to imagine the emergence of network states.
The foundational concept behind network states begins with a patchwork of territories distributed globally, patches as small as an apartment or a building. Such small-scale beginnings are unlikely to provoke locals.
Even if they do, it will simply encourage this emerging global community of millions to migrate to more welcoming locations, possibly poorer countries that may better embrace digital nomads and their network states, due to the significant economic prosperity these communities will bring with them.
Made this to force myself to understand it - still have reservations about Balaji’s version but imo I think we should knick the concept and make it for everyone. We may need to have one that works sooner rather than later https://youtu.be/BEIHwGBBbok
This article a great thought experiment that, to me, implicitly calls into question the imagined communities (see Benedict Anderson's famous book by that title) we call nation-states. What's more real, a nation-state or a community formed by digital nomads? My daughter helped to start an online community that led to a small, physical community of a few friends. What would it be like to scale that?
4. I think my main doubt comes from the inherent competition that may arise between traditional states and network states: in other words, if we would build a network state (not that I would be eligible by any means), why duplicate existing structures instead of envisioning the next stage in human society?
A major idea behind Network States, and other alternative forms of governance such as Free Cities, is to create an environment in which many forms of governance can be tested to discover what is the best next stage in human society.
Here's an excerpt from my book about this :
"The idea is to eventually have :
- dozens or hundreds of free cities and network states around the world
- Each of which would allow a different social and economic model to be tested, without the need for a revolution, and without having to subject those who disagree to the “tyranny of the majority” (or minority),
o because they would all be populated on a voluntary basis.
o Would you like to set up a Marxism 2.0? A libertarian city/network-state? A deeply pious city/NS that follows the teachings of your religion's holy book to the letter? A city/NS, on the contrary, that rejects all religion and focuses on a spiritual life based on science? Do yourself a favor, put it together, test your ideas against the reality on the ground, and see if you can make your project into a viable city.
- This creates a friendly competition in which dozens or hundreds of different social and economic models can be rapidly tested in the field, encouraging a Darwinian selection process that will naturally lead to the emergence, at a speed unprecedented in human history, of successful models from which other societies can draw inspiration.
This proposal is already extremely innovative: it puts an end to revolutions, and to out-of-breath systems that are well past their sell-by date. Instead, we're creating an ecosystem that encourages everyone to set up a concrete experiment to validate that their ideal societal model works, or to join the free city that proposes the model closest to their ideal."
3. You are moving from nomad statehood to a digital community and now to an online syndicate. I like the testing of various ideas, even if they somewhat contradict one another.
2. The idea of negotiating with countries to settle down sound like the modern age version of the Hun or Mongol invasions. Instead of knocking down the doors, one asks nicely 🙂
Some thoughts while reading the article: 1. Should it be called a "state" if it is founded by nomads? I feel a contradiction in terms between the passive nature of a state and the dynamic character of life as a nomad 🙂
crypto becoming as legit as tradfi before our eyes
if you don't use that you make that new nation-state an easy target to sanction and block financial operations and assets of or get completely dependent on another nation's infrastructure
Not sure it’s optional as the “nation state monetary system” is irreparably broken. Besides, btc (and other crypto projects perhaps) give the individuals and the collective monetary sovereignty.
Me too, but I think it could be done without it, and many digital nomad visa programs could step in to handle that part. Plumia, for example, or Selina hotels.
Nice idea, but blood and country are powerful forces, and just because you think you can simply buy military and judicial protection from client states, there's nothing you can do if they decide to throw you out or take possession of your property and freedom.
Here's the excerpt from the article that addresses this: :
"Above all, losing a territory will not be as important as for a nation-state. The notion of territory for a network state will be fluid, even if some territories will be more valuable than others. Losing a network state's only Free City, for example, would certainly be a major blow. To better protect itself, the network-state can form alliances with Free Cities, other network-states, and certain states, starting with those of similar size—as is the case with Singapore and Israel, both small countries surrounded by potentially hostile countries, and which this common characteristic has brought together to the point where they now have a special relationship and collaborate on the development of many military technologies."
One of the problems that I *believe* we face is that to have political power, in any given region, is the number of people who join us. While 50,000 people wouldn't be so hard to attain, they would have to be VOTING CITIZENS of that particular country/jurisdiction. History has shown that while large numbers are valuable, if they can't vote to elect a particular politician into office and keep that politician in office/power, then what use are these people to that politician? Politicians, historically, trade their ability to represent a given demographic with that demographic's ability to keep them in office; otherwise, that population has no use to that politician.
I’m a citizen of Liberland, a similar concept. I love all things related to individual sovereignty, empowerment and freedom from government tyranny.
Let me know if I can help in any way!
Interesting. Did you use your Liberland citizenship in any way that you felt is useful? I’m under the impression that it is mostly symbolic
Not yet. Speaking to the ppl there about helping with a first energy project. I will say the political leadership team is quite committed - tireless even - and I believe something will come out of it.
The general solution you propose has been, in one form or another, implemented many times. As far back as we have historical records we have records of groups which:
* are outside the entrenched power structure
* have shared interests
* discover their interests can better be protected by pooling resources
* evolve a control structure which allows leverage of the the pooled resources
Their stories are many and varied, as are their levels of success. Some went on to become the entrenched power. Some were quickly crushed and disbanded. Many, maybe most, found some success early only to be be eroded from the inside.
I've been following DAOs for a long time. Like you and the ideas you reference, I see that the technologies of blockchain and ubiquitous internet give us an opportunity to create influential structures untethered to geography and difficult to control by the self-delineating autonomy of nation states (where the real power still resides). The potential is awesome, but the visionaries see only why they will succeed and never why they will fail.
You mentioned, almost in passing, that there would "dedicated account" and "community leaders". Yes these are necessary. You mentioned transparency and governance, again required elements. But this is where all the visionaries have stopped, and never, I mean n-e-v-e-r, actually solved the real problem.
There is an assumption among all crypto/DAO proponents that all you need is democratization and transparency and the governance will sort itself out. This is like a religious belief in that it is, in their minds, the final answer, and that no amount of actual evidence from the real world will sway their belief.
As soon as you create common resources, influence, and roles with authority, you create an irresistible conflict of interest which will either corrupt the role holder(s) or attract ruthless people to assume those roles. Once there is enough power and influence in the roles, the roles themselves will resist any further bounding. This means that if you don't solve the conflict of interest problem prior to anyone assuming a leadership role, you've sown the seeds of the groups demise.
I think your ideas are fantastic, and I don't see them limited to digital nomads, though your reasons why digital nomads are a great candidate are valid. What I don't see is a solution to the age-old problem of how we pool resources and influence without putting someone into a position which where their personal interest is not aligned with the groups interest.
In fact, this problem will be solved by an important feature of the new world that is emerging: mobility.
It will be taken into account from the outset in the design of network states, so that it will be considered obvious from the start that citizens of network states will leave if the quality/price ratio of the services provided is poor.
This is what will align the incentives of leaders with those of citizens—network states will function as private governance service providers.
They will have to be managed like companies that provide services to their customers. If the leaders of a network state start to look after their own interests and reduce the quality/price ratio, other network states will fight to attract their customers and offer them a better service.
This new social contract is already in place in Dubai, Singapore, and Prospera, and is working very well.
Very interesting take. I need to think more about this, but is it a problem if this structure doesn't solve this particular problem ? There are many other problems it can solve.
Sure but it's self limiting. Less power means easy to fend off corruption using standard governance techniques, but less the organization can do for its members.
Conversely, more power means more benefit to the members but only if the members' interests remains the focus of the representatives.
I'm a member of TrustedHouseSitters, through which I get a great deal of value but in a very narrow domain, and one in which there is little to no value in trying to influence the governance. The organization itself is messy for profit company and almost worthless, other than maintaining the website. But that relationship is sustainable - as long as the website works I'll keep paying my annual fee, as long as maintaining the website costs less than the aggregate annual fees TrustedHouseSitters will keep doing it.
If TrustedHouseSitters ever tries to be anything else, like negotiating favorable rates for something, or changing some country's visa policies, they will change and complicate their value proposition, necessarily expending resources on the new direction and putting the original stable relationship at great risk.
If we pick a specific problem and see a way to reach the sufferers with a solution, we could create a stable organization. But that's probably best done by existing companies or entrepreneurs. To create a community with clout, and I'm with you that it can and should be done, we have to start with the governance first, then solve the other problems after that.
P.S. I think healthcare is the killer app of a distributed community. It's need is universal as is the availability of healthcare resources. It could get a community off the ground by itself, but (I've been in healthcare for 30 years) healthcare is complicated. If only we had some new technology which models complex terrain and can produce agents for answering questions and solving problems :-).
Simplistic nonsense. Digital nomads have almost no financial clout, are generally asset poor and represent a skewed demographic. Whilst a workspace hub club might seem attractive and have some merit, it all comes down to visas and tax and even very poor countries are much more interested in retirees than nomads. Who is going to put the person who steals your macbook in jail or provide your social security when you can't work through illness? Insurers aren't really interested in that sort of thing for such a tiny market. The Balinese, Thais and Mexicans want your rent and your business, but when the cash flow stops, they want you gone. I've been a nomad of sorts for around 15 years, and whilst it can be a great lifestyle, it doesn't confer super powers on what is a small, largely irrelevant, niche economic group.
Digital nomads are estimated to be between 35 to 40 million in the world today, and their average annual salary is $120,000. They are in the top 1%.
Oliver, Let's say that you are right and Digital Nomads are estimated to be 40 million. The problem here is that the world has 8.2 billion people. That would make us 0.005 % of the world's population. That is not a large voting bloc.
Let's also assume that you are right about having an income of $120,000.00 (USD) each. That would make our combined income roughly 4.8 trillion dollars.
Now, if all of that spending power was located in one place, say.... Malaysia, we MIGHT stand a chance of having some impact, but as a group, we are spread throughout the world, so that dilutes our purchasing power & our ability to impact political power to get representation.
Also, keep this in mind, generally speaking, we are not citizens of the countries we reside. Therefore, we have no voting power. For a politician to want to represent us, we would have to have the ability to keep such a politician in office through our vote. And, again, as a group, we currently can't do that.
Network state it's not Balajis concept. He is promoting it, but he just hijacked the term
Who created it ?
This is an incredibly insightful and well thought out vision! But I can't help but wonder if the global elite would ever allow this to happen. Seems to me it doesn't serve their purposes of keeping us isolated, distracted and sick. It would need to serve their purposes or there would need to be a major disruption to the balance of power.
Indeed. As I shared in "10 Principles of History for predicting the future" https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/10-principles-of-history-for-predicting :
"9th principle to be learned from history (and which also applies to the example of the Catholic Church shared above): when an established power is disrupted, it does not surrender without a fight, even if the outcome of the battle is set by external conditions over which it has no power."
For the possibility that the global elite would try to prevent this, see the 4th principle : "States that win temporarily by succeeding in banning or stifling a technology lose in the long term because they do not benefit from the fruits of that technology, to the extent that centuries later, the consequences of the accumulated backwardness are still visible."
Awesome, thanks for sharing. I've saved this to read shortly. I look forward to it!
As someone who's spent a long time thinking about political institutions and remains deeply skeptical of BS and his what, why, and how for the Network State...this post made me soften my perspectives on a few things.
I appreciate that you start out with a description that amounts to organizing people to take collective action to secure better terms from corporations (and possibly even governments). That's a different presentation of the idea than the typical "failure mode for western civilization" rhetoric that often gets deployed. Actually, if you read Yoni Applebaum's book, Stuck, he makes reference to a whole ecosystem of community groups (Rotary, trade unions, etc) which used to be in every major metro in the U.S. and that people relied on as they'd relocate to wherever happened to be booming economically at the time.
Again, I think the thing you're doing here that's interesting is articulating specific use cases (health insurance, affordable lodging, right of entry) that are real and tangible in a way that's often missing in these conversations.
I'm struggling to understand the logic behind this idea. I'm assuming that a 'network state' aims to provide the benefits of a nation-state (land, healthcare, services), without the traditional land borders and national identity that comes with traditional nation-states. However, I also don't see how network states could be much more than just networks of people with a shared profession. For example, digital nomads only really share the identity/values of global nomadism, which presumably means having little attachment to 'place', or a physical community, and a shared (high income) profession. I don't think that digital communication, a shared sense of 'belonging to nowhere', and buying into a network (paid membership), provides a stable enough foundation for community-building in the same way as physical communities rooted in a sense of 'place' (with shared hardships and obligations).
Also, I really believe that in countries where these 'network states' would be established, local people will be alienated and angered. I don't think that local communities would be partial to rich Westerners paying governments and piggybacking onto local services, buying up land and housing (and driving up prices) and establishing 'special economic zones with tax benefits'. Digital nomads have no real stake in the surrounding communities, and the ability to pack up and leave if things get tough. Honestly, the whole idea starts to look a bit like entitlement and 'tech bro' utopian fantasies.
Hey Faye, thank you for your comprehensive comment and thoughts.
The first concept to grasp is that the very notion of a nation and the feeling of belonging to one is among the many things disrupted in the age of the internet and globalization. I've written an extensive article on this topic, which you can see here : https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/how-the-internet-is-eroding-nationalism.
Today, we can observe that many people feel closer to members of their online community than to their own neighbors. Moreover, a United Nations study indicates that the more frequently someone uses the internet, the less they feel a sense of national belonging, and the more they consider themselves global citizens. You can view the reference in article linked above.
Given these factors, it's not a significant leap to extrapolate current trends and realize that the idea of primarily belonging to a nation—historically strongly linked to a territory, although also tied to a common culture—is becoming less important.
From this point, it isn't difficult to imagine the emergence of network states.
The foundational concept behind network states begins with a patchwork of territories distributed globally, patches as small as an apartment or a building. Such small-scale beginnings are unlikely to provoke locals.
Even if they do, it will simply encourage this emerging global community of millions to migrate to more welcoming locations, possibly poorer countries that may better embrace digital nomads and their network states, due to the significant economic prosperity these communities will bring with them.
Made this to force myself to understand it - still have reservations about Balaji’s version but imo I think we should knick the concept and make it for everyone. We may need to have one that works sooner rather than later https://youtu.be/BEIHwGBBbok
This article a great thought experiment that, to me, implicitly calls into question the imagined communities (see Benedict Anderson's famous book by that title) we call nation-states. What's more real, a nation-state or a community formed by digital nomads? My daughter helped to start an online community that led to a small, physical community of a few friends. What would it be like to scale that?
Hey Bryce, I've thoroughly studied Benedict Anderson's book and cited it numerous times in my own work.
If you're interested in seeing a series of articles where I explore the main factors currently disrupting both the nation and the state, here is the first one of the series : https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/digital-nomadism-disrupting-nation-states
You may be interested in this one too : https://disruptive-horizons.com/p/how-the-internet-is-eroding-nationalism
Feel free to share your thoughts with me—it would be very interesting.
4. I think my main doubt comes from the inherent competition that may arise between traditional states and network states: in other words, if we would build a network state (not that I would be eligible by any means), why duplicate existing structures instead of envisioning the next stage in human society?
A major idea behind Network States, and other alternative forms of governance such as Free Cities, is to create an environment in which many forms of governance can be tested to discover what is the best next stage in human society.
Here's an excerpt from my book about this :
"The idea is to eventually have :
- dozens or hundreds of free cities and network states around the world
- Each of which would allow a different social and economic model to be tested, without the need for a revolution, and without having to subject those who disagree to the “tyranny of the majority” (or minority),
o because they would all be populated on a voluntary basis.
o Would you like to set up a Marxism 2.0? A libertarian city/network-state? A deeply pious city/NS that follows the teachings of your religion's holy book to the letter? A city/NS, on the contrary, that rejects all religion and focuses on a spiritual life based on science? Do yourself a favor, put it together, test your ideas against the reality on the ground, and see if you can make your project into a viable city.
- This creates a friendly competition in which dozens or hundreds of different social and economic models can be rapidly tested in the field, encouraging a Darwinian selection process that will naturally lead to the emergence, at a speed unprecedented in human history, of successful models from which other societies can draw inspiration.
This proposal is already extremely innovative: it puts an end to revolutions, and to out-of-breath systems that are well past their sell-by date. Instead, we're creating an ecosystem that encourages everyone to set up a concrete experiment to validate that their ideal societal model works, or to join the free city that proposes the model closest to their ideal."
3. You are moving from nomad statehood to a digital community and now to an online syndicate. I like the testing of various ideas, even if they somewhat contradict one another.
2. The idea of negotiating with countries to settle down sound like the modern age version of the Hun or Mongol invasions. Instead of knocking down the doors, one asks nicely 🙂
Some thoughts while reading the article: 1. Should it be called a "state" if it is founded by nomads? I feel a contradiction in terms between the passive nature of a state and the dynamic character of life as a nomad 🙂
A nation-state is just a nation that has given itself a state. If you can envision a nation being nomadic, you can envision it having a state.
You lost me at crypto.
crypto becoming as legit as tradfi before our eyes
if you don't use that you make that new nation-state an easy target to sanction and block financial operations and assets of or get completely dependent on another nation's infrastructure
look past headlines
I agree, but as long as it is a online union there is no need for crypto, although it would help pave the way for the next steps
Hello, crypto could help but is completely optional in this scenario.
Not sure it’s optional as the “nation state monetary system” is irreparably broken. Besides, btc (and other crypto projects perhaps) give the individuals and the collective monetary sovereignty.
Me too, but I think it could be done without it, and many digital nomad visa programs could step in to handle that part. Plumia, for example, or Selina hotels.
Nice idea, but blood and country are powerful forces, and just because you think you can simply buy military and judicial protection from client states, there's nothing you can do if they decide to throw you out or take possession of your property and freedom.
Here's the excerpt from the article that addresses this: :
"Above all, losing a territory will not be as important as for a nation-state. The notion of territory for a network state will be fluid, even if some territories will be more valuable than others. Losing a network state's only Free City, for example, would certainly be a major blow. To better protect itself, the network-state can form alliances with Free Cities, other network-states, and certain states, starting with those of similar size—as is the case with Singapore and Israel, both small countries surrounded by potentially hostile countries, and which this common characteristic has brought together to the point where they now have a special relationship and collaborate on the development of many military technologies."
I'm not sure if you're reacting to it or not ?