What I think about network states
vitalik.ca
vitalik.ca
that's called enforcement of the law, that can rely on force, if necessary.
a blockchain has the same value of paper (on paper) but it can be shut down by cutting electricity and, most of all, has no way to enforce what's stored on it.
Because no trusted party is willing to make the effort, there is no way a bunch of individuals are going to come together and declare war (to whom?) to make it stick.
This but unironically.
The blockchain can't inspect a house before sale. The blockchain can't test the water quality outside of a factory upstream from your town.
However I’m not sure what you mean to signify with your paper vs stone tablet comparison. Unlike blockchains, paper doesn’t claim to do anything magical compared to stone tablets - it’s still just a medium of storing written text.
How many blockchain hype people are explicitly promoting wars for independence, though?
Otherwise known as working State with an army, a navy, nukes, and democracy (for stability), or some semblance thereof, and all the other stuff that keeps it humming along for 200+ years despite internal turmoil, foreign attacks, and all that. And rich enough to keep its economy humming too, and its coffers flush with cash and other reserves.
That's what makes a stable currency; not "fiat" or "paper stacks".
Fundamentally, the "state of the real world" is the result of might is right, force or threat of force. The state of the real world is the result of action, and action is an act of force on the matter of the world, the act of changing things away from their most stable state by way of expression of energy. This is an act of force in it's simplest sense on non living things. Where living things are concerned, it becomes recognizable as force because living things have their own agenda, and putting them into a state you prefer necessitates some degree of coercion.
So a hypothetical world where entities like these network States, blockchain states and consensus mechanisms control real world assets is a world where action on the real world, including use of force, is automated. You don't have to have permission from the current status quo structure of institutions for blockchains and the like to have real world effect, you just have to have a way for them to act with or without institutional approval. A world where construction, modification and aggressive action is automated and thus can be deterministically and provably democratic is what you get out of all this.
"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.
Think of this scenario: Suppose I got an online token/contract/NFT on any Blockchain that says I own the property and house at 123 Main Street and further suppose this is as verified on the chain as it can be. No doubt about it.
Then when I show up to 123 Main Street there is already someone living there with a different claim (let's say a classic deed in some government real estate database).
Then the police and the courts get involved and at the end of it one party will be removed from the property, by force if necessary.
This is what the GP meant with trusted physical party. The entities who IRL decide and enforce which of the many competing "proofs" of ownership are actually legit.
Hence, the only thing a blockchain can be used for is an abstract token that does not have an equivalent in the real life, and thus can be used to represent anything - not just a house or an artwork or a chicken - but all of these at the same time and yet it is backed by actual energy.
And this is Bitcoin.
Every other use of a blockchain is a scam.
the network itself is already decentralized.
interoperability and open protocols > immutable ledger (which is a centralized source of the truth)
philosophically speaking a society where information is stored with no restriction but can be made available to other parties in an open and documented manner is more free than one where the "tables of the law" is one immutable and indisputable blockchain because the computer says so.
You could have a centralized DB that believes X is true. You could have a distributed DB that believes X is true - or even that reflects that a bunch of people involved in the network believes that X is true.
But what if X isn't true according to the consensus of the local societies you live in? Then it simply doesn't matter what sort of DB you use.
In this "network states" discussion there seems to be a simple problem here: a network that crosses political boundaries can't solve certain things. So ok, it "crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states"
But... is that actually even realistic at all, or is it all fantasy? And even if you get there, your problem of border defense is INCREDIBLY difficult in your geo-distributed state. Traditional states appear to have some massive advantages in cases of any conflict.
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-...
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
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.
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.
[1] "Kanye was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016, something he has since spoken about openly. He has said that he experiences manic episodes, which typically include paranoia, and that he is not medicated for the condition."
AIUI he refuses to medicate because he thinks it will interfere with his creative output.
[1] https://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/article/bipolar-disorder-kany...
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.
I would prefer to articulate and achieve a shared foundation for the future: https://corinth.kardianos.com/latest.pdf
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.
"You and what army?" Either they pay/bribe whatever governments have an interest in them or they find a way to (threaten to) defend themselves against people who are much more organized and economically supported than their paradise for rich people.
In the later cases you need to find 'volunteers' who (might) "die in the trenches" and I've got a feeling that you those are not to abundant in a society characterized by the desire to get away.
Others have tried and failed. E.g. The Khmer Rouge did enforce massive changes on society, according with their ideology, but in the end they were removed from power with the help of tanks planes and guns.
I think we should move towards a more integrated Earth, not more partitioning.
Sorry, it was obvious for me.
Think about a random sampling of all humans. Most are in Asia, esp India and China, and most are traditionally religious.
Would women's rights be a priority? Fair employment? Gay rights?
I do think that an integrated and conscientious Earth is important, especially with reasonable immigration and emigration rights, but I'm not sure I want to vote in a Earth President election.
To the contrary: democracy makes it more likely that they are tolerated and included.
So your argument is not at all compelling.
Also, to help you see it: take European Union as an example.
It is only a loosely integrated democracy, but still, we elect EU MPs etc.
EU does not prevent at all to have traditions and to "respect" the existence of geographically distinct "samples" of humans (its member countries, or its member intrastate regions, etc).
Western nations do well with certain minority groups (they have many allies). Other cultures do not. The question is whether the majority of people would fall into a western like mindset or not. I think not.
There is a correlation here, but it isn’t causal. Democracy has been around in countries that support gay rights for much longer than they supported gay rights.
What’s made the difference has been cultural shifts wherein the majority supports gay rights rather than opposing them.
An authoritarian government does what it likes, not what you like.
although Balaji tends to play PR to libertarians, i do think there’s a real diffuse desire for increased freedom of association and less large-group adherence. those desires contributed to the creation of US democracy: a desire for the colonies to associate freely with each other, other states, and with GB in a different form than before; and freedom of religion (group adherence) is enshrined.
democracy is a step up from previous forms of governance in that the people enforcing their views on me are necessarily more likely to have common views (lesser separation of ruling class from the majority class: “by the people for the people”). but this aspect degrades as you widen the democracy, either demographically or geographically (by proxy). i accept democracy as the best tool we’ve got today, but i hardly view it as an ideal end-state.
i would prefer to work towards a state where i don’t have to sacrifice my values to conform with the will of people i don’t care for. that’s necessarily a movement away from one global democracy. we’ve effectively achieved that in the digital landscape via the internet, which is fundamentally anarchic but works because people want to cooperate and associate freely and have voluntarily developed tools to do so. Balaji dreams that there’s some way to take this same achievement and apply it to on-the-ground governance. i appreciate that dream. blockchain is an ironic tool to use for that given its requirement for consensus which it achieves via democratic or shareholder governance (e.g. proof of stake). on the other hand, it makes it more difficult in certain ways for the ruling class to break its own rules, and can lessen the need for (and power of) representatives and push us towards a flatter democracy (where the ruling class more mirrors my own class). it’s just another (hopeful) step along that path toward gradually increased freedom of association. i would like to at least be given the choice as to whether i want to participate in my present representative democracy or in a different, experimental state. i would very much dislike for that ability to be strongly denied me by some global government (democratic or otherwise).
Everyone loves a good unilateral decree, as long as it reaffirms your beliefs.
Any other method leads to workarounds and relocation of what was meant to be curbed.
I am as opposed as you to imperialism lol, if it was not clear enough from my posts.
By the way, I think that what can be put in the category of "traditions" is not touched by laws, so my proposal does not hurt cultural differences.
However it does ask to some traditions to go, because they are just objectively harmful.
Just to hit the nail a bit further: you see cultural variety INSIDE existing democratic states, for example regional customs and traditions, etc. So there is absolutely no hint of imperialism in building a world-wide democracy.
Maybe a way to do it would be through world-wide petitions?
Or more realistically through some world-wide voting system, as participating to such a petition overtly could lead to political persecutions.
Then the problem is the verification that people are not voting several times. And then the problem of allowing people to vote (in some states like in China that problem will be difficult to solve)...
People don't want what you're proposing. Is it not then undemocratic to impose it on them in the first place?
yes, that's the ultimate fate of our civilization - becoming a gray biological mass of consumers without identity, culture, or allegiance to anything other than global corporations
I'd prefer us to go extinct, and it is thankfully certain that we will
This is exactly what "creating a state" means: having one's own law, which I think is bad.
Good laws are most effective when they are enforced without borders.
Of course I did not mean to uniformize people!!
As for the link with groupism:
partitioned laws are the starting point, you say "people from this state have those rights, people from other states do not have these rights even when they interact with our state".
With this notion of network state, it is even unclear to me how they can discriminate what law apply to who, because there is no more "person X is geographically present on the land Y so Y law applies" principle.
The way that people in Mongolia, Bahrain, Angola and Norway want to live are very very different. "One set of laws" means authoritarian tyranny to most people of earth. Would you like to live in a world governed by one set of laws, which include theft being punishable by the amputation of a hand? Or in your perfect world with one set of laws, do you see yourself as the entity dictating what the laws are? If I am unhappy with your set of laws, is that just tough shit for me? If you found yourself in such a system and didn't like the laws, would you want a way out?
Some people prefer certain laws, and other people prefer different ones. And there can be a case whether neither set of laws is automatically "better".
For example, private property rights in an interesting topic. Personally, I prefer strong private property rights, but I have no reason to deny another country from choosing something completely different.
If people in another country, instead prefer socialism, or more collective ownership of property, that is fine by me if they do that, as long as they let other people who disagree, choose something else in other countries.
Please no.
I would like to exit the bureaucracy of mother hens pecking me to death as they enforce ever-narrowing boundaries of permissible thought -- that is, when they are not decking my neighborhood and workplace with messages demanding my homage to the current thing. You, apparently, would like to make that the universal condition.
Some people read "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever" as a compelling vision, and not a warning.
I am as horrified as you of "boot stamping on face" so I don't know what you're talking about... have you misread my posts??
It is bad because you could end up exterminating everyone (or polluting everything) for the sake of a few lucky ones. Happened a couple of times already.
Anyway it's bound to fail, as on this planet we share the same atmosphere, oceans, and almost all living species have no borders (including viruses).
PS: you should tone down your prejudice that I didn't think a lot about what I'm writing, it's... wrong and hurtful.
Put bluntly, I don't want a world where you can tell others whom they should value more than others. That strikes me as an incredibly arrogant proposition and I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings.
Helping to build democracies, you help everybody! Except the few dictators, but why would you care for their feelings more than the feelings of the whole population. Unless they are happy being enslaved, in which case I'd say that it is already a democracy, because things are like they wish they'd be! But this is delusional.
Planet-wide rules are necessary because the world is finite and connected, that's as simple as that.
You impoverish the neighbor countries for the sake or the nation's wealth, and next thing you know there is war at your border. Or your supplier is from a country in crisis and suddenly you can't work anymore. Or your exported all of your CO2 emissions so that you don't produce it directly, but now all your country's forests are on fire because of the warming from emissions you made happen on other places on Earth...
But this idea of world democracy is not at all incompatible with locally applied specific rules too. It even already exists in modern democracies: for specific issues you decide local solutions, with the benefit of the larger scale government being that it is guaranteed to not jeopardize the greater good of the whole (in the case at hand, the planet! it is always a good thing not to jeopardize the planet!).
Without the existence of such planet-scale government, you end up with local agents (countries) who take decisions seemingly in their benefit but actually with consequences putting the planet and everybody in danger (harmful instantly for some people outside their country, and harmful for themselves too on a time scale greater than their next election -- this problem is solved by considering the impact of all decisions on all points of the planet, thus my idea).
Your ideas are bad and naive, and because you seem to be disavowing my natural right to refuse to participate in this poorly thought out ideological regime which you would have rule the world, you are also proposing tyranny.
I don't accept that your idea of what "bad" is, is anything other than "stuff I personally don't like," only you have not examined your beliefs enough to realize that. In my view, you are unreasonably optimistic about the prospects for success for any of what you described, and I assume it's because you are unaware of, or view unrealistically, the history of these and related ideas.
By dichotomy:
- either the government listens to your preferences, so it is not a tyranny, but as you are not alone to be listened to, a democratic system becomes required (unless you want to be the dictator?)
- either your preference is to not live in a democracy, and in this case the gvt does not listen to you, because you have no such right .
By the way, do you live currently in a democracy?
There is absolutely no evidence that this is an intrinsic characteristic of a democracy. This is the fundamental problem with your naive proposal. There's no such thing as "for the good of all."
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.
Also, aren’t dues typically either fixed amounts or a flat percentage? If you’re looking to emulate a government, I’d imagine you might also want progressive dues akin to progressive taxation.
You can't get regular pay or health insurance or a social safety net from the tree people, but together they plant, protect, and care for trees and spread the knowledge of how that is done and the wisdom of why it is done.
In my opinion the tree people are a good minimal example of how network states might start with small shared domains and goals and might make a big difference without even expanding.
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?
> 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.
Totally correct. Elon's wild claims on solving FSD (Fools Self Driving) seemed to be a total disaster, and Vitalik's claims on his decentralized slot machine utopia 'Ethereum' on how using a generalized blockchain to solve 'anything' from voting, social networks, DAOs, NFTs, etc has manifested into a tinkerbell griftopia [0] as feared by even the most fierce critics of blockchains.
Finally, VCs really don't care on being wrong on thousands of failed investments. They just need one massive return to make up for all of it hundreds of times over and somehow they are viewed as 'experts' which is a great example of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. We don't hear them screaming about Clubhouse which was hyped to the extreme since it is isn't doing great as expected after being copied to death.
Also reading this article in particular, it is gearing close to sophistry.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voya...
In fact the problem with anarcho capitalism is that the freedoms it provides are also the rope on which it hangs itself. It is the dodo of economic systems with no sense of self preservation.
Getting rid of the rope involves taking away some freedoms that nobody should have, but that would go against the spirit of both anarcho capitalism and libertarians.
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.
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.
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.
I’m a libertarian and I still want our constitutional republic in the US. I just advocate for market-based solutions vs. top-down paternalistic solutions and I want to reduce the size of the government. But I believe in the military, police, laws, taxes, etc.
I don't understand... how other people don't understand this point.
When the powerful gather enough power to change the rules in their favour the system breaks.
The wealthy made their money on their own. The state is lead by power-crazed mad men who earn their money by taking it from others.
I prefer the wealthy to the crazed.
The abolition and replacement of the state.
Reformist libertarians are categorically excluded from the context of my criticism.
The vast majority of people who call themselves libertarians are merely moderately economically right wing and moderately socially left wing.
It has something to do with it, because there are ways of achieving their goals without some massive, giant, violent revolution.
Special economic zones, are the most common example of this, and are created by countries in a perfectly legal way, without some violent revolution.
Using financial resources to get a country to create a special economic zone would be both reformist, non revolutionary or violent, and has historical examples of being achieved.
Why and how do you do the last parts?
This is libertarian/Trotskyist utopianism with a copious helping of cryptomania.
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).
There is nothing stopping a large corporation from doing these things, should the leadership find it in their interest.
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.)
Rhetorically, what is the difference between these ideas and ones that have actually created de-facto network states, global networks, and even historically significant civilizations like America? The network states that I know of still exist today are the Catholic Church, the Church of England, Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism, and to a much lesser extent (but as a great example of an intentional network whose principles underpin modern western civilization) Freemasonry, and what they all have in common is they are based on a single very simple idea that scales. They aren't secular, which means they don't have to re-invent the wheel on a principle to underpin their laws and customs.
This isn't advocacy for theism necessarily, but when you look at the gallons of ink spilled on "new" ideas, they're all talking around the elephant in the room and substituting complex exeptions for a central scalable ethos. We (and especially crypto libertarian people) all know that complex rules yield stupid behavior. When I read these discussions of manifestos, what I can't help but conclude is that their secularism is the self-selected and self-sabotaging constraint. With the exception of communism, the world does not tolerate atheistic global powers or networks for very long. There's a kind of alchemy to the new crypto versions of old ideas where they think they can create neutral systems of rules and incentives that resist human corruption and solve the problem of Evil. It's the promise of lead into gold. The approach of the religious ones didn't try solve Evil at all (other than their exemplary failures), but they did provide a path for people to become both good and worthy, and to prevail.
I'd suggest that the people writing these elaborate perscriptions for breakaway societies just try and consider a second experimental draft of them using a theistic (or even deistic) axiom and then compare the results. The secular or atheistic requirement for ideas about new societies is the "the floor is lava" constraint of our time, and it produces just as many silly contortions and self-imposed struggles. If they try it again without pretending the floor is lava, I think they will have more success and provide something more valuable.
(also many secular people are not libertarians, and many libertarians are religious. I have no idea where you got that idea from.)
There are lots of religious libertarians, but they wouldn't characterize themselves by their political ideology because their politics aren't their identity. They can't be, again, unless they've been seized by one of these anti-ethos ideas where their identity becomes the artifact of what they have chosen to oppose.