Comment by Communitivity | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Communitivity | Hacker News Reader

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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.

[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

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

Why exactly do we think Balaji is a genius mind? He strikes me as someone heavily invested in a maximalist version of something he’s seen as the at the forefront of, but I’ve never really found any of his writing or ideas compelling.

I mean lots of other people I respect hold him in high regard (e.g. Andreessen), he has achieved some measure of success in business, and I've watched many of his lectures and think that he's quite intelligent. I don't find many of his ideas around crypto stuff compelling but I still think he's got a brilliant mind.

Another sci-fi book that portrays such a world is Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom%E2%84%A2

Oh, big +1 on Freedom, excellent book (weird fun fact, in the book the author thanks Rick Klau who until very recently was California's Chief Technology Innovation Officer- so there are some people with wild ideas who are in government too) https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickklau/

Another author with similar distributed governing bodies as a basis for plot is Malka Older in the Infomacracy series with micro democracy.

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.

It reminds me of Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe.

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