The Network State: How To Start a New Country

The Network State in One Sentence In one informal sentence: A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states. When we think of a nation state, we immediately think of the lands, but when we think

The point is that sometimes Network > State (which is new), and sometimes State > Network (which is what most people expect), and the competition between these Leviathans will define our time.

Today’s world is becoming tripolar. It is NYT vs CCP vs BTC. That’s the American Establishment vs the Communist Party of China vs the Global Internet.

Why is it so important to introduce one commandment rather than zero or N? The short answer is that you don’t want to write something as complex as a social operating system from scratch, and in fact others will prevent you from doing so. But you also don’t want to avoid innovating on a broken society. So introducing one (1) tightly focused change

A group using right tactics often has a deficit of zealous meaning, and is hanging onto a ruling class position while forgetting why they need to justify it from scratch to skeptical onlookers. Conversely, a group using left tactics often has a lack of hard-nosed practicality, attacking the ruling class without a concrete plan for what to put in it

These cover the six essential parts of the state: borders, population, central government, international sovereignty, diplomatic recognition, and the domestic monopoly on violence.

That’s a theoretical argument. An observational argument is that we know that the technological innovation of the Renaissance began by rediscovering history. And we know that the Founding Fathers cared deeply about history. In both cases, they stepped forward by drawing from the past. So if you’re a technologist looking to blaze a trail with a new

Bitcoin’s Blockchain Is a Technology for Robust Macrohistory

You can’t really learn something without using it. One day of immersion with a new language beats weeks of book learning. One day of trying to build something with a programming language beats weeks of theory, too.