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What I think about network states

vitalik.ca

21–30 of 144 posts

Re: What I think about network states

#21
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

Re: What I think about network states

#24
post #10

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…

This is exactly how I feel about anarcho-capitalism (also known in the USA as libertarianism), and ideology that seems devised by a 10 year old with no life experience. How a grown-up person can take this nonsense seriously is beyond me. Bewildering.

Re: What I think about network states

#25
post #8

Yay even more groupism. Like nationalism, bigotry and racism weren't enough. I think we should move towards a more integrated Earth, not more partitioning.

>a more integrated Earth

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

Re: What I think about network states

#26
post #10

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…

Abstract ramblings indeed. But also interesting in the sense that it's tiresome to share a state with people who are motivated differently, so why not try this "Network state" instead?

Re: What I think about network states

#27
post #8

Yay even more groupism. Like nationalism, bigotry and racism weren't enough. I think we should move towards a more integrated Earth, not more partitioning.

>a more integrated Earth 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

You misunderstood me. I mean partitioning or integration of LAWS.

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.

Re: What I think about network states

#28
post #15
post #8

Yay even more groupism. Like nationalism, bigotry and racism weren't enough. I think we should move towards a more integrated Earth, not more partitioning.

partitioning is the way how we make societies more integrated

No. World-widely adopted laws are the way to go (thus, with world-wide enforcement organ too).

Any other method leads to workarounds and relocation of what was meant to be curbed.

Re: What I think about network states

#29
Seems like another instance of a longer historic theme that has been picked up recently by the sea steading libertarian crowd, and now network states. Imo, the secular and by extension libertarian mentality is just another anti-ethos defined by what it opposes, and then they think if they just criticize harder with more words, this negative thing that defines them will somehow yeild.

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.

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