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What I think about network states

vitalik.ca

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Re: What I think about network states

#71

Post by motohagiography »

blep_ wrote: post #62
motohagiography wrote: post #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 differe…

The problem with theistic societies is that they make absolutely no sense to an atheist. Surely you're not advocating for atheists to pretend to be theists to push their political views? (also many secular people are not libertarians, and many libertarians are religious. I have no idea where you got that idea from.)

Just try to reason with an alternate axiom. You don't need to believe something to reason about it, and the results may be different from the string of failures that characterize utopianism so far. The conflict this comment describes doesn't make any sense unless you interpret the example as "all secular people," or "all libertarians," which is doesn't register as thoughtful. Is it so difficult to imagine thinking things we don't already believe?

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.

Re: What I think about network states

#72

Post by randomopining »

Communitivity wrote: post #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 pro…

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.

Re: What I think about network states

#73

Post by randomopining »

ls15 wrote: post #65
Nextgrid wrote: post #38

"Crypto" people need to understand one thing: the real world does not give a shit what your blockchain says. For your crypto-based project to have any effect on the real world, you need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state of the blockchain with the state of the real world... at which point you may just let the trusted party run a good old database.

"Paper" people need to understand one thing: the real world does not give a shit what your paper stack says. For your paper-based project to have any effect on the real world, you need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state of the paper with the state of the real world... at which point you may just let the trusted party rely on a good old stone tablet.

Paper and stone tablets are the same thing lol. The whole point is a modern functioning society is a chain of humans that are held by social, economic, and legal forces to perform duties. A blockchain exists online, it's not "real". The blockchain can't perform actions in the physical world. Humans have to.

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.

Re: What I think about network states

#74

Post by SilverBirch »

shafyy wrote: 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…

I think an extension of this is that a remarkable portion of people in SV have no interest in research. They don't go "I want to solve problem X, I'm going to do some research into what already exists in that area" they go "I'm going to solve problem X from first principles", and then they slowly and painfully discover all the things that everyone else already knew. This is just pseudo-philosophy. You would've thought that network states, being very obviously juxtaposed to nation states would have an idea of what a nation state is. But it's pretty obvious he doesn't even understand the concept he's opposing - he confuses a nation state for a country... because it's never occured to him that he needs to actually understand the words he's using.

Re: What I think about network states

#75

Post by jazzyjackson »

conorcleary wrote: post #55
Nextgrid wrote: post #38

"Crypto" people need to understand one thing: the real world does not give a shit what your blockchain says. For your crypto-based project to have any effect on the real world, you need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state of the blockchain with the state of the real world... at which point you may just let the trusted party run a good old database.

...a good old... centralized database? Welcome to the future, where pushing back with your opinion just helps reinforce the need for decentralization.

a blockchain is as centralized as it gets, a "single source of truth"

Re: What I think about network states

#76

Post by pphysch »

kreetx wrote: post #14
pphysch wrote: post #4

Realistically speaking: take a multinational corporation, dial up their employee care package (potentially to include all costs of living), and then (???) circumvent all local regulations, declare independence, etc. Why and how do you do the last parts? This is libertarian/Trotskyist utopianism with a copious helping of cryptomania.

Multinationals arent "run" for the good of their people and don't seem to have any central value which motivates their being. 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).

> Multinationals arent "run" for the good of their people and don't seem to have any central value which motivates their being.

There is nothing stopping a large corporation from doing these things, should the leadership find it in their interest.

Re: What I think about network states

#77

Post by WFHRenaissance »

hjanssen wrote: post #17

The idea that really any state on this planet would recognize such a "state" as independent and would not treat it as a terrorist/criminal organisation is laughable and reeks of the typical tech-bro mindset that I have come to expect of any individual who willingly associates themselves with the crypto-bubble.

Unless said nation states can enrich themselves via network states. Which will happen. There will be an elite transfer that occurs at this level.

Re: What I think about network states

#78

Post by namlem »

jvanderbot wrote: post #46
henearkr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh to your credit I should have precised that I do NOT envision this integrated Earth to be anything else than a democracy. Sorry, it was obvious for me.

A democratic earth would stand a decent chance of marginalizing your social-political-religious group. There's a while lot of demographics on Earth. 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…

The key difference is that between a universalist democracy and a pluralist democracy.

Re: What I think about network states

#79

Post by namlem »

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #36
lottin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure they would say the same thing about whatever nonsense you believe.

The difference is that mainstream liberal capitalism has decades of real world results across dozens of countries while anarcho-capitalism has nothing.

Re: What I think about network states

#80

Post by pwdisswordfish9 »

ls15 wrote: post #65
Nextgrid wrote: post #38

"Crypto" people need to understand one thing: the real world does not give a shit what your blockchain says. For your crypto-based project to have any effect on the real world, you need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state of the blockchain with the state of the real world... at which point you may just let the trusted party run a good old database.

"Paper" people need to understand one thing: the real world does not give a shit what your paper stack says. For your paper-based project to have any effect on the real world, you need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state of the paper with the state of the real world... at which point you may just let the trusted party rely on a good old stone tablet.

> "Paper" people need to understand one thing: the real world does not give a shit what your paper stack says. For your paper-based project to have any effect on the real world, you need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state of the paper with the state of the real world...

This but unironically.

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