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What I think about network states

vitalik.ca

91–100 of 144 posts

Re: What I think about network states

#91

Fun fact: There is already one such 'network state': Sovereign military order of Malta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...

The SMOM isn't a network state (it doesn't have pockets of sole sovereign territory spread across the world granted by different states as a result of ground-up political pressure from its members), though it is a sovereign entity that is not a traditional state (specifically, lacking any sole sovereign territory, though it has some diplomatic extraterritorial enclaves and some co-soveriegn territory with Italy.)

I thought it recently got some land in Malta again too?

Re: What I think about network states

#92

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 reminds me of Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe.

Re: What I think about network states

#93
post #43

Network states are online communities that have collective agency (governance of some kind) that eventually try to materialize on land in the physical world. A DAO, could potentially become a network state but it could also in theory emerge from a subreddit or some other online community organized around a specific thing. Balaji has a particular vision for these network states that sees cryptocurrency as being an int…

But Balaji's book isn't really a playbook for how a community could go from loose collection of individuals on discord to a mini city! If it was that, it would be a far more compelling read, instead the first 50% could be summed up as, "institutions bad, crypto will save us all, media is biased, America is just as bad as China, and India is rising." And the back half while more interesting basically rehashes similar examples over and over (keto community) without many tangible details on going from 0 to 1. Could have been far more interesting, talked about things like Sovereign Military order of Malta, Charter Cities, SEZ's, and other interim ways for a network state to come to be but instead was just repeated ramblings and definitions.

Re: What I think about network states

#94

> Zelensky would of course win a fair one-on-one fight 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.)

I took it as an attempt at levity for something that obviously doesn't matter and will never happen, but maybe also because Putin is almost 70 and at a certain point lots of training doesn't help the fact your body is degrading rapidly.

Re: What I think about network states

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes to "consider the well-being of one's own nation before the well-being of all of the other things on Earth" is bad in my opinion. 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 (inc…

The whole point of exit is that there are too many people, such as yourself apparently, who consider their underdeveloped and underinformed notions of society to be universally applicable -- under force of law if necessary. 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…

What you call "force of law" is just rules decided by everybody for the good of all, in a democracy. You use this expression to make it look like oppression, but it is the complete contrary, it is mutual help by choosing beneficial rules.

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).

Re: What I think about network states

#96

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…

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…

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.

Re: What I think about network states

#97

"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.

It's the difference between storage of data and consensus.

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.

Re: What I think about network states

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Re: What I think about network states

#99
post #65

"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.

Hence why the Declaration of Independence was followed by a war. (Paper = stone here for all intents and purposes, it's just easier to write on.)

How many blockchain hype people are explicitly promoting wars for independence, though?

Re: What I think about network states

#100
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They do have the Satoshi ;)

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voya...

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