The Eutopian Network State

If you are not familiar with it, I encourage you to check out the Network State Project. The basic idea is to form new states online first, with an eventual goal of controlling land in the real world. While I disagree with parts of the historic analysis and also some of the suggestions for forming a network state, I fundamentally believe this is an important project.

In my book The World After Capital, I trace how scarcity for humanity has shifted from food to land (agrarian revolution), from land to capital (industrial revolution), and now from capital to attention (digital revolution). The states that we have today were first formed during the Agrarian Age and were solidified during the Industrial Age. As a result they carry the baggage of both of these periods. When it comes to states we have serious issues of “technical debt” and “cruft.” One way to tackle these is through gradual rewrites of existing laws and constitutions. That’s a slow process under the best of circumstances and in an age of increasing polarization likely an impossibility. Another mode of change is to create a new system elsewhere, with the goal that it might eventually replace the existing one. Given that pretty much all the habitable space on Earth is taken up by existing nation states, the best place to get started is virtual.

Now what would a Eutopian network state look like? I am still trying to figure a lot of that out but fundamentally it would seek to embrace the values described in The World After Capital in order to build a state for the Knowledge Age. As such it would aim to recognize how much progress has been made since most states were first established and how much more progress lies yet ahead of us. It would take into consideration that the right to bear arms or the functioning of free speech should likely be different in an age of nuclear bombs and global social networks than when we had muzzleloaders and town criers.

I am particularly interested in the idea of a “minimum viable state.” What are the core concepts that need to be in place to get going and what can be filled in over time or maybe omitted entirely? For example, does a Eutopian Network State, have to define what constitutes a family? What is the minimal set of rules? I am currently reading the fourth book in Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series. In the series humans voluntary join Hives but even those who don’t, the Hiveless, must follow eight universal laws.

There are many other fascinating questions. For example, what does it take to become a Eutopian? Does one simply declare membership or is there some application process? Is there a pledge of some kind? Does Eutopia need to have fees or taxes to support itself financially? Once members have joined how are decisions made? And so on.

So far the Networkstate Dashboard is tracking 26 startup nations. I am curious to see how they have been answering some of these questions. I believe getting the answers to some of these baseline questions right is essential as they will determine who feels initially attracted to the state. And these core concepts should intentionally be difficult to change as they speak to the foundational nature of the society.

If you have thoughts on a minimum viable Eutopian state, I would love to read them in the comments!