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The Network State Conference 2024 - Projects & Highlights
The 2nd Network State Conference held Singapore on September 22 2024, Let's have a closer look at this issue and talk future of society!
Ilya Gru
October 08, 2024
Summer is finally over. Hope you’ve all enjoyed as much as I have. But the dynamic pulse of our global world continues, and last week, The Network State Conference happened in Singapore. It was a truly exciting event, especially when viewed through the lens of the “Globally Based” context.
In this issue, I’d like to share an overview and a few highlights of that conference. For me personally, it has been one of the most interesting conferences in a while.
But first I should familiarize you with the concept of “Network State”.
What is Network State?
The Network State in One Image — The Network State
In our world today, it seems that everything has already been established. All territory has been divided among countries. All once-free resources are now governed by someone.
But still, if the current country doesn't work for you — and in fact, it often doesn't — can you start a new one? With the emergence of new technologies like Bitcoin, it should be possible. But how does one start a new country? What is the successor to the nation state?
These and other questions are discovered by Balaji Srinivasan, American entrepreneur and investor. He introduced The Network State concept and the book of the same name.
The idea is to start cloud-first — build an online community, and then use crowdfunding to acquire physical territory and eventually gain diplomatic recognition. This contrasts with the traditional method, where territory is first secured through power. In such a state of future, economics are cryptoeconomics, democracy is technodemocracy.
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.
Or with a more complex definition:
A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.
The book gives food for thought by reviewing history in terms of 3 Leviathans (the most powerful force in the world) — back then God, now State, soon Network; diving into current (geo)political issues; and providing practical and technological guidance on how to build a Network State.
Although the topics are quite complicated and the entire vision isn’t perfect, if you’re hooked, the book is worth reading to dive into the details. I’ll be coming back to the topic in future editions.
The Network State Conference
Held in sunny Singapore on the 22nd of September 2024, The Network State Conference, second edition, was for people interested in founding, funding and finding new communities. Topics included startup societies, network states, digital nomadism, globalisation, competitive government, legalising innovation, cryptocurrency, internet-first institutions, technodemocracy as well as advancements in parallel institutions, parallel media, parallel health and parallel finance.
Talks were presented by startup society founders from around the world. This year's speakers included Naval - famous investor, Vitalik - founder of Ethereum, Bryan Johnson - entrepreneur and famous biohacker, Raj Gokal - co-founder of Solana, Pieter Levels - founder of NomadList and many others.
You can rewatch it here on YouTube.
Talks
Here are some inspiring talks happened during the conference.
Almost everything great that I’ve managed to pull off has come from following my own natural intellectual obsessions.
Naval was an early investor in companies such as Uber, Twitter and many others. His tweets are cited everywhere in the tech/start-up world. So a chat with Naval Ravikant is always insightful, definitely worth rewatching.
Politics is the exercise of power without merit.
The fireside chat with Pieter Levels, founder of Nomads.com (formerly NomadList) was great too. They spoke about digital nomadism within the world of network states. Here are quick notes with statistics, be like:
1/3rd of working population works remotely or hybrid globally;
1 billion people work remotely in 2024;
of that ~10-20% moves around like a digital nomad, so 100-200 million digital nomads now.
The chat with Bryan Johnson was fun. Johnson is an entrepreneur and investor, but he has mostly received media attention for his anti-ageing attempt, which he refers to as Project Blueprint. Essentially, he is trying to extend his life by doing all the top-notch medicine and science, so it seems that he aims to reach the age of 200 years. He reports everything along the way, so feel free to dive deeper into the links!
What is Bryan’s top recommendation for health?
Sleep is the most powerful drug.
If we’re talking about life-extension, you might be interested in my friend's Telegram channel. He discusses biohacking in a more accessible way, though the content is in Russian.
Projects
Here are a few exciting projects presented during the Network State Conference. Man, people build alternative cities!
Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, together with other speakers presented Zuzalu , a community and movement to create crypto-cities of the future. Here is the link to the article by Vitalik on why he builds Zuzalu. Nicole Sun presented ZuThailand, while Veronica Schrenk showed Zuvillage Georgia.
Do you want to see how a digital nomad’s dream looks like? Check out Sergey Solonin’s presentation of Nuanu — an ambitious project to build a cutting-edge city on the island of Bali. Work in progress!
Several comparable projects are emerging in this space, including Edge City, Vitalia, Praxis. While some operate as temporary pop-up cities within Free Economic Zones, their potential for growth and development is truly exciting to observe.
By the way, almost all those concepts are open to anyone, so if you’re interested, consider applying or even contributing.
Conclusion
So as you can see, it’s now possible not only to start new companies and new currencies, but even new cities and countries. We can and should experiment with that for a better future.
Stay Connected
In this edition, I also want to tell you about Saily, a great global eSIM provider that I’ve been using for some time. Even though it’s a new service, I’ve already noticed cheaper packages to some destinations, compared to similar services. Saily is a product from Nord Security and covers over 150 countries. To make it even better, enjoy a 5% off on your first eSIM data pack by using the code Special5 when you sign up or at checkout. Happy travels!
End Note
What do you think about this issue? Would you live in one of those cities?
Until next time!
📍Barcelona, Spain
— Ilya
The included pictures are taken and text is written by Ilya Gruzhevski, if not stated otherwise, and subject to copyright. Copying and/or using without attribution to this website and author is not permitted.
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