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tree 木 22h ago 💬 3

I've read 1/3 of "Farewell to Westphalia" so far, but I like it... It seems like the book defines something that I've always missed in crypto discourse (and especially in the bitcoin discourse), and that is the emphasis on how blockchain can transform human governance, and how to make nation states obsolete.

Compared to Network State, this sounds more anarchistic and questions the essence of the state itself (even the "network" one). But as I say, I haven't finished reading yet... But sounds very promising

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Globe99 20h ago

Yeah I'll have to check that out... I have to say Balaji Srinivasan (hey look he's got a ghost profile on Nostr, nostr:nprofile1qqsrvuevcd072cv94ud3z9s28y7kcuapleqamugcfsgrjnpgefwky7c0te9us ) was a pretty inspiring figure in the 2010's, as an outspoken advocate for "digital exit." This got him quite a lot of opprobrium from the NYTimes etc.

But I found The Network State to be sort of .... hollow. I think it's like you said, it still pre-supposes States, but tries to invent some category of decentralized State that I guess.... "somehow".... supplants or replaces existing States? As if any major Nation-state is going to create some kind of special "un-citizen" class that are governed by entirely separate sets of laws?

This seems pretty fanciful to me, especially in the current moment. I imagine someone being tossed on the concrete by masked ICE goons desperately reaching for their QR code, "no wait, I'm a citizen of a Network State!!" 😂

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tree 木 20h ago

I've never been a fan of Network State precisely because of what you write - it's an interesting book and a good food for thought, but I don't feel like it fundamentally changes something. Very tied to the whole "right-accelerationist" (e/acc) and technocratic, market-oriented view that lacks more human depth.