Тег: Network State

The development of plots about state stupidity

A week ago, I mentioned three events where the state took repressive actions and people responded to them in various ways. All three storylines have since had developments.

The second fork of the Libertarian Party of Russia has also been recognized as a foreign agent organization

Now no one feels slighted that the state notices his party while ignoring the rivals’ party; both got a taste of the medicine. In response, both parties announced a total freeze of their activities. This is more than logical, because writing “bullshit” in every headline is quite humiliating, and there is no point in enduring this humiliation, as a foreign agent organization is prohibited from engaging in educational activities and participating in politics—which is exactly what both LPRs have done throughout their history.

A side plot has also seen some development. Montelibero reminded us of the support program for repatriates to Montenegro, and the Montenegrin state, in turn, reminded us that it is actively striving for the EU, harmonizing its visa policy with the European Union, and therefore introducing a visa regime with the RF starting in November. Finita, a popular relocation destination is closing. What is the point of getting a Montenegrin visa if the requirements will be Schengen-like; wouldn’t it be better to just get a Schengen visa and at least have the opportunity to choose one of 27 countries for residence.

The popular Ukrainian Minister of Defense was not reinstated, but instead, the commander-in-chief was replaced by a more popular one

This is, of course, the strangest development of the plot, because it moves in complete contradiction to the official rhetoric. The President of Ukraine claimed that he had no complaints against the former Minister of Defense, but simply a conflict between him and the commander-in-chief. And so, the commander-in-chief was removed; it would seem the problem was solved. But no, in fact, the firing of the Minister of Defense was the goal of all the reshuffles. The retired minister is asserting his rights, the street continues to protest, and the democratic process—being by definition a euphemism for civil war—is working at full blast in exactly this, its primary capacity; if it worked like this for everyone, there would be significantly fewer complaints about democracy.

Balaji Srinivasan’s Network State has signed a partnership agreement with Kazakhstan, and he’s getting the hell out of Malaysia

Thus, the founder of the Network State not only carried out his threat to move capital out of a toxic jurisdiction but was also welcomed with open arms in another jurisdiction, and this is exactly what the concept of the network state was devised for: the possibility of obtaining diplomatic recognition from traditional territorial states.

The subject of the Network State’s conflict with Malaysia, if Twitter comments are to be believed, is quite ridiculous in itself. The Malaysian police literally stormed their campus not just for no reason, but were looking for Jews under the floor, which makes the plot completely Tarantino-esque.

General conclusions and forecasts

Traditional territorial states care less and less about their own systemic well-being and more and more about serving the momentary whims of top officials or long-neglected bureaucratic processes whose meaning has long been lost. The sanctity of state decisions has been lost almost everywhere; now legitimacy is being actively spent. When legitimacy drops sufficiently, the sabotage of state decisions will become a widespread and quite ordinary phenomenon. It seems, however, that the collapse of state management systems will remain fairly peaceful: where the state is aggressive, individuals and organizations avoid violent conflict with it, but the conflict still undermines the state’s strength.

Difference in reactions to state foolishness

I thought it would be interesting to compare the reactions of various targets of state attacks to the fact of the attack, especially since there have been several multi-level examples recently.

The Libertarian Party of Russia has been recognized as a foreign agent organization

Reaction:

  • LPR members are wondering which of the two LPRs specifically.
  • The LPR(s) posted an official statement: “we are patriots and condemn this decision.”
  • Those not in the LPR congratulate both LPRs on the state recognizing their existence.
  • Montelibero reminds about the assistance program for moving to Montenegro.

A popular Ukrainian defense minister has been dismissed

Reaction:

  • The dismissed official posted a report on the work done and held a
    press conference.
  • Like-minded people of the dismissed official in the troops publish public statements in his support.
  • Foreign officials express bewilderment.
  • The general public: protests in support of the dismissed official.

Balaji Srinivasan’s Network State was subjected to swatting

Reaction:

  • The founder politely asks on Twitter whether Malaysia would like capital flight from this toxic jurisdiction to more welcoming ones for such startups, such as Kazakhstan.
  • The founder’s like-minded associates specify exactly how much has been invested and how much will be withdrawn if Malaysian officials do not swear that it was a stupid mistake and that they will not dare do such a thing again.

Commonalities in all three reactions

  • No one expresses any doubt that the state is committing overt aggression against the interests of its citizens.
  • The targets of the attack officially express loyalty to the state, although they condemn its decision.
  • The targets of the attack try to convince the state to revoke its decision amicably.

The uniqueness of the reaction in one of the cases

Only the founder of the Network State communicates with the territorial state as an equal.

Conclusion

The state is effective in violence. The targets of state attacks prefer not to give it a forceful response in order not to provoke escalation. Nevertheless, they lean towards an asymmetric response. In the case of the LPR and the Network State, this is emigration, meaning the deprivation of the state of economic resources. In the case of the dismissed minister, it is the delegitimization of the decision through public pressure.
I have arranged the cases in increasing order of the probability that the toxic decision will be overturned. In the case of the LPR, the probability is vanishingly small. With Fedorov, I think the probability is about thirty percent. With Balaji, about seventy percent. I will follow the last two cases.

Network State. EPUB version

This summer, I finished translating Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State. Not everyone finds it convenient to read from a browser screen, and the automatically generated PDF suffered from some layout issues and occasional missing chunks of text. So, slowly and for fun after work, I laid out a version in EPUB format for e-readers (while also proofreading several more bugs in the translation). Given how many links are scattered throughout the text, the task turned out to be quite meditative and kept me busy for several months. And you’ve just had a few months to save up enough money to donate to me.

Also, I am finally leaving my full-time job, which has taken a considerable amount of my time and energy over the last three years. So, in a couple of weeks, I will have far more opportunities to maintain the channel. I think some reformatting awaits it.

Network State — it’s over!

So, it has happened. The final, and key, chapter of The Network State has been translated. In it, Balaji explains in detail:

  • What a network state is (this is Montellibero, which received diplomatic recognition from El Salvador);
  • What happens if you remove one of the parts from the definition of a network state (in most cases it will break, but if you remove the point about the need for a dictatorship of the network state’s founder, it will be even better—roughly speaking, Bitcoin instead of Ethereum);
  • That digitalization is penetrating everything and it is impossible to fight, and a network state is precisely a way to lead the process, instead of fighting directly against the digital gulag of centralized nation-states;
  • That the startup community, if it aspires to develop, needs a high level of internal trust, and pleasant bonuses would be visible demonstrations of solidarity (for example, the MTL-fest) and the absence of public flame wars;
  • That tokenomics is cool (but Balaji focuses on the community’s internal currency, although having one’s own unit of account is a secondary matter; the principle of public recording of monetary and social obligations is far more important);
  • That it is extremely important to scrounge the first diplomatic recognition from anyone, even from Nauru, and then it will be easier;
  • And he throws in various technological ideas for connecting offline with online, through which you can feel that the person thinks based on a paradigm of abundance of capital goods—let’s be happy for him.

If anyone hasn’t picked up the book yet, now is the time. I don’t see much point in making an audiobook out of it—there are too many external links, many of which are quite interesting to browse. For the same reason, it’s unlikely that the text will be produced in epub format—such a book should be read while online, and preferably in a browser anyway. The author promises to update the book periodically. If anyone follows the updates, please send me links to new pieces of text, and I will update the translation.

And for now—thank you all for the long wait, the channel is now officially coming out of vacation. I’ll need to scour through to see if any interesting questions from readers have accumulated, write a new article for Hedgehog, and it’s about time to finish the translations of Mac and Molinyu, for goodness’ sake.

P.S. Readers quickly generated a pdf. It’s not without flaws—internal footnotes have become external links—but overall it’s perfectly suitable for reading.

Network State. Translation of chapters 5.1 and 5.2.

The translation of The Network State is steadily nearing completion. Chapter 5.1 (a short preamble to the fifth part of the book) and Chapter 5.2, where Balaji Srinivasan analyzes the phenomenon of the nation-state in detail: what a nation is, what a state is, how they differ, how they influence each other, what their combination represents, and much more along those lines, are ready.

From some fairly recent thoughts: various strategies of public administration are likened to various programming paradigms.

The next piece will definitely, certainly be the last, and I hope the most interesting—after all, we must finally figure out what the author proposes in a practical sense, after going on for so long and in such detail about the global situation and upcoming challenges!

Network State. Translation of the fourth part is complete

To avoid bothering readers with news about every single sneeze, I present a large chunk of the translation of The Network State all at once.

Chapter 4.4. The Foreseeable Future: here the author simply had some fun with a couple of interesting technical predictions. They have a rather indirect relationship to the theme of the book.

Chapter 4.5. American Anarchy, Chinese Control, and International Centrism. A monstrously large text where the author mostly, of course, writes about the USA, analyzing step by step exactly how the degree of confrontation between supporters of the establishment and supporters of decentralization will increase in the States, and reports that this, generally speaking, is not funny or romantic at all (to be honest, while reading, it seemed to me that the author created a straw man out of Bitcoin maximalists, and they by no means propagate societies of total distrust, but who knows what kind of freaks actually hang out in these Americas of theirs). The alternative in the form of the Chinese recipe for a digital gulag obviously does not entice him either. As usual, he hopes that foreign countries will help him, and primarily bets on Israel and India. However, in his view, this is merely a base for building many startup communities, some of which will grow to the high status of network states.

Chapter 4.6. Conditions for Victory and Unexpected Endings. Here the author considers alternative scenarios where one of the extreme poles wins, rather than the coveted centrism.

Chapter 4.7. Toward a Recentralized Center. And here Balaji Srinivasan only has to emphasize once more that institutions are not scary, centralization is normal, you just shouldn’t obsess over the fact that the old things don’t work, and it would be more correct to actually launch a market process for building new institutions.

I will try not to take too long with the translation of the final, fifth part of the book, which presumably contains the recipes for what the author proposes to do.

Network State, Chapter 4.3. Techno-economic Axes.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone, and at the same time, happy end of Maslenitsa; and to those who love filming queues in fast-forward mode—happy opportunity to indulge in your favorite pastime. So many holidays in one day—isn’t that great, isn’t that panarchy!

As for me, another chapter of The Network State has been quietly translated. Balaji Srinivasan continues to discuss the trends of the near future, and if in the previous chapter he discussed socio-political trends, now he touches upon the techno-economic consequences of the digitalization and internetization of everything.

For instance, he notes that the sharp lowering of the publishing threshold increases variance: alongside traditional, polished, and weighted but uninteresting positions, a multitude of the most unusual chthonic entities crawl into the light. And besides the shaking of discourse via social networks, there is also the shaking of financial stability through countless cryptocurrencies.

Another interesting aspect discussed by the author is that the total digitalization of everything leads to digital entities becoming primary, while physical ones, in essence, materialize on demand if there is a need.

He also briefly touches upon the mystery of why we do not observe as frantic a leap in productivity in the physical world as we do in the digital world. Then, providing a whole brood of hypotheses, he suggests choosing between them independently.

In short, the chapter is quite saturated with ideas and generalizations, so I don’t see much point in summarizing it; it’s easier to just read it.

Network State, Part 4. Decentralization, recentralization. Chapters 4.1 and 4.2

The translation of the fourth part of The Network State has begun. As expected, after finishing with the “past present,” the author has moved on to discussing the future.

In Chapter 4.1, Possible Versions of the Future, Balaji Srinivasan begins by clarifying the factors that prevent him from making precise forecasts, then provides a brief description of the envisioned future scenario, and finally estimates where his idea of network states would fit into this scenario. In doing so, he uses the disgustingly clumsy term “re-centralized center.” My ability to adapt the text during translation is limited, so I can only state that the term is terrible and difficult to understand, but nothing comes to mind yet to replace it with. What does the author even mean? As far as I can judge based on an incomplete reading, the word “center” refers to the center of the triangle he drew in the third part of the book describing a tripolar world—suggesting that our salvation lies in not falling into the extremes that accumulate at the poles. And he has yet to explain “re-centralized.” Perhaps it means that every startup community must have its own leader, otherwise it won’t take off. I would be glad to be wrong.

In Chapter 4.2, Sociopolitical Axes, the author briefly notes that to assess the future, it is not enough to look at well-known and long-established trends; it is also worth looking at those that are only just forming. As examples of sociopolitical factors that could seriously affect the future, he provides three completely diverse examples: Indians (while everyone is looking at China, India is quietly closing the gap, and in the next decade should make its presence felt quite loudly, both as a state and as a diaspora, i.e., a Network, in the author’s terminology), the confrontation between the “un-prime” and the “trans-hum” (Klaus Schwab was listed as a transhumanist), and the identity stack (there are several interesting thoughts on where identities come from, as well as a non-obvious take that one identity will inevitably be the leading and defining one).

The chapters in the fourth part of the book are not very long, so I will try to post them in groups rather than one by one, to avoid cluttering the feed.

Network State, Part 3, Tripolar World.

The translation of the third part of Balaji Srinivasan’s book The Network State has been posted. Unlike the second part, it is quite short and is dedicated to describing the current tripolar world:

The author argues that the world today is ruled by three ideas: the American liberal agenda, brutal and pragmatic Chinese communism, and the idea of personal sovereignty, which has found its maximum expression in Bitcoin. Additionally, he touches upon the tripolar configuration of the first half of the 20th century in the context of analyzing the primary strength of each of the current poles.

In general, while the second part dealt primarily with the past, in the third part the author has moved to the present, and further on, presumably, he will deal with the future.

Network State, chapter 2.9. The Single Commandment.

I’m completely swamped at my main job right now, and it’s hard to concentrate on something truly creative during short breaks, so I’m keeping myself busy with translation; doing it in snatches is quite feasible.

Another chapter of The Network State is ready, this time much more compact than the previous one. It concludes the second part of the book, in which history is presented as a trajectory, a kind of narrative created to justify changes in the present. In this chapter, a simple rule is formulated that the author urges creators of startup communities to follow: base it on only one commandment; do not try to implement a complex ideology with many independent moral statements right away—you’ll have time to cross-pollinate ideas with allies later, but at first, it’s better to concentrate.

In principle, libertarianism is quite reducible to a Single commandment, and usually, the principle “aggressive violence is bad” serves in this capacity (I am adapting this to the author’s style). So go ahead and build libertarian startup communities, Balaji has given his permission.