[HN Gopher] What I think about network states
___________________________________________________________________
What I think about network states
Author : jseliger
Score : 93 points
Date : 2022-07-15 05:56 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (vitalik.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (vitalik.ca)
| pphysch wrote:
| Realistically speaking: take a multinational corporation, dial up
| their employee care package (potentially to include all costs of
| living), and then (???) circumvent all local regulations, declare
| independence, etc.
|
| _Why_ and _how_ do you do the last parts?
|
| This is libertarian/Trotskyist utopianism with a copious helping
| of cryptomania.
| kreetx wrote:
| Multinationals arent "run" for the good of their people and
| don't seem to have any central value which motivates their
| being.
|
| And crypto here is simply a tool to enforce whatever rules they
| have to run their org (in the same sense that no-one can take
| your btc, but a government can take your fiat if they wanted
| to).
| pphysch wrote:
| > Multinationals arent "run" for the good of their people and
| don't seem to have any central value which motivates their
| being.
|
| There is nothing stopping a large corporation from doing
| these things, should the leadership find it in their
| interest.
| kreetx wrote:
| Absolutely, but they didn't start out that way and unlikely
| that any owner is going to change course of their business
| model.
| shafyy wrote:
| Here's something some software engineers need to understand: Most
| things in society and the world are not technical problems. Just
| because you can invert a binary tree doesn't mean you understand
| how society works.
|
| It seems like some people, just because they are smart in one
| area, think they know everything. We see this with many VCs, Elon
| Musk, Vitalik etc.
|
| Reading this post, I don't even know where to begin. This sounds
| like the ramblings of a kid that never had any real friends and
| community, and never lived in the real world. But maybe we have
| peaked as a society (at least in the US), and it's all going
| downhill from here?
| m0llusk wrote:
| That is the kind of criticism that the idea of a constitutional
| republic got back when all we had were kingdoms.
| lottin wrote:
| This is exactly how I feel about anarcho-capitalism (also known
| in the USA as libertarianism), and ideology that seems devised
| by a 10 year old with no life experience. How a grown-up person
| can take this nonsense seriously is beyond me. Bewildering.
| rufusroflpunch wrote:
| I'm sure they would say the same thing about whatever
| nonsense you believe.
| imtringued wrote:
| You can achieve the stated goals of anarcho capitalism or
| anarcho communism with policies that have nothing to do
| with these movements.
|
| In fact the problem with anarcho capitalism is that the
| freedoms it provides are also the rope on which it hangs
| itself. It is the dodo of economic systems with no sense of
| self preservation.
|
| Getting rid of the rope involves taking away some freedoms
| that nobody should have, but that would go against the
| spirit of both anarcho capitalism and libertarians.
| namlem wrote:
| The difference is that mainstream liberal capitalism has
| decades of real world results across dozens of countries
| while anarcho-capitalism has nothing.
| lottin wrote:
| They do have the Satoshi ;)
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-
| voya...
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| While I don't want to surmise as to the state of his friends
| and community (1729 which Balaji runs does have a good amount
| of people in it and I have made a good friend from there
| personally), I think that anyone interested in this topic who
| is an engineer should go and spend a year or two working in
| government just to see how it really works (and also put up or
| shut up at a certain point)
| kreetx wrote:
| Abstract ramblings indeed. But also interesting in the sense
| that it's tiresome to share a state with people who are
| motivated differently, so why not try this "Network state"
| instead?
| SilverBirch wrote:
| I think an extension of this is that a remarkable portion of
| people in SV have no interest in research. They don't go "I
| want to solve problem X, I'm going to do some research into
| what already exists in that area" they go "I'm going to solve
| problem X from first principles", and then they slowly and
| painfully discover all the things that everyone else already
| knew. This is just pseudo-philosophy. You would've thought that
| network states, being very obviously juxtaposed to nation
| states would have an idea of what a nation state is. But it's
| pretty obvious he doesn't even understand the concept he's
| opposing - he confuses a nation state for a country... because
| it's never occured to him that he needs to actually understand
| the words he's using.
| dellIsBetter wrote:
| good point
| rvz wrote:
| Precisely said.
|
| > It seems like some people, just because they are smart in one
| area, think they know everything. We see this with many VCs,
| Elon Musk, Vitalik etc.
|
| Totally correct. Elon's wild claims on solving FSD (Fools Self
| Driving) seemed to be a total disaster, and Vitalik's claims on
| his decentralized slot machine utopia 'Ethereum' on how using a
| generalized blockchain to solve 'anything' from voting, social
| networks, DAOs, NFTs, etc has manifested into a tinkerbell
| griftopia [0] as feared by even the most fierce critics of
| blockchains.
|
| Finally, VCs really don't care on being wrong on thousands of
| failed investments. They just need one massive return to make
| up for all of it hundreds of times over and somehow they are
| viewed as _' experts'_ which is a great example of the Texas
| sharpshooter fallacy. We don't hear them screaming about
| Clubhouse which was hyped to the extreme since it is isn't
| doing great as expected after being copied to death.
|
| Also reading this article in particular, it is gearing close to
| sophistry.
|
| [0] https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/tinkerbell.html
| Communitivity wrote:
| 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 provided by a government. I would have liked a term
| that highlights this connection more, perhaps something like
| Governing Autonomous Organization (GAO). Due apologies to the
| Government Account Office (also GAO).
|
| I think better than Balaji takes on the concept can be found in
| the works of two science fiction authors, Neal Stephenson and
| Charlie Stross.
|
| Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash [1] (e.g., Distributed Republics
| [2]). May be of interest, but Stephenson is building a metaverse
| that may incorporate some of these concepts, called Laminal [3].
|
| Accelerando [4], by Charlie Stross, takes the concept even
| further. It has literal distributed autonomous companies acting
| as shell corporations, executors, and more.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJCJE/ref=dp-kindle-
| redirect?...
|
| [2] Perry, Richard Warren (2000). "Governmentalities in City-
| scapes: Introduction to the Symposium". Political and Legal
| Anthropology Review. 23 (1): 65-72. doi:10.1525/pol.2000.23.1.65.
| ISSN 1081-6976. JSTOR 24497832.
|
| [3] https://decrypt.co/102646/snow-crash-author-neal-
| stephenson-...
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| 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 mind that gets
| stuck in an area of expertise and tries to shoehorn everything
| into that frame of mind.
|
| Just to add to your books, Diamond Age by Stephenson was also
| good although nation states weren't the main topic but Malka
| Older's Infomocracy series which talks a lot about microstates
| and a body like the UN that controls the world's information
| was a phenomenal read (and pretty quick).
|
| Overall, the book was a major disappointment, same with the
| community and his investment in Praxis-- the book could have
| been Sovereign Individual 2.0 with the right editor and more
| thought into the structure but ended up being a long-form
| rambling essay with the same examples (keto community!) re-used
| again and again
| jjfoooo4 wrote:
| 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.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| 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.
| 7373737373 wrote:
| Another sci-fi book that portrays such a world is Freedom(tm)
| by Daniel Suarez:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom%E2%84%A2
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Oh, big +1 on Freedom, excellent book (weird fun fact, in the
| book the author thanks Rick Klau who until very recently was
| California's Chief Technology Innovation Officer- so there
| are some people with wild ideas who are in government too)
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickklau/
| randomopining wrote:
| It's just some showy twitter influencer dream speak. He has to
| put forth bold ideas that get likes and rt's. In reality, how
| many of the local/state/federal laws that are implemented by
| real people working together in the real world does he depend
| on to survive? Pure libertarianism never works, things just
| tribalize and then externalities are pushed on the rest. If you
| are at the top, things are good, if you are at the bottom
| things are terrible. In our current system it's like this too,
| but at least the worst things can get have a floor imposed by
| our laws.
|
| Plus face to face interactions have so much value. Online
| interactions are just so transactional and so much of what
| evolved into our DNA is lost.
|
| I've also never understood what could enforce online contracts
| in the real world. Like who verifies the NFT is for a house
| etc.
| gerikson wrote:
| It reminds me of Doctorow's _Eastern Standard Tribe_.
| mkka wrote:
| Another author with similar distributed governing bodies as a
| basis for plot is Malka Older in the Infomacracy series with
| micro democracy.
| zuzu89 wrote:
| Libertarians understand how culture and power work challenge
| (impossible)
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| This seems doomed to repeat mistakes from history.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| There's a lot here that's entirely unnecessary but I've wondered
| recently if a "network state"-like thing devoted to certain
| public services might be beneficial. In particular, a large
| enough group could likely negotiate better rates for health
| insurance than an individual in the same way a large employer
| does, and could provide a stronger social safety net (maybe even
| potentially a UBI?) in the same way some governments do. Doing so
| would require e.g. countering benefit tourism (you couldn't have
| someone join when they're laid off just for some benefits and
| leave immediately after they find a new one, you'd never be able
| to keep it funded that way), but I think that's surmountable.
|
| In other words, if we don't believe the government we have right
| now is likely to provide many essential services, even if we
| ultimately believe it should, is it possible to organize
| privately for the same benefits? I think it might be.
| joosters wrote:
| We used to call those 'co-operatives' and 'unions'.
| numtel wrote:
| So then building them as "network states" is a recognition
| that nation states have lost the control they had a century
| ago due to advances in technology and communications.
| Distance and locality isn't as important when the internet
| makes telepresence feasible.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Sort of, but both are pretty industry- and purpose-specific.
|
| Also, aren't dues typically either fixed amounts or a flat
| percentage? If you're looking to emulate a government, I'd
| imagine you might also want progressive dues akin to
| progressive taxation.
| [deleted]
| m0llusk wrote:
| This is already here now in some ways. For example: tree
| people. It turns out that there are a lot of basic rules
| communities can follow that make planting and caring for trees
| in public spaces easier. People who want to plant trees can
| reach out and find what kind of trees are best for particular
| locations and constraints. It is usually also possible to get
| instructions and borrow equipment for digging holes and moving
| trees and soil.
|
| You can't get regular pay or health insurance or a social
| safety net from the tree people, but together they plant,
| protect, and care for trees and spread the knowledge of how
| that is done and the wisdom of why it is done.
|
| In my opinion the tree people are a good minimal example of how
| network states might start with small shared domains and goals
| and might make a big difference without even expanding.
| zajio1am wrote:
| Fun fact: There is already one such 'network state': Sovereign
| military order of Malta:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| 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.)
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I thought it recently got some land in Malta again too?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| It has partial extraterritoriality in the upper portion of
| Fort St. Angelo, it's not their sovereign territory.
| [deleted]
| pcdoodle wrote:
| dellIsBetter wrote:
| if you say ultra left you gain downvote
| jshaqaw wrote:
| It is embarrassing that rich tech bro drivel like the Network
| State is what counts as intellectual discourse in modern society.
| m0llusk wrote:
| Do you have any specific criticism of the idea?
| braingenious wrote:
| I used to know a guy that smoked >2g of meth per day that would
| talk nonstop about shit like this. He lived in a makeshift shed
| at the bottom of a dry river bed. He's long dead now but he'd
| have gotten a kick out of "keto kosher" for sure!
| capableweb wrote:
| The line between insane and genius is indeed seemingly small.
|
| Reminds me of when I talked with a quantum scientist. Most of
| what he said, sounded like ramblings from a coke head, but
| seemingly others around him understood what he said and
| continued the discussion, so I can only assume they were
| actually having a real conversation.
|
| If I'd met the guy under different circumstances, I'd
| definitely wouldn't have believed any of it was actually real.
| shafyy wrote:
| There's no line. Most "geniuses" are fucking insane, they
| just happen to be right about one thing.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| Is this really true? Maybe they're not 'geniuses' but the
| most capable people I've met have generally seemed quite
| sane? Often idiosyncratic, sure, but not wildly decoupled
| from reality. That matches what I've generally read about
| famous geniuses too.
| nominusllc wrote:
| It's because genius and lunacy aren't mutually exclusive,
| and any intelligence sufficiently advanced to be labeled
| as such is separated from normal intelligence by a wide
| gulf of differences.
| shafyy wrote:
| I don't have any hard data on this, that's just my
| experience / opinion =)
| nradov wrote:
| I listened to an interview with Kanye West. Most of what he
| said was batshit crazy. The man is obviously mentally ill.
| But occasionally he said something so profound and insightful
| it made me think for a moment that he was the only sane one
| and it's the rest of us who are crazy.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > The man is obviously mentally ill.
|
| [1] "Kanye was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016,
| something he has since spoken about openly. He has said
| that he experiences manic episodes, which typically include
| paranoia, and that he is not medicated for the condition."
|
| AIUI he refuses to medicate because he thinks it will
| interfere with his creative output.
|
| [1] https://www.vogue.co.uk/beauty/article/bipolar-
| disorder-kany...
| adamrezich wrote:
| the idea that synthetic medication is the only obvious
| solution to internal mental issues and any other means of
| handling such things is bad and wrong, is a strange one
| to me--especially when talking about someone with
| incredible wealth and creative output.
| aaaaaaaaata wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWGW_MzWNsE
| bloppe wrote:
| It took an epic ego combined with a highly selective
| interpretation of history to write this book. America in
| particular has a rich history of utopian separatist movements.
| The internet doesn't bring anything new to the table, apart from
| the facility to organize from afar, which has certain advantages
| but also many drawbacks.
|
| I encourage experimentation. Maybe Balaji can get it right where
| all the others have gotten it wrong. But, I find this book highly
| unconvincing. Modest, secular federalism has proven itself to me
| in principal, and I much prefer to fix the problems we have
| rather than scrap the whole system.
| ihm wrote:
| Seems founded on a totally unmaterialist and unscientific
| understanding of how societies persist themselves.
|
| This is evident in Balaji's fixation on the psychology of the
| individuals involved. E.g., saying intentional communities have
| failed because they didn't have a religious devotion to the
| project, like "Zionism without Judaism".
|
| Instead he should talk about "Zionism without the British empire
| and the Holocaust", both of which were much bigger factors in
| sustaining the project than the psychology of early zionists. Of
| course this played a role, but not a determinative one.
|
| Another indicator of the lack of materialist understanding: who
| is keeping the lights on for these delusional societies? Where
| does the food come from? Where do the electronics they use come
| from?
|
| Edit: reading further (against my better judgement...) it's clear
| that the whole line of thinking is rooted in a misunderstanding
| of history and a parochial worldview that can barely see the
| world outside Twitter.
| Vespasian wrote:
| Also the most basic question:
|
| "You and what army?" Either they pay/bribe whatever governments
| have an interest in them or they find a way to (threaten to)
| defend themselves against people who are much more organized
| and economically supported than their paradise for rich people.
|
| In the later cases you need to find 'volunteers' who (might)
| "die in the trenches" and I've got a feeling that you those are
| not to abundant in a society characterized by the desire to get
| away.
|
| Others have tried and failed. E.g. The Khmer Rouge did enforce
| massive changes on society, according with their ideology, but
| in the end they were removed from power with the help of tanks
| planes and guns.
| evrydayhustling wrote:
| Right - shared interest is much better at creating identity
| than identity is at creating shared interests. The idea of
| lifestyle identities binding network states that survive the
| evolution of members' differing interests is weak. The
| sustained identity-based networks of the world have often been
| those whose persecution gives them a strong mutual interest.
| [deleted]
| Nextgrid wrote:
| "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.
| ibz wrote:
| Very much agree. The only cryptocurrency that does _not_
| require a trusted third party is Bitcoin - and that is because
| it uses energy as a link to the real world. All the PoS crap is
| just various trusted third parties, which the fiat system
| already has (governments, banks...) and works better and is
| well regulated and well understood. Zero added value.
| Vespasian wrote:
| I don't think this is what the GP is talking about.
|
| Think of this scenario: Suppose I got an online
| token/contract/NFT on any Blockchain that says I own the
| property and house at 123 Main Street and further suppose
| this is as verified on the chain as it can be. No doubt about
| it.
|
| Then when I show up to 123 Main Street there is already
| someone living there with a different claim (let's say a
| classic deed in some government real estate database).
|
| Then the police and the courts get involved and at the end of
| it one party will be removed from the property, by force if
| necessary.
|
| This is what the GP meant with trusted physical party. The
| entities who IRL decide and enforce which of the many
| competing "proofs" of ownership are actually legit.
| jerrre wrote:
| What do you mean when you talk about "the real world", is there
| one such thing?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| By real-world I mean off-chain assets where the source of
| truth is usually the state of the physical world (as opposed
| to the blockchain, like it is with cryptocoins).
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I have some thoughts on this.
|
| Fundamentally, the "state of the real world" is the result
| of might is right, force or threat of force. The state of
| the real world is the result of _action_ , and action is an
| act of force on the matter of the world, the act of
| changing things away from their most stable state by way of
| expression of energy. This is an act of force in it's
| simplest sense on non living things. Where living things
| are concerned, it becomes recognizable as force because
| living things have their own agenda, and putting them into
| a state you prefer necessitates some degree of coercion.
|
| So a hypothetical world where entities like these network
| States, blockchain states and consensus mechanisms control
| real world assets is a world where action on the real
| world, including use of force, is automated. You don't
| _have to_ have permission from the current status quo
| structure of institutions for blockchains and the like to
| have real world effect, you just have to have a way for
| them to act with or without institutional approval. A world
| where construction, modification and aggressive action is
| automated and thus can be deterministically and provably
| democratic is what you get out of all this.
| ls15 wrote:
| "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.
| majormajor wrote:
| 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?
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > trusted party to reconcile the state of the paper with the
| state of the real world
|
| that's called enforcement of the law, that can rely on force,
| if necessary.
|
| a blockchain has the same value of paper (on paper) but it
| can be shut down by cutting electricity and, most of all, has
| no way to enforce what's stored on it.
|
| Because no trusted party is willing to make the effort, there
| is no way a bunch of individuals are going to come together
| and declare war (to whom?) to make it stick.
| akhmatova wrote:
| _You need some physical, trusted party to reconcile the state
| of the paper with the state of the real world..._
|
| Otherwise known as working State with an army, a navy, nukes,
| and democracy (for stability), or some semblance thereof, and
| all the other stuff that keeps it humming along for 200+
| years despite internal turmoil, foreign attacks, and all
| that. And rich enough to keep its economy humming too, and
| its coffers flush with cash and other reserves.
|
| _That 's_ what makes a stable currency; not "fiat" or "paper
| stacks".
| randomopining wrote:
| Paper and stone tablets are the same thing lol. The whole
| point is a modern functioning society is a chain of humans
| that are held by social, economic, and legal forces to
| perform duties. A blockchain exists online, it's not "real".
| The blockchain can't perform actions in the physical world.
| Humans have to.
|
| The blockchain can't inspect a house before sale. The
| blockchain can't test the water quality outside of a factory
| upstream from your town.
| imtringued wrote:
| We have banks and law enforcement.
| pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
| > "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...
|
| This but unironically.
| apeace wrote:
| Right. It's not the paper or stone tablets that ever made
| any changes. It was the people willing to do it in the real
| world. So the point is that blockchains don't open up any
| new possibilities that weren't there before. People always
| could've done whatever they were willing to do. Blockchains
| may have some benefits, but it's not as if people starting
| independent states was impossible before them.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| When writing this comment I originally wanted to make an
| analogy to law and the reason the law is (usually) followed
| isn't because "law" is a magic word that gives the text
| magical powers but because if you don't follow it, some goons
| with guns will eventually show up and convince you to follow
| it. In this case, the goons are that "trusted party" that's
| meant to reconcile the state of the paper with the state of
| the real world. We know it's not perfect which is why we have
| various levels of redundancy and oversight, and while it's
| still not 100% reliable it usually works quite well.
|
| However I'm not sure what you mean to signify with your paper
| vs stone tablet comparison. Unlike blockchains, paper doesn't
| claim to do anything magical compared to stone tablets - it's
| still just a medium of storing written text.
| bloppe wrote:
| "physical, trusted party" is a way of describing a blockchain
| network.
| karpierz wrote:
| No, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32109419
| gumby wrote:
| > "Crypto" people need to understand one thing: the real world
| does not give a shit what your blockchain says.
|
| "My program would be so great if I didn't have to do I/O"
|
| I made essentially this comment yesterday on the corncob
| article, but now realize it's the essence of crypto/dao fandom.
| conorcleary wrote:
| ...a good old... centralized database? Welcome to the future,
| where pushing back with your opinion just helps reinforce the
| need for decentralization.
| zach_garwood wrote:
| "Decentralization." You keep using this word, but I do not
| think it means what you think means.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| a good old distributed network of centralized databases, one
| or more for each entity, that get reconciled at intervals.
|
| the network itself is already decentralized.
|
| interoperability and open protocols > immutable ledger (which
| is a centralized source of the truth)
|
| philosophically speaking a society where information is
| stored with no restriction but can be made available to other
| parties in an open and documented manner is more free than
| one where the "tables of the law" is one immutable and
| indisputable blockchain because the computer says so.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| a blockchain is as centralized as it gets, a "single source
| of truth"
| majormajor wrote:
| 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.
| siavosh wrote:
| A state is in large part defined by having a monopoly over taxes
| and a military, neither of which any group within an existing
| state can ever have. So these network states can at most land
| somewhere between a political party or an online club. Does
| Balaji address this?
| henearkr wrote:
| Yay even more groupism. Like nationalism, bigotry and racism
| weren't enough.
|
| I think we should move towards a more integrated Earth, not more
| partitioning.
| m0llusk wrote:
| People encourage free trade and travel among states while still
| believing in and committing too states for their living and
| identity.
| paisawalla wrote:
| > Like nationalism, bigotry and racism weren't enough.
|
| Please no.
|
| I would like to exit the bureaucracy of mother hens pecking me
| to death as they enforce ever-narrowing boundaries of
| permissible thought -- that is, when they are not decking my
| neighborhood and workplace with messages demanding my homage to
| the current thing. You, apparently, would like to make that the
| universal condition.
|
| Some people read "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever"
| as a compelling vision, and not a warning.
| henearkr wrote:
| I am light-years away from what you say.
|
| I am as horrified as you of "boot stamping on face" so I
| don't know what you're talking about... have you misread my
| posts??
| nominusllc wrote:
| You put nationalism in a list of bad things, as if it too
| were a bad thing. I don't think you consider what you're
| saying before you post it.
| henearkr wrote:
| 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 (including viruses).
|
| PS: you should tone down your prejudice that I didn't
| think a lot about what I'm writing, it's... wrong and
| hurtful.
| paisawalla wrote:
| 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.
| henearkr wrote:
| 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).
| betwixthewires wrote:
| > ...for the good of all...
|
| There is absolutely no evidence that this is an intrinsic
| characteristic of a democracy. This is the fundamental
| problem with your naive proposal. There's no such thing
| as "for the good of all."
| paisawalla wrote:
| TLDR: democracy is rule by the people, unless the people
| choose poorly or refuse to accept what is Obviously Good
| and Right.
|
| Your ideas are bad and naive, and because you seem to be
| disavowing my natural right to refuse to participate in
| this poorly thought out ideological regime which you
| would have rule the world, you are also proposing
| tyranny.
|
| I don't accept that your idea of what "bad" is, is
| anything other than "stuff I personally don't like," only
| you have not examined your beliefs enough to realize
| that. In my view, you are unreasonably optimistic about
| the prospects for success for any of what you described,
| and I assume it's because you are unaware of, or view
| unrealistically, the history of these and related ideas.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| >a more integrated Earth
|
| yes, that's the ultimate fate of our civilization - becoming a
| gray biological mass of consumers without identity, culture, or
| allegiance to anything other than global corporations
|
| I'd prefer us to go extinct, and it is thankfully certain that
| we will
| henearkr wrote:
| You misunderstood me. I mean partitioning or integration of
| LAWS.
|
| This is exactly what "creating a state" means: having one's
| own law, which I think is bad.
|
| Good laws are most effective when they are enforced without
| borders.
|
| Of course I did not mean to uniformize people!!
|
| As for the link with groupism:
|
| partitioned laws are the starting point, you say "people from
| this state have those rights, people from other states do not
| have these rights even when they interact with our state".
|
| With this notion of network state, it is even unclear to me
| how they can discriminate what law apply to who, because
| there is no more "person X is geographically present on the
| land Y so Y law applies" principle.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Good laws are most effective when they take into account
| the needs of those being governed, including their self
| actualization as a need.
|
| The way that people in Mongolia, Bahrain, Angola and Norway
| want to live are very very different. "One set of laws"
| means authoritarian tyranny to most people of earth. Would
| you like to live in a world governed by one set of laws,
| which include theft being punishable by the amputation of a
| hand? Or in your perfect world with one set of laws, do you
| see yourself as the entity dictating what the laws are? If
| I am unhappy with your set of laws, is that just tough shit
| for me? If you found yourself in such a system and didn't
| like the laws, would you want a way out?
| stale2002 wrote:
| You are missing the point though.
|
| Some people prefer certain laws, and other people prefer
| different ones. And there can be a case whether neither set
| of laws is automatically "better".
|
| For example, private property rights in an interesting
| topic. Personally, I prefer strong private property rights,
| but I have no reason to deny another country from choosing
| something completely different.
|
| If people in another country, instead prefer socialism, or
| more collective ownership of property, that is fine by me
| if they do that, as long as they let other people who
| disagree, choose something else in other countries.
| nathias wrote:
| partitioning is the way how we make societies more integrated
| henearkr wrote:
| No. World-widely adopted laws are the way to go (thus, with
| world-wide enforcement organ too).
|
| Any other method leads to workarounds and relocation of what
| was meant to be curbed.
| nathias wrote:
| you know that there are quite a few of us that don't like
| the imperial boot on our face, and will always oppose it?
| henearkr wrote:
| I am not talking about imperialism, but about an Earth-
| scale democracy.
|
| I am as opposed as you to imperialism lol, if it was not
| clear enough from my posts.
|
| By the way, I think that what can be put in the category
| of "traditions" is not touched by laws, so my proposal
| does not hurt cultural differences.
|
| However it does ask to some traditions to go, because
| they are just objectively harmful.
|
| Just to hit the nail a bit further: you see cultural
| variety INSIDE existing democratic states, for example
| regional customs and traditions, etc. So there is
| absolutely no hint of imperialism in building a world-
| wide democracy.
| nathias wrote:
| That would be a good goal, but how can you make it witout
| imperialism? Not through nation states or representative
| democracies but through voluntary networks that can
| compose.
| henearkr wrote:
| I think it is possible.
|
| Maybe a way to do it would be through world-wide
| petitions?
|
| Or more realistically through some world-wide voting
| system, as participating to such a petition overtly could
| lead to political persecutions.
|
| Then the problem is the verification that people are not
| voting several times. And then the problem of allowing
| people to vote (in some states like in China that problem
| will be difficult to solve)...
| betwixthewires wrote:
| If you had a world wide petition, you'd have 1 of 2
| things: 1) everyone participating in one giant binding
| petition, in which case you're _already_ imposing
| worldwide democracy on them without asking them (the act
| of making them vote on it in the first place is an
| undemocratic act), or 2) individual nations and groups
| being given the option to have a vote on the matter, in
| which case you 'll certainly be left with nation states
| that say "no".
|
| _People don 't want what you're proposing._ Is it not
| then undemocratic to impose it on them in the first
| place?
| betwixthewires wrote:
| So under this proposed "traditions" umbrella, what can
| fit? Can a group perform FGM? The Maori committed a
| genocide on the Moriori and justified it with tradition,
| would that be allowed? Or is the "tradition" reservation
| something superficial and of no substance, with this
| global democracy reserving the right to determine what
| tradition is and therefore touch them with laws?
| ipiz0618 wrote:
| Sounds like dystopia to me. At least now we could flee to
| another country from tyranny.
| henearkr wrote:
| Ugh to your credit I should have precised that I do NOT
| envision this integrated Earth to be anything else than a
| democracy.
|
| Sorry, it was obvious for me.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| A democratic earth would stand a decent chance of
| marginalizing your social-political-religious group.
| There's a while lot of demographics on Earth.
|
| Think about a random sampling of all humans. Most are in
| Asia, esp India and China, and most are traditionally
| religious.
|
| Would women's rights be a priority? Fair employment? Gay
| rights?
|
| I do think that an integrated and conscientious Earth is
| important, especially with reasonable immigration and
| emigration rights, but I'm not sure I want to vote in a
| Earth President election.
| henearkr wrote:
| Gays are a minority in every democracy, and this does not
| make them marginalized in all those countries.
|
| To the contrary: democracy makes it more likely that they
| are tolerated and included.
|
| So your argument is not at all compelling.
|
| Also, to help you see it: take European Union as an
| example.
|
| It is only a loosely integrated democracy, but still, we
| elect EU MPs etc.
|
| EU does not prevent at all to have traditions and to
| "respect" the existence of geographically distinct
| "samples" of humans (its member countries, or its member
| intrastate regions, etc).
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Any minority group that is not acknowledged by the
| majority as being worthy of basic rights will struggle
| and probably be marginalized.
|
| Western nations do well with certain minority groups
| (they have many allies). Other cultures do not. The
| question is whether the majority of people would fall
| into a western like mindset or not. I think not.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| > To the contrary: democracy makes it more likely that
| they are tolerated and included.
|
| There is a correlation here, but it isn't causal.
| Democracy has been around in countries that support gay
| rights for much longer than they supported gay rights.
|
| What's made the difference has been cultural shifts
| wherein the majority supports gay rights rather than
| opposing them.
| namlem wrote:
| The key difference is that between a universalist
| democracy and a pluralist democracy.
| colinsane wrote:
| i'm not sure that's any better? do i want to grant
| literally half the world -- the majority of whom i will
| never otherwise interact with -- power to determine my
| legal rights? it's bad enough when people 1000 mi away
| demand things of me which i find morally indefensible and
| then use the power of democratic law to force that on me.
| amplify that by 10, and suddenly it's better?
|
| although Balaji tends to play PR to libertarians, i do
| think there's a real diffuse desire for increased freedom
| of association and less large-group adherence. those
| desires contributed to the creation of US democracy: a
| desire for the colonies to associate freely with each
| other, other states, and with GB in a different form than
| before; and freedom of religion (group adherence) is
| enshrined.
|
| democracy is a step up from previous forms of governance in
| that the people enforcing their views on me are necessarily
| more likely to have common views (lesser separation of
| ruling class from the majority class: "by the people for
| the people"). but this aspect degrades as you widen the
| democracy, either demographically or geographically (by
| proxy). i accept democracy as the best tool we've got
| today, but i hardly view it as an ideal end-state.
|
| i would prefer to work towards a state where i don't have
| to sacrifice my values to conform with the will of people i
| don't care for. that's necessarily a movement away from one
| global democracy. we've effectively achieved that in the
| digital landscape via the internet, which is fundamentally
| anarchic but works because people _want_ to cooperate and
| associate freely and have voluntarily developed tools to do
| so. Balaji dreams that there's some way to take this same
| achievement and apply it to on-the-ground governance. i
| appreciate that dream. blockchain is an ironic tool to use
| for that given its requirement for consensus which it
| achieves via democratic or shareholder governance (e.g.
| proof of stake). on the other hand, it makes it more
| difficult in certain ways for the ruling class to break its
| own rules, and can lessen the need for (and power of)
| representatives and push us towards a flatter democracy
| (where the ruling class more mirrors my own class). it's
| just another (hopeful) step along that path toward
| gradually increased freedom of association. i would like to
| at least be given the choice as to whether i want to
| participate in my present representative democracy or in a
| different, experimental state. i would very much dislike
| for that ability to be strongly denied me by some global
| government (democratic or otherwise).
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Some people don't want democracy. Some people just want to
| be left alone. Would those people be forced into your
| hypothetical global set of laws?
| lazzlazzlazz wrote:
| I'm not sure how being a democracy makes it any better,
| since it might very well be a tyranny of the majority.
| Democracy hardly guarantees the freedom to leave.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| When you tell US people that they can just live in their
| state and not worry about the morals, crime rates, rents, and
| laws in other states, they look at you like you're crazy.
|
| Everyone loves a good unilateral decree, as long as it
| reaffirms your beliefs.
| lazzlazzlazz wrote:
| "More integrated earth" sounds like there are no options, no
| alternatives, superficial diversity, no escape if you don't
| fit. I will resist that to the end.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| I'm going to write the first part of this comment after reading
| the first paragraph, then I'll revisit when I finish the article:
| This is going to be a lot of words that eventually concludes with
| someone not paying their taxes.
|
| Ok, I've read it now (well, 90% of it, I started skimming towards
| the end). I was being too generous, there really is nothing of
| value there. It's just bollocks. Honestly, if you put a chart in
| your book making an argument about some correlation and your
| r-squared is 0.37 you just don't deserve to be taken seriously.
| It's a stupid mix of Randian "going galt" and confused
| inconsistent rubbish. You're going to opt out of FDA regulations.
| Great, that's the big idea. But with blockchain. You're going to
| form a decentralized online community to organise a sugar-free
| community. What about this has anything to do with technology,
| governance or _anything_? Your big idea is to start a specialty
| restaurant. As we all know, there are 3 political organisations,
| the Chinese communist party, Bitcoin, and the NYT (which runs
| America). This is just deranged.
|
| I think Vitalik is _way_ too generous to Balaji in this analysis.
| I still think the only thing that will ever come to fruition
| branded as a "Network state" will be an attempt to skirt
| regulations or dodge taxes.
| hjanssen wrote:
| The idea that really _any_ state on this planet would recognize
| such a "state" as independent and would not treat it as a
| terrorist/criminal organisation is laughable and reeks of the
| typical tech-bro mindset that I have come to expect of any
| individual who willingly associates themselves with the crypto-
| bubble.
| WFHRenaissance wrote:
| Unless said nation states can enrich themselves via network
| states. Which will happen. There will be an elite transfer that
| occurs at this level.
| elif wrote:
| The biggest mistake of this idea is the libertarian-leftover
| concept that such a group needs to become it's own sovereign
| nation. Libertarians depend on that impossible outcome because of
| their ultra-hardline anti-tax, anti-police, anti-social-service
| perspectives.
|
| However, almost all rational groups of thinkers would still
| happily pay taxes to have access to hospitals, be issued useful
| passports, to not have to defend their borders with weapons, etc.
| Further, literally no country, however desperate, is going to be
| willing to sell off it's sovereignty. We've seen so many
| libertarian attempts to negotiate that fail.
|
| Instead of network states, they should be seeking network
| municipalities. Municipalities can control most daily life
| decisions, even having their own police. There are also many
| nations that would provide good terms to attract a techno-city.
| seibelj wrote:
| You are painting all libertarians with a broad brush. Just as
| not all Democrats are communists and not all Republicans are
| Nazis, not all libertarians are anarcho-capitalists that want
| the state to be destroyed. It is a way to dismiss libertarians
| but it isn't true.
|
| I'm a libertarian and I still want our constitutional republic
| in the US. I just advocate for market-based solutions vs. top-
| down paternalistic solutions and I want to reduce the size of
| the government. But I believe in the military, police, laws,
| taxes, etc.
| elif wrote:
| No, I'm painting historical secessionist libertarian
| movements as secessionist libertarian movements.
|
| The abolition and replacement of the state.
|
| Reformist libertarians are categorically excluded from the
| context of my criticism.
| imtringued wrote:
| Money is a source of power, maybe the biggest source, often
| strong enough to overpower democratic governments. Reducing
| the state just makes society more vulnerable to those who
| abuse the power that money has granted them. When you think
| about it, the answer isn't to make the state smaller, the
| answer should be to make big states unnecessary then they
| will shrink on their own. Almost every ideology has fallen
| into this trap. They see a worthy end goal, but they have no
| clue how to achieve it, here is a common example, the
| government wants lower housing costs, a lot of leftist
| governments just introduce price controls and force the price
| down by decree. They don't bother understanding the reason
| why prices are unsatisfactory, they don't bother researching
| potential bottlenecks on the side of the law that prevent
| housing supply from meeting demand. There is a long chain of
| events that has lead to this situation and you must unravel
| it or at least try to think one step further and let your
| successor try to find the next link to solve.
| htormey wrote:
| 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 integral part of them. It also
| presupposes that these network states need to have a moral
| imperative to be long lasting (I.e a strong purpose like a
| religious community, being against the FDA, dietary etc)
|
| An important point to note is that a network state is not
| inherently a "right wing" or libertarian idea. In fact Vitalik
| references another more left leaning author, David de Ugarte, who
| explores similar ideas from a different perspective in his book
| Phyles: Economic Democracy in the Twenty First Century.
|
| It's entirely possible to disagree with many of Balaji's previous
| positions and see this as a useful playbook for implementing a
| network state that aligns with your world views.
|
| A large part of his book seems to be laying out a justification
| for this vision as well as it's theoretical underpinnings. I.e
| why this needs to exist and why this would be better than say
| moving to an existing city state etc.
|
| Apart from that it's basically a playbook for how a community
| could in theory go from lose collection of individuals on
| discords to a mini city with its own regulations and laws.
|
| Vitalik is sympathetic to much of the book but calls out 4 main
| issues he has with it:
|
| 1)The "founder" thing - why do network states need a recognized
| founder to be so central?
|
| 2)What if network states end up only serving the wealthy?
|
| 3)"Exit" alone is not sufficient to stabilize global politics. So
| if exit is everyone's first choice, what happens?
|
| 4)What about global negative externalities more generally?
|
| Of these critiques the ones that resonated with me so far are 2
| and 4. I'm only about 25% through his book. In terms of 4, I
| think this exists today with nation states and hence I think it's
| a little unfair to expect this to be addressed in this book.
|
| In terms of 2. I think this book is written for middle class and
| wealthy people who can easily move cities and or countries. I.e
| software engineers and scientists.
|
| A big question for me is, assuming network states are a thing
| that happen and are wide spread. What happens to all the
| displaced unskilled or semi skilled global poor? What will their
| likely relationships be with these new network states?
|
| How do millions of people displaced by wars like in Syria or the
| Ukraine fit into or impact this network state model? People who
| are forced to exit as opposed to having the luxury of choosing to
| exit. This seems like a bit of a blind spot if even from just a
| network state game theory perspective.
|
| In general I'm enjoying this book so far and would recommend
| people read it if they are interested in subjects like charter
| cities or DAOs.
|
| I treat it as a thought provoking work that's not mean spirited
| in tone like the sovereign individual.
|
| Within my lifetime I expect to see people try and create new
| charter cities bootstrapped from online communities. I think this
| book offers a lot of useful advice on how to think about forming
| these communities.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| 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.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Seems like another instance of a longer historic theme that has
| been picked up recently by the sea steading libertarian crowd,
| and now network states. Imo, the secular and by extension
| libertarian mentality is just another anti-ethos defined by what
| it opposes, and then they think if they just criticize harder
| with more words, this negative thing that defines them will
| somehow yeild.
|
| Rhetorically, what is the difference between these ideas and ones
| that have actually created de-facto network states, global
| networks, and even historically significant civilizations like
| America? The network states that I know of still exist today are
| the Catholic Church, the Church of England, Islam, Hinduism, and
| Judaism, and to a much lesser extent (but as a great example of
| an intentional network whose principles underpin modern western
| civilization) Freemasonry, and what they all have in common is
| they are based on a single very simple idea that scales. They
| aren't secular, which means they don't have to re-invent the
| wheel on a principle to underpin their laws and customs.
|
| This isn't advocacy for theism necessarily, but when you look at
| the gallons of ink spilled on "new" ideas, they're all talking
| around the elephant in the room and substituting complex
| exeptions for a central scalable ethos. We (and especially crypto
| libertarian people) all know that complex rules yield stupid
| behavior. When I read these discussions of manifestos, what I
| can't help but conclude is that their secularism is the self-
| selected and self-sabotaging constraint. With the exception of
| communism, the world does not tolerate atheistic global powers or
| networks for very long. There's a kind of alchemy to the new
| crypto versions of old ideas where they think they can create
| neutral systems of rules and incentives that resist human
| corruption and solve the problem of Evil. It's the promise of
| lead into gold. The approach of the religious ones didn't try
| solve Evil at all (other than their exemplary failures), but they
| did provide a path for people to become both good and worthy, and
| to prevail.
|
| I'd suggest that the people writing these elaborate perscriptions
| for breakaway societies just try and consider a second
| experimental draft of them using a theistic (or even deistic)
| axiom and then compare the results. The secular or atheistic
| requirement for ideas about new societies is the "the floor is
| lava" constraint of our time, and it produces just as many silly
| contortions and self-imposed struggles. If they try it again
| without pretending the floor is lava, I think they will have more
| success and provide something more valuable.
| blep_ wrote:
| The problem with theistic societies is that they make
| absolutely no sense to an atheist. Surely you're not advocating
| for atheists to pretend to be theists to push their political
| views?
|
| (also _many_ secular people are not libertarians, and _many_
| libertarians are religious. I have no idea where you got that
| idea from.)
| motohagiography wrote:
| Just try to reason with an alternate axiom. You don't need to
| believe something to reason about it, and the results may be
| different from the string of failures that characterize
| utopianism so far. The conflict this comment describes
| doesn't make any sense unless you interpret the example as
| "all secular people," or "all libertarians," which is doesn't
| register as thoughtful. Is it so difficult to imagine
| thinking things we don't already believe?
|
| There are lots of religious libertarians, but they wouldn't
| characterize themselves by their political ideology because
| their politics aren't their identity. They can't be, again,
| unless they've been seized by one of these anti-ethos ideas
| where their identity becomes the artifact of what they have
| chosen to oppose.
| blep_ wrote:
| I'm not sure what your point is, then. You want people to
| start theistic states while not believing in the theistic
| principles behind them?
| kardianos wrote:
| The fundamental foundation of USofA is that it tries to bind
| together a core minimum values and agreements, along with checks
| to that power to allow pursuit of the individual and of
| individual states. This is the result of despair to that, or not
| recognizing this. But this paper, if I read it correctly, rather
| then pointing to a shared reality, points to shared perceptions.
| As if the word of man makes reality. This is always doomed to
| fail because eventually reality will assert itself.
|
| I would prefer to articulate and achieve a shared foundation for
| the future: https://corinth.kardianos.com/latest.pdf
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| > 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.)
| system16 wrote:
| Clearly the state media building Putin's image has been
| effective. If his martial arts ability is anything like the
| propaganda clips state media shows of his "daily" gym routine -
| where his form suggests it's the first time he's ever stepped
| in one - I don't think Zelenskyy has much to worry about.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| 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.
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