Summary of Balaji Srinivasan's The Network State

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The most obvious unconventional approach is when an eccentric plants a flag on an offshore platform or disputed patch of dirt and declares themselves king of nothing. If the issue with elections is that too many people care about them, the issue with these so-called micronations is that too few people care.

#2 We should proceed cloud first, land last. Rather than starting with the physical territory, we start with the digital community. We create a startup society, organize it into a network union, and crowdfund the physical nodes of a network archipelago.

#3 The seventh method, network states, straddles the boundary between practicality and impracticality. It uses the most robust existing tech stack to route around political roadblocks, without waiting for future physical innovation.

#4 A new country is defined as a political entity that has been established through its own efforts and is recognized by other countries as a legitimate polity capable of self-determination. cryptocurrency fits this definition. It was initially ignored, then mocked, but within five years it had attained a billion-dollar market capitalization and was listed on CNBC and Bloomberg.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Aug 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350017137

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Insights on Balaji Srinivasan's The Network State

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The most obvious unconventional approach is when an eccentric plants a flag on an offshore platform or disputed patch of dirt and declares themselves king of nothing. If the issue with elections is that too many people care about them, the issue with these so-called micronations is that too few people care.

#2

We should proceed cloud first, land last. Rather than starting with the physical territory, we start with the digital community. We create a startup society, organize it into a network union, and crowdfund the physical nodes of a network archipelago.

#3

The seventh method, network states, straddles the boundary between practicality and impracticality. It uses the most robust existing tech stack to route around political roadblocks, without waiting for future physical innovation.

#4

A new country is defined as a political entity that has been established through its own efforts and is recognized by other countries as a legitimate polity capable of self-determination. cryptocurrency fits this definition. It was initially ignored, then mocked, but within five years it had attained a billion-dollar market capitalization and was listed on CNBC and Bloomberg.

#5

A cryptocurrency could achieve these heights because money has both numerical and societal aspects. Once Bitcoin proved that it couldn’t be easily counterfeited or hacked, the shared belief of the millions of cryptocurrency holders worldwide was enough to get BTC from a value of zero to a market cap of billions.

#6

Founding a startup society is about growing a community, writing code, and crowdfunding land. It’s about community culture first and technological innovation second. And while innovating on technology means forecasting the future, innovating on culture means probing the past.

#7

History is how you win the argument. It determines legality, and is used to defend ancient regulations. To change these regulations, you’ll need to become a counter-historian.

#8

History is how you develop compelling media. You can make up entirely fictional stories, of course. But even fiction frequently has some sort of historical antecedent. The Lord of the Rings drew on Medieval Europe, Spaghetti Westerns pulled from the Wild West, Bond movies were inspired by the Cold War, and so on.

#9

A history textbook gives you a hero’s journey that celebrates the triumph of its establishment authors against all odds. History determines your hiring policy. So long as you aren’t running a company based on hereditary nepotism, you’re more diverse and democratic than the owners of The New York Times Company.

#10

A president of a startup society cannot survive without a knowledge of history. A new society involves moral, social, and legal innovation compared to the old one, and that requires a knowledge of history.

#11

History is useful for startup societies because it helps them identify problems and solutions, and it helps them understand how those problems have been solved in the past.

#12

A startup society must begin with a moral issue, because without a purpose, people will not join a community. You must argue that the culture of your startup society is better than the surrounding culture.

#13

The history of power is the history of the three candidates for most powerful force in the world: God, State, and Network. The People of the State have used their power to distort recent and distant history, and the Network is newly rectifying this distortion.

#14

The founder’s counter to the Base-Raters is cryptohistory and the startup society. We now have a history that cannot be easily corrupted, and