Over the years we dove into the idea of the network-state. Eventually, I think this is something that replaces the nation-state. When it comes to our government system, it is, quite frankly, outdated.
This conclusion was arrived, in part, to the government's reaction to the digital world. We have a system that was designed during a time when the world was only physical. Even the idea of corporations did not really exist. Hence, there was not much of a non-physical world.
Our governments reflect this. Over the centuries, they adapted as best they could, with varying degrees of success. Today, there is no shot. As stated on many occasions, they were impotent against the sharing of copyrighted material a couple decades back.
With the pace of innovation today, forget about it. Even within cryptocurrency, we see 90 year old laws being applied.
Periodically, we have an initiatives crop up that focus on bringing the network-state concept into the physical world. Personally, I think this is far-fetched at this moment but the construction of an entire city takes a lot of time. With the pace of advancement, this could end up aligning with where we are in a decade or so.
Praxis: Crypto-Friendly City
Praxis seeks to be the first network-state city in the world. It is something that is focused not only on crypto but other forms of technology.
It recently went through a round of raising funds.
Praxis, the ambitious project that bills itself as the world’s first "Network State," announced on Tuesday it secured $525 million to finance the building of a tech-forward city that will support the development of crypto, artificial intelligence, energy and biotech.
Taken as face value, this could be a success. The areas of focus are obvious seeing massive advancement. When it comes to building, often it is far easier to start from scratch as compared to remodeling the old. Updating a city, especially one that is 100 or 150 years old is no easy task.
The goal of the initiative is threefold:
According to its statement, Praxis aims to build a new city for three reasons: "Unlocking technological and scientific possibilities," "creating more heroic and beautiful ways of life," and "to show the world that it is possible to build a great city in the 21st century."
Again, on the surface, seems like a worthy pursuit.
Of course, there is going to be a lot of red-tape to get through. There is no location chosen for the project. Wherever they decide to build, there will be a government to deal with. Here is where problems can be encountered.
The network-state is, in my view, in opposition to the nation-state. That said, if we are developing something in the physical world, the nation-state is part of the process. It is a dilemma that we will not see solved anytime soon.
What we have is an issue with power. Presumably, the idea behind a network-state is to get away from the archaic system we are dealing with. Naturally, the government is not about to give up the control unless forced.
Digital Explosion
We are advancing down a path where the digital world is encompassing more of people's lives. When we look at the potential of AI, we can see how the next industrial revolution is forming. This is going to be based upon computing, with everything tied to it.
Tokenization is naturally a part of the process. We already have frameworks being built to tokenize real world assets. This is simply another area where the digital expands.
I am on the side that thinks we are going to see an explosion of networks. The digital world, presently, is controlled by a handful of companies. Most of the activity by the public is on a handful of networks.
This will not be the case down the road. Ultimately, we could see millions of networks. mostly filled with AI agents performing activities that were once done by humans.
Naturally, this requires a great deal of innovation. In addition to the technical side, we have to experiment with governance, digital identification, and commercial applications. How all of this will unfold is still to be determined.
Ultimately, the physical is going to be less important for society from a commercial and financial standpoint. The digital world will dominate, with robots servicing as the bridge to the physical economic productivity.
This brings up the question of how important is location going to be in the future? Presently, most of what we depend upon is contingent upon where we are located. This is also changing.
For example, we see a number of companies looking at providing satellite Internet. This will eventually evolve into all forms of communication, including voice and text. Once this is achieved, in this facet of live, where one is means little (as long as power is available).
Cryptocurrency is already a global banking system. If one is online, each individual can take the same financial actions as anyone else. These networks are not concerned with a persons physical location.
This is going to truly explode once AI agents start to dominate. These are also going to be global in nature since they reside on the Internet. What will result is that economic productivity that is tied to these agents is not based upon the nation.
In Conclusion
We like will come to a point in time where a certain the network-state is far more important than the nation-state. Will this translate into the physical world?
This seems likely. There will always be a need for some type of local governance, something that is probably going to be provide by AI.
Praxis might be onto something. We will have to see how many nations start to embrace the wave of change that is coming. Some forward-thinking countries could get ahead of the curve by bringing some of the digital ideas into the physical realm. This will likely come from those looking to advance up the international scale. It could be a way to attract people and capital.
That said, it seems that the focus should still be in the digital realm. We still have a ton of work to do there.