Welcome to @balajis.eth!
He’s kindly agreed to do an AMA. Reply with your questions. :)
- Based on the information you have currently encountered, how far are humans from achieving "eternal life"?Much closer than we think. Impressive results already in mice and nearby animals.
What’s the best argument (ie that you believe to have merit) you’ve been presented against Bitcoin? Directionally agnostic — could be a counter to digital gold or a p2p network, whateverApple, Google, and Microsoft represent systemic risk to all of crypto (including Bitcoin) because they can install a software update that backdoors private keys. https://x.com/balajis/status/1668630806733156359?s=46- It's possible for "tribes" to trade and cooperate across the boundaries of very different value systems. Where can blue/grey/red tribes trade instead of fight?Well, the red/blue/gray conflict is just heating up, not cooling down. Blues in particular have lost a lot of soft power and are ramping up the use of hard power. I think Blue America and Red America could become like North Korea and South Korea. That dispute still hasn’t been resolved.
- What's your estimated timeline for the first Network State-like country to emerge?As soon as possible. It took 13 years from the whitepaper to El Salvador recognizing Bitcoin. So we’ll see…
- Have you read the new @vitalik.eth "d/acc" post? (tldr, his version of techno-optimism - https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0x827fc6cb) If so, how compatible does it seem with the Gray / Network State movements?It’s a good post. I’ll probably write something with a more evolutionary/biological angle soon, as I think that’s probably our best precedent for thinking about the evolution of silicon-based intelligence.
- Props to you for showing up on Modi's radar, that's crazy 🤯 As someone living in the US, what are some action items for me to get more involved in the Indian tech scene? What's missing there that folks in the US/UK take for granted? How can people create content that bridges the western & Indian tech ecosystems?I think first step is to just travel to India and see how much Bangalore and the like are improving. You’ll be able to answer the other questions for yourself after that.
- Why did you leave Coinbase? How do you feel about the direction of the company?I love Coinbase and Brian, Emilie, and the team. Am still friends with everyone and I think @dwr.eth and others will agree my time was impactful. It’s doing very well now, and all credit to Brian on that for his metronomic consistency. I left in part b/c I wanted to write the network state book & needed focus time.
what does “home” mean to you? what cities, places*, etc. have most felt like home to you and why? *or if not a physical place, then what digital communities?Home is the home screen. In seriousness, I like having a stable physical environment but don’t particularly care where it is. Just want to be able to get coffee, walk in the sun, and think peacefully. Doesn’t have to be fancy.
- What are young, ambitious people considering as they decide where to move? - Is the above group still moving to the US / declining rate? - Harvard's true strength is its selection process, which makes it tough to replicate, even with the same coursework and staff. Does the same rule apply for SF / SV? Why / why not?We’re in flux right now. SF has been bailed out by AI but the US government is working hard to ban AI with the executive order on compute bans. Crypto has already globally decentralized. Depends on what you want to do. Startup cities are clearly not doable in SF itself. Or physical innovation in Blue America.- what was your early life like? ages 5-16, what do you think has contributed most to shaping the person you are today?K-12 was like jail. Life began with a 13 year mandatory minimum sentence, the Schoolag Archipelago. Eventually discovered the Feynman Lectures on Physics and ability to self study. Internet wasn’t really there yet. Shaping me? Math. Not really a CS guy. Always a math guy.
- How would you formulate your personal mission in relation to Network States? What is the next short-term goal?Finish the final version of the Network State book — paperback, hardcover, audible, translations, open source repository. Then, the next step :)
- what are some cases (historical examples etc) where the “history running in reverse” framework doesn’t apply?I have dozens of examples of the history-is-running-in-reverse concept, but they are clearer in retrospect. What’s not obvious is what part reoccurs and what part is mirror-imaged. For example, with COVID, it’s like Spanish Flu in that it’s a pandemic but unlike it in that it was amplified rather than censored.
- How do you see the next generation of families adopting technology? And what do families look like to you? Much love to your work and your thoughts. -LesBig topic that I haven’t written about but will discuss much more in network state v2. Short answer is that we need to hyperdeflate the cost of raising a family.
- A lot of talk is focused on creating smaller and smaller tribes; comparatively little is about increasing global cooperation. How do you balance the narrative of civilization forming larger bonds (village > city > city state > nation > ..) with the nature of innovation mostly happening in small groups & iterating fast?I think we see a Centralized East and a Decentralized West. Large scale entities continue in the East but smaller scale entities multiply in the West, and in regions previously stabilized by the West.
- Hey @balajis.eth, thanks a lot for doing this AMA! 1) what DAOs are most inspiring to you for potential governance models for network states? 2) what has been missing from DAOs that you want to ensure ends up in network state governance?DAOs now have the tech/infra, but they don’t yet have the meaning/community. You don’t want a DAO to be focused on easy money or liquidity early on. It should be long term greedy. No one should be posting “wen airdrop”. The founders should provably eat last, but eat best (get money only after others have).
- When terrestrial governments start to take notice that people are more aligned with their network state than physical state, will the stage be set for some kind of conflict? And if so, what’s a network state to do? Become a political party?I do think a political movement is intermediate between an online community and a network state. Whether that’s a *party* or not in any specific country is TBD, but that’s certainly an option.
Which skills (technical or nontechnical) do you think will be the most highly valued in the next 5-10 years? My background is a blend of tech/non tech (symbolic systems equiv.) and trying to figure out how to best leverage these skills in an entrepreneurial setting (early 20s, still exploring career paths)Learn statistics and computer science. Everything is data so that’s statistics. Everything is algorithms so that’s computer science. These are very general tools, useful from Walmart to SpaceX.- Is your Wikipedia page accurate?No, Wiki wokes will remove truth & allow falsehood on their pages. Eg: a scam called HPZ Token was added to my page & not quickly taken off. Wiki/Goog matters less these days, but if Zuck can’t monetize a profile of you against your will, neither should Wales. Living persons should be able to opt out of Wikipedia.
- Are network states composable? Will there be such a thing as a network of network states? (Cities, states, countries, unions) Is there a need for it?Yes, it’s quite important and I talk about it in the book. Short version is: imagine Starbucks acquiring some or all of Peet’s Coffee locations, and then changing the branding such that your Starbucks card worked. That’s what it’s like for two networks to partially or fully do M&A with each other.
Beyond the real-world challenges of building a network state, what is the most significant criticism you've encountered regarding the ideas presented in 'The Network State' book, and why?I’ll answer dozens (hundreds?) of FAQs and reviews in the next iteration of The Network State. I think the strongest criticism isn’t about diplomacy or roads or anything like that. It’s actually the realization that we’ll need to build a new community to do this, sort of what global crypto was to SV tech.- In a society where humans have significantly extended (or eternal) lifespans, what are your views on how the family unit may evolve? In a world without funerals, would humans "graduate" from families, or is there another form of closure and rebirth/restart?I think we need to reopen the frontier. Traditional land frontiers are closed — so we use the internet, the sea, and then space. If we do that, we have hard problems for people to conquer and expand into. You’ll need the longevity for the 1000 year interstellar voyage.
You tend to be an original thinking across various domains, so I’m curious about your process of idea generation. How do you organize your work process and what are your primary sources of “news”?Online time to take notes, offline time to integrate sources. I try to read multiple sources of news from different language outlets (eg Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Indian media) as that provides more signal than the N+1st Western paper. Also technical articles and old books. I do skim a lot, skimming is good.
What do you think of Poland? What should be the top 3 priorities for polish government to grow over next 50 years?Eastern Europe could be the new Western Europe. Poland will need to figure out how it deals with Russia if and when the US leaves Ukraine to its own devices. Aside from that, lots to like about Poland’s positioning.
What book are you currently reading and why?Got a bunch of Schaum’s outlines and zipping through them just to refresh my memory on the basics. These are kind of like O’Reilly books but with solved problems rather than sample code. https://www.mhprofessional.com/schaum-s- What’s your thoughts on how Network State governance is perhaps more vulnerable to social media status game influences/craziness than more traditional existing governance?My answer is Donald Trump :) More generally, all traditional governance is social media influenced. Just like tradfi is becoming as volatile as defi. No way out but through. We need to build Internet First institutions that can handle the volatility of the internet.
Would be great if Balaji can share his vision for the optimal network state that will be founded for transcending our cognitive and biological limits, and to focus on longevity.Stay tuned :) Subscribe at balajis.com if you haven’t already.- I bristle a bit at the red/blue/grey model since it collapses the beautiful high dimensional complexity of a social graph into just three buckets. Simplification is useful, but encourages us to draw borders where in fact we may be interconnected. How do we find more meaningful clusters without simplifying too far?Quantitative answer is to use spatial theory of voting to determine the actual dimensionality of the space, and how lossy the low-dimensional projection actually is. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Quinn-Slides.pdf
1. What's something you've changed your opinion on recently? 2. What's the most impactful you've read in the past year?For #1 see below. For #2, just for fun & as a refresher I worked my way through maybe 500 problems from Schaum’s 3000 Problems in Physics. It’s impactful to review basics, not just new stuff. https://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Solved-Problems-Physics-Outlines/dp/0071763465 https://warpcast.com/balajis.eth/0xcd6a5773
Q 1/5: There are number of place where landed is contested (eg Cyprus, Western Sahara ...) Do you consider paying off both side Sam Zimmery style a viable strategy for land acquisition for Network Stake ? Would you advocate for pursuing something along those lines ?No, not in places like that. They are contested for a reason. You ideally want something more like Blackrock City where burning man is located, where the terrain is just not sought after by anyone rather than contested by multiple parties.- Q 2/5: Places with very low population density (& lot of sun), underdeveloped countries may want to develop. Seems like there should be a way to stuck a deal exchanging sovereignty for development. (eg Namibia) https://shorturl.at/enHT4 Do you see that as viable, would you advocate pursuing that approach ?It may be viable, but I would work with middle income or even high income countries first rather than extremely low income countries. The reason is that any deal struck with an unstable low income country will (a) be attacked from the outside as exploitation and (b) attacked from inside due to political instability.
- Q 3/5: If network state effort fails, what will be the likeliest cause. Or in another words what do you see as biggets obsticle when it comes to establising fully sovereign network state.Likeliest cause will be me not working hard enough :) I should be doing more to help the space flourish, so that others can also do their thing.
Gm @balajis.eth my question for you is: What would you consider the biggest risk and opportunity for digital identities onchain?Biggest opportunity is to build services with ENS and other crypto domain name integrations, like Farcaster. This will help in the age of AI faking everything. Biggest risk is that we don’t get there fast enough and centralized identity predominates.- Q 5/5: Who will be on the network state's mount rushmore (other than you and @vitalik.eth ) ?I don’t personally need any statue, but I think we should build statues to all the great mathematicians, scientists, and engineers from around the world whose shoulders we’ve stood on. That itself would be a great project for a startup society.
- How do you come up with all your catch phrases? Do they occur to you spontaneously? Do you ever decide a concept deserves a catch phrase?I actually never even thought of it as a skill until people pointed it out to me, more so in recent years. Yeah, they just kind of occur to me. I guess sometimes I’m searching for the shortest way to express a concept and look for a rhyming or euphonious way of saying it. Example: pseudonymous economy
how far are we from the singularity?We’re in the middle of it. On a log scale, the rise of crypto, AI, and social in particular over the last 10-15 years has spanned 6-9 orders of magnitude depending on how you count. A few more and the world order as we know it breaks.- The worker’s unions of the 20th century were powerful (like Hoffa and the teamsters) and in many ways seem like proto-DAOs. What role do DAO’s have to play in the development of Network States?I wrote about network unions in the Network State book. Short answer: imagine unions that are more like guilds. They collective bargain on behalf of their members. But not just against their employers. They might also do collective bargaining with governments. Or vendors, for bulk purchases.
- vitalik has mentioned that his main worry about the future of ethereum is stagnation: https://warpcast.com/vitalik.eth/0xea65fa6b are you worried about stagnation in crypto? what can be done to ensure that we don't stagnate?If the apotheosis of AI is to build a new god, the apotheosis of crypto is to build a new state. That’s why we’re here. Blockchains are digital governments, providing property rights, smart contracts, and dispute resolution. They’re half of what a state is, the digital half. Next step: the physical half.
Do you have an outline for someone without a technical background to see how they can contribute to the Network State? Have enough free time to help, but figuring out exactly what to do is proving the most difficult.Start a Discord, set it up for paid membership, and start holding physical meetups. But you want to be working towards a common moral goal; see the section in the Network State on the One Commandment. https://thenetworkstate.com/the-one-commandment
Are you a pet person? If so, what kind of pets?Well, pets are very high maintenance. They are a lifetime commitment. And you can’t just forget about them for a few days and focus. I might get a robot dog like Spot though. 😁 https://bostondynamics.com/products/spot/
Have you considered letting Network State Stan’s host meetups around the world to discuss and take action together? Or have you considered how to keep people connected and pushing the ball forward since the conference?This is one of the top 3 things I’m thinking most about. TLDR: get a luma account set up if you want to help.
It feels like some of the momentum of the "let's explore alternatives to SF" movement has weakened since 2021, with AI and "back to the office" mandates contributing to re-centralization. What are your updated thoughts on how we can cleave apart that network effect to create more practical freedom of location?Quick answer: I think we’re still on track for at least three poles of technology (what I called NYT, CCP, BTC) plus a decentralized center that combines them. Why? Because (a) crypto has globally decentralized and that has accelerated since 2021 + (b) AI executive order incentivizes decentralization + (more)- Big one: How could we (the people) save America?In my view, step one is to be just extremely realistic about what time it is. It’s not 1940, it’s not 1980, it’s not 2000. It’s much worse off than that. See also these two episodes on SF: https://youtu.be/mIJLW_Rc6Rg?si=tie-x_lER8BrZn1O https://youtu.be/EqJoXaNFFjY?si=abSRQ8M_k-vppyWb
- What are some issues on which you disagree with the "median elite Indian" perspective the most?The median elite Indian doesn’t yet realize the extent to which quality of life has fallen in the West & risen in India. They are *just now* starting to update. That’s why seemingly anodyne threads on Bangalore v SF go so viral on Twitter. See eg this exchange: https://x.com/balajis/status/1728746075547443448?s=46
- How correlated are the network state and the crypto/decentralization movements? Do you have a sense of what percentage of folks exploring network states aren't involved in/users of crypto?Well, more than 50% of the attendees at the network state conference weren’t crypto people. They were into biotech, AI, politics, etc. Crypto is just a tool. The new state is the goal.
- What is something you‘ve changed your mind about recently?Like many people, GPT-4 changed my mind about what was possible with large language models. I’d been following the space for a while and had seen only Markov-chain-ish text generation. I knew about the scaling papers but it’s another thing to see what that meant in practice.
I'm a big fan of India and love your takes on it. I'm currently in Canada as I need to be for business reasons, and you are in Singapore as well. My question is - what would it take for you to move back to India? Or rather, what's keeping you in Singapore right now?I wrote about this recently. Short version is that India is improving and is now (amazingly!) competitive on quality of life, but needs more “power user” features for business. Prime Minister Modi retweeted the post. You can read it below. https://x.com/narendramodi/status/1728795091970539861?s=46
What’s your dark horse prediction for 2024? Something you believe is likely to happen that others may not be thinking about.Small chance it’s the last US election as we know it. Sovereign debt crisis + tech disruption + political polarization may be gnarly. Can imagine red states going BTC & breaking away so as not to inherit the debts of a bankrupt empire. Like Estonia leaving USSR. https://x.com/balajis/status/1661060348307476480?s=46- What surprised you the most in the past year?The degree to which Western banks and central banks are bust. The sheer scale of the sovereign debt crisis and the incredible complacency of the public on the topic. Like a silent tsunami approaching us, already here in many ways, yet hidden & almost undiscussed. https://x.com/balajis/status/1727118032924017044?s=46
- What is the best instantiation of the "blockchain as ledger of record" idea that you've seen?I think interface.social by @wijuwiju.eth has a great Twitter style interface to the Ethereum blockchain. That’s what we want — a very familiar user interface showing cryptographically provable events.
Do you plan on founding a network state? If yes, when are you founding it and what's the one commandment? If no, what competing priority are you choosing to focus on instead?Finishing book v2 first and then let’s talk :)- how do we balance understanding techno-panic cycles blow the risk of new tech out of proportion basically every time, but there are still real risks whose proportion & impact can only be made known by moving forward? How do we bound the downside without smothering the upside?Hard question to answer in full generality. But I think you want someone with the skills of a software CEO who’s managed a github issues queue. There are infinitely many things to build and fix, and we will do them, in the order we specify, with the resources we have.
- We’re in an industry where there are more protocols than products to use them. An imbalance that must shifted for the long term growth of web3. How do you see the landscape of projects changing between protocols and products?There’s always a Cambrian explosion at one level of the stack before it settles down and then people focus more on the next layer. Now that we have a few solid protocols (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and nowadays Solana, as well as many L2s and other L1s) it’s easier to build products at a higher level of the stack.
What’s something (industry, idea, internet subculture) that’s low status now that you believe will be high status in in 5-8 yearsBro science. It will become the basis for self experimentation that can get us to longevity and human 2.0.- I’m am extremely scared about your response to this but…. what is your take on the current pneumonia surge in China?Wait and see. We’re all optimized to fight the last war. If it turns out to be actually a big deal, it’s possible that we under-react by denying it’s even real, as a consequence of governments over-reacting the last time (by focusing on state intervention/printing rather than biotech).
why have you framed the aspiration for network states as one culminating in territorial sovereignty in a westphalian sense? i would think the big unlock that NS bring is the blurring of the boundaries and formalisms of the westphalian system of statehood.I answer this in the book, but you can’t unlock physical innovation without territorial sovereignty. https://x.com/balajis/status/1725536755213082808?s=46- Do you believe AGI will be achieved over the next decade?I think it’s arguably already been achieved. GPT-4 can pass the Turing Test and write better than most people. Once that’s combined with Deepmind-style planning, we will probably have truly superhuman general intelligence. Most people aren’t projecting out the ABC world where AI, Bitcoin, & China all really win.
- How can people living outside of India invest into the Indian ecosystem?It’s a huge country and there’s no one index fund. But if you have real capital I have some ideas.
- What are you thoughts on potential network nodes in Europe? Seems like a lot of small villages / old cities could be more promising that starting new cities in the U.S. Seems inevitable good weather places like Spain attract more over time. What am I missing?Doable but will be even more doable after the sovereign debt crisis. Communities with hard currency will be able to crowdfund territory and buildings at rock bottom prices.
- What’s a big decision you’re thinking through right now?How long to spend finishing the books before doing the next thing Yes, multiple books, after I finish the Network State…
in your opinion, what community or culture is closest to achieving your vision of a network state?Watch the talks here. Quite a few amazing communities already happening. I like Zuzalu, Culdesac, Prospera, and many others. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJg2RipiXz8r9TjC58vujj1gs0rl99GgN&si=izvC6wqHWxIplqOT- Do you put on both shoes before tying your laces... Or do you put on one shoe, tie, then repeat with the other shoe?Sandals when possible as they have less up front cost. Instant boot, so to speak. Shoes with laces already tied that you can just slip on.
- Why recreate the state onchain?That’s what blockchains are: digital governments. Something like a state will always arise. I’m against today’s Western states, but not against the possibility of good government. A polystatist, who believes in multiple states, like a polytheist. Not an anarchist, who believes in no states, like an atheist.
- what would make you consider moving back to the US full-time?Tech tribe takeover of SF :) I may also tour the newly independent Bitcoin Maximalist states like Florida and Texas in 203X. 😁 But in seriousness, we will probably hold a network state conference in the US next year. Not moving back full time but hanging out.
- do you see a future with china leading the world economically/politically? what does that look like? @dwr.eth is famously anti-ccp and lacks nuanced in his thinking, curious what your thoughts areI’m friends with @dwr.eth so nothing below is a criticism of him. I do think Americans are mostly in denial about how physically strong China really is. Newsom is aware of how strong China is, though, and may want a deal with them to keep Dems in power. https://balajis.com/p/only-newsom-can-go-to-china
- How do you see Auroville in the context of Network States?It’s cool. Allied project, albeit pre-internet. The Free State Project is also in the ballpark. I should probably do a talk where I review many of these and try to extract lessons learned. https://auroville.org/
How do you imagine network states seceding peacefully without governments exercising their monopoly on violence ?I don’t think they need to secede. Governments used to buy and sell land — and may do so again.- What kinds of autonomy / legal concessions do you think it is most reasonable and realistic for network states to seek from host governments, at least in the short term?Minimum necessary autonomy to live their desired lifestyle. You can do a lot with just mutually agreed upon social conventions within a group. For biotech and the like, yes, we’ll need a parallel FDA. That’s the ultimate level. But most communities don’t need to get anywhere close to that.
- What are some types of people who found network state ideas very appealing that you totally were not expecting?I was surprised at how quickly people in many different regions of the world got the concept, even without translation. Two examples: 1) Catalonians https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1547139483581026305?lang=en 2) Japanese https://x.com/balajis/status/1613433756609810433?s=46
- What are the biggest value-adds that network states can provide (or should try to provide) to host countries?The obvious value add is economic. Provide more capital to the locals than they have. And I think this is necessary. But not sufficient. You also want many locals to be “dual citizens”. Like Bitcoin Americans or Ethereum Japanese — dual citizens of cloud and land that make the case on a moral level as well.
- How can we make a social coordination tool useful? We are developing a tool designed to help communities coordinate their social media messaging, but we're struggling to identify a practical use case. Any recommendations on where to start?You may need a purpose for your community that’s more than money. https://thenetworkstate.com/the-one-commandment
@balajis.eth what "old" educational practices (from e.g. Montessori) have you found effective or helpful? cc @mattJust start doing problems with known solutions. Don’t read the textbook to start. The goal is to fail fast, like integration testing for your mind. Like computer adaptive testing. Only once you start getting problems wrong, then go & read that section of the textbook. You’ll appreciate the subtleties much more.
have you been surprised at all by the strengthening of the U.S. axis (what you call “NYT” in your trifecta)? Examples: - US-led rally of free world to support ukraine - strength of U.S. dollar against all other fiat currencies - strength of U.S. equities, GDP - epicenter of AI - other countries hoping to dollarize1) US is throwing in the towel on Ukraine 2) Dollar rises against fiat currencies of US protectorates, but has collapsed against Bitcoin for a decade 3) S&P 7 of tech is up, S&P 493 isn’t 4) AI executive order banned US compute, OpenAI almost killed by wokes 5) Dollarization just precedes Bitcoinization; see below.- tech will be the future, how do you see physical events playing out such as sports with the increasing reality in digital experiences? how do you see AR/VR/neuralink integrating in our lifes like smartphones in 5-10 years from now?Hopefully less spectator sports, more physical fitness. It’s possible there is more AR boxing/MMA, without injuries. Esports are on the rise too, China has built esports stadiums. Neuralink doesn’t work yet and will be hard to ship until we beat the FDA. Tough problem.
- What was the biggest mistake you made in your professional life?Not building in daily fitness in as #1 priority. Would have given me more energy.
- is the tech tribe takeover of SF an 'if' or 'when'? at a municipal govt thing someone was reading from Sanjana's Pirate Wires Dolores Park columns, i think PW has really galvanized something (and to a lesser degree Solana / @erik / @garrytan did with getting rid of Chesa), my activist spidey sense says it's 'when'Very much an if. Most people don’t get it and are always one cycle behind. Eg: today’s level of energy could have done something in 2013. But now the homeless industrial complex has annual budget of $1B+ and voting isn’t going to change that. You need 2033 energy in 2023. Like a startup that sees the future.
- @balajis.eth what motivates you?Seeing the grid, as per clip below. https://x.com/brianjji/status/1714695616901902451?s=46
- @balajis.eth if you were benevolent dictator of india for a year, what would you prioritize doing?India wouldn’t work with a dictator. But I wrote up an agenda for what I’d do as India’s CTO. Start at 48:06 here: https://youtu.be/q-852BsgNck?si=xu92klF016v8xNfB
- Long decentralized social network = betting against Elon (X). Do you think this idea has merit? How true is this? @balajis.ethSome games are zero sum but I don’t think that one is. Elon’s Twitter/X has at a minimum bought time for decentralized social to get off the ground, and actually incentivized some from the blue political faction to decentralize (eg via Mastodon).
