Ryan Grim on Warpcast

balajis pfp

🙂 All right. Let’s go a few rounds. Our mutual friend @mazmhussain can adjudicate. (1) First: startup societies are based on 100% consent. No one is there who hasn’t chosen to be there. No one is in a hierarchy if they haven’t opted into that hierarchy. Signing the social contract to join a community is much like signing a contract to join a company: you view the docs, make an informed decision, and opt out if it doesn’t work. That right to exit is the fundamental right. (2) Second: not all existing laws are good laws, like the PATRIOT Act. Sunsetting *some* laws doesn’t mean you don’t believe in laws in the abstract. (3) Third: you likely have views on what your ideal community would be. Maybe it’s a vegan village. Maybe it’s modern Amish, where tech is paused at the level of flip phones and people enjoy each other’s company. If you ever decided to build such a peaceful, opt-in community, then we would support you. And that’s what startup societies are about.

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Ryan Grim pfp

You’re probably already deeply familiar with the sordid history of utopian communities in the 19th and 20th century but for those aren’t, basically all of them collapsed or worse. That doesn’t mean nobody should be able to try again it doesn’t bode well. And of course, there’s no such thing as fully cleaving yourself off from society. What you allow to happen there will require external resources and will influence the rest of the world. And usually there will also be people already there. I’ve interviewed several residents of the Honduran island prospera has tried to take over and they never opted in and are appalled by it. I didn’t directly address some of your other points but will try again later.

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Leeward Bound pfp

+1 for the local consent argument, it's not a "network state" but i moved to PR for tax benefits in 2018 not knowing what i was getting into... i learned quickly that the locals largely hate the tax program and they hate the colonizer youtube star cryptobros who are driving them out of their homes and disrupting communities (and they are super justified in that because the US oppression is long-standing and systemic) i left 18mo later feeling bad and questioning my values, i couldn't stand being a part of that. im curious what could be done to improve the relationship of a network state with the local community and win legitimate consent - if anything, or maybe it will always be a colonial and disruptive practice?

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balajis pfp

A few points. (1) The history of startup societies is actually one of great success. William Penn’s Pennsylvania worked. The Massachusetts Bay colony worked. Oneida worked. The United States of America, for all its flaws, worked for 250 years. Really, virtually every major city and country in the Americas was essentially founded from scratch in the last few hundred years. (2) Moreover, these new startup societies were responsible for many of the democratic innovations we take for granted. Concepts like representative democracy, written constitutions, and universal suffrage were pioneered, popularized, or reinvented in the New World. These social innovations then filtered back to Europe. (3) Yes, no doubt many societies did fail, like Roanoke, and many of the new political ideas failed, like Prohibition, but in general without trying (and sometimes failing) there is no progress whatsoever — whether social or technological. [continued]

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Sophia Indrajaal

@sophia-indrajaal

Some utopian communities have flourished, a little older but the Amish spring to mind. And even among the dead societies a lot of innovation and resilient practices came out of them from the concept of seed packets (Shakers) to they still hold Chataquas in upstate NY. Point about local folks is super salient. I've read some stuff where it is suggested to ban people that aren't liked from the area, which feels like it's just coloilbizatiin under a different name.

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