0:09

Hi everyone . You're listening to the Blockchain Socialist

0:11

podcast . I'm Josh , I'm here with Pimavera

0:13

and we are continuing

0:16

our overthrow of the network states with

0:18

our guest right here today . I'm with

0:20

him yet Trust , an

0:23

artist collective in Berlin , and

0:26

we're going to be talking about some

0:28

of his work that he's been doing . That's been very

0:30

closely related

0:32

and aligned with a lot of the stuff that we've been doing around

0:34

the network states . But maybe

0:37

, to kind of start us off

0:39

, waseem , would you like to give us a quick

0:41

introduction to you and your work and , yeah

0:44

, kind of the stuff that you've been doing related to

0:46

network states .

0:47

Sure , yeah , thanks , josh and Pima , it's great

0:49

to be here . So my name is Waseem Waseem

0:51

Zalcendi . I have a background as a scholarly

0:54

researcher in the physical sciences . Primarily

0:56

I founded

0:58

MIT's blockchain journal , co-rounded

1:01

that for a couple of years called Crypto

1:03

Economic Systems . I currently edit the

1:05

computational law report journal , also

1:08

at the MIT Media Lab , and

1:10

founded and administer

1:13

a collective based here at Trust

1:15

in Berlin called the Zero Exalon , where

1:17

we have an event series residency

1:19

program and write various

1:21

kinds of theoretical

1:24

and creative works

1:26

. And parallel to that , I have a

1:28

solo practice mostly

1:31

around philosophy of technology . These days and

1:34

I suppose what's most relevant to

1:36

this conversation is I've been working

1:38

on a project called Profit

1:40

Motives , p-r-o-p-h-e -T . It's

1:43

a play on words and that is

1:45

specifically related to the

1:48

kind of emerging notions

1:51

and discourses around network states

1:53

, paying particular

1:55

attention to the human

1:58

characters that might

2:00

be around these kind of frontier

2:02

imaginaries and the dreams

2:05

, colonial dreams and imaginaries that accompany

2:08

those , as they people try

2:10

to use technology to reshape the

2:12

world map .

2:15

Yeah , so , like a lot of the things that you had written in , you

2:17

have a piece called Profit

2:20

Motives .

2:20

It's called Profit Motives and Night Work States on

2:22

Zero Ex Folklore .

2:24

Right , yeah , yeah

2:26

. So , going through it , I was resonating a

2:28

lot with kind of what you're putting down

2:30

. And then very

2:32

recently we were at Protocolburg

2:35

, which is an ETH Berlin event , and you gave a talk

2:37

kind of spanning the gamut

2:39

of like Bodeyard to Petro

2:41

, masculinity to Bitcoin to Network

2:43

States . Jalat was really

2:46

, really good and I congratulate the

2:48

organizers of the event for not

2:50

having any sponsors . I

2:53

think that , like , your talk might not have been allowed

2:55

if there were sponsors , but it was

2:57

really really good . I think a lot of people have received it quite

3:00

well . But maybe we can actually

3:02

, maybe we can go through that a

3:04

little bit and then go into , yeah

3:06

, how this all kind of relates

3:09

.

3:10

Sure , I mean like , where should we start ? So

3:13

the talk I gave at Protocolburg and

3:15

the other day was a somewhat

3:19

hand-fisted attempt to squeeze 1000 years

3:21

of past , present

3:23

and possible futures of governance human governance

3:25

, into 25

3:27

minutes , so you can imagine I was glossing over

3:30

quite a lot of details

3:32

there . But

3:34

yeah , really I was starting with the

3:37

nature of the market , the nature of

3:39

speculation and

3:41

the nature of the cycles that go around

3:43

those . And yeah , thank

3:46

you for pointing out that the jumping off

3:48

point was Bodeyard . It's not

3:50

often that I get to

3:52

wheel Bodeyard's later work out and

3:55

I think it's very important , very relevant for

3:57

the world that we exist in today

3:59

, particularly if you're interested in tokenized

4:02

assets , blockchains and commodities

4:04

, virtual commodities . I've

4:07

got a couple of quotes I could read

4:09

them now . So this is from Bodeyard's

4:12

later work . There's one called a

4:14

book called Symbolic Exchange and Death , and here's

4:17

a quote . We now live in a world

4:20

dominated by the free play of the monetary

4:22

sign that is beyond reference to any

4:24

real of production , or even a monetary

4:26

referent in the form of a gold standard . In

4:28

this world , the idea of a real value

4:30

of equities , of commodities

4:32

, of houses , of anything is

4:35

meaningless , as what matters instead it's

4:37

not value per se , but infinite speculation

4:40

. This new world is marked

4:42

by the emergence of a brothel of capital , not

4:45

for prostitution but for substitution

4:47

and commutation . So

4:50

this is actually Bodeyard , leaving behind this

4:53

very well worn notion of the simulacrum

4:55

. As you know , the

4:57

representations of the real surpassed

5:00

the real in their magnitude

5:03

. Leaving the real behind , we just get

5:05

these kind of facsimiles that

5:07

bear no reference , bear no resemblance

5:10

to the original underlying

5:12

forms , and

5:14

instead he's building a three

5:16

stage taxonomy or genealogy

5:18

, leading us to this point

5:21

of like symbolic exchange

5:23

, moving from the raw commodity forms

5:25

, like things like oil , sacks

5:28

of corn , basic

5:31

commodities , resources , widgets

5:33

, sure To refined

5:35

ones they're acted upon by labor process

5:38

goods , let's say production economies , and then

5:40

we end up with the symbolic forms , these post

5:42

social monetary signs the meme economies

5:44

, the Shiba Inus

5:47

and the Pepe coins of today , right

5:49

, right .

5:50

No , I think it's super relevant for

5:52

the crypto world . Obviously , like

5:55

crypto is filled with pure

5:57

speculation with no value underlying

5:59

it beyond just kind of like knowledge

6:01

of the meme and like knowledge

6:04

of the knowledge about the meme and like being able to

6:06

, you know , navigate these like very , very

6:08

strange kind of a information

6:10

dense type of spaces . In

6:15

my book I used I used the board

6:17

actually to talk about like speculation

6:19

or is the spectacularness of

6:21

like of NFTs that like really

6:24

garnered a lot of people's attention . But

6:27

I really like this and so I think for

6:29

me what this is kind of getting at maybe

6:32

in the if I remember correctly in the presentation

6:34

and how I connected to some of the stuff that you wrote

6:36

in profit motives is kind

6:39

of like the I don't know

6:41

the deep this , this symbolic

6:44

form , also kind of projects a

6:46

future for a lot of people can project

6:48

kind of what their desires

6:51

or like some other

6:53

future world in which maybe probably

6:55

they are better off , and

6:57

so at least it provides a scaffold

7:00

like a substrate with

7:02

on which we can project our

7:04

desires , whether we know we're

7:06

doing that or not , these things seem to

7:08

afford that , at the least . Yeah

7:10

, so there's I mean there's there's speculation as far

7:12

as like financial speculation , which

7:14

is about like a speculation about the future

7:17

, but also that future has to come with

7:19

a narrative of like what

7:21

, how the world will potentially look

7:23

. And technology is like this fantastic

7:27

medium to kind of think about , like , oh

7:29

, all my problems will be solved because technology will will

7:31

solve it .

7:32

It's speculation in multiple senses of the word

7:35

.

7:35

Yeah , and so I think this kind

7:37

of particular features or

7:39

properties of I

7:41

mean , the tech world and speculation

7:43

and how capitalism has kind of a transformed

7:46

in this way , allows for people to

7:48

, I guess you start to get into like religion

7:50

and like in cults and how people are able

7:52

to like there is a bit of a cult around

7:54

, like a spiritualism around a

7:57

lot of technology thing . There's , of course , like California

8:00

ideology and all these other , plenty of books

8:03

written about that , but I

8:05

definitely set in the crypto world . There is definitely like

8:08

this intersection of

8:10

people who are like digital nomads

8:12

and into kind of a

8:15

form of spirituality . That's clearly

8:19

for me , I guess , you know , with globalization

8:21

happening , this de territorialization of all

8:23

these cultural norms , people are looking for

8:25

something to connect with others because we no

8:28

longer have these kind of cultural institutions

8:30

and practices that are like passed down through generations

8:33

of people . We live in a much more spread

8:35

out world , I guess , or like a world where we know

8:37

a whole lot more people from a lot of different places

8:39

and a lot of ways . That's good and

8:42

other ways it has kind of like we

8:44

don't know what to do with ourselves and so we look for

8:46

like these , these figures , these profits

8:48

that we can follow to

8:50

take us to Zion

8:53

, you know which is a promised land .

8:54

I would argue also , the institutions that we relied

8:57

on , we saw as the the foundations

9:00

of whatever nation state . Societies

9:02

seem to be in decline , like

9:05

everywhere I look , I see that as well , and so

9:07

there's also that backdrop as well . That

9:09

seems like the old world is dying and

9:11

people are looking around for , for

9:13

, for something else to believe in . I also

9:15

think that , with blockchain related

9:18

stuff in particular , because it

9:20

is such a dehumanized

9:22

, inhuman , de personalized space , however you want to think

9:24

about it , there are no , you

9:26

know , humans installed in explicit functions

9:30

in these networks , and so in

9:32

these kind of natively the horizontalized spaces

9:34

, there is just a kind of a vacuum and a

9:36

gentle vacuum , and people can just walk into those

9:39

right and put on Laurel

9:41

wreaths and tunics and robes and

9:43

call themselves things like Bitcoin Jesus

9:45

right , an eternal power vacuum that is

9:47

just being a yeah , whatever the latest meme

9:50

gets like , feels in that , that vacuum , which

9:52

of course , also relates to the amount of money they may have

9:54

.

9:56

But , yeah , do you want to get to ? I guess so

9:58

. Like maybe

10:01

the the profit motive . So there's

10:03

a plan , word , right , profit

10:05

motive , as in , like you know , capitalism

10:07

being sort of run by the profit motive

10:09

, or the need for profit in order for companies

10:11

and , yeah

10:13

, for very wealthy people to continue to exist

10:16

. But then also profit as

10:18

in a literal , like

10:20

religious profits , like how

10:22

do those , how do those come together ?

10:25

I feel like yeah

10:27

is a obviously a play on words , and

10:30

the reason that I've gone with this

10:32

plan words as the cornerstone of this

10:34

work is because I feel that these two things seem

10:36

to be intimately connected . In

10:39

our market

10:41

, capitalism , mediated reality that we exist

10:43

in today , and

10:46

so everything

10:48

, especially in the blockchain space , everything seems to

10:50

be a market or an asset , or quantum

10:53

, quantitizable or measurable , or there's

10:56

a desire to reduce or to parameterize or

10:58

to quantify these things , and

11:01

then , once we've got these parameterizable

11:04

, quantifiable , measurable variables

11:07

, then speculation

11:10

occurs . So there's always this , you know

11:12

, market based speculation .

11:14

You can always make a trend analysis if you have

11:16

quantize .

11:17

Yeah , yeah . And so there is an element

11:20

of divination of possible futures

11:22

with you

11:24

know , number go up , number go down . There's

11:26

a very basic and direct

11:28

motive for wanting to know

11:30

what's going to happen tomorrow in the market

11:33

place . And so I think that's like

11:35

the first kind of like conceptual jumping off

11:37

point , this kind of wanting to see

11:39

into the future a little bit , and

11:41

that's what a profit PROPHET

11:43

promises . Through

11:46

natures of prophecy , they're

11:48

offering wisdom

11:50

or knowledge of

11:53

things which are yet to pass

11:55

. And so I

11:57

think that this desire

12:01

to see into the future for financial reasons , can

12:04

be connected to the desire to

12:06

and the decay

12:09

of the institutions around us , the lack

12:11

of noticeable lead like role

12:13

models in the world around us , and

12:15

how they're somehow started being replaced , from

12:18

different spheres of life , with titans

12:20

of industry . That seems to be happening

12:22

more and more , that the Elizabeth

12:25

Holmes and the Elon Musk's of this world seem

12:27

to be becoming these I

12:30

wouldn't even say prophetic figures , quite you

12:32

know , not as bluntly as that

12:34

but people are projecting all

12:36

kinds of divine

12:39

or extra mundane qualities onto these people

12:42

, and so this

12:45

part of it is the will of the people and the desire

12:47

to reach the promised land of whatever

12:50

capital accumulation or

12:52

meaning in life . There's something

12:54

beyond the disengagement of the world

12:56

, but also there's

12:58

something about the kind of person that

13:01

wants to be a prophet or

13:03

that wants to be a leader or that wants

13:05

to be a guru

13:08

, something like that .

13:10

Okay , vassim , I'm super excited about this

13:12

episode . I think I figured

13:14

out what we're gonna talk about . So

13:18

, because you talk about prophets and I think

13:20

that we

13:23

need to also talk about self-fulfilling

13:25

prophecies , especially

13:28

, I think , in this particular blockchain

13:31

context , in which the

13:34

self-fulfilling prophecy becomes

13:37

self-fulfilling because there

13:40

is enough money to actually act upon

13:42

the world . And in order to actually get

13:44

this money , you need to get enough

13:46

traction and network effect

13:48

around your token-based

13:51

projects . And if you

13:53

manage to be a good prophet , that

13:55

is like vocalizing

13:58

a particular vision of the future and

14:00

then if you get enough traction around

14:03

that particular vision of the future , then

14:05

you're also going to get enough

14:07

of the funds that will make it possible

14:09

for this prophecy to self-fulfill

14:11

itself , because now you have the money to actually

14:13

make it happen . So

14:18

I think it's slightly , I

14:20

guess , more sophisticated

14:23

endeavor

14:25

than just being like it's not just being a prophet

14:27

, it's actually being a

14:29

self-fulfilling prophet , and

14:32

the reason that people do act

14:34

as prophets is because , essentially

14:36

, there is real profits in

14:39

the economic sense that if you are a successful

14:41

prophet , you're also going to get enough

14:43

profits and therefore , you also become

14:45

a more successful prophet because

14:48

you can enact your prophecy .

14:49

It's a cycle of prophecy and prophecy there

14:52

, pr F P H C Y

14:54

and PR F I

14:56

C Y , if that's the word .

14:58

Yeah , there's plenty of . I was watching there's a little

15:01

series on Netflix called how to be a Cult or

15:03

how to Start a Cult , or something like that , and they talk about the

15:05

one of the last ones , I think , is the Korean

15:07

one . I

15:09

mean a lot of them . They're just like associated with like yeah

15:12

, clearly like helping people make money

15:14

within their cult .

15:17

So Waseem the

15:20

topic I want to introduce . That is just a

15:22

little preliminary introduction . Are

15:24

you acquainted with the notion of hyperstition

15:26

?

15:28

Yes , of course I

15:30

co-wrote the book introduction

15:32

to the PhD thesis

15:35

of Nikolai's wife recently , so

15:38

I'm quite immersed in the post-CCRU

15:40

.

15:43

So I think that's exactly what we want to talk during

15:45

this episode is to which extent

15:47

is the North Pole State an hyperstition

15:49

, to which extent

15:51

this type of speculation is actually

15:54

manifesting itself into reality

15:56

because of this hyperstition , and to which

15:58

extent is the network state , this multi-dimensional

16:04

conceptual entity that

16:06

is expanding , but into the future

16:08

, by prophecies

16:10

of how the world could be given

16:12

a network state , but also extending

16:15

itself into the past by actually

16:17

claiming back territory of like what

16:19

other people were doing , all of a sudden we can look

16:21

at it as like hey look , that was a network

16:23

state , but actually

16:26

it's just the hyperstition that is just claiming new

16:28

territories into the future and into the past

16:30

. So I think that will

16:32

be a very interesting little

16:36

hole to dig into . Do

16:38

you have , like , any preliminary

16:41

feedback on that ?

16:43

I like the idea of hyperstition acting through

16:45

time , so , as I said , I co-wrote the forward

16:48

to the book edition of Anna Greenspan's PhD

16:50

thesis . That's called Capitalism's Transcendental

16:52

Time Machine , and it is about capital

16:55

, the

16:59

desire of capital to control , manipulate

17:01

and , more precisely , engineer flows of

17:03

time , and so what we're talking about

17:05

here is hyperstition acting

17:08

through time , in a way , and

17:10

so I would argue that capitalism has always had

17:12

this intimate relationship with

17:14

time and with power . So

17:17

there's a lot there for us to discuss . I think Prima Very

17:20

interesting .

17:21

Yeah , so let's do that if you're happy . So

17:27

my initial hypothesis is that

17:29

I would say that the

17:31

network state I think we

17:35

can start from the position that it is an hyperstition

17:37

. Maybe , for the

17:39

sake of the audience , shall we introduce the concept

17:41

of hyperstition .

17:43

Sure .

17:44

Do you want to go for it ?

17:46

Well , I'll give a simple introduction and then if you want to

17:48

add to it more , then we can do

17:51

that . So hyperstition

17:53

is kind of one level up from a superstition

17:56

, from a belief

17:59

that is maybe not rooted in logic

18:01

, maybe it's something that's mystical or

18:06

extra mundane

18:08

, let's say , and hyperstition

18:10

is something that is

18:13

willed to existence through desires

18:17

and actions and the flows of

18:19

libidos , and whether those are

18:21

to do with capital or whether

18:23

there are other kinds of libidinal flows

18:25

, and that is the kind of manifestation

18:28

of a hyperstition . It's come

18:30

out of a school of thought called the Cybernetic

18:32

Culture Research Unit

18:34

, the CCRU , which was based at the

18:36

University of Warwick in the 1990s

18:40

, and people know them as the Accelerationists

18:42

these days .

18:44

Yeah , my book was published through

18:46

Repeater Books with Mark Fisher , who was part of the CCRU

18:48

as well .

18:50

Yeah , they contain multitudes . I said hyperstition

18:53

maybe came out from a bit more of the reactionary

18:55

side of the CCRU .

18:57

Sure yeah , I recently did an interview

18:59

with Nick Sernick about this as well .

19:02

So maybe I can provide a more

19:06

straightforward definition . Please

19:09

agree or disagree with it . So

19:12

for me , you have the superstition , and

19:14

the superstition is when you have a

19:17

particular event that is happening

19:19

in the present which is somehow

19:22

affecting your future . If

19:28

I break a mirror , I'm going to have seven

19:30

years of bad luck , whatever . The

19:33

hyperstition is kind of like the

19:35

reverse in some way , meaning that it's

19:38

when an event from the future is

19:40

actually affecting the present , which

19:43

is very different as well from the Self-fulfilling

19:45

prophecy , which

19:49

is where an event from the future is affecting the future . So

19:52

the Self-fulfilling prophecy , the goal is

19:54

I'm saying something about the future

19:56

, because I want this future to manifest

19:59

itself , and the more I say it , the more it might

20:01

manifest itself . Whereas the hyperstition

20:03

and this is the deductive process , whereas

20:08

with hyperstition you

20:11

engage into the process of abduction , so

20:13

you start from the future and then from there

20:15

you abduct into what

20:17

needs to happen in the present in

20:19

order for this thing to actually increase

20:22

chances of manifestation . So

20:25

it's kind of like you are actually instrumentalizing

20:28

the future in order to modify the present

20:30

. The goal of the hyperstition is to change

20:32

the way in which people behave today , as

20:34

opposed to achieving a particular

20:36

endpoint into the future . Do

20:39

you agree with that ?

20:43

I won't oppose it . I want to continue

20:45

to pick on this . I think it's a really interesting framing

20:47

of it , addressing it in these temporalities

20:51

, and I sketched out a three by

20:53

three matrix and I wonder if there's something

20:55

that could be developed

20:59

into a schema there at some point

21:01

.

21:04

Okay , do you want to talk about it ?

21:06

What is it ?

21:08

I haven't finished it , we're just talking

21:10

here , but not this idea where we're talking about

21:12

the future influencing the present or

21:15

the present influencing the future or the past influencing

21:17

the present .

21:20

There's another word that we made up , but

21:22

I think it's a very nice word which is called retrospection

21:25

. So retrospection is

21:27

when the past is affecting

21:30

the present , and

21:32

this is always the hyperstition instrumentalizing the

21:35

past in order to actually affect the present . So

21:37

when we think about I really want to

21:39

go into the network state topic because I think

21:41

this is a fascinating intersection of

21:43

discussion the network

21:45

state has an hyperstition

21:47

, meaning that this is this multi-dimensional

21:50

, atemporal entity that lives

21:52

in the present , in the past , in the future . The

21:55

goal of the hyperstition is to come into

21:57

being , and in order

21:59

to do that , it needs to attack on

22:01

all temporal directions . So

22:04

what I think is really interesting with the network state

22:06

is that all of a sudden this narrative

22:08

came about . Balaji

22:10

was clearly not the first one to bring

22:12

the concept of the network state . We

22:14

actually did some

22:16

research and the

22:18

network states have been used to say very different

22:20

things ever since the emergence

22:23

of networks and internet and

22:25

so forth , but somehow Balaji

22:27

has brought as associated

22:29

with a particular hyperstation and

22:32

all of Sudan . It has created a lot of traction

22:34

, and this traction is about generating

22:38

a lot of project . Today , that all of Sudan

22:41

logos , I think , is a good example , a

22:44

lot of projects that were not necessarily

22:46

doing anything related to the network

22:48

state , but now they are a network state project . So

22:52

it's interesting to see how the present

22:54

is actually being shifted by

22:57

initiative that all of Sudan are attaching themselves

22:59

into this higher level hyperstation

23:01

of the network state . It's

23:03

interesting also to see that those initiatives

23:06

are actually somehow managing

23:08

to raise funds because they

23:10

are attaching themselves to the narrative of the network

23:12

state and therefore increasing the chances

23:15

of the network state , as they

23:17

are envisioning or prophesizing

23:19

it , to come into being . And then , even

23:21

more interestingly , I think there is now and I

23:24

think you were talking about it with , like the Crescent

23:26

States , there is also

23:28

going back into the past and

23:30

somehow claiming that something

23:33

that perhaps had absolutely nothing

23:35

to do with the network state , because the concept didn't even

23:37

exist . But let's actually

23:39

take it on and let's actually prove that the

23:41

network state existed already in the past

23:43

by just reinterpreting

23:46

, through retrospection , a particular

23:48

behavior that was happening in light

23:50

of this new conceptual entity .

23:53

Yeah , I think the word retrospection is really powerful

23:56

in this sense as

23:58

, like you know , as a re-naravatization

24:01

or a historical revisionism

24:03

, and we can get to

24:05

the Crusades and stuff later if we want to . But I

24:08

did read a very interesting book recently by

24:10

Christopher Tiemann , called the Invention of the Crusades

24:12

, that the concept of the Crusade wasn't

24:15

around at the time of the Crusades , at least the first

24:17

ones that mattered . This concept appeared at

24:20

the earliest , the 13th

24:23

century , whereas the first Crusade

24:25

happened at the end of the 11th century and

24:27

all the action basically occurred in the first 100

24:29

years . But there wasn't really this

24:31

idea of the Crusade at the start

24:33

. So the question is was there a Crusade

24:36

in the 11th century ? Were there Crusades in the first 100

24:38

years ? They weren't called that and

24:41

so events from the past are

24:43

always liable and pliable

24:45

to be manipulated

24:47

, to re-narativized , retro-stitianized

24:50

by people

24:53

seeking to control or

24:55

manipulate or shape flows

24:58

of narratives , of thoughts , of ideas

25:00

, for whatever profit

25:02

or profit motives that they might have

25:04

. And I think it's a really , yeah

25:06

, very interesting concept , very powerful concept of retrosdiction

25:09

here .

25:12

Great , so let's dig into that . Do

25:16

you have a level of a particular

25:18

opinion or a general understanding of the

25:21

extent to which the like

25:23

that , if there is an hyperstition

25:25

somewhere which I think

25:27

Balaji is perhaps

25:30

a victim of and I think we , as coordinations

25:33

we're also a victim of , we are actually

25:35

part of the same hyperstition

25:38

. We are just manifesting this

25:40

hyperstition in a different manner , and

25:42

I think this is kind of like the work that we

25:44

started doing at the beginning of this podcast is

25:46

like what is this kind of like common

25:49

denominator that is actually

25:51

unifying all those things

25:53

that are abiding

25:55

by the same name of

25:58

the network state , hyperstition , and

26:00

therefore maybe we can try to delineate

26:03

what is this hyperstition about

26:05

? Right , because , Evento , we

26:08

constantly criticize Balaji and

26:10

I don't know if Balaji criticizes us or

26:12

just ignores us , but

26:14

you know , evento , we're criticizing . In

26:17

fact , we're actually way

26:19

more allied

26:21

than the majority of people . We're

26:23

actually part of the same hyperstition . So

26:27

what is this hyperstition ? What is this thing

26:29

? What is this conceptual entity that came

26:31

and that is like spanning

26:34

across all these temporal dimensions

26:36

and that is actually motivating

26:38

us to study this concept

26:41

of coordination , new networks of varieties

26:43

, network state and so forth .

26:46

I mean , I don't have the answer off

26:48

the top of my head to such an enormous question

26:51

. I wonder if we might be able

26:53

to probe at some of the possible

26:55

drivers for what is bringing us

26:57

to these kinds of conversations

27:00

and concepts

27:02

and notions . And I would also say , prima , that it's

27:05

natural for us to not

27:07

get unwell with our neighbors , whether that's in a territorial

27:09

or conceptual sense , the

27:13

fact that you might , as

27:15

coordinations , have a lot in common with the Balaji

27:17

notion of network states , and then that

27:19

makes one feel uneasy because we

27:21

find some aspects of that grotesque

27:23

or unpalatable or unfair

27:26

or unjust . I think that's entirely

27:28

natural . We've always been suspicious

27:32

of our neighbors and

27:34

I do wonder if the concept of disenchantment might

27:36

be a nice place for us to start . And

27:39

then we can maybe talk about things like voice

27:41

and exit and why

27:45

people might be looking to make new

27:47

kinds of sovereignities , new kinds

27:51

of institutions , extitutions

27:53

, and

27:57

some of the motivations for that might be . We

27:59

could frame them in terms of withdrawals

28:01

or exits or

28:04

dissatisfaction with what we

28:06

have , the situation that we inhabit

28:08

in the present day .

28:10

Yeah , I think that also like in , if

28:12

we think about , you know , we can

28:14

think about memetic warfare , but we can also

28:16

think about hyperstitial warfare

28:19

. I think it's

28:21

also like , as

28:23

you mentioned , that there is this kind

28:25

of like erosion of

28:27

trust and disenchantment

28:29

towards an alternative

28:32

and existing , like an established hyperstition

28:34

, which is the nation state

28:36

, which is , by the way , not

28:38

that old , you know , it's

28:41

not something that existed forever . It is an

28:43

hyperstition that has really established itself

28:45

in modern societies and

28:47

that is somehow losing a little bit

28:49

of its hegemony and

28:52

therefore , maybe that is what

28:54

because of the existing

28:56

hyperstition of nation states somehow

28:58

losing its dominant

29:01

position , then now there is a new

29:03

opportunity for those alternative

29:05

hyperstitions that maybe have

29:07

always existed but were not very vocal

29:09

because they didn't have much of a chance

29:11

, and now they can see this chance and

29:13

so they are jumping in right . And

29:16

again , I think I'm wondering actually , like my

29:18

question is actually more like , let's

29:21

figure it out I don't know if the

29:23

network state promoted

29:26

by biology is part of the same hyperstition

29:28

as the coordination that we

29:30

are promoting , or whether we are actually

29:32

two separate hyperstitions that are both trying

29:35

to take advantage of

29:37

the weakening of the existing hyperstition

29:39

of nation states .

29:41

Yeah two , it could be two surfers

29:43

riding the same wave perhaps .

29:45

Exactly .

29:49

Yeah , super interesting . Josh

29:51

, you lifted your mic to your mouth . Do you have

29:53

something to ?

29:54

No , no , no , no great .

29:55

Yeah , I am . So

29:59

, yeah , we talked about the idea of nation states being

30:02

a hyperstition and network states possibly being

30:04

a competing hyperstition . So then , if

30:06

we're in the logics of blockchain

30:08

land , I immediately start to think of

30:11

a marketplace of ideologies

30:13

or a marketplace for hyperstitions , or some

30:15

kind of competitive , zero-sum

30:18

arena for all of these ideas to play

30:20

out in some kind of collective

30:22

memetic imagination . So

30:24

these are all just ideas , organizational

30:26

concepts , notions that get implemented

30:29

over time , and then they you

30:32

know some of them stick like we end

30:34

up with nation states . We all live in a nation

30:36

state now . Before we lived

30:38

in empires or dukedoms

30:41

near feudal you

30:44

know , smaller , near feudal territories , and

30:46

so the way that we seem to organize

30:48

our

30:50

units of human government , our

30:53

, you know , the units of human

30:55

administration , that

30:57

seems to change over time . And

31:00

I guess we

31:02

see these kind of cataclysmic events through history

31:04

which lead to the reorganization of the

31:07

map of the world and the territories

31:09

that it constitutes is

31:11

constituted of things like the ends

31:13

of wars , peace treaties , the

31:15

collapse of empires , whether that's the

31:18

Ottoman Empire , the Roman Empire

31:20

, whether it's the end of World War

31:22

I and World War II and we see

31:24

these things reorganizing things , fracturing

31:26

, the breakdown of the Soviet Union , the

31:29

formation of the United States and

31:31

these seem to be , you

31:34

know , events which either strengthen or weaken

31:36

the paradigm of nation

31:38

states . And I wonder

31:40

if the consolidation

31:43

of nation states into transnational

31:45

blocks so let's say let's call the United

31:47

States a federation of it's

31:50

a federation of states right that we made into a gigantic

31:52

nation which has

31:54

exerted its hegemony over the world

31:57

for quite some time now

31:59

. The Soviet Union tried to

32:01

be something like that as well , but it ultimately

32:04

crumbled or partially disintegrated

32:06

. We

32:09

have these kind of pseudo transnational

32:12

associations like NATO , conocat

32:14

, brics and some of

32:16

those , like the rise , they fall , or

32:19

the power and the influence they

32:22

seem to have seems to shift up and down as

32:24

the constituent members change or

32:26

grow or weaken . I

32:28

wonder if we can look at

32:30

these shifting sands of the Organization

32:33

of Nations and States and their transnational

32:36

assemblies and consolidations

32:38

thereof as perhaps showing us a

32:40

way where the network state

32:42

concept might fit in or might

32:45

become real in an organizational sense .

32:48

For me . It seems that I'm

32:50

not sure

32:53

if I'm as well read on the concept

32:55

of hyperstition , but from what I remember

32:57

reading , if I remember correctly , there's

33:00

a lot of thought about capital itself

33:02

being a kind of hyperstition . Throughout history that has

33:04

, with the advent of capitalism it

33:06

kind of came forward , whereas before

33:08

societies were doing everything they could

33:11

to suppress capital for a long time and now

33:13

capital has been unleashed . I

33:16

don't know if you've ever read the work of , I

33:19

mean , marx talks about it , but Ian Wright is a really

33:21

nice writer . He talks

33:23

about focusing on Marx

33:25

calling capital a real

33:28

god , how religions

33:30

in the past were fake

33:32

gods . But capital is a real

33:34

one because it exists and it's instantiated

33:37

through physical things

33:39

and makes people physically move or else

33:41

they die .

33:44

We had a bit actually in the profit motives network states

33:47

essay which was drawing on the capitalism's

33:49

transcendental time machine . Work I did

33:51

with some colleagues last year where I posed

33:54

a question has capitalism replaced

33:56

God with quantized time ? Because

33:59

the efficiency and the measurement and precision of time

34:01

is one of the key drivers

34:03

of capitalist productivity and the

34:05

power that the wielders of capital use on

34:08

the labor classes .

34:10

To me . I think there's something to say about capital

34:12

being a time machine in many ways , just

34:14

kind of taking from

34:17

the future . In many ways , especially

34:20

if you think about it in terms of the ecological

34:23

crisis , it's taking a lot from the

34:25

future , potentially .

34:26

We can argue Also credit

34:28

and expectations . So think about the market

34:30

and values of stocks on the market or the

34:32

value of coins in a marketplace . A

34:35

lot of that is predicated on expected future

34:37

values .

34:39

In relation to hyperstation being this kind of temporal

34:41

creation

34:44

of a concept or of a particular

34:47

zeitgeist . Capital

34:51

is this great vehicle for doing that

34:53

literally . In many ways , for

34:55

me , network state is really the continuation

34:58

of the hyperstation

35:00

of capital , kind of like moving

35:02

towards its ultimate

35:05

conclusion , because I

35:08

mean , we had nation states . I think was maybe created

35:10

from the hyperstation of a nation , because before

35:13

, for a long time the idea of a nation was kind

35:15

of like a vague one . I think in history it

35:18

wasn't only until after

35:20

the world wars or during the world wars a bit before

35:23

maybe , that like nations are kind of being consolidated

35:25

into a particular state for some kind of

35:27

Nobody had passports before World War One

35:29

, pretty much , so the idea

35:31

of the nation as a kind of enclosure for

35:33

its subjects didn't really seem

35:35

to exist .

35:36

People could just travel wherever they wanted to travel . If

35:38

you had the money , you could just travel there .

35:42

Which came out of a need for maybe like protection

35:45

. I guess , in increasing conflict

35:49

within at least in Europe

35:51

, and sort of like

35:53

the increasing encroachment of maybe like imperialism

35:55

from neighboring states , there

35:57

was this need for loss of trust . A loss of

35:59

trust , a

36:01

loss of trust , probably as well .

36:02

Yeah , and there was this kind of situation

36:07

where the bigger

36:09

one fish gets , the

36:12

more scared the small fish are . So

36:14

if there's a big nation and

36:17

there's a bunch of small feudal territories

36:19

, then there's a driver for

36:21

them , for their mutual defense , for their mutually

36:23

assured survival , or to then

36:25

start to consider consolidating

36:28

into what we might today call a nation state

36:30

, to avoid just

36:32

being invaded , just being conquered .

36:34

Sure sure , yeah , I mean look at Switzerland , or whatever

36:36

.

36:37

Switzerland used to be each of the cantons

36:39

well , not the cantons themselves , but the districts

36:41

of Switzerland used to be nation states in themselves , and

36:43

they're only being country not that long ago .

36:47

So like for me , like network states , because capital

36:50

has this like the state

36:52

was created as a way to kind of like consolidate power

36:54

and protection and therefore

36:56

it also became

36:59

a vehicle for mediating

37:01

class conflict and therefore also like

37:03

provided kind of like welfare and

37:06

all these types of things that we now kind of take

37:08

for granted as existing for a lot of people

37:10

, depending on where you are and

37:12

so . But the thing is capital

37:14

, of course , is this

37:16

like infinite kind of de-territorialization

37:19

as it can and re-territorialization into

37:21

something else in order to like create new markets

37:24

, to like create more capital

37:26

? It's just like a giant amoebic

37:28

thing that's trying to consume everything and

37:30

turn everything into capitalist markets

37:33

and , like I don't

37:35

know , to me the network state seems like a way to kind

37:37

of de-territorialize the ultimate

37:39

territory that we have like in

37:42

existence right now , which provides

37:44

like albeit like not wonderful

37:46

protection for a lot of people

37:49

, depending on your status of

37:51

like aligning with the identity

37:53

of the nation or not , but

37:55

it provides some for some people enough

37:57

so that like people

38:01

want to protect it and I think for people I

38:03

mean maybe like more on the left like

38:05

feel that it's something to be protected

38:07

because it's at least what we have .

38:09

I mean , in the absence of it , what is there

38:12

for the disenfranchised ?

38:14

Yeah , not much , I mean . I think

38:16

for some people the idea would be like it would then force

38:18

people to create mutual

38:20

networks , but it's like not a guarantee and

38:23

I think many people depending on

38:25

how disenfranchised you are and how much

38:27

of maybe a minority you are in your particular

38:31

context like you probably

38:33

won't be doing well without a yeah all .

38:34

I can see , is drivers towards increased inequality

38:36

. And , you know , depends

38:38

on your views as to whether you think that's okay

38:40

or not . I personally think that's not great . And

38:43

so you know , the safety nets that we have

38:45

today , that nations , that some nation states

38:47

provide . I would hope

38:49

that they would continue . And

38:51

while we're talking about the functions of the state

38:53

, you know I

38:55

don't want to bang

38:58

the drama of the Crusader kingdoms too much , but

39:01

the , what

39:04

later became like the nightly

39:06

orders , such as the night's temple , the night's hospital

39:08

, the night's hospital . They provided theological

39:11

training , education , medical

39:13

treatment , healthcare , protection of

39:16

travelers , security , logistical

39:18

distribution , transportation support , communication

39:20

, taxes and levies , and financial instruments

39:22

such as ledgers of credit , economics and

39:25

directive , offensive capabilities , military

39:27

, which is most of

39:29

the functions of a modern nation

39:31

state , if you slice it in

39:34

that way . Right .

39:36

Yeah , so , but like , yeah , I think

39:38

. Anyways , just saying that

39:40

I think for me the network's sake is really

39:42

like an

39:45

attempt to , I don't

39:47

know , take , take even more out

39:49

of the world by removing the very

39:51

little bit of what's territorialized by .

39:54

Yeah , it's like a matter of I don't know if it's

39:56

like capital as

39:58

much as privatization , which

40:01

I guess might be correlated

40:04

with capital , but it seems to me

40:06

like at least the , the

40:08

, the network state proposed

40:11

through Balaji is

40:14

about . There

40:16

is some things that are currently done

40:18

by the nation state . We

40:22

can actually do them through

40:24

private means . We

40:26

it's basically we can privatize

40:28

those services and

40:31

eventually , if we manage to privatize

40:34

all of those services , why

40:36

not privatizing the territory

40:38

as well ? Right , and

40:40

then the problem is that all the students , the only way that you

40:42

can really protect yourself

40:45

against the state is that you

40:47

need to . These private territories

40:49

have to become public territory

40:51

of a new state so that you

40:53

, you are fenced against

40:56

whatever possible invasion of the

40:58

nation state , which is also a little bit wishful

41:01

thinking , perhaps , but to

41:03

me , like , I feel like the , the , the

41:06

superstition that Balaji is

41:08

, is is acting upon , it's

41:10

almost the one of like hyper

41:13

, hyper

41:16

liberal capitalism , of

41:20

why are we using this , this

41:22

public sector , in

41:25

order to do things that the private sector could

41:27

do just as well , if not better

41:29

?

41:56

As a patron , you'll get a shout out on an episode and

41:58

access to bonus content like Q&A episodes

42:00

. You can submit and vote on questions you'd like me to answer

42:03

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42:05

current bonus episodes have so far explored plenty

42:07

of topics , including how co-ops and dials relate

42:09

, whether there is a socialist blockchain

42:12

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42:14

, and recently a video reaction

42:16

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42:18

course , I'll still be making free contents like

42:21

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42:23

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42:25

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42:27

resonates with you , I hope you'll consider helping out

42:29

. No

42:35

, you're so neoliberal , you're a libertarian

42:38

.

42:40

I'm reminded of the

42:43

notions of special economic zones and

42:45

charter cities as some kind

42:47

of like you know halfway houses between

42:49

nation states and network

42:51

states , and there's a great book by Quince

42:53

Labolian called Crack Up Capitalism . Yeah

42:57

, yeah , we yeah , you're familiar with probably

42:59

your readers are quite familiar with too which is

43:01

also getting at this idea of either

43:03

privatization and or capitalism punching

43:06

holes in the map of nation

43:08

state territories to

43:10

gain some kind of whatever

43:13

, either localized sovereignty

43:16

or that some kind of relaxation of

43:18

the labor laws of the you know

43:20

the rules of the game in that nation . I

43:23

often think of blockchains as jurisdictionless

43:25

free ports , and so to me it's no surprise

43:27

that blockchains would be an architecture

43:29

that people might use to affect

43:32

these kinds of zones of exception .

43:35

Yeah , I think I don't know if you know this

43:37

, but like in the at Zuzalu network

43:40

state , the network state section was paired

43:42

up with charter cities .

43:44

Right , yes , and I know about Prospera and things like

43:46

that .

43:46

Yeah .

43:46

So yeah , I know that that was kind of their aligned

43:49

concepts for sure .

43:50

Yeah , which to me I feel like kind of it

43:53

gives the game away a little bit of

43:55

what ultimately I feel like they want

43:57

is just a special economic zone than they do network

43:59

of SCZs and charter cities or something

44:02

.

44:02

Yeah , yeah , yeah

44:05

.

44:07

Do we want to maybe go into the

44:10

crusades a bit more , and I think one of the

44:12

things that we want to talk about in this interview is kind

44:14

of thinking about what is like after the network

44:17

state . You know , let's

44:19

say , I mean , like I think

44:21

which is an interesting question

44:23

to always ask yourself if you are trying

44:25

to imagine a future is like . I mean , I

44:28

think this is a question that sometimes I think

44:30

socialists should ask themselves like what do you do five

44:32

minutes after the revolution ? You know , like , of

44:35

course , you party , maybe for the nights , but what do you do the

44:37

next day ?

44:38

Yeah , I think that we often that's human

44:40

nature for us to be so focused on the sort

44:43

of eschatological moment . The goal of

44:45

what we're trying to do , the thing that we've been driving towards

44:47

, what the TOS is purpose is driving us towards

44:49

that we don't think so much about , we

44:51

rush in , we don't think about how

44:53

to do the thing after it , after the mutiny , after

44:56

the revolution , after the

44:58

network state , and obviously

45:00

the network state as a concept is still largely hypothetical

45:03

at the moment . So we can't , we don't have

45:05

data , we don't have information , we don't have lived experiences

45:07

to have anthropological reports of what happens

45:09

after someone

45:12

makes a network state . So

45:14

but what we do have is almost

45:17

a thousand years of history since the

45:19

Crusader kingdoms were set up by orders

45:22

, like the Knights Hospital and Knights Templar in

45:25

the Levant , in the Middle East , in the

45:27

areas that would now be Turkey , syria

45:29

, lebanon , jordan and

45:32

Israel , and so

45:34

in the late 11th century , the

45:37

Pope Urban II made a call

45:39

for a divine war

45:41

, in some senses , to take

45:43

back Christendom , to take back Jerusalem in

45:45

the name of Christianity from the Muslims

45:47

. And a few years later

45:50

there were a couple of like weirdly

45:52

peer-to-peer crusades that we don't talk about

45:54

too much . There was this people's crusade , where

45:56

a couple of prophets one was called

45:58

Peter the Hermit , which led a bunch of

46:00

kind of rag clad

46:03

, toothless vagabonds through

46:05

Asia Minor what we now call it Turkey towards

46:08

the Levant , and they didn't get very far . But

46:10

then the Knights Kings and the Knights showed

46:13

up with chain mail and armor and

46:15

siege weaponry a couple of years later , and

46:17

the Arabs were fighting amongst themselves , as

46:21

people tend to do , in the absence of a

46:23

greater enemy , and they were disorganized and unprepared

46:25

. And so , in the wake of the first crusade

46:28

, which was at the end of the 11th century , several

46:30

Crusader kingdoms were set up in the Levant

46:33

, and collectively we call them Autremers . There's

46:36

the County of Edessa , principality

46:38

of Antioch , county of Tripoli and the Kingdom

46:40

of Jerusalem , and

46:43

one of the heuristic

46:45

notions I'm exploring is that these crusader

46:47

kingdoms were arguably examples

46:51

of prototypical network states . I don't think

46:53

we can map these things one to one , but

46:55

there are kind of an interesting device

46:58

with which to explore possible

47:00

resonances . And so , once we've set up the

47:02

kingdoms , well , that's great mission accomplished . But

47:05

what happens next ? And

47:09

so there was a series of other events

47:12

in the Middle East , as you can imagine , the people

47:15

that were dispossessed of their territories

47:17

and their homes weren't going to take that

47:19

lying down and they

47:21

redoubled their efforts , gathered , united

47:24

, under a series of commanders

47:26

, ultimately , under the

47:30

Arab-ized Kurd , salah

47:32

al-Din Saladin retook

47:37

Jerusalem and Tripoli and

47:41

, I believe , antioch and then Edessa . So

47:44

for about a century the primarily

47:47

Frankish knights , french German knights , with

47:49

a few Brits and Italians in

47:51

there as well , held those territories

47:53

and they spent another century or so trying to get

47:56

them back . I think there was something very interesting

47:58

, as these the

48:00

Crusades are numbered in a way that's also

48:03

quite interesting where you only get a numbered Crusader

48:05

for king . A European king leads it . That's

48:07

an official kind of like whatever approved

48:11

crusade , they're legitimated , they're legitimized

48:13

crusade , whereas all these other

48:15

kind of adventures or sorties

48:17

or expeditions or skirmishes that didn't

48:19

get officially kind of

48:21

canonized in that particular

48:23

system . So

48:26

the first crusade the Franks took the

48:28

lands , made the kingdoms . The second crusade

48:30

was a stalemate . The third crusade was a loss

48:33

and by this point they were out

48:35

pretty much by the end of the 12th

48:37

century they were basically out of the Levant

48:39

. They retreated to Cyprus , an

48:42

island in the Eastern Mediterranean , not

48:44

far from those places . The

48:47

fourth crusade for me is one of the most

48:49

interesting for going to talk about what might come after

48:51

a network state . The idea was

48:53

to go to Egypt

48:55

, alexandria , where the Ayyubid dynasty

48:58

was centered , that's Saladin's

49:00

. So they were going to strike at the

49:02

root . Rather than go to the Promised Land itself

49:05

, the Holy Land , they would go to the

49:07

home territory and take major Mediterranean

49:10

port . So the Knights

49:12

Templar were charged with leading this

49:14

expedition and they commissioned the

49:17

merchant state of Venice for a whole year to

49:19

build ships for them , so they would travel through the

49:21

Mediterranean directly to Egypt , not go through the

49:23

land . Traveling over land was

49:25

a disaster , so they made it much more efficient

49:27

to travel overseas . The idea

49:30

was in the crowdfunding

49:32

Patreon model . The

49:34

noble people that showed up and took the cross

49:36

that arrived in Venice would pay off the Templars

49:38

, so

49:41

the Venetians . To make it

49:43

all possible . Not enough people came to Venice

49:45

to pay the debts . The

49:48

Templars entered the service

49:50

of the Venetians . They became a mercenary

49:52

army of the Venetians and then

49:54

the Venetians were calling the shots . And the Venetians are

49:57

I wouldn't say they were . From my

49:59

read of this , my primitive read of medieval history , they

50:01

didn't seem very ideological at all . They were merchants

50:03

.

50:03

It was about money for them they were like hypercapitalists

50:07

in a merchant mercantile sense

50:09

Is it interesting points where capital , and maybe

50:11

like the hyperstition of capital and God , or

50:13

maybe in conflict , have a little

50:15

power struggle .

50:16

Well , here God

50:18

enters , or whatever the divine army enters

50:20

, the service of capital . And so

50:22

they got sent first to what's called Zara

50:25

, what's called Zadah now it's a town in Croatia

50:27

and so , as the fleet arrived , they were

50:29

going to loot and ransack it , take

50:31

their stuff and

50:33

then take over the town . And so

50:35

, as the fleet arrived , the

50:38

inhabitants of the town painted crosses on their houses

50:40

, not only to remind the arrivals

50:42

arriving at armies

50:45

that they were Christians , but they were indeed

50:47

crusaders . And that did not stop

50:50

them from trashing

50:52

the place . And then , even more remarkably

50:54

, they went to Constantinople , which was then the

50:56

seat of the Byzantine Empire

50:59

, the eastern part of the Roman Empire

51:01

, the rump state that succeeded . They

51:04

continued on the traditions of the Roman Empire

51:06

, with Orthodox Christianity after the breakup

51:09

or the beginning of the disintegration

51:11

of the Roman Empire , and they

51:13

sacked Constantinople

51:16

as well , killing no small number of Christians

51:18

. And so that

51:21

is a little bit of a . You

51:23

know it's not a pleasant story , but

51:25

for me there's a little portent in there about what might come

51:27

after the network state , if

51:29

capital is allowed to kind of

51:31

rule

51:34

unfettered , if capital is given

51:36

the supremacy that it seems to

51:39

desire or be ordained for , and

51:41

if it takes supremacy over God

51:44

or the church or other institutions , then

51:46

you get all of these kind of like wild , unforeseen

51:48

, unintended , kind of grotesque consequences .

51:51

Capital doesn't care about your feelings or your God

51:53

.

51:54

Yeah , I mean , capital is its

51:56

own pantheon , its

51:58

own pantheon of gods . It

52:00

doesn't care about yours .

52:01

Yeah , yeah , so

52:04

we

52:06

were speaking beforehand that the

52:09

crusades are an interesting example

52:12

of kind of like , you know , kind

52:15

of like network states in that there is , I

52:17

guess there is like they were an aligned community of Christians

52:19

who wanted to have

52:21

land that they can live out their Christian

52:24

fantasies in the Promised Land .

52:26

They didn't exactly crowdfund the territory .

52:29

let's say I mean they , yeah

52:31

, they they .

52:33

The crowdfunded , the means to take the territory

52:35

Forcibly crowdfunded . They

52:37

did have recognized leaders , so it was all like

52:39

no woman from France . Pretty much they became the kings

52:42

of these , like the king

52:44

of Jerusalem was bought when the first of a Boloin

52:47

, I believe . Hmm .

52:49

But so like this , this experiment

52:51

, if you want to call that didn't

52:54

last very long and didn't

52:56

really work out for a lot of the people involved and

52:59

had a very violent kind

53:01

of like history to it . So

53:05

I think for for people who are , I mean

53:07

, thinking about network states , maybe something to keep

53:10

in mind about this that you

53:12

know , if you want to look for land , probably other people live in

53:14

it already .

53:14

If it's good land to live on , Josh

53:17

, this reminds me of a story that came out in the wake

53:20

of the FTX you know fallout

53:22

but quite recently there was a story that Saint-Bankman-Fried

53:26

was looking into buying the Pacific Island of

53:28

Nauru , just to be

53:30

like an effective altruist island , and like

53:32

the speculation around whether he knew if

53:34

anyone actually lived there or not .

53:37

I would not be surprised . But

53:41

so we want and there

53:43

had a lot of similarities with , like , the profit as well

53:45

we

53:48

wanted to also talk about

53:50

, because part of this podcast to talk about alternatives

53:53

or to think about not

53:55

necessarily solutions , but like let's think

53:57

about maybe where it can

53:59

go a bit better , because there are some things of alignment

54:02

, like Pimavera was talking about , as far as , like , network

54:04

states and coordination . I mean there are . I mean , you

54:07

know , in many ways we are conceptual

54:10

neighbors , although I think that our concept

54:12

is like radically quite different . There

54:14

are like noticeable similarities , of course , due

54:16

to we're just like analyzing the world as it exists

54:19

today , and some of those things are just facts . What

54:23

are some like based on your reading of history

54:25

? Where are the places ? What are the things that you think would

54:28

be interesting to look at to

54:30

kind of prevent the kind of violent

54:32

trajectory of things

54:35

like what happened in the Crusades ?

54:37

Right ? Well , I mean , there's one

54:39

which is , I think , quite practical , and we

54:41

must go back to Ancient Greece for that , and

54:44

this is like . So I take particular umbrage

54:46

in the Bellagian notion of the network

54:48

state , with the idea that it must be centered

54:50

upon a recognized founder , the

54:52

profit , or , if you like , in the vernacular

54:55

, of my work . And I think that's dangerous

54:57

, because not only does it give one

55:00

person a lot of power , it also attracts

55:02

certain kinds of people . You

55:04

know the kinds of people we see in leadership positions today

55:06

. You know what I'm talking about .

55:10

And so people who want to be in power are usually the

55:12

ones you want to be afraid of .

55:13

Yes , you should . I mean the , the , the , yeah , all

55:16

that should not be allowed to be in power . And

55:18

so one of the ways that this was worked

55:21

around in Ancient Greece was using a concept

55:23

called sortition , or random , some sub

55:25

sampling , you might call it today . And

55:27

so there was a stone machine called a claritarian

55:30

, which you would put , I believe

55:32

or not , little tokens into , and

55:34

this would then do this kind of pseudo random

55:36

, um sub sampling , and

55:38

that would choose some of the polities for

55:41

, like , various functions of governance

55:43

. So you would fill people's

55:45

assemblies from the public and

55:48

they would be in positions of power for

55:50

limited periods of time , and then there would

55:52

be a new round of this sortition to

55:55

to select these citizen assemblies yet again

55:57

. And so that is one way that you can

55:59

use , and we now have ways

56:01

to do this with cryptography , but we don't need a stone

56:03

tablet . You can still do it Verifiably random yeah

56:06

or they even even you know throw zero knowledge

56:08

stuff in there and you can prove that things are fair

56:10

and not leak information now . So

56:12

we actually have ways of doing this in quite quite

56:15

powerful and efficient ways at scale and at distance

56:17

. So sortition is one thing to

56:19

avoid what I call the Bellagian trauma of the

56:21

recognized founder , probably and

56:24

the other one that came up in the reading

56:26

of David Graber's pirate

56:28

enlightenment and the Hakeem-based work on pirate

56:31

utopias was around

56:33

pirate governance . So in the 16th

56:35

and 17th centuries , the cities

56:38

that are now the capitals of the North

56:40

African nations , so Zal'e

56:42

Rabat in Morocco , algiers

56:44

in Algeria and Tunis in Tunisia

56:47

. To some extent

56:49

, as empires around them waxed and waned

56:51

, they became autonomous and like

56:53

almost sovereign pirate

56:55

republics you know kind

56:57

of think of , like a notion of a pirate haven

57:00

. But they in effect became like

57:02

they were not under the suzerainty or under

57:04

the sovereignty of some other state , as a kind of a vassal

57:06

. They were kind of independent and

57:10

we have this notion of pirates

57:12

as being savages or barbaric , uncivilized

57:14

people . But I

57:17

think we can learn a lot from pirate governance from what I've seen . It

57:20

seemed to be quite fair compared

57:23

to some of the more like , let's say , mercantile

57:25

forms of governance that we might see

57:28

today and more mediated by capital . And

57:30

there's two examples that I picked out , which

57:33

is one that I

57:36

mean we've all heard of the concept of the mutiny on

57:38

the pirate ship , and that is

57:40

because the captain is only the captain of the ship if

57:42

the shipmates agree that they are the

57:44

captain . If they no

57:46

longer agree , the captain gets dropped off with the nearest rock

57:49

and the new captain is agreed

57:51

upon , and so

57:53

this idea of the founder

57:55

or the leader is not something that is kind of enshrined in some

57:57

constitution . It's

58:00

more to do with norms , I guess , than with laws

58:02

and rules . And

58:05

the other thing that I think is super interesting is about

58:07

resource , how

58:09

resources are meted out , like the loot , the booty that is

58:11

divided up at the end of a successful voyage

58:14

, and

58:16

the disparity between

58:18

a pirate captain and members of their crew in terms of the share

58:21

of the wealth that they would receive

58:23

was something like double

58:25

two X . The captain would receive twice what an average

58:27

crew member would receive , and

58:31

that seems like , compared to , let's say

58:33

, the owner of a merchant vessel , which

58:36

would probably be like 10 to 15 times what the average crew member would receive , and

58:40

if we look at CEOs today , they earn something between 50 and 100

58:42

times the average worker 300 in the US . Right

58:46

, okay , so it's getting worse . Yeah , yeah , no

58:48

.

58:50

I think those are interesting . I mean , do

58:53

you think that's so ? It's

58:55

kind of like this I think A

58:58

lot of the work from Bellagie that

59:00

I read always has this kind of like yeah

59:03

, he talks a lot about like technical truth and

59:06

like this desire for like , like

59:09

very absolutism . Yeah , absolutism

59:11

and like platonic idealism and

59:13

like I think you see this in his

59:15

obsession with like the founder that

59:18

there is very little malleability

59:21

actually in a lot of what he

59:23

writes about and the conception

59:25

of the network state and I

59:28

think for some people especially if you're into

59:30

math for some reason is like it's

59:33

it that seems like a good idea , because

59:35

math is also like it's reassuring Like we

59:37

live in a world that's so messy .

59:39

There's no , it's hard to tell what's up from down . So

59:41

the idea of somebody comes along to you and says hey , I

59:43

have truth , you want some . Of course

59:45

you want some , I mean . I

59:48

mean the thing is like once you read some epistemology you

59:50

realize there isn't truth . There's things that have truth

59:52

, value , that approach truth . You can't

59:54

get a truth . I was a scientist

59:56

when I was in my younger days and I was very

59:59

idealistic in my youth and I believed

1:00:01

in this notion of truth and a quest

1:00:04

for the truth and I thought that's what scientific research was

1:00:06

. And I got halfway through my PhD and I realized

1:00:08

there was no when I was doing quantum physics

1:00:10

. There is no truth in quantum physics

1:00:12

. But also it was not the

1:00:14

questions in research . It's really about politics

1:00:17

and human , you know , formations

1:00:20

. Nobody really cares about the truth . It's about

1:00:22

publishing the paper in the journal , it's about getting

1:00:24

the professorship , it's about , you know

1:00:26

, beating your rivals . Nobody

1:00:29

cared about the truth , but like it

1:00:31

was something we always talk about as

1:00:33

a kind of the idealized notion of the goal of

1:00:35

the T-Loss , the scatology of science , and

1:00:38

so if people are interested in maths

1:00:40

, then if you've come from a computer

1:00:42

science background or you're interested in crypto

1:00:45

networks or something like that , the idea

1:00:47

that we can get to a truth is very alluring

1:00:49

and satisfying we might think of . We

1:00:51

have this concept we've discussed in the X-Salon

1:00:54

, called algorithmic formalism , as

1:00:56

a counterpart to algorithmic realism , and

1:00:59

what I see in Bellagio's work

1:01:01

is this kind of extremely formalistic , rigid interpretation

1:01:04

, which I think carries the heavy resonance

1:01:07

with Bitcoin , community ideals

1:01:09

and values 21 million 21

1:01:11

million code is law , and so on . Yeah

1:01:14

, yeah .

1:01:14

But I think that's part of his , that's

1:01:17

part of his prophecy . Like

1:01:20

, if you want to actually

1:01:22

get a bunch of people following you , you

1:01:24

need to actually have a claim which

1:01:26

is not , which is not this kind of

1:01:28

like multifaceted

1:01:32

everything is but true and false . You

1:01:34

need to actually have a strong claim in order to attract

1:01:37

your followers , right ?

1:01:39

Otherwise why would they ? Why would they follow you ?

1:01:42

Exactly Like you're not actually leading to

1:01:44

any direction . So in some ways , like as

1:01:46

a leader , you're kind of always

1:01:48

having to pick one

1:01:50

of those subjective truths

1:01:53

and making it your own , and

1:01:55

the more you manage to actually attract

1:01:58

people around these truths , the more it

1:02:00

actually becomes the truth . It's

1:02:03

always like a competition

1:02:05

between multiple truths , but your

1:02:07

truth as being the truth

1:02:09

becomes the truth .

1:02:11

We have many truths , I guess in that , in

1:02:13

that sense , a constellation of truths , but

1:02:15

no , no , the truth , just my truth

1:02:18

and your truth .

1:02:19

We're all speaking our truths here

1:02:24

. So then maybe , like I think

1:02:26

I'm

1:02:28

curious if I've just thought about this question Now , like if you

1:02:30

have any thoughts on , like how can we bring

1:02:33

about , I don't know , our , our

1:02:35

hyperstition ? Do you have any thoughts

1:02:37

on , like , how do we fight back against the

1:02:39

hyperstition of , of capital

1:02:41

? A

1:02:44

big question .

1:02:45

It's a very big question but , like I always come

1:02:47

back to answers , like one of the main kind of orienting

1:02:50

themes around the book I'm writing on these , on these topics

1:02:52

Scarcity . Scarcity

1:02:55

for me is like seems to be a massive driver

1:02:57

of zero

1:03:00

sum mindsets , competitive mindsets

1:03:02

and these kind of absolutisms and these formalisms

1:03:05

. And

1:03:07

we know that Bitcoin created digital

1:03:09

scarcity we didn't really have that before

1:03:11

and so that is kind of its move

1:03:13

, like so it's . Bitcoin is just about digital

1:03:16

scarcity pretty much 21 million , that's

1:03:18

, that's all it's about and

1:03:21

that but that the shadow of that

1:03:23

logic still

1:03:25

is

1:03:28

cast over almost everything in the space

1:03:30

that's come after it . And

1:03:32

no , I know , josh , you do experiments that

1:03:34

like imagining different kinds of modes

1:03:38

of logic being implemented and instantiated

1:03:40

, but I do wonder if , like it's the , it's

1:03:43

the scarcity mindset in the

1:03:45

metaphysical realm that we

1:03:47

need to find alternatives to

1:03:49

that to help people imagine

1:03:51

different kinds of futures .

1:03:54

But what we're doing with coordination , actually

1:03:56

, which is like the

1:03:58

, in some way , like , if we're thinking about

1:04:00

, like , how do you , how do you fight

1:04:04

against capital ? It's

1:04:06

very hard , because the whole society

1:04:08

has been crafted around capital as

1:04:10

the fundamental resources , the

1:04:15

and the network state indeed

1:04:17

, is a very salient alternative

1:04:21

because it is actually perfectly in line

1:04:23

with the liberal

1:04:27

capitalist society that

1:04:29

we live in . The coordination

1:04:31

is actually trying to

1:04:33

promote , trying to actually show that

1:04:35

the only reason that there exists scarcity

1:04:37

is because we are living

1:04:39

in this liberal

1:04:42

capitalist society and

1:04:44

that if we start acting in different manner

1:04:47

, we might reduce scarcity , because

1:04:49

we can pull resources and we can actually start

1:04:51

sharing resources and supporting one another

1:04:54

in ways that don't necessarily

1:04:56

have to go through the market system , because

1:04:59

we are part of this particular coordination

1:05:02

and so we are , we are finding ways in order

1:05:04

to mutualize resources

1:05:06

and and and this

1:05:08

is actually , I think , a

1:05:11

prophecy , if it is a prophecy

1:05:13

that , for

1:05:16

those that understand , I think and again this is like

1:05:18

is that the truth ? Of course not . It's the true only if it

1:05:20

becomes the truth . But but

1:05:22

I think that's like , that's something that is

1:05:24

salient to , at least to the people that

1:05:26

understand that capital is

1:05:29

useful in this society

1:05:31

but might be less useful in a different society

1:05:33

. And if you don't manage

1:05:36

to , it doesn't make almost

1:05:38

any sense to say hey , but yeah , we can just

1:05:40

do coordination If we also

1:05:42

don't have the capacity to sell or

1:05:45

to to explain and articulate

1:05:47

the future vision of the world

1:05:49

in which an alternative

1:05:51

society is possible . Because we started changing

1:05:54

our behavior today , right , and

1:05:56

and if we , if we just move

1:05:58

forward with the same behavior , it's

1:06:00

not unlikely that we might end up into like a

1:06:03

network state like thing , because

1:06:05

that's kind of the standard evolution in which

1:06:07

things are moving , like more and more privatization

1:06:09

. So I

1:06:12

think it's like , instead

1:06:14

of like even focusing on what is

1:06:16

the truth and what is right and what is

1:06:18

wrong and what is correct and what is false , I

1:06:21

think it's more what

1:06:23

is a future that is sufficiently

1:06:25

salient that will actually

1:06:28

justify at least a portion

1:06:30

of people to choose to change

1:06:32

their behavior today , in

1:06:35

order to ensure that this prophecy

1:06:37

actually is not just

1:06:39

a prophecy but is actually

1:06:41

becoming reality .

1:06:45

So we need to unlock the , the memes

1:06:47

of production to create

1:06:50

the coordination state reality that

1:06:52

we want to see in the world .

1:06:53

My feeling is that it's about kind of recognizing

1:06:56

the abundance we already

1:06:58

live in , as for one , I think , part of the

1:07:01

scarcity mindset , of course , yes , we are

1:07:03

constantly like reaffirmed that things

1:07:05

are scarce because we have to pay money to buy

1:07:07

things . Everything is pay walled , whatever else , but

1:07:09

having , I guess , being

1:07:12

able to create the social organizations that

1:07:14

help us bring

1:07:17

to surface the abundance that we already

1:07:19

have , which I think , includes , like I

1:07:22

mean just not using capital as a way

1:07:24

to organize with one another or

1:07:26

to coordinate , which

1:07:29

requires a bit of course . There's this mind shift and

1:07:31

there's also , like a need for literally

1:07:34

changing the material conditions . I think for

1:07:36

that to happen , yeah

1:07:40

, we need memes of abundance .

1:07:45

Yeah , big , big asks

1:07:47

here . Big asks , simple

1:07:50

. Maybe

1:07:52

they are simple , but maybe they're big . It's

1:07:55

something worth thinking

1:07:58

about and fighting for , because

1:08:00

the kind of post-Bitcoin

1:08:02

Bellagio notion of the network state is

1:08:05

not going to be a good life for many people

1:08:07

.

1:08:08

No , is

1:08:13

there anything , primavera , that you want to touch

1:08:16

upon ? We've been a bit over an hour .

1:08:18

Nothing very good .

1:08:20

Yeah . Is there any

1:08:22

closing words ? Thanks a lot

1:08:25

for spending the time and sharing your work and research

1:08:27

. Yeah , my pleasure . Super

1:08:29

cool to see . Yeah , I

1:08:31

don't know , we didn't really like

1:08:33

collaborate on anything but end up

1:08:36

with similar lines .

1:08:38

Perhaps we're also to surface riding

1:08:40

the same way for the hyperstation

1:08:42

that we haven't yet characterized .

1:08:43

Yeah , yeah , the abundance

1:08:45

hyperstation .

1:08:47

Yeah , yeah . So I mean , like for me this work

1:08:49

came out of , I spent

1:08:51

several years writing about Bitcoin and

1:08:53

how I see the

1:08:55

unlimited desire of Bitcoin's

1:08:58

proof of work for energy as an existential problem

1:09:00

for us life on earth

1:09:02

, and the scarcity mindset which pervades it

1:09:04

and therefore kind of affects the minds

1:09:06

of the adherents of it . It's

1:09:09

one of the biggest problems I see on the planet

1:09:11

today . So

1:09:14

the conceptual basis of this network

1:09:16

state work came out of the parts

1:09:18

that didn't quite fit into that and

1:09:21

so as the network state kind of emerged , I

1:09:23

realized that there was quite some resonance

1:09:25

between the scarcity and zero sum natures and mindsets

1:09:27

of Bitcoin and the social formations

1:09:30

around it and then this network state

1:09:32

stuff . So I just dropped an essay called Necroprimitivism

1:09:35

Rising , which is about the social cult

1:09:37

around Bitcoin , especially the

1:09:39

extreme end of the social cult of Bitcoin

1:09:41

, and I think there's certainly

1:09:43

a line to be drawn from the religious

1:09:46

further of the Bitcoin , which is absolutely dominated

1:09:49

by scarcity and zero sum competition

1:09:51

and competitive notions

1:09:54

and this Bellagian network

1:09:56

state idea . So yeah , I

1:09:58

mean like we need to find alternatives . I'm really

1:10:00

glad you guys are working on this coordination stuff

1:10:03

. I don't know that much about the kind

1:10:05

of other variants of network states . Like I

1:10:07

met somebody from Logos the other day and

1:10:10

they watched the talk I gave a protocol book and

1:10:12

they said it was great . But they wanted to pick holes in

1:10:14

my critiques and

1:10:16

then when I said that they were about the recognized founder

1:10:19

part and most you know that's

1:10:21

my biggest critique is the fact that we need

1:10:23

a profit at the center of this thing , the

1:10:26

guy seemed to relax a lot , like

1:10:28

the war ended and we were going

1:10:30

on his podcast and a bit and stuff . So like I'm

1:10:33

very interested to explore different approaches to

1:10:35

these ideas Because I don't think

1:10:37

the Bellagian notion of the network

1:10:39

state and needs to be the

1:10:41

hegemonic one . It should just be one

1:10:44

meme competing in a marketplace

1:10:46

of many .

1:10:49

Nice Well , thanks so much . Yeah

1:10:51

, I'll link your work in the show notes so people

1:10:53

can check it out . I highly recommend it .

1:10:55

Thanks and thanks everybody for listening . Thanks

1:10:57

, primo , thanks Josh , great to be here .