Ever since I read Balajis essay on starting a new country, I’ve drifted in and out of this idea. Thinking about the possibilities, restrictions and pushbacks that might occur.
Balaji’s idea is centered around virtual, first, then physical. That is, create a strong virtual community and with time buy land and request for sovereignty. The cool thing about this is, rather than a single location, the country would be located in multiple places around the globe, but still fly the same banner. This would be possible because their primary means of interaction would be through the network. It isn’t necessarily a Ready Player One-type metaverse that comes to mind when talking about virtual worlds. It’s more of like the principle of decentralized interconnection. Something that is not plagued by borders or political rivalries. It is similar to the internet but on a broader context, and without a centralized platform that can switch off the community whenever it feels like. Though control can still be achieved by oversight over the internet itself. Which begs the question, what is this vague thing called the Internet anyway? And can I build one myself? A solar panel version of the internet perharps? (I’m discovering lots of questions while writing this).
Other ideas I found in this Thiel’s essay, that was also pointed out in Balaji’s essay, was building offshore cities (seasteading). It would be built somewhere on international waters, where people can ask the question once again, “how can a society be governed?” The only issue remains that a country can suddenly decide to annex the city and throw around their weight in a distasteful manner like a certain country is doing now. I can’t seem to find the example of this, but I once read of someone that got tossed under the bus few days after declaring sovereignity offshore.
Elon’s view (in Thiel’s essay too) looks at multiplanery existence, which I guess would start with more orbiting stations (not only the ISS type), moon bases and eventually Mars. Due to price constraints, we’re probably looking at some scaled down version of Elysium for a while. That’s me being unnecessarily dystopian. It’d take a long while before a ring can wave over a body and literally reconstruct any damaged tissue. I’m not even sure that’s possible at all. I’d have to read this up, but from my limited knowledge, I can’t see any form of optical or magnetic signal inducing repair/regrowth on a cellular level. Especially without any form of in-vivo insertion of something.
The last thought that comes to mind is cities in the skies. Which is an echo of what humanity needs to learn if we want to live in Venus (for whatever reason). I still think, Venus or not, the technology that comes out of building this will find use in so many places. I found an interesting answer to this idea by Keoni on Quora. Algae would be used to generate hydrogen for fuel and the waste for bioplastic. The fuel powers the city’s levitation, the bioplastic the city’s infrastructure. I’d need to read up more on this and why it isn’t mainstream if its possible. Why build this? Someone may ask. Because its fun to push the bounds of what is humanly possible. If it can be done without sacrificing nature, why not? The whole thing we call economy and stuff is what somebody made up at some point, got money out of it and boom it became a business and more people started imitating it. What we really need is probably mainly food and shelter. The rest is made up stuff that’s this way because someone way back decided it so. Why not make up more, eh?
That’s if someone doesn’t shoot it out of the sky for whatever reason. At the end it all boils down to the big countries having a say in whatever smaller countries wish to do. Or a couple of people having a say in what the larger group of people wish to do. Willingly or unwillingly. I’m not decrying the government, because some ideas actually need to be snuffed out. That can only happen when there is someone with a bigger stick. But who puts the guy with a bigger stick in check? That’s the question. Well, I’m betting on the unbeatable human desire to progress. As long as few hold the ideology of creating new paradigms, resistance from big brother is only postponing the inevitable. Or so it goes in my dreams.
I look forward to the day this fella would fly and land. It would vibrate the world and question our current vision as humanity. The tales following the 60s moon landing would repeat.
This time, I believe (hope) the larger-than-earth dreams won’t fade.
