Nation3 manifesto
It's time to re-invent the nation state
Ever since the inception of Homo Sapiens, we have lived in tribes.
Early tribes gathered around a shared culture, resulting from common descent, religion and language.
Those tribes conquered others and expanded to become entire kingdoms and empires. The threat of physical violence determined the purpose of those early nations: Protecting their citizens.
Their ethos revolved around war, pride and sacrifice.
Whoever devotedly undertakes and performs this most holy journey... shall have the enjoyment of eternal reward from the repayer of all men.Pope Eugene III (1145 - 1153)
Russia only has two allies — its army and its navy.Alexander III (1845 - 1894)
A statue was erected in 2017 in Crimea with the quote above.
How much have we evolved in 700 years?
As the Industrial Revolution came upon us, technology and mass production took violence to a new level. With the increasing economic returns of violence and military expenditure, nation states needed to expropriate more wealth.
And since they controlled the media, they could bend the narrative. That turned into a powerful weapon which could legitimize any of their wrongdoings. Spreading hatred and fear became profitable, justifying endless wars.
Fast-forward to today, our nation states are still based on the very same pillars of war, pride and sacrifice as those in the Dark Ages.
Our science and technology has leaped forward so much. We no longer pray to Gods for harvest, and we are now on our way to becoming multi-planetary. Yet, for close to a thousand years, the monolithic structure of nation states remains unchanged.
Their outdated, Industrial Era education system is producing human robots that memorize well but don't ask the why nor the what if.
Many today don’t know of creativity nor basic concepts like what inflation is — creating unparalleled unemployment across regions like Southern Europe.
The macro-institutions that governments are part of, such as WHO, are as clueless as the governments themselves. People reading Balaji on Twitter were better prepared for COVID than those adhering to WHO's initial recommendations — such as not wearing masks.
Governments all around the world are failing to react swiftly to the severe destruction of our planet — endangering our whole species.
A system that routinely submits control over the largest, most deadly enterprises on earth to the winner of popularity contests between charismatic demagogues is bound to suffer for it in the long run.The Sovereign Individual
We cannot entrust our currency, our education, our healthcare, our planet nor the future of our kids to these institutions anymore. Nor will we surrender all our individual freedoms in exchange for their protection.
This ends here, and this ends now. For the first time in a thousand years, the very pillars that gave birth to the largest, longest-standing institutions of our planet — nation states — are about to collapse. And something new and beautiful is about to emerge from their ashes.
We are taught that nation states are ever-lasting institutions that are native to humankind itself. That they are too big to fail. They have become a dogma. A dogma that is dragging us down and endangering our civilization.
It's time to debunk their dogma.
We need to reimagine new nations and we need to build them.
We need new communities that provide us with belonging, both on the Internet and in our cities.
We need new cities where nature and technology become one.
We need new neighborhoods where kids can run free again.
We need new education to unleash our creativity.
We need tools to combat the propaganda that certain agencies use to misinform people.
We need new tools to protect from the new violence, which is more digital than physical.
We need new tools to understand the laws we are subject to, instead of confusing bureaucracy.
We need new forms of governance where citizens do more than voting in a popularity contest each four years.
We need to use those new forms of governance to fund common goods and reverse climate change.
We need governments that treat their citizens like customers and not cattle.
And we need it all sooner rather than later.
Thankfully, we already have some building blocks.
We have a global currency, Bitcoin.
We have a global jurisdiction for programmatic value settlement, Ethereum.
We have tools to organize and collaborate on such jurisdictions, like Aragon.
Bitcoin → Ethereum → DAOs → Digital nations
Web3 is here, and for the first time in history, the Internet will determine the structure of our society.
Rebuilding nations with Web3
Web3 is much more than a new Internet.
Web3 shifts the narrative from master-slave to peer-to-peer.
As value is moving to Web3 en masse, it moves further away from any centralized power held by nation states. While Web2 already gave rise to the cybereconomy, such economy was still piggybacking off old systems. Web3 is truly Internet-native. Web3 grows faster as it's further away from physical violence, political instability and endless bureaucracy.
And for the first time in humankind's history, as value moves to Web3, the Internet will determine the shape of our new society.
People are now feeling they belong more to niche Internet communities and DAOs, rather than massive nation states.
Remote work is becoming the rule and not the exception.
Work itself is becoming more like compartmentalized tasks rather than 9-to-5 jobs.
Corporations are becoming fluid DAOs and not forever-lasting hierarchical institutions.
People are starting to see nation states as service providers, rather than rulers. And they are moving to wherever these providers offer them a fair deal.
For the first time Web3 gives us the opportunity to un-bundle the services that nation states provide, make them 100x better and ensure they are community-owned. The result will be a new, open source stack for running Web3-powered nation states: the Nation3 stack.
Even nation states themselves will help in this journey, as they start to compete against each other. Some are already making moves, such as allowing Bitcoin as legal tender or attracting skilled individuals with fair tax deals. We have entered the era of jurisdictional competition.
Nation1
Arbitrary Dictatorship
Nation2
Monolithic Democracy
Nation3
Mesh of Crypto-powered Communities
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