Society will not be just until the leaders become philosophers, or the philosophers become leaders. ~ Plato
Isn’t it funny that we aren’t taught philosophy or how to think in school? Wisdom is a lost art. The Greeks touted the guiding star of The Logos as the underlying truth of the Universe, with many stoics like Marcus Aurelius (not technically stoic, but assumedly so) using this as their North Star for decision making. Years later, engineering, neuroscience, economics, computer science are all based on an underlying understanding of mathematics and academic reproducibility in an ever-continuing expansion of human consciousness. Mathematics is the most pure sense of The Logos, other hard sciences as well. As you start moving into political sciences and other liberal arts, things get more fluffy and intangible. Everything can be broken down into an underlying truth, however, we don’t have the answers for the majority of the Universe’s questions yet. That’s what our purpose is. We don’t talk about The Logos anymore, but I think we should. As a species, it’s significant. Human emotions and history repeat themselves, but science and technology is what grows. No matter what obstacle, hindrance, etc. it should be noted that humanity has *always* moved past it. We have always grown, dispersed freedom, increased economic opportunity, health, all of which are the result of The Logos.
I haven’t written in a while. When I started this, I told myself I would write on a recurring basis; however, you can’t force it. Essays come after collecting data points of knowledge, which I usually use on my Twitter note pad for this, and connecting the dots to draw conclusions. This is my way of making sense out of life and developing a guiding philosophy. Most of which could have been much longer, but I try to keep it somewhat condensed believe it or not. Also note that this is the world in my own eyes, it is going to be different in the eyes of the reader, and I would honestly appreciate any commentary given I spend a lot of time in my own head and would like to hear the opinions of others as a sanity check.
For reasons I go into more in this essay, many people never try to understand themselves, or the world around them for that matter. Life is like a stream, and the current can carry you along the entire way. Sometimes, though, it is helpful to remove yourself, sit with nothing but your thoughts, observe the stream for what it is most fundamentally, before course correcting and reentering this game of life.
This isn’t going to be a well-organized essay, but it involves the importance of understanding who we are and thinking deeply about how we choose to spend our finite time on earth and maximizing our impact. It then leads into The Network State, a new concept exploring the potential first innovation in political science since the founding of The United States. Then finally, how we can combine these innovations into potential societal structures that seek to maximize human focus, what I argue is our most valuable, yet underutilized resource.
Know yourself
Psychology was interesting in high school, but this was also an ironic time of life to study it, considering how artificial the American education system is. It is important for young people, and specifically to the point of Paul Graham, that “nerds understand school is not life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile and half feral. It's all-encompassing, like life, but it isn't the real thing. It's only temporary, and if you look, you can see beyond it even while you're still in it.” It wasn’t clear that people were so unique at the time. Sure, people were stratified into different social groups/castes, but everyone was playing the same game in high school [Fierce Nerds]. For me, it was very clear what my objectives were: getting into college, friends, GPA, and my extracurriculars of choice–we were all similarly graded by our class rank. Most teenagers have a similarly simple view of life in these years. In a time where we are developing who we will be for the rest of our lives, there is a prescribed bound set of expectations for the ways in which we should be developing, which is discouraged to be questioned.
This has at least one advantage: high school and our curriculum has a common denominator of truth (for the most part) in classes. When the brain is developing, it builds upon the data points that it collects. I like to think about it as an extremely convoluted neural network as taught in upper level computer science classes (see image below of a simplified convolutional neural network representing the number 6). So when there are tidbits of untruths caught in this web, it can corrupt the foundation and may make it more difficult to make sense of incoming stimuli due to false precepts. You are what you think and you think what you’re exposed to. Your body is the hardware, and your neural pathways should be considered nothing more than your software.
But I am more against the education system than for it. Like many things that I will touch on later, I believe its artificial structure and incentives squash creativity, individuality, and the context that students need most.
The problem with students all playing the same game is that’s not how the world works–that’s zero sum in a world that is rapidly expanding. Humans are infinitely unique, both as a product of development and genetics. Interesting fact: big 5 personality traits can be linked to different neurotransmitter activity (Hirsh et al.). As a result, they are passionate about different areas, learn in different ways, and should be exposed to different opportunities, which is not captured in a one-size-fits-all approach.
Globalization brings the onset of infinite specialization and opportunity, all of which you can learn online, but we train hard in high school (which isn’t even that reflective of college) to train hard in a university (which isn’t even that reflective of the job you will do after) to work hard in that job (which is yet another step removed from your interests/purpose/self actualization). Were you destined to be an accountant at Deloitte? Maybe, but once you understand that the world holds infinite possibilities and that it is within your reach to succeed, would you still choose that as your life’s work? Even in high school, I inferred this, but going to University was an insurance policy against failure. You don’t understand how the world works in high school, so it makes sense to hedge against being a failure. After all, that’s what everyone else is doing, even if it means naively spending inordinate amounts on tuition. I write and work now because I want to. I wrote and worked then because I had to. Notice I would be writing and working either way, why does it need to be in a prescribed manner?
I texted 30 friends 2 questions. First, “what do you think about when you’re alone.” As I discussed in a previous essay, we revert to our natural selves when we are alone. Second, I asked what they did for work, to which I received a wide range of really interesting replies, many of which could be made into an actionable career, but were completely diverged from their occupation.
Why is there a lack of alignment on what we are interested in and how we spend our finite time on Earth? Maybe playing the same game doesn’t leave time for creativity and individualism? Maybe people just don’t know what is possible, or overestimate the risks? What is more risky, trying a different line of work for a year, or waking up at 80 and having never tried?
See the below lyrics for a song that touches upon this. We should always be reminded that we are only one step removed from primates on the evolutionary chain. Us working a 9-5 is no different than this video of two monkeys doing a task for a food reward.
I'm thinking about horses
Magnificent beasts
But why the fuck do they listen to us?
They're so much stronger than they know
But they trade their freedom for a dependable meal
They let people get on top of them and tell them where to go
But how can I judge?
Is that not exactly what I do?
Is that not exactly what we all do?
I'm thinking about horses
I work in biotech investment banking right now, and it’s hard for me to believe how misaligned it is with my personality. But I couldn’t have known this in college, because I was playing a different game, just competing to win against others in my class. I have the gift of working hard as a natural tendency, so why would I spend that building equity for someone else? I have the natural gift of interest in engineering, innovation, solving problems, and starting companies, so why would I spend my finite time on earth in Microsoft Excel? That’s not to say it doesn’t make sense to work, it often does, it should just be a place where you can grow, learn, build equity, forge relationships, or where the time you spend is aligned with your guiding philosophy/interests. If I was only in it to stack paper, this would be the right path and for many it is.
This is just me, as this entire essay is fit to. I am an independent person, averse to authority, and annoyed by bureaucracy. But this once again leads into a point I will be making later on the differences in humanity and how society can be tailored around this key fact.
After actually working in startups, it is my belief that anyone can succeed in entrepreneurship, it is just a matter of focus and sacrifice. But if you’re playing your own game, it won’t feel like a sacrifice. If you do what you love, you’ll be great at it. If you’re great at what you do, you’ll get paid for it. There is an imbalance in that this benefits certain occupations in STEM that often provide more value to society than others, but I still think it can be applied broadly.
“The world is set up in a way in which you can have any one thing you want, but it has to be one thing.” - Naval Ravikant
Your work
In my other essay on startups, I spoke about the concept of getting good people on the bus and then motivating them.
“Managing can be transactional. You need something done, someone else needs money, so you pay them to do it. In this sense, you ensure that said thing will be completed, but it may not be done well. Managing can be through inspiration, where you guide someone to complete something that they are intrinsically motivated to accomplish. In this sense, you can’t ensure that said thing will be completed, but it will be done to the best of the person’s ability. A salary essentially purchases employees’ time and focus, but it is up to hiring and inspiration to ensure that person is intrinsically motivated to put their best work forward.”
We forget how primitive society was in the recent past. In fact, it still is primitive. I’m just trying to project trends into the future, trends which I am extremely optimistic for. Just a reminder that we lived in feudalism in the 9th - 15th century, the industrial revolution started in the latter half of the 18th century, and the internet was only created in 1983 and popularized in 1999. Society is accelerating faster and faster by the day, and we are still adjusting to the internet, let alone the innovations to come.
Anyways, humans originally struggled to survive right? Then, they realized that if we came together, decided not to kill each other, and trade instead, it would be mutually beneficial (although it seems we’re still figuring this one out ha). Afterwards, Adam Smith defined the division of labor in 1776. A business owner will relieve your stresses of life by providing you with a wage to pay for food, survive, and barely provide for your family in exchange for your time. This stayed the same for a long time, and eventually the cornfields became cubicles, and society further developed. The wages not only covered people’s food, but the continued specialization of labor led to efficient capital allocation that drove down the cost of food and products for all while also giving a greater wage to the employees, so they could now afford more to provide for their families. The continued advancement of society and abundance has led to employees taking on more creative roles (invention and engineering/solving problems are creative, although often not thought of as such), with machines taking the place of humans. Contrary to some peoples’ belief, no, AI will not take your job. Continued development will mean cheaper resources and more demand for creative labor. Freeing up humans’ time allowed them to create more efficiencies, leading to even more profit at scale.
The robber barons and captains of industry are the Zuckerbergs and Bezos of today. Labor has become more expensive to these captains of industry, but it has actually dropped on a per capita basis. I don’t know enough about the topic to say this graph represents causation, but it is certainly a noteworthy coincidence that 1971 was also the year the US abandoned the gold standard, opening the floodgates to printing money, which should be considered for what it is, a backdoor tax. A tax that BTC does not have as large of a problem with.
To buy the time of smart humans is expensive, but not relative to the billions in profit they pull in annually. Google and big tech now offer not only competitive salaries, but incredible perks. Instead of just attracting you with pay, they attempt to align your purpose/self-actualization with your work to make sure you are not only present, but motivated to solve some of Earth’s most pressing problems, like search engine optimization and click-rate engineering!
How much cash, society’s median of exchange, do you really need? At what point do the employees realize THEY are Earth’s greatest commodities and they can venture out on their own. Why are they paying you so much? Because they value your time at that price, what do YOU value your time at?
After you have shelter and food, Maslow’s hierarchy starts to move into areas that can’t be bought with money? Belonging? Esteem? Pretty soon, big tech may run out of firepower to rope you in.
The reason I am confident human capital is Earth’s greatest commodity, by the way, is to look at the likes of Elon Musk or any of your inspirations? Not even these people reached their potential, no one does. But imagine if the world was filled with Elon Musks? Hopefully by reading this, I am bending your mind a bit to understand the adjacent possible.
The reason that people succeed is no coincidence. The people that succeed do so because they are the kind of person that succeeds. If you drop Warren Buffet in the desert somewhere with nothing, he will be successful again. And this is one of the major realizations of life. The PayPal Mafia went on to build incredible companies after, because they had learned how to succeed and now it was just a matter of repeating the steps.
Not only have we not unlocked the first-world, highly educated employees’ time, talent, and focus to work on problems for themselves, but they are the extreme minority. We forget that the average global citizen makes $3,000 a year. There is nothing different about the hardware of these people. They have just been in communities where their potential is not realized for socioeconomic reasons. With the internet, we can build scalable education systems to teach the world computer science and robotics, training the citizens of these nations in skill sets that are useful. China’s focus on manufacturing and India’s focus on developing technical talent has led to unprecedented periods of growth, that if applied to the globe (80% of which is not in the US or China) would unlock massive global talent, to pull us up by our bootstraps and create a more sustainable world.
Faction
“Mercenaries work for money. Missionaries build for others. Artists create for themselves.” - [Naval Ravikant].
I believe in a creator economy. I’m not the only one, it’s a huge buzzword, for better or worse. Why do I believe in this? Because it’s what I want. The best investments are the companies that we believe in. The best products have always been known to be created by people who would use them themselves. And I have seen first-hand what one person can do with focus, determination, and passion. This does not mean that each project has to have one person working on it, it just means people venturing out and taking more risks and equity in startups.
I am a bit odd in the sense that all I need is a place to sleep, food, a computer, and (maybe) a gym. But am I really that odd compared to others? I do not believe that I am the only one. Isn’t that what we all want? When I asked 30 friends what they think about when they’re alone, would they sacrifice some abundance in order to work on their passion? I would be willing to bet my life there are a great number of people like that out there. Maybe the first group/first personality archetype of people that would be interested in this life are the independent/nerdy type, or the type that would rather work 24 hours a day for themselves than 8 hours a day for someone else. These are the people that will succeed regardless if it's for themselves or for someone else.
What if communities like this were possible? I believe they are. There are young people out there whose market value is easily $400k. Their time is valuable and they may get sent to a corporation. I have a dream for a community for these people. What Silicon Valley had but lost. How hard would this be, what would these communities look like? Well, they would be created around the founders. Set up in a way to optimize productivity and decrease overhead like rent payments, food, etc. Ideally a community that subsidizes shelter and food so that these people can spend 100% of their time doing what they enjoy most, creating and innovating. The underlying hypothesis being that the people who end up succeeding did because they are the kind of person that succeeds.
How much would this cost? One of the craziest realizations of my life was how cheap life is. After making $15,000 in my summer internship, I had a difficult time spending it. It was enough to live off of for some time. I live in New York City right now, where expenses are absurd. Let’s assume that’s not the case. My sophomore year of college, I paid $350 rent in a 4 BR apartment in Champaign, IL. $350 * 12 months = $4,200. What did I spend on food? $35 * 52 = $1,820. Let’s just assume these prices doubled and for the sake of those who will say that’s not enough. The sum of these products was $6,020 * 2 = $12,040. Internet and electricity ~$1,500. $13,540 to buy one year of your own time.
Now, what if there was a community that optimized cost of living further, maybe like a dorm but at hostel prices. With cheap food and near a community center like the YMCA. This comes at a time where there are startups developing 3-D printed houses. There is the prospect of $15,000 Tesla Mini Houses on the horizon, Satellite internet is opening up housing to the hinterlands (Balaji Srinivasan Twitter), and there are companies scaling commercialized plant-based meat. We are already living in the future if you pay attention.
In a world where you have Y Combinator, Google Ventures, WeWork, Kanye’s Calabasas, Flagship Pioneering, trend toward earlier stage investing/VC, search funds, the creator economy is in movement.
Not only do I propose a community like this, but I propose a radical network sovereignty, one inspired from Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State and Ammous’s The Bitcoin Standard, both of which build upon The Sovereign Individual.
The Network State
The world today faces a set of challenges that aren’t that new. It is a repackaged face-off between democracy and authoritarianism. A heuristic to think about this is decentralization vs centralization. China has expanded rapidly and is expected to overtake the United States as a new global superpower. The west has been in decline over the last half-century. The USD may lose its footing as a global reserve currency as the US Central Banks inflate away its worth, with countries potentially fleeing to cryptocurrency as the native currency of the internet.
There are two potential futures I see. One is a world of centralization using artificial intelligence, and the other is a form of decentralized sovereignty with power, wealth, and creations dispersed amongst the individuals of society. Humans have a tough time seeing beyond linear and into exponential futures. Take a second to imagine artificial general intelligence or the singularity, algorithmic omnipotence. This is a neural network that not only understands all, but scales and learns exponentially. You have a computer that is infinitely smarter than mankind. This, if harnessed, can be used to create good or bad. Good is infinite efficiency for humanity and a life of creativity where human focus is unleashed. Bad is a centralized government that has access to a real-time data stream of all its citizens at all points in time. This is 1984. This is what China is developing right now. Communism has never worked due to the capital allocation problem. That is, the corruption and inefficiencies of centralized powers fail to the invisible hand of capitalism and the west. However, if you have a data stream, can a solution be engineered to this problem while also avoiding the problems that lack of agreement/progress, demagoguery, and decision speed that democracy holds, as predicted by Socrates?
I don’t know the answer to this question, but I’m leaning more towards this isn’t the right time for China with the more centralization as of late. I will take a response to my tweet from Rich Excell, a professor, ex-PM, and great follow on Linkedin or Substack for anyone who would like a better run through of macroeconomic conditions than any news source, who said the following: [Tweet Link]
“Is the CCP model really working well for them? Or did they benefit from labor arbitrage as Latam did in the 70s and The Asian Tigers did in the 90s before a financial crisis ended each miracle? Chinese demographics are worse than feared. The population will at least halve in the next 70 years. Now we have strongman rule which has historically squelched innovation due to disincentives. Looks like a tough road ahead.”
This answer while credited, I’m not sure if it is THE answer, the macro trend towards a Chinese superpower is quite compelling from via Ray Dalio’s chart below (Changing World Order - Ray Dalio).
Balaji also noted “By the summer of 1918 the Allies had control of the skies. British, French and American aircraft at times outnumbered their German counterparts five to one.” Today, China and its 1.4 billion citizens are ramping up militarily and forming alliances with energy superpowers like Russia. The US population is 330 million and a population of 530 million includes Western Europe. That means we are now the ones outnumbered, and outnumbered 3:1 (population density graph below). I don’t know what will happen, but historically every major change in world order is followed by a hot war/conflict.
If you are on a sinking ship, do you stay on or do you find a lifeboat? This may take longer than you would think, and happen sooner than you expected, so preparing is never a bad idea.
Balaji then proposes a new form of government:
“A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition.”
This is an odd concept to grasp. Think of a world in which we all work on the web. The economy would be on the web. Peer-to-peer transactions for work. It removes the intermediary of the US dollar and banking system. It removes Uncle Sam’s taxation as an intermediary, the proceeds of which are used to maintain the government’s monopoly on violence. You receive cryptocurrency as a form of payment, an online native currency that could also be used for personal expenditures. The next comments are always the same: “oh well the government is just going to tax it and limit it.” The government may have already opened Pandora's box allowing all of this. China, for their own sake, has stopped it before it could have reached this stage–the argument furthers that democracy will be porous enough for web3 to propagate, but China will be able to limit its adoption. Cryptocurrency can be earned in a way in which its collection circumvents the government, that’s its entire purpose. What happened when the government banned alcohol? I’m sipping wine while typing this. I’m unsure if you could stop a force this large and strong, who knows.
Eventually, the central banks will topple as Cryptocurrency offers a more viable solution, then governments will not be able to keep up as The Network State offers more viable decentralized sovereignty, an open-sourced one in which the constituents actually have a say. This will take some time to be fleshed out, and I have a lot of research to do in this space, but Vitalik Buterin advocates quadratic funding whatever that means. Moreover, as a human being you should assume that we will solve the problem of offering a more effective form of democracy. One that arrives at truth, cutting through bureaucracy like a hot butter knife. Because it's possible.
My grandparents came to America from Germany and Cuba. In my youth, I was proud of America’s freedom, and I still am proud. However, that doesn’t mean our system is perfect. The Network State to America today is to us as The United States once was to England. The US, as any government, has gotten larger and less efficient over time. The constitution has held up relatively well over the centuries, but it’s obviously imperfectly fit to contemporary society.
Like a ratchet, governments get larger and then those agencies incentives are to stay large or get larger. Like a malignant tumor, they expand indefinitely, until the host dies. That is what’s destined for our nation. As Balaji cites, the FDA kills thousands annually just to drug lag alone. This agency that sets global standards is an absolute nightmare to work with. As someone who works in biotech and has attempted to start a healthcare company, it is ridiculous that in order to start a company, you need $10mm+ just to go through clinical trials. How could any normal person start a biotech company? Their heart is in the right place, however, the pace of biotech innovation has been a fraction as a result and has resulted in the ultimate death of thousands of lives every year at the minimum. Ever seen Dallas Buyers Club? That’s the real world.
With government agencies this large and inefficient, there are sadly no solutions. We are not going to have anyone coming into power and making radical changes anytime soon. Those who want to change the world do it through business. As a result, we shouldn’t cling to a dying system. No radical changes are coming to our system? We could be left with no choice but to exit to a new world order. The alternative is we stay with the current world order, which is in stasis at its very best and gets conquered by the East at its worst. This is why I see this as one of, if not the, most important problems of my generation. I say this not as a democrat, not as a conservative, not even as a libertarian, just a global citizen who believes in perpetual pursuit of The Logos for political science, someone who believes decentralized sovereignty will play a huge role in our future.
The globe benefited greatly from capitalism’s introduction of efficient allocation of capital through the invisible hand. As discussed, I believe we have yet to nail down an efficient form of governance. This combined with free trade could introduce efficient allocation of capital with efficient regulation (what you can and cannot do), which is an odd and revolutionary concept to even imagine in the world we live in today. Because government is inherently a restrictive force and democracy was set up in a way to balance powers/reject change to maintain the Constitution’s ideals, there is no innovation in government. We will always have the same one. The only two major forms of government duking it out in a competitive market are democracy and totalitarianism. The USA, our champion for democracy, no longer lives up to its ideal and The Network State offers a more democratic solution. Furthermore, the democratic nations of the world based their own doctrine on ours. So just as a result of random path dependence (see image below), the global powers operate the same way, with no way for the world to reconsider. If we assume that the Constitution was imperfect in any way, that has embedded itself into and corrupted the foundation of all democracies.
Network States can be joined and exited at will, thus offering a form of rejection for poorly run governments. Which will allow for the convergence of society towards an efficient structure, like capitalism promises, and one that would represent the first major innovation in political science since The Founding Fathers.
One thing that should be addressed is that Balaji cites that there will be a decentralization and an eventual recentralization. We don’t think about this much, but there are currently a plethora of micronations, many of which have populations sub-one-million. As aforementioned, there are also a large quantity of 3rd world countries being opened up to new opportunities with the introduction of the internet. If there were to be a new country, with a new economy, this could be an economic lifeboat to grab onto.
America was heterogeneous upon arrival at Ellis Island, split by home country, this turned into homogeneity with Americans uniting during the war, which then splintered again with political differences and the increasing disagreement with liberals and conservatives. Remember the paragraph on humans being shoved into a one-size-fits-all state education? That also applies to politics. We have a widely dispersed group of people holding different views on different topics. Often, we actually agree with each other, but we disagree only on party lines. We pick parties, but seldom is someone fully aligned with every one of those parties ideals. This two party system has also led to gridlock and lack of progress, which is at least beneficial as it limits the government from making too many decisions, as those decisions would often turn out miscalculated.
A potential outcome is a stratification of society like below into various cultural groups before uniting under a common umbrella law. There could be Irish societies, societies of teachers, societies of artists. You get the point, I can’t predict the future here, but it is an interesting idea. People used to all be the same. Every family in America would tune into the television to watch the same show. The information age opened up a world of diversity that anyone could access. New ways of thought. People began segmenting into various groups and spending time in echo chambers. Healthy discussion and diversity are both highly valued of course. Even in New York, “the melting pot,” while people learn from each other, they still end up sorting into friend groups of similar people.
Some potential initial Network States
The infinite frontier
Men are hungry for responsibility [Peterson]. Women, too, but more so men. They want more for themselves, but they don’t know how to achieve it. It’s what you think of when you imagine the bright-eyed young apprentice, eager for more responsibility to grow, improve, lead, and create value.
I mean, just look at some of these thumbnails. After watching the above video. These titles are tailored to the viewer. “They will respect you!” “Thick skin.” “How to be aggressive.” Weak men trying to become stronger, because that is what men evolved to do in order to survive and reproduce.
Those who don’t fill this void through careers or other forms of purpose become lost and that is why we have a generation of men in admiration of figures like Jordan Peterson, Financial Gurus, Joe Rogan, and Andrew Tate. What else do they have to cling on to other than the promise of guidance on escaping the mechanical oppression that is society.
Often, school just lacks context. You can imagine a scenario where at the end of your life, you see what you could have been if you had made the right decisions and lived to your fullest potential. If you ended up far from that, it would be extremely depressing. Given this knowledge, most would not make the decisions that they do. If only students knew *why* they should study. If they knew what their potential was, if they understood their personality, knew their gifts/skills, and had an understanding of/conviction for the world around them, of course they would pursue building it for the better. School just isn’t set up that way, you are in a one-size-fits-all curriculum that doesn’t reflect the real world and if it doesn’t fit you, you will assume you don’t belong, unaware that there could be opportunities in the real world you could excel at. Because everyone can succeed if they choose to.
Given the chance, many would drop everything in their life for the opportunity to work for great causes and towards new opportunities. Men used to go to war, but that ideal has largely carried into the private sector. Many men didn’t like school, and were rejected by society as a result, winding up in dead-end jobs that are realistically below them. This once again assumes the hypothesis that all can succeed, if they just know how.
Communities for these men could be formed, that teaches them the skills of entrepreneurship and innovation, and importantly give them the context needed for what their potential is, help them understand themselves, and teach themselves what they need to know to be value-additive in the real world. Colleges are a step removed from this, companies expect you to already be in this position, and the army isn’t a good enough replacement. This could replace the three above for many that are more fit for this type of environment.
The most important point is that the white space this would offer means more opportunity. When there is a lack of opportunity, the world becomes zero-sum. In a lot of investment banks, people are fighting over the same rewards, so people get sharp-elbows. But when the opportunity is outward, there is enough for everyone, and there is a certain power to that message. This is the same power that fueled Manifest Destiny, The American Dream, the internet mania, and the gold rush. It attracts men seeking opportunity like nothing else.
Hong Kong and other Suppressed Nations
China is the Leviathan strangling freedom out of Hong Kong. Protests have been futile. Russia invaded Ukraine. This is a trend that is going to happen to many countries in the years to come. If an invader overtakes the country’s political system, they can control the country’s economy. If they can control the economy, they control the populace. If the governance is on The Network, it is decentralized and cannot be commandeered. The invaders may still be able to take down an economy and government like this by forcing people to adopt its own, but it is harder to do when everyone has access to a computer and internet. Hong Kong does have limitations in its internet, people cannot access certain websites like Google, so this is another limitation, one that Starlink could potentially solve. With a decentralized cryptocurrency, this becomes harder. Each of these creates an environment where the difficulty threshold for takeover is simply higher.
The only way to prevent a point of failure is through distributed nodes, where one corrupted node does not compromise the network. This is the power of decentralization, the internet computer, and The Network State.
Creator Campus
This idea is just what I had talked about previously. If you assume that great people create value, then you should treat them as the commodity. This means labor arbitrage of people getting paid less than they’re worth. It means setting up a free community to work on whatever they want.
Sound infeasible? Let me tell you about Y Combinator. Y Combinator is a startup accelerator that takes promising founders, often strapped with nothing but an idea, and gives them $500,000 to work on anything they’re interested in for 3 months. At the end of the 3-months, they often raise money from VCs. This program has created companies with a combined market value exceeding $1 trillion. That’s not a typo. See below for just some of the companies that have come out of this program.
Another experiment started in 2011 is Peter Thiel’s Thiel Fellowship, where 20 - 25 students receive $100,000 if they drop out of school to pursue entrepreneurship and get them out of the classroom. This costs the foundation $2.5 million per class inducted. For a total of $27.5 million. Now, let’s look at the product.
“To date, companies created by Thiel Fellows are together valued at more than $46.8 billion, excluding Ethereum which is valued at $450 billion.” (PR) Recently, Figma was sold to Adobe for $20 billion, that was another Thiel Fellow who dropped out of Brown.
Nothing to see here, just a 1,702x return on investment. Invest in young, capable founders. Create an environment for them to succeed. Create a strong culture. When new founders come, they adopt it and it persists, then it can be expanded, eventually forming an economy and province/town of its own.
Y Combinator takes 7% equity for a sustainable business model, the Thiel Fellowship does not.
These successes are not guaranteed of course, but right now young people are taking zero shots on goal, and startups are less risky than they perceive. This doesn’t just have to be the extremely selectively picked students as well. Once this culture is strong enough, people can continue to join and adapt to it.
This is the result of only 25 students a year. These are the highly educated. The hypothesis shines through again: the people that end up successful succeed because they are the kind of person that succeeds. That kind of person can be trained, but our education system trains worker bees. We are more powerful than we know, but we trade our freedom for a dependable meal.