1:26Dtogether.
1:26CSo first, coming back to the network state question and then connecting to this nation-state thing, it’s useful to think about books as like multiple arguments, right? I think the book, which is now a school by the way, which is in -- I think it’s in Malaysia, Network School, raises the question of like, can a new kind of like entity exist, right, that was kind of like community first or internet first and all that? I think it’s a really valuable question. I think it’s one that is very close to the heart of what we’re talking about today. But the book also has kind of like an imagination of what an answer might be, right? And that’s the one that is very, very like, you know, like very Balaji, if you like, with a lot of like his proposals and all that, right? I think it’s possible.
2:11BDifferent book or the same book?
2:12CThis is the same book, right? So like you read the book The Network State, right? There’s the part of the book that says that here’s a potential idea for, uh, that this kind of something like a network state can exist, right? But it’s also -- he also proposes an answer to that, which is like this network state would therefore be like this and this and this and this and this and this, right? And I think it’s important to separate those two because just because new network states can exist doesn’t mean that what will exist will be exactly like what the rest of the book is about, right?
2:39CThere can be many potential imaginations of network states, and I imagine if it was written for example, by someone from Colombia, right, they’ll probably have quite a different answer to that. I think it’s healthy to keep that space of imagination open, right. So next, coming back to nation states and all that, I think for GM especially, most of GM, the global majority, are kind of like accidental nation states that kind of emerged out of independence, right. Prior to like World War II, really, right, most of what is now the global majority, weren’t even -- were basically like what some historians have called the company state, where you’re basically owned by a company, right?
3:16CAll of Congo was basically owned by a company for the King of Belgium, right? Uh, like a lot of, like, like, uh, a lot of Malaysia was owned kind of like, uh, by different companies, right? Like the, the, the first, the first few big companies in the world were like the East India Companies, respectively, of, of, of the Netherlands and of, of, of England. Right, uh, and so a company state is very different from a modern nation-state in that a company state, you’re basically property to make profits for the shareholder of the thing, right? So what rights, right? You’re just there to like, like do, like, I don’t know, like grow some rubber, mine some stuff, and then generate kind of wealth.
3:52CBut after, uh, after World War II independence, right, you had to kind of create a new model, right? And the model then, because of the Westphalian Agreement, was that every every state has to become a nation-state of sorts, right? And like, this is the, in a way, a success of the, of the era of the 20th century where like, uh, Malaysia was kind of like, we were basically like the leftover holdings of the British Empire that were bundled in a bundle sale and given independence by themselves, right? Out of that, we had to craft a nation. We had to kind of like become a nation, right?
4:23CLike, but we were not an original nation in and of itself, so we had to create a national language. We had to create a national curriculum, we had to create a national song, and all those kinds of things, right? So like, we, most of all of us grew up in the era of the nation-state, where like we grew up believing, I am Colombian, this is the language we speak, this is all that kind of stuff, right? But historians who’ve looked at this history have actually said that like this is a history of what they call imagined communities, where you actually, like Benedict Anderson, the historian, he actually studied Indonesia and realized that like somewhere like Indonesia, Uh, there was no real Indonesia before that, right?
4:56CIt’s a collection of different islands that were under Dutch rule, right? But they picked the language, they crafted a new national identity, and in some ways that’s been very valuable because it’s prevented places that were often very diverse from dissolving and fighting and killing each other, right? But now we’re also running into like a lot of the limitations of that, right? And I think part of the challenge that if you want to think about a future where we can have a global counterpower Right, to East-West digital, right? We’re gonna have to solve some of these problems that nation states solve, but better, right? How do you forge new relationships and kinships, right?
5:30CAnd maybe it’s around values of Ethereum or values of crypto or something like that. But how do you do it in a way that appeals to like my grandma, right? And that’s part of the challenge that I think we’re gonna have to look at, right? So in some ways, the nation state’s been useful, right? But like, unless you can solve some of those problems better, Those problems still need to be solved.
5:48ACan I ask a question? Is anybody here thinking about bioregions? Because that’s a big thing, at least in Europe and the US and Canada. So if you’re green today, you’re thinking about bioregions. And basically, the basic argument is the nation-state is not adapted to take care of the ecology. It’s a cultural and historical entity.
6:11CYeah.
6:11ABut it’s divorced from actually, you know, the regional realities and it can -- if you’re a politician, you can like kind of, you know, play between different interests and then you don’t take care of the environment. But if you’re local and your food and energy depends on like a knowledge of the water and the ecosystem, that makes a lot more sense. And so the fusion of bioregional reorganization You know, and the nation-state can still exist as a cultural entity, right? And then like Web3 domain-specific Web3 communities that can help energy, food, that makes a lot of sense to me. I don’t know if you agree with it.
6:55CSo maybe you could combine it to this separation of governance thing and have like bi-regional kind of governance systems to take care of like ecological maintenance, keep some cultural entities. But then also separate, like, maybe like, uh, like things like military and peace on 2 different kind of things. So you have, uh, sort of like separation of powers within the global system.
7:13AIs, is, uh, did she say we have to stop?
7:15CYeah, so, uh, we’re due for the next rotation. So like maybe just, uh, one or 2 final comments. If something burning to say, I’m gonna give you space to say it, and then like maybe we’ll talk about the rest in the hot tub or something later. Yeah, please.
7:28DNo, I like the, the thinking I’m also in spatial planning and regional development a lot, so there is also the term to think in functional rooms instead of the state rooms or the municipality rooms and so on. So I think it’s, it’s exactly what you, you say, you know, and I think that’s also what I mean with those silos, to think in thematic rooms perhaps.
7:53CYeah.
7:54DAnd I think that’s a little, perhaps also a little bit the critique on the network state theory because you just build a new copy from an old system. Yeah, for sure it has good aspects. I would say 90% are an improvement, but it’s still a copy from an old --
8:12CYeah, and maybe what you’re describing could be a further improvement upon that, right? Why don’t we just go for that instead?
8:16DExactly. And that’s also where I see then a big benefit for the GM movement, you know. I mean, it’s this could be one of those functional rooms because you have a common challenge. So yeah, and that’s why I think it’s so important then to gather and create those functional rooms then.
8:37EYeah.
8:38CYeah. So that was Bandung in the 1950s, maybe it’s Bangkok in 2024. Anyone else? If not -- oh, one more? Okay, please. Yeah.
8:49ENot a -- more of a question. I know we’re wrapping up, but it’s just so fascinating with, you know, sort of this trend of counter the current systems. So we sort of all agree toward moving there, but I just wonder, you know, to what extent or how far are we to actually be able to -- okay, maybe, you know, those that actually don’t think that they belong to the current systems or, you know, even the citizens Like they might be global citizens. How far are we? Do we have sort of ideas, a sense of timeline?
9:24CI’ll do a quick response to close us off. My 2 introduction words today were pop-up apocalypse, right? And I think like we are seeing in real time like the fraying and the disintegration of the current systems because they have passed their limits in many ways. So as these things begin to fray, as Michelle was describing, Right? Some people will exit first, but eventually a lot of people, if your banking system collapses, it doesn’t matter whether you like crypto or not, you’re going to look for alternatives. Right? I think the looking for alternatives is only going to accelerate over the coming years. And on that note, I guess, thank you all for being here. Happy to chat more outside. Thanks for recording as well. Thanks for hosting.
10:08BYeah, for hosting.
