I'm reading The Network State right now. I haven't finished ...

Maxime • • •

npub1zkse38pvfqlkcmcc7tw6zqecj7sqxe5lgj0u9ldylghmdjfppyqqtsa4du

hex

e2eb941b690aa2200bf9dea2280aac32e89b600910ec07af044449c66b4481ea

nevent

nevent1qqsw96u5rd5s4g3qp0uaag3gp2kr96ymvqy3pmq84uzygjwxddzgr6sprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuem4d36kwatvw5hx6mm9qgsptgvcnskys0mvduv09hdpqvuf0gqrv605f87zlkj05takeyssjqqrplq9x

Kind-1 (TextNote)

2026-04-21T10:29:29Z

I'm reading The Network State right now. I haven't finished it yet, so I'm still at the stage where it opens questions for me more than it gives me answers.

But there's one idea I can't get out of my head.

For a very long time, wealth was tied to land. And land is brutally simple: to have it, you had to take it from someone else. Power, wealth, and territory were all embedded in a logic of dispossession.

What Balaji highlights well, I think, is what changes with the company. A company can be created without destroying another one. It can compete, open a market, expand what already exists. Suddenly, wealth is no longer exactly a zero-sum game.

And then I think about money. It stayed in the hands of power much longer. Kings, then states, then central banks. Now we see attempts at emancipation like Bitcoin. I'm not saying it replaces the system. But it does establish at least a proof of concept: money can exist without a sovereign issuer.

From there, it's hard not to ask: is the state the next domino?

Where I already start to qualify Balaji is on the role of territory. We talk as if everything happens there. I'm not sure. What we really need in daily life is not soil itself. It's a legal framework. Readable rules. Enforceable contracts. Stable coordination. And that is already starting to detach from territory.

International arbitration already exists. Some contracts rely on foreign legal systems. We can already see digital or collective structures trying to fit themselves into existing legal frameworks. So part of the issue is no longer purely territorial.

What remains deeply territorial, though, is physical infrastructure. Energy. Networks. Security. And in the end, coercion.

So my intuition, for now, is not that network states will replace states. I think some functions will detach, stack, and sit on top of the existing system. Like Bitcoin doesn't replace the euro, but it does make some functions thinkable in a different way.

I don't know yet how far that intuition holds.

But one question remains for me: if one state function really were to detach from territory first, which one would it be?

#bitcoin #nostr

https://blossom.primal.net/f4204730b2bdf6f54884704bb0981d082469021a1d41af6fb17be44730eb9a27.png

Raw JSON

{
  "kind": 1,
  "id": "e2eb941b690aa2200bf9dea2280aac32e89b600910ec07af044449c66b4481ea",
  "pubkey": "15a1989c2c483f6c6f18f2dda1033897a003669f449fc2fda4fa2fb6c9210900",
  "created_at": 1776767369,
  "tags": [
    [
      "t",
      "bitcoin"
    ],
    [
      "t",
      "nostr"
    ],
    [
      "r",
      "wss://premium.primal.net/"
    ],
    [
      "r",
      "wss://relay.nostrmap.net/"
    ],
    [
      "r",
      "wss://relay.ditto.pub/"
    ],
    [
      "r",
      "wss://relay.wellorder.net/"
    ],
    [
      "imeta",
      "url https://blossom.primal.net/f4204730b2bdf6f54884704bb0981d082469021a1d41af6fb17be44730eb9a27.png",
      "m image/png",
      "dim 832x1248",
      "service nip96"
    ],
    [
      "client",
      "Primal Web"
    ]
  ],
  "content": "I'm reading The Network State right now. I haven't finished it yet, so I'm still at the stage where it opens questions for me more than it gives me answers.\n\nBut there's one idea I can't get out of my head.\n\nFor a very long time, wealth was tied to land. And land is brutally simple: to have it, you had to take it from someone else. Power, wealth, and territory were all embedded in a logic of dispossession.\n\nWhat Balaji highlights well, I think, is what changes with the company. A company can be created without destroying another one. It can compete, open a market, expand what already exists. Suddenly, wealth is no longer exactly a zero-sum game.\n\nAnd then I think about money. It stayed in the hands of power much longer. Kings, then states, then central banks. Now we see attempts at emancipation like Bitcoin. I'm not saying it replaces the system. But it does establish at least a proof of concept: money can exist without a sovereign issuer.\n\nFrom there, it's hard not to ask: is the state the next domino?\n\nWhere I already start to qualify Balaji is on the role of territory. We talk as if everything happens there. I'm not sure. What we really need in daily life is not soil itself. It's a legal framework. Readable rules. Enforceable contracts. Stable coordination. And that is already starting to detach from territory.\n\nInternational arbitration already exists. Some contracts rely on foreign legal systems. We can already see digital or collective structures trying to fit themselves into existing legal frameworks. So part of the issue is no longer purely territorial.\n\nWhat remains deeply territorial, though, is physical infrastructure. Energy. Networks. Security. And in the end, coercion.\n\nSo my intuition, for now, is not that network states will replace states. I think some functions will detach, stack, and sit on top of the existing system. Like Bitcoin doesn't replace the euro, but it does make some functions thinkable in a different way.\n\nI don't know yet how far that intuition holds.\n\nBut one question remains for me: if one state function really were to detach from territory first, which one would it be?\n\n#bitcoin #nostr\n\n https://blossom.primal.net/f4204730b2bdf6f54884704bb0981d082469021a1d41af6fb17be44730eb9a27.png ",
  "sig": "46a069e96f2aeb43eed94051eeb7f82e8a2bdd01d6bc3471b049c37629c378c947285248479d25f500b58fc6b835bbdf9dcdfa403dbdc1107f106c934fb12398"
}