TechXGeopolitics #17: Inside the Growing Billionaire Push for “Network States”
Also featured: new article in Responsible Statecraft, Gaza's water crisis
Welcome to my newsletter, where I set out to highlight significant, yet un- or underreported recent news and trends at the intersection of geopolitics and tech.
Why the intersection of technology and geopolitics? The future of geopolitics will be shaped by today’s tech advances, yet the two topics are often isolated from one another in journalism and geopolitical analysis. This newsletter strives to bridge the gap while also spotlighting relevant work by emerging and veteran writers in independent media.
Feedback on this newsletter’s format and content is more than welcome — please feel free to comment on this page, or write to me at stavroula.pabst@proton.me. Thank you for reading!
Responsible Statecraft article: Former NSA Chief Revolves Through OpenAI’s Door
“OpenAI remains adamant its tech cannot be used to develop or use weapons despite recent policy changes. But AI’s rapid wartime proliferation in Gaza and Ukraine highlights other industry players’ lack of restraint; failing to keep up could mean losing out on lucrative military contracts in a competitive and unpredictable industry.”
In a new Responsible Statecraft article, I discussed OpenAI’s recent decision to appoint recently retired US Army General and former NSA director Paul Nakasone, a move that could “normalize while spinning the ever-revolving door between defense and intelligence agencies and Big Tech.”
Read the story here.
Staggering Gaza Death Tolls
“Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases.”
In stark contrast with circulating estimates of about 40,000 fatalities, researchers estimate in the Lancet “that up to 186,000 or even more deaths” have occurred in Israel’s relentless onslaught of the Gaza Strip since October 7. The researchers highlight the difficulties of properly collecting and recording information on casualties and injuries as conflict continues, and also note that many recovered bodies have not been or cannot be identified, or that others cannot be recovered and are likely stuck under rubble within the context of the widespread destruction of buildings in the Strip. While many Palestinians have been killed directly by Israeli forces, further, many others are susceptible to the genocide’s indirect effects, including starvation, hunger and disease.
Growing water crisis in Gaza
“According to Euro-Med Monitor, those in the Gaza Strip have access to just 1.5 liters of water per person per day for all needs, including drinking, cooking, and personal hygiene. The established international emergency water threshold is 15 liters per person per day—ten times what Gazans have now.”
In an April 2024 YES! Magazine article, Marianne Dhenin writes that while the current water crisis in Gaza is now acute due to the genocide, Palestinians in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank have long struggled to access safe drinking water due to Israeli control over the resource as an occupying power. Even back in 2017, for example, UNICEF estimated that about 96 percent of drinking water from the Gaza Strip’s sole aquifer was unfit for human consumption. In the West Bank, meanwhile, Israeli authorities have restricted Palestinian access down to only 20 percent of the West Bank’s main water basin.
Water, in other words, is being weaponized “as a tool of occupation and control.”
Administrative Robot Suicide?
A robot “supervisor” working at a city council in South Korea threw itself down a staircase last month in what many are now describing as the first robot “suicide.” While the case is being investigated at the time of writing, speculation persists that the robot was overwhelmed by work demands, serving the city council from 9am to 6 pm everyday.
According to the International Federation of Robotics, South Korea has the highest robot worker density in the world, with one industrial robot per 10 employees.
New Tech Societies? Inside the Growing Billionaire Push for “Network States”
Tech industry geeks and Silicon Valley billionaires seem out of touch with reality; indeed, some of them are apparently trying to start their own with network states.
At the end of last year, prominent billionaire angel investor, CTO of Coinbase, and Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Andreessen Horowitz Balaji S. Srinivasan started the Balaji fund, where investments will scale up Bijan’s seed funding in “crypto/web3, deep learning, augmented reality and virtual reality, genomics, quantified self, autonomous robotics, network states, and frontier technologies more generally.” As Srinivasan posted at the time, “Many have asked how they can help build network states. So, [putting money into this fund is] one way to help.”
What is a network state? Essentially, network states are parallel and networked societies especially for the tech industry and start-up world, unburdened by bureaucracies and other governmental regulations.
Indeed, Srinivasan describes network states as crypto-focused social networks that have a “sense of national consciousness,” “consensual government,” and even strive for diplomatic recognition:
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.
To promote network states, Srinivasan has written and published a free online book about his vision for the concept, and also facilitated a high-profile conference on the subject last year.
Meanwhile, others have been trialing network states and adjacent projects online and in real life. A key example is Praxis Nation, whose backers include OpenAI’s Sam Altman, PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, and Samuel Bankman-Fried from the now-defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange. As per the Praxis website, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale is also a supporter.
Currently garnering interest in the project, Praxis, which calls itself a "internet-native nation," has vague plans to build an “autonomous state” in the Mediterranean. As per reporting from The Fence, “Praxis will [try to] convince a country into letting them build an autonomous state on their land – preferably several thousand acres on the Adriatic. Praxis say they expect the groundbreaking ceremony on their first city to happen in 2025.”
While Praxis claims to have 2,200 “citizens” at the time of writing, it seems Praxis members may well be partying amongst themselves too much to realistically establish anything, especially without series B funding critical to sustaining the project.
Another, perhaps more viable, network state project is Honduras-based Próspera, which boasts about its in-person communities, and even the prospects of visiting them, on its website. At Próspera’s St. John’s Bay, for example, visitors “can meet local residents and innovators at one of our entrepreneurship and crypto events” and even join in at classes at a local Bitcoin Education Center.
Próspera promotional video
Proponents suggest network states can allow inhabitants freedoms unrestricted by governments, allowing for unprecedented economic opportunities. On Praxis’ website, proponents even argue that a network state can be beneficial to host countries, where Praxis can “accelerate economic growth in [a host] country by bringing amazing companies, large and small, and a community of startup founders, investors, and technical talent.” The organization insists that “Our goal is to create the next great city, while supporting the local community and [its] way of life.”
But the overzealous economic arrangements, and the frequent (albeit not unilateral, as per examples like the car-free Culdesac project in Tempe, Arizona) decision to attempt network states and adjacent projects, sometimes with a humanitarian or altruistic flair, in the global south has often led critics to describe such initiatives as “crypto colonialism” or “blockchain colonialism.” As I noted in Unlimited Hangout: “As academic Olivier Jutel writes, crypto’s “blockchain humanitarianism” strives to legitimize what is really an “intensification of the South-to-North extraction of value via solutionism and blockchain platforms,” i.e. a modern iteration of colonialism.”
Further agitating matters, Honduras’ attempts to legally constrain sprouting special economic zones were met with harsh legal action: as reported in Jacobin, special economic zone Honduras Próspera “launched an $11 billion ISDS case against the government of Honduras, claiming that its repeal of the ZEDE [the Spanish iteration of special economic zones as an acronym] laws violated the terms of existing international treaties. That amount, $11 billion, represents about two-thirds of the government’s annual budget.” In other words, Próspera’s apparently prepared to financially undermine Honduras, a sovereign nation, over its attempts to maintain leverage over an emerging network state. (Read more on the lawsuit here).
And the Próspera incident isn’t an isolated one. According to reporting from Alexandra McCarroll in Forbes, a previous “2011 Honduras "charter cities" project…. [likewise] faced opposition from indigenous communities fearing land rights and cultural identity threats. Issues of transparency, democracy, and exploitation emerged. The Honduran Supreme Court halted the project in 2012, highlighting the risks of network states purchasing land in populated regions, potentially leading to displacement, cultural erasure, and increased marginalization.”
Altogether, even if many interested in network states are simply crypto-enthusiastic LARPers, cash-flush projects like Próspera, and significant elite backing manifested in efforts like the Balaji fund, suggest such strides towards tech-focused network states will continue, regardless of their impact on the communities and countries they inhabit.
Press TV Appearance
I appeared on Press TV on June 7 to discuss continued and targeted Israeli attacks on journalists in the Gaza Strip, where the effectiveness of sanctions and boycotts of companies complicit in the ongoing genocide were also discussed. Watch the segment here.
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Wicked 'network state' roundup. Thanks!
The robot suicide sounds like hype to talk as if they're becoming self aware.
Same thing with the "hallucinations" of made up books in the Google bard interview which strangely was left in the pre taped show. You would think they wouldn't show this if it was a bug but it's a feature.
Network states sound like a way for tech to dodge taxes and labor laws. How the heck does international law override local national law?!? Meanwhile in Gaza, it's a genocide disaster and the international law can't do shit?
Right.... Sure.