Does rationalism lend itself to nation building?

[Joel Ðietz]

The nexus of rationalist thinkers has provided some of the most incisive writing on proto-nations to date (https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera), but does this school of thought have sufficient method or heft to lend itself to providing the fully integrated mental apparatus to use at the foundational stage of nation design?

For this, we refer to Balaji's well noted "Network State" which emerged recently with the concept "design a state in VR and then push a button to deploy," which at least presumably, is backed by sufficient amount of capital and a cryptocurrency inspired economic model. 

For what it's worth, on the product side we built at least the prototype for the "city design in VR" part, but the relative part of going from concept to a working system is often a large gap. This requires among other things, an assessment of the would-be settlers, the ostensible rule of law, including enforcement mechanisms, and whatever economic model is at play.

Additionally given the perceived lack of available space (at least on a map it appears to be occupied by existing nations) there is the game theory of how do existing nations review and respond to these micro-nations eager to issue their own passports.

I ask this question, in part, because I am thinking of creating some rating system for these 'startup societies' that includes factors like their technological sophistication and other factors that might correlate with long term success. I am, however, at an early enough stage that I have not decided which factors to include.

Thus the floor is open for anyone with opinions, ideally with a rationalist flavor.  

 

[spudb...@aol.com]

I am guessing that the nation state is a sometime thing, driven yes by tribalism but also common interests. I have long though that new nations or polities will arise in the solar system but also on the high seas. This depends of the rapidity of technology, aka engineering. As of now, we have Two villains, Putin and Xi starting war as a means to secure their nation states and an attempt to do things the old-fashioned wat, via conquest and or annihilation. 

For VR states, we need look only to Facebook and the decline of Meta after such big noise. What hold people together? 

In the US we're barely holding on.

Interesting observations, though. Thx.

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