Startup Cities as a Network
In a recent post on 1729, Balaji describes the eventual need for upcoming Cloud Cities/Communities to convert to physical domains. These new Startup societies can encompass existing cities that create hospitable rules and environments or brand-new cities built on empty tracks of land.
He also mentions an incentive structure to bring people to these new cities plus the need for them to be under a flexible structure such as a REIT so that the residents aren’t over leveraged into the non-fungible land itself, thus able to fulfill the goal of voting with their feet as the need arises.
This is the part of the essay that I want to focus on here. I think it is possible to start building a multi-nodal, blockchain shaped infrastructure for the new nomad class now so as to set up a Neal Stephenson-esque boot drive global structure as we go through this transition phase.
The uncertain immune response
As cryptocurrencies see mass adoption and the Information Age slowly eats the legacy system there will be a varied immune response from the global institutional body. We are seeing it already in the crypto space with a handful of countries banning crypto or considering banning or heavily curbing crypto.
As MMT (modern monetary theory) keeps trending up, fiat currencies keep trending down. We seem to be in another asset dominated cycle. Fiat will either transition to cryptocurrency or digital currency or a mix. As this transition happens the legacy players will get more and more desperate for cash and will raise taxes or even do straight out money grabs to try to hold on until they no longer can. Depending on your country of current residence, you may need to make a move to a place where you won’t get robbed by the dying system.
As a person who has lived in eight different countries, I can say that the process is both daunting and easier than you think. What would have helped me in the beginning of my musical chairs phase of moving around the planet would have been the ability to find like-minded folks who can give on-the ground advice, help with the bureaucracy of moving, and to know that I can feel entrenched in my new homeland while still knowing I’m flexible and liquid. This local community help can all be easily coordinated and accomplished in the cloud now.
The flexible Nomad collective
In order to accomplish this, we need to set up a series of land nodes with smallish communities that folks can vote on moving to or escape to if the situation gets too hairy. The ability to set up these nodes is becoming faster. With the advent of 3D printed housing companies like ICON, who can print you a house in 48 hours, we can buy unincorporated land, print out a small community, and then leave it up to you the community member to improve the land during your time there. You would need to be able to earn off of the land without being tied to the land in the traditional sense. We could set up an app to help those in the community coordinate as Balaji has previously mentioned:
The community should have the benefits of ownership with the flexibility of renting.
Boot Drive, Dunbar number, and Kevin Bacon
The system is collapsing. We are in a moment that most analogize with the fall of Rome, but I think it’s more like the Bronze Age collapse. The Bronze Age was our first miniature “global” system. Non-redundant supply chains, overly centralized, and the introduction of brand-new psycho-technologies. The largest civilizational collapse in human history. Many people look at collapses and despair, but in the case of both the Bronze Age and Roman Empire collapses, the little guy or small community (think Phoenicians rising out of Canaan), who has built in resiliency, thrives in the aftermath. The Bronze Age is celebrated as an achievement. The Roman Empire the same. What the centralizers don’t understand is that 1) All empires have failed and 2) an infrastructure is being built now that will guarantee that centralization becomes harder and harder to achieve.
What we need after the collapse will be a physical nodal boot drive or physical alternate chain with plenty of experimentation to see what works. I believe that setting up small communities in multiple countries around the globe is the next part of the transition to the new Iron Age.
Let’s take some lessons from what we’ve learned on the road so far. Why not keep communities at a population of 150–10,000 people, keeping the Dunbar number intact or just a few degrees of separation from everyone in the physical community so that trust and sacrifice dials stay at optimum levels. Because it won’t just be us like-minded folk forming the communities. Locals or others will be joining to escape the collapsing system. Then instead of scaling up each community, we replicate either nearby or in a completely different country. Our best attempt to mimic the durability and structure of the internet and blockchain in the physical world.
Metcalfe’s Law of the Land
How do we incentivize people to build communities and improve the land they reside on if they view it as a temporary place? Renters notoriously don’t give a shit about their domicile beyond what benefits them.
We tokenize the land. Make a land trust that spans the land purchased around the globe. Everyone gets capped at an equal share of the entire trust. I.e., 250k investment gets you a full membership. The more you improve the land you live on, the more your dividend goes up. The more communities built globally, the more your dividend goes up. You can either put in the 250k up front and live rent free or you move to the community and your rent goes toward your equity in the land. You can pick up and move to or start another community under the trust anywhere the group decides is best or a new group decides they’ve had enough of the legacy system. Your equity follows you even if you exit the system, giving you even more flexibility. Outsiders who don’t want to live in the communities or can’t, due to family obligations or other such restrictions, can still buy tokens/shares in the community to invest in the group.
The value of the token will follow Metcalfe’s Law: “the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2)”. The stronger the network of communities built the more your dividend will be. You are now incentivized to build multiple beautiful communities.
Cloud Cities and Physical nodal communities will be a part of our decentralized future in whatever iterations we come up with. But we need to start preparing the physical infrastructure for the transition at a faster pace. COVID has sped things up. Let’s just hope we can build and experiment faster than the legacy system collapses.
