There is a good book whose title and author are eluding me for the moment that examines the necessity of a frontier for freedom. Freedom requires the ability to up and move into an area that is a challenge for the nearest power to control, regulate, and abuse. That is the only meaningful check on the power of the sedentary bandits that become a region's elite.

Historically, this has all been geography. But going forward, there is the opportunity to do something new with technology and section off slices of economic activity into reaches that while existing in the same geographic location as a centralized state are prohibitively expensive to control for its bureaucrats and enforcers.

The malaise of the modern world is, I think, in large part due to the shrinking of frontiers. There is little of the world left that is easily colonized but also hard for the major players to reach into, and so the states become ever more grasping. There is no safety valve by which people can up and peacefully revolt with their feet in large numbers, and that won't return until the cost of getting into orbit falls dramatically.

Meanwhile, there is cryptography.