Hacker News Reader

Comment by deanstag | Hacker News Reader

"You might even imagine a nation defined not by geography but by the rules and benefits of citizenship. Imagine that people of the future could opt-in to the virtual nation that suits them best." . I wonder if we will ever get there . But its eye opening just to think about it.

View on HN

It may sound good but this doesn't make sense in the real word. Who decides what happens when two persons of two nations have conflicting rights?

Some extreme examples, you may also combine them:

Nation A: Copyright is forever. (Because 1000 years is not enough for Mickey Mouse.)

Nation B: No copyright at all.

Nation C: Only Copyleft software.

Nation M: No taxes

Nation N: Basic Income for everyone

Nation X: Death squads (but only for "bad" people)

Nation Y: No incarcerations, only voluntary "rehab" camps

Nation Z: No incarcerations, only "voluntary" rehab camps

The current solution is that each nation has a territory and tanks. With some simplifications, inside each nation there are clear rules and when there is a conflict between nations the one that has more tanks is right. Perhaps this is not the best method, but a virtual nation world will need a realistic method to solve conflicts.

I have proposed this idea in the past as a solution to the problem of stateless prople. If it ever does happen, I want it to be called the Peoples Republic of Hackistan :-)

I am sure I have brought it up here before, but I will again. Here it goes.

My father is an intellectual property attorney. Among colorful clients was a very active entrepeneur/inventor.

One year he insisted the future was a digital nation. You see how people drool or get excited even with 1/4-of-the-way-there e-Estonia system? He was talking about this years ago, when I was finishing high school and starting college.

My father even drafted letters to the UN on his behalf pitching the notion of offciail recognition, and he was laughed off completely.

Mark my words, if govts still antagonize their people and an alternative of this form exists, a vocal minority will popularize the notion.

As an American, I cannot wait.

How would a distributed "digital nation" (which is, rather conveniently, very poorly defined) exercise force to enforce its "rules" on the physical world?

You'd probably have to limit the use of force to things almost everyone agrees on, like detaining people to prevent imminent harm. For other things, sanctions are probably effective enough. Given universal, stable, cryptographic identities, you as an individual would "enforce" your rules and desired contributions to public goods by consulting your chosen sanction list before trading with someone.

Ah the slippery slope of imminent harm.

I'm not sure I understand why I need a cryptographic identity to boycott certain vendors? I can already do that today.

You need cryptographic identities for automated boycotts. Boycotts aren't very effective today because they're hard to organize, and some vendors have relative monopolies. I think Ethereum enables both effective boycott coordination and monopoly elimination.

Also, these sanctions apply to both sellers and buyers. I think economic isolation will be an effective deterrent to undesirable behavior. It's basically prison, just without force.

Imminent harm may be a slippery slope, but it's really all up to the individuals who support the enforcers. If someone detains someone who shouldn't have been detained, stop funding their activities and sanction them. Fund a different enforcement organization instead.

I can see the boycott coordination angle (except, the offensive vendor can just change its identity).

By what mechanism does Ethereum enable monopoly elimination? (sorry, I don't know too much about Ethereum)

The problem with detainment, collective detainment, sanctions, etc. is that the local conditions when a detainment occurs may be far from the theoretical situation. What if everyone around you believes that you should be detained, but you actually shouldn't (according to the theoretical 'rule')? You just threaten to "stop funding" them and they let you go? What is to stop them from escalating the violence? Nothing.

"I can see the boycott coordination angle (except, the offensive vendor can just change its identity)."

If the vendor changes its identity but the public is still aware of the connection, the new identity goes on the sanction list. If the new identity can't be linked, then it has absolutely no reputation and has to start from scratch to convince people to buy from them. That is an effective deterrent.

"What if everyone around you believes that you should be detained, but you actually shouldn't (according to the theoretical 'rule')?"

There are no "rules". What I'm describing is a society organized via voluntary actions, but by following prescribed rules. If everyone around you thinks you should be detained, you get detained. That's how society works.

Sanctions don't prevent bad behavior, they punish bad behavior as a deterrent. Separately, a police force exists only as long as people fund it, and as long as people approve of their uses of force.

I'm not saying this is all bulletproof, but I think it's going to be fun to explore as we build the foundations for these sorts of systems.

Did he ever published any of that? I'd love to read it.

They are already called corporations.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com