News: 0144875202

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Would You Tell an Angel Investor How to Start a New Country? (1729.com)

(Saturday April 10, 2021 @05:34PM (EditorDavid) from the not-the-Onion dept.)


Angel investor Balaji S. Srinivasan (also the former CTO of Coinbase) is now focused on [1]1729.com , which wants to give you money to do his bidding — or something like that. He's calling it " [2]the first newsletter that pays you .

"It has a regular feed of paid tasks and tutorials with $1000+ in crypto prizes per day, and doubles as a vehicle for distributing a new book I've been writing called The Network State."

His latest post? " [3]How to Start a New Country " (which envisions starting with a "cloud first" digital community):

> We recruit online for a group of people interested in founding a new virtual social network, a new city, and eventually a new country. We build the embryonic state as an open source project, we organize our internal economy around remote work, we cultivate in-person levels of civility, we simulate [4]architecture in VR , and we create art and literature that reflects our values.

>

> Over time we eventually crowdfund territory in the real world, but not necessarily contiguous territory. Because an under-appreciated fact is that the internet allows us to network [5]enclaves . Put another way, a cloud community need not acquire all its territory in one place at one time. It can connect a thousand apartments, a hundred houses, and a dozen cul-de-sacs in different cities into a new kind of fractal polity with its capital in the cloud. Over time, community members migrate between these enclaves and crowdfund territory nearby, with every individual dwelling and group house presenting an independent opportunity for expansion...

>

> [Cloud countries] are set up to be a scaled live action role-playing game (LARP), a feat of imagination practiced by large numbers of people at the same time. And the experience of cryptocurrencies over the last decade shows us just how [6]powerful such a shared LARP can be...

>

> The cloud country concept "just" requires stacking together many existing technologies, rather than inventing new ones like Mars-capable rockets or permanent-habitation seasteads. Yet at the same time it avoids the obvious pathways of election, revolution, and war — all of which are ugly and none of which provide much venue for individual initiative...

>

> Could a sufficiently robust cloud country with, say, 1-10M committed digital citizens, provable cryptocurrency reserves, and physical holdings all over the earth similarly achieve societal recognition from the United Nations?

For the "do his bidding" part, the post promises that up to ten $100 prizes will be awarded to people who share constructive reviews on their sites/social media pages (including proposals for extensions).

Previously the site had offered $100 for the ten best hirelings " [7]running a newsletter for technological progressives at your own domain, as a way to begin incentivizing the decentralization of media." (It cited a [8]tweet that argues succinctly that "The NYT is telling anti-longevity stories for us. We must take control of our own story.") In general the site [9]describes itself as "a newsletter for technological progressives. That means people who are into cryptocurrencies, startup cities, mathematics, transhumanism, space travel, reversing aging, and initially-crazy-seeming-but-technologically-feasible ideas." So the newsletter-creating task had envisioned them all "constantly pushing for technology in general and reversing aging in particular, writing like their lives depended on it. In other words, blog or die!"

Other rewards went to the first 10 people to [10]complete three Elixir problems , the 100 people who [11]posted the best inspiring proof-of-exercising photos , and 40 people who helped identify people and places " [12]where the ascending world is surpassing the declining world ."

For one of his latest "tasks," Srinivasan [13]wants you to read a long essay on quantum computing (and answer questions), with an optional series of "review emails". $10 in bitcoin will be awarded only to the first and last 50 readers/question-answerers, while another $100 in bitcoin will be awarded to the first and last 5 review-email readers who "persist for a month."



[1] https://1729.com/

[2] https://balajis.com/2021-and-1729/

[3] https://1729.com/how-to-start-a-new-country/

[4] https://thewild.com/blog/architect-getting-started-with-vr

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclave_and_exclave

[6] https://bitcoin.zorinaq.com/price/

[7] https://1729.com/a-newsletter-that-pays-you-to-make-newsletters/

[8] https://twitter.com/realNathanCheng/status/1364411697142857730?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

[9] https://1729.com/a-newsletter-that-pays-you/

[10] https://1729.com/learn-basic-elixir-with-exercism/

[11] https://1729.com/proof-of-workout/

[12] https://1729.com/the-ascending-world/

[13] https://1729.com/quantum-computing-and-proof-of-memory/

Re: (Score:2)

by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

> Invade & conquer Sealand. It would be cheap to hire some mercenaries

You could avoid the cost of the mercenaries by colonizing [1]Rockall [wikipedia.org] instead. You could earn money by leasing fishing rights, tax-free internet banking, and crypto-mining with wind power.

Or arm the [2]North Sentinelese [wikipedia.org] with assault rifles and declare independence from India.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockall

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese

Why bother? (Score:2)

by kot-begemot-uk ( 6104030 )

You can always buy one. The joke "the best democracy money can buy" applies worldwide. Just choose a country you want to purchase to match your budget.

If you have the budget of several blocks of oligarch town-houses, you can afford a security council member. If you have less money you can settle for a Balkan country. If even that is too expensive, there are 100+ third world countries and half of them can be bought for the right price. Quoting a joke from one of Emir Kosturica films: "As our Bulgarian frie

Well this ought to be interesting. (Score:2)

by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )

Certainly sounds like a billionaire throwing money at people in the hopes that their viewpoint becomes your viewpoint. However, I know how this goes, people want the money and it will be hoovered up... by bots.

Automated analysis will regurgitate the information from the article into given into the questionnaire. Will the scheme work anyway when nobody actually reading it gets a dime? Stranger things have happened.

Re: (Score:2)

by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 )

> However, I know how this goes, people want the money and it will be hoovered up... by bots.

And the "investor" will fall for it because it feeds his ego - the overinflated ego that led him to come up with this narcissistic concept in the first place.

Twelve months from now, he'll have moved on to something else - a new book where he discusses his great disappointment in the human race, driven by he new "insight" into human behavior.

Buzzing in with my Jeopardy answer... (Score:3)

by PseudoThink ( 576121 )

"What is practice for an aspiring megalomaniac who got bored playing The Sims and/or saw "Nerve (2016)" and has more money than he knows what to do with?"

Cult, not country (Score:2)

by Aighearach ( 97333 )

All you'd be doing is adding an extra layer of administration on top of what already exists. It isn't a "new country." It just a new association, fraternal organization, cult, or similar thing.

Just like all the other ones.

Re: (Score:2)

by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

Unless you actually try to make it a new country, in which case you'll probably go to jail for tax evasion at the least.

Interesting point in the summary though: cryptocurrency == LARP. Huh.

former CTO of... (Score:2)

by Fly Swatter ( 30498 )

Yep, time to move on to the next news article, after saying a) that is a stupid question b) I guess that crypto coin hype train thing worked out for him.

I don't think consulting for $10 or $100 (Score:2)

by bobstreo ( 1320787 )

is a very lucrative offer.

Now if they were offering "free" citizenship for consulting, maybe extending to future generations, that would kinda be ok.

so tribes (Score:2)

by cjonslashdot ( 904508 )

Tribalism is humans in their most primitive state.

Need beer. (Score:2)

by i.r.id10t ( 595143 )

You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer.

- Frank Zappa

We invented this long ago (Score:2)

by hdyoung ( 5182939 )

It goes by a variety of names: culture: tribe: religion: phyle: posse: gang. A cohesive group with an identity based on something other than geography or genetics.

It's a cool idea. But it ain't new. It's ancient.

That sounds like sedition (Score:2)

by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 )

These rich assholes don't understand how little money they have. None of them can afford a country big enough to not be at the whim of its neighbors.

"How to Start a New Country" (Score:2)

by nospam007 ( 722110 ) *

Like bacteria, take an existing country and split it in 2.

Liberland (Score:1)

by kvutza ( 893474 )

[1]Liberland [wikipedia.org]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland

There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.
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