This is the counter-revolution.
(1) First, I am not surprised by the flurry of executive orders. While Trump 1.0 was a shoestring operation, Trump 2.0 is like Steve Jobs’ return to Apple. The President has had time to think, regroup, and — most importantly — build a cadre of dedicated operatives. All the anti-tech actions drove new talent to Trump’s banner. And Elon’s men are the best operators in the world.
(2) Second, you can roughly divide the Trump actions thus far into three categories: anti-blue, pro-tech, and pro-red.
🔵 The anti-blue orders end DEI, infinite genders, open borders, and many of the craziest ideas blues came up with over the last several decades.
🌐 The pro-tech actions unleash AI, crypto, and other sectors that the regulatory state has been holding back.
🔴 And the pro-red moves begin trade and land negotiations with Canada, Greenland, Panama, and the Europeans. They also begin withdrawing the US from the now-corrupted institutions it helped build, like the WHO.
Some actions are executive orders, some are personnel appointments, some even begin as tweets — but taken in their totality there is no way a demoralized left will be able to stop them all in the courts.
And we’re only on day two. The war against the universities hasn’t really begun.
(3) Third, where does all this end up? I know many envision a 1950s-style Golden Age. But in my view, whether intentional or not, this presidency will retire the 20th century American empire and replace it with something more like 19th century America.
Less 1950, more 1850.
That is: the US will withdraw from funding countless foreign wars, managing hundreds of military bases around the world, and maintaining the rules-based order. It will stop being the recruiter of global talent, the issuer of the reserve currency, the educator of the world’s elites, and the base for every multinational.
Instead, like the Russians before them, a critical mass of Americans no longer want to run a global ideological empire. So history is running in reverse. FDR built up the gargantuan 20th century state, and Trump is winding it down.
Continued growth is a continuous plebiscite, a vote of confidence by the people inside who remain and those outside who apply. Roughly speaking, a successful network state is one that attracts aligned immigrants, and an unsuccessful network state is one that loses them.
TNS
Bitcoin has a martial power, though it’s entirely defensive, as the combination of encryption and physical decentralization render it resistant to 20th-century-style military attacks.
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The CCP network of party members is less separate from the Chinese state, as it doesn’t pretend to be at a great remove from the levers of power as NYT does. But the party is not the same as the state. Indeed, there are 95 million CCP members.
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A key thesis of The Sovereign Individual – and an important argument for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more generally – is that if a government cannot seize money, then it cannot start wars.
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The Ukrainian government owns 46,351 BTC. If the war turned against their favor and the government was forced to flee and operate in exile, would this count as the first network state?
A network archipelago 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.
Crypto, AI, DeSci, Memecoins, Cultcoins, The Network School, etc they all point towards the same general trend: decline of our 20th century institutions and the rise of 21st century network based startup societies and ultimately a Network State.
🚨 MORE THAN $800 MILLION OF TAXPAYER MONEY 🚨
The BLS:
→ Spent more than $800M this year.
→ Has over 2,500 employees.
→ Uses a 100-year-old methodology.
→ Collects data on a monthly basis
Truflation can do this faster and cheaper.
Hey @elonmusk and @DOGE, make it happen!
We’re on the verge of a paradigm shift that will be heard around the world.
Consensys is on a mission to catalyze a Network State within the emerging decentralized Web3 and AI global economy.
During my talk earlier at DevCon, I shared how we’re moving towards rigorous decentralization and empowering sovereign individuals:
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