4 ms·

Could new countries be founded – on the internet?

3 points by samizdis 4y ago

AnimalMuppet 4y ago
No. Fundamentally, your physical body is somewhere. At that somewhere, some traditional country has jurisdiction, and they can enforce that they have jurisdiction on your physical body. No internet "country" can do that, and no internet "country" can protect you from your local physical country doing that to you.
- nradov 4y ago
  In theory an Internet "country" could be something like the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. They hold no territory, but issue passports which some real countries accept. If you can convince the majority of other countries to accept your passport then de facto you are a country, at least in some limited way. The SMOM apparently has only 3 legal citizens, and I think they all hold dual citizenship in another real country.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > The SMOM apparently has only 3 legal citizens The SMOM is not a country and does not have citizens. It issues diplomatic passports (several hundred) to certain leaders and diplomats, and service passports (only a very few, currently) to people involved in certain non-diplomatic missions, but all of these people are citizens of actual countries and also have (or should have) passports of those countries. It is also not particularly independent despite notional sovereignty, being an entity within the Catholic Church subject to Papal authority.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Perhaps something has changed but at least at some point the 3 principal officers of the SMOM were considered legal citizens. Not that that really counts for much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...
bell-cot 4y ago
What's the difference between an "internet-only" country, and a weird MMORPG and/or cultish on-line club? Real countries generally have large hunks of territory where they are legally sovereign, lots of native-born citizens, passports that are widely recognized, armed forces, real-world economies, tax bases, etc., etc.

3 points by samizdis 4y ago

No. Fundamentally, your physical body is somewhere. At that somewhere, some traditional country has jurisdiction, and they can enforce that they have jurisdiction on your physical body. No internet "country" can do that, and no internet "country" can protect you from your local physical country doing that to you.

nradov 4y ago
In theory an Internet "country" could be something like the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. They hold no territory, but issue passports which some real countries accept. If you can convince the majority of other countries to accept your passport then de facto you are a country, at least in some limited way. The SMOM apparently has only 3 legal citizens, and I think they all hold dual citizenship in another real country.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > The SMOM apparently has only 3 legal citizens The SMOM is not a country and does not have citizens. It issues diplomatic passports (several hundred) to certain leaders and diplomats, and service passports (only a very few, currently) to people involved in certain non-diplomatic missions, but all of these people are citizens of actual countries and also have (or should have) passports of those countries. It is also not particularly independent despite notional sovereignty, being an entity within the Catholic Church subject to Papal authority.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Perhaps something has changed but at least at some point the 3 principal officers of the SMOM were considered legal citizens. Not that that really counts for much. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Ma...

bell-cot 4y ago

What's the difference between an "internet-only" country, and a weird MMORPG and/or cultish on-line club? Real countries generally have large hunks of territory where they are legally sovereign, lots of native-born citizens, passports that are widely recognized, armed forces, real-world economies, tax bases, etc., etc.