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The vagaries of operating a US corporation in other countries is quite intriguing. But what's even more interesting is that the Network State is beginning to su

The vagaries of operating a US corporation in other countries is quite intriguing. But what's even more interesting is that the Network State is beginning to supersede legacy institutions in terms of both soft and hard power. It must be terrifying to the stakeholders of legacy institutions globally, not just here in the United States.

anigbrowl 3y ago
I'm uncertain what you mean by this. 'Hard power' generally refers to military and economic actions such as sanctions - ie where governments forbid third parties in the private sector (or indeed other countries, if they have the heft) to do business with the sanctioned entities. Can't see how that applies. The internet as a political factor is of course new, but transnational organization/ideology explicitly directed at displacement of the existing order goes back centuries.
- jauntywundrkind 3y ago
  Hard power is also the ability to police & coral & force not just far off people but your own people too. In the network state era, there are forces far beyond your borders that the majority of your citizens are dealing with regularly. You can keep a very tight grasp on your own citizen, effect all the moderately high firewalls you want & dabble in banning cryptography as you please, perhaps, but it'll usually be a pretty leaky defense, and no matter how much hard power you have in your state there's probably very little your hard power is going to do to stop or reduce the overwhelming presence of Facebook or Google or far more modest sized internet services in the world. They will certainly keep influencing the world. And they will keep creeping in and influencing your people. Power used to have geographic limitations, which gave local power enormity & presence. In the fiber optic age, that hard power buys you a lot less. And requires far more pressure & vigilance to apply even within your border.
threeseed 3y ago
Governments are not legacy and are rarely terrified by anything. This is the mistake that arrogant tech players make up until they are smacked down and are either put in jail e.g. crypto space, heavily regulated e.g. EU or coerced into submission e.g. China. And whilst they allow companies to push the limits e.g. Uber, Airbnb it is only up to a certain point where they have provided the maximum benefit to society at which they are swiftly reigned back in.
- lobocinza 3y ago
  Governments have guns but sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword. Specially when the pen can instantly and subtly influence billions worldwide.
nomilk 3y ago
Thought experiment: would a blockchain-like twitter app be possible? i.e. an uncensorable micro-blog, with the exact same rules for every individual and government. Perhaps a plugin ecosystem where users could add their own plugins akin to they may extend browsers (for things like filtering unwanted content). I wonder if something like that could work. It could be unbiased to a cryptographic standard (at least in theory).
- idiotsecant 3y ago
  Like peepeth? Yes, its possible. No, people won't use it. Fediverse seems like its kind of a thing though.
  - orionsbelt 3y ago
    People are using Farcaster.

anigbrowl 3y ago

I'm uncertain what you mean by this. 'Hard power' generally refers to military and economic actions such as sanctions - ie where governments forbid third parties in the private sector (or indeed other countries, if they have the heft) to do business with the sanctioned entities. Can't see how that applies. The internet as a political factor is of course new, but transnational organization/ideology explicitly directed at displacement of the existing order goes back centuries.

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
Hard power is also the ability to police & coral & force not just far off people but your own people too. In the network state era, there are forces far beyond your borders that the majority of your citizens are dealing with regularly. You can keep a very tight grasp on your own citizen, effect all the moderately high firewalls you want & dabble in banning cryptography as you please, perhaps, but it'll usually be a pretty leaky defense, and no matter how much hard power you have in your state there's probably very little your hard power is going to do to stop or reduce the overwhelming presence of Facebook or Google or far more modest sized internet services in the world. They will certainly keep influencing the world. And they will keep creeping in and influencing your people. Power used to have geographic limitations, which gave local power enormity & presence. In the fiber optic age, that hard power buys you a lot less. And requires far more pressure & vigilance to apply even within your border.

threeseed 3y ago

Governments are not legacy and are rarely terrified by anything. This is the mistake that arrogant tech players make up until they are smacked down and are either put in jail e.g. crypto space, heavily regulated e.g. EU or coerced into submission e.g. China. And whilst they allow companies to push the limits e.g. Uber, Airbnb it is only up to a certain point where they have provided the maximum benefit to society at which they are swiftly reigned back in.

lobocinza 3y ago
Governments have guns but sometimes the pen is mightier than the sword. Specially when the pen can instantly and subtly influence billions worldwide.

nomilk 3y ago

Thought experiment: would a blockchain-like twitter app be possible? i.e. an uncensorable micro-blog, with the exact same rules for every individual and government. Perhaps a plugin ecosystem where users could add their own plugins akin to they may extend browsers (for things like filtering unwanted content). I wonder if something like that could work. It could be unbiased to a cryptographic standard (at least in theory).

idiotsecant 3y ago
Like peepeth? Yes, its possible. No, people won't use it. Fediverse seems like its kind of a thing though.
- orionsbelt 3y ago
  People are using Farcaster.