I honestly don't get what HN, or even some commenters, thinks should happen here in the real world. I understand in the pretend world they want to be able to d

I honestly don't get what HN, or even some commenters, thinks should happen here in the real world. I understand in the pretend world they want to be able to do $x without ever worrying about being beholden to any other countries laws or politics or whatever else. They want this for lots of values of $x, and often have fun asserting it will soon be possible. In the real world however, this has never been possible, since the dawn of recorded history, for lots and lots and lots of values of $x. Pretty much any time $x becomes valuable or interesting enough, it becomes impossible to have this happen in all and usually most cases. It often doesn't matter how simple a thing $x is - sailing a ship for example, or buying produce, it usually only matters how valuable or interesting it was. As long as enough countries exist, and they have laws that have extra-territorial effect, the likelihood this problem will be really solved trends towards zero. What exactly does someone expect to happen here when it's just people and companies trying to follow the laws they think they are required to follow. This is actually what should happen, and is happening The usual response is then that some country or group of countries need to build some untouchable-by-other-countries infrastructure and that will solve having to deal with others politics. This seems to me naive at best. The only cases this will work is for things that can be 100% contained and controlled within a given country/group. That is roughly impossible for most interesting things. For example - it makes no sense to have a economic-block-specific email provider to work around sanctions, because whoever wanted to sanction them will just ban transiting email to them, and then transiting packets, and then equipment, and then chips to make equipment, and then machines to make chips to make equipment, and then wafers used to make chips, and then raw resources used to make wafers, and then equipment to mine raw resources, and then .... Let's assume you don't care about this group, but they are still powerful. Great - they'll do this not just directly, but indirectly, by forcing others who do have to care to do the same to you. Now, it would be different if you are building this thing as a political move or strategy, rather than expecting it to solve your problem directly. But otherwise, it is remarkably rare to be able to work around the politics with technology, and if you do, you won't be able to for very long. It's much more useful to focus on dealing with the politics, if you want to change it. Wasting lots of time and energy and money trying to avoid politics seems like a bad plan