Best conference of the last few years, if not ever. Felt like the old days of crypto conferences, where the signal to noise ratio was through the roof! 💪
Awesome recap. I've written my review of the conference on my blog and even found some pop-up events before the conference like at Draper House that were incredibly captivating and enriching. Very Bitcoin 2015 energy. Onwards 🚀
Fascinating to see, in one conference ecosystem, Patri Friedman from the seasteading/new cities world, Aaron Renn arguing for Christian network states and startup societies, and Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry presenting a Catholic network-state vision.
One obvious but still underexplored synthesis is this: Christian and Catholic network states need not be conceived only as urban or mainland projects within existing states. They could also be pursued as frontier societies — on seasteads, artificial islands, and lightly inhabited or desert isles and archipelagoes.
In other words, the network state conversation becomes even more interesting once it is joined not only to intentional community and institutional alignment, but to actual new territory. That is where the startup society begins to look less like a subculture and more like a polity in embryo.
I have been writing about exactly this frontier-Christian extension of the network state idea here:
•Regarding the Christian seasteading startup societies to be built upon seamounts associated with the phantom islands of old maps:
_Crossing the empirical Rubicon: A landmark study shows seasteading is technically feasible — and the future ocean nations are hiding in plain sight
The 2022 study mapped oceanic opportunity zones for seasteading—these correspond with Antilia, Brandania, Dalrymplia and Frisland phantom island nations and undersea features equated therewith_
_Creating authentic new countries by seasteading the seamounts: building new nations on the bathymetric features behind the phantom islands — Antilia, Frisland, and Hy-Breasail can become real realms_
-Antilia would be a Traditional Catholic startup society
This post presents the vision of Protestant startup societies on existing desert isles that can be augmented by building artificial islands.
It also presents the idea of the Christendom League, an alliance of the nine nations to rebuild the Christendom, that can be founded on the nine desert island groups/archipelagos and artificial islands:
_No need for a "Protestant Franco"; Rhodesia, South Africa, the Dutch Bible Belt and other polities show the way for grounded, realistic traditionalist Anglo-Protestant communities in our era
Covenantal Archeofuturism II: The case for Anglo-Christian Commonwealths beyond the Integralism memes – Toward Protestant statecraft in the post-liberal age_
As case studies I have already presented Austral-Albion, an Anglofuturist Christian startup society federating the South Atlantic desert islands Gough and South Georgia:
_South Georgia: The last, best hope at the edge of the world — What kind of society could be built on the new frontier of 21st century British civilisation?
Envisioning the society that could rise on the southern frontier of the British Empire_
Another case study is Frisland, an Anglofuturist neo-traditionalist monarchical startup society envisioned to be built as an North Atlantic seasteading empire and by colonising various desert islands equated with the phantom island of Frisland and related phantom islands, primarily the Cape Farewell Archipelago off the southern tip of Greenland:
_Where could Frisland be built? Egger Island off Greenland, Faraday and Minia Seamounts, Rockall Bank and Scotch isles could turn the phantom islands into an Anglofuturist real realm
Egger Island off Greenland, Minia Seamount, Rockall Bank and divers Scottish isles offer opportunities for realising the phantom archipelago as a new Christian Anglo-Celtic-Norse empire_
_Frisland, Praxis, Atlantis and the Greenland gambit – The Arctic frontier is opening — kingdoms, city-states, and techno-utopians now stake their claim to transform the frozen wilderness
Billionaires, network states and AI accelerationists now eye the Arctic. But only one project names its land: Egger Island — a phantom realm returns, not to simulate Mars, but to restore Christendom._
I think we should protect 「chains」that book most users' digital assets (agains the collapse of fiat value world) and dedicate to expand to help people's assets to go on-chain, which is happening under the old rules. It's like when Mao protected the biggest group people - farmers's land in China back to 1920-1940s, that helped Mao stand up. Farmers use their decentralized pieces of lands to support Mao's leadership and army. In a world of liquidity and climate crisis, people should at least have means of production, sustainable, to make a living. People should have a piece of chain. On this point, China's power and US's chip should work together. Otherwise, Internet (leaders) should.
this was one of the best conferences i've ever attended 🙌
will be going to Forma's pop-up in Tbilisi next month.
Best conference of the last few years, if not ever. Felt like the old days of crypto conferences, where the signal to noise ratio was through the roof! 💪
Well done 👏
Awesome recap. I've written my review of the conference on my blog and even found some pop-up events before the conference like at Draper House that were incredibly captivating and enriching. Very Bitcoin 2015 energy. Onwards 🚀
This year's conference was awesome. Great to see the energy and enthusiasm, and more evolution of the ideas around networked communities.
Very interesting
I went to Vibecamp in 2022 I guess. It was a great experience. I should have kept going. Might have to correct that for 2026.
The shift from nations to networks is already happening. The future won’t be ruled by borders but by code in the long run, by AI
Great article
the hard part is maintaining coherence as you scale. physical proximity doesn't solve governance problems, it just makes them more expensive.
In person > video > call > email > text
I don’t understand what happened but I’m sure something important happening!😀
Great conf! Hello from Qazaqstan!
Fascinating to see, in one conference ecosystem, Patri Friedman from the seasteading/new cities world, Aaron Renn arguing for Christian network states and startup societies, and Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry presenting a Catholic network-state vision.
One obvious but still underexplored synthesis is this: Christian and Catholic network states need not be conceived only as urban or mainland projects within existing states. They could also be pursued as frontier societies — on seasteads, artificial islands, and lightly inhabited or desert isles and archipelagoes.
In other words, the network state conversation becomes even more interesting once it is joined not only to intentional community and institutional alignment, but to actual new territory. That is where the startup society begins to look less like a subculture and more like a polity in embryo.
I have been writing about exactly this frontier-Christian extension of the network state idea here:
•Regarding the Christian seasteading startup societies to be built upon seamounts associated with the phantom islands of old maps:
_Crossing the empirical Rubicon: A landmark study shows seasteading is technically feasible — and the future ocean nations are hiding in plain sight
The 2022 study mapped oceanic opportunity zones for seasteading—these correspond with Antilia, Brandania, Dalrymplia and Frisland phantom island nations and undersea features equated therewith_
https://christianstatesmanmag.substack.com/p/crossing-the-empirical-rubicon-a
_Creating authentic new countries by seasteading the seamounts: building new nations on the bathymetric features behind the phantom islands — Antilia, Frisland, and Hy-Breasail can become real realms_
https://christianstatesmanmag.substack.com/p/creating-meaningful-new-countries
-Antilia would be a Traditional Catholic startup society
This post presents the vision of Protestant startup societies on existing desert isles that can be augmented by building artificial islands.
It also presents the idea of the Christendom League, an alliance of the nine nations to rebuild the Christendom, that can be founded on the nine desert island groups/archipelagos and artificial islands:
_No need for a "Protestant Franco"; Rhodesia, South Africa, the Dutch Bible Belt and other polities show the way for grounded, realistic traditionalist Anglo-Protestant communities in our era
Covenantal Archeofuturism II: The case for Anglo-Christian Commonwealths beyond the Integralism memes – Toward Protestant statecraft in the post-liberal age_
As case studies I have already presented Austral-Albion, an Anglofuturist Christian startup society federating the South Atlantic desert islands Gough and South Georgia:
_South Georgia: The last, best hope at the edge of the world — What kind of society could be built on the new frontier of 21st century British civilisation?
Envisioning the society that could rise on the southern frontier of the British Empire_
https://christianstatesmanmag.substack.com/p/south-georgia-the-last-best-hope
Another case study is Frisland, an Anglofuturist neo-traditionalist monarchical startup society envisioned to be built as an North Atlantic seasteading empire and by colonising various desert islands equated with the phantom island of Frisland and related phantom islands, primarily the Cape Farewell Archipelago off the southern tip of Greenland:
_Where could Frisland be built? Egger Island off Greenland, Faraday and Minia Seamounts, Rockall Bank and Scotch isles could turn the phantom islands into an Anglofuturist real realm
Egger Island off Greenland, Minia Seamount, Rockall Bank and divers Scottish isles offer opportunities for realising the phantom archipelago as a new Christian Anglo-Celtic-Norse empire_
https://christianstatesmanmag.substack.com/p/where-could-frisland-be-built-egger
_Frisland, Praxis, Atlantis and the Greenland gambit – The Arctic frontier is opening — kingdoms, city-states, and techno-utopians now stake their claim to transform the frozen wilderness
Billionaires, network states and AI accelerationists now eye the Arctic. But only one project names its land: Egger Island — a phantom realm returns, not to simulate Mars, but to restore Christendom._
https://christianstatesmanmag.substack.com/p/frisland-praxis-and-the-greenland
From URL to IRL that clicks
Indeed true
Network States are the first physical expression of the deeper thing happening:
the shift from population-organized societies to computation-organized societies.
Popups and SEZs are the prototype layer.
Synthetic governance is the operating system that makes them scalable.
Balaji mapped the terrain.
The next step is understanding the governance physics underneath it.
I think we should protect 「chains」that book most users' digital assets (agains the collapse of fiat value world) and dedicate to expand to help people's assets to go on-chain, which is happening under the old rules. It's like when Mao protected the biggest group people - farmers's land in China back to 1920-1940s, that helped Mao stand up. Farmers use their decentralized pieces of lands to support Mao's leadership and army. In a world of liquidity and climate crisis, people should at least have means of production, sustainable, to make a living. People should have a piece of chain. On this point, China's power and US's chip should work together. Otherwise, Internet (leaders) should.