NN Ep:11 Let a Thousand Societies Bloom with Vitalik Buterin

Transcript

So today we're discussing one of the most interesting and fascinating ambitious experiment in community building that emerged from the crypto and blockchain space which is Zuzalo. And so in 2023 Vitalik Berinos the founder of Ethereum gathered 200 people in Montenegro um in order to leave for two months together and to work together and to experiment together. And the goal was to explore what happens when you bring people together for long enough in order to actually be able to build culture and not just exchange ideas. And now three years after this experiment, we've seen

an explosion of similar project from Edge City to Vitalia to Shanghai, the network school and many more. And those are like pop-up villages, intentional communities, or experimental zones, which are each testing and experimenting with different modes of living in order to explore how people can live, govern themsel, and potentially organize into specific uh actions uh outside of the traditional state structures. But also we have noticed we've witnessed that many of those experiments are getting shorter, smaller or perhaps more generic over time. Uh essentially somehow

drifting back to being just like a long and large conference. And so what distinguish those projects which actually create community and culture from those projects that don't and what will it take to actually produce something that is enduring over time and that actually produce real political communities which can engage in collective action. And to discuss those ideas, we are joined today by Vitalik Buterin who has spent the past three years and many more thinking and also actively participating in the space visiting project from Prospera in Honduras to the GMC in Bhutan and also

who has been writing a lot on this topic and together we want to explore what is working and what's not working. Uh what can we learn from those successful or failed experiments so that we can gather new insights on how to actually build network nations which are not just temporary community and which are not just a gathering of people but actually that can become lasting political actors. Okay. Um so Vitalik, we're really happy to have you with us. Uh the main reason that we're really happy is because um

you are at the inception of Zuzalu uh which I also had the uh privilege to attend for a few weeks and uh Zuzalu was actually the the bedding ground in which the wall um work around what we call now network nation was born. Um so we have very good um anchor point u and um yeah so to start what we would like to discuss with you is actually um if you can tell us a little bit about uh the motivation that brought you to to to instantiate Zuzalu whether it was like something that you had in mind for a

long time whether it was inspired because of Balaji network state book or like what what were you trying to achieve? leave and what were the underlying motivation behind that? >> Yeah. So at the time I uh had been thinking about a lot of uh similar kinds of topics. So and I did read biology's book and wrote that long review of it back in 2022. But also before that in uh 2021, I wrote that post on crypto cities and I'd been thinking about like how crypto could potentially improve uh urban economics. I've been following the charter cities people um even before

crypto uh following some of these different uh movements that were you know like trying to figure out like what it means to create new communities or new or or new societies or new tribes and uh it felt like at that moment at the end of uh 2022 there were a lot of people who like wrote a lot of uh things and uh oh a lot of really interesting discussion, but it felt like it was uh the right time to try to like move things from just talking about things to like much more action and uh like and so my thinking was a little was like let's just do a uh real life experiment and

let's uh do something that like really pushes in uh directions that haven't really been uh done before. Right? So the idea was you bring 200 people together from a few different communities, right? So included the Ethereum community, included you know the longevity community uh some uh rationalists, people who are thinking about AI uh people who are thinking about governance and uh 200 people together in one place uh for two months and basically let's uh try to create a temporary city and see what happens and my thinking had been that uh like there have already been a

lot of things that were like much smaller than that, right? Like hacker houses have existed since forever. Conferences have existed since forever. Even like very large scale things like uh Burning Man existed for a long time. and combining together like both that kind of diversity like having those uh few different communities uh together with the like both having that longer duration and uh that larger scale was uh one of those things that I really wanted to like make sure we actually do and uh not don't compromise on right because uh part of my thinking had been that like the goal is to try to get as close as possible to what one of these in like

new new cities or new societies would act would look like if you try to actually do it. Uh but in in a way that's like still feasible, right? And uh if you do anything smaller than like my thinking was that there would just be too many dynamics that you would miss, right? Like uh in uh the 200 person group we saw people forming their own different subtribes like there uh there were people doing Ethereum related workshops and then there were people doing like exercise and things like cold plunges and running and saunas. There were also people like doing hot pots and karaoke. there were uh people uh like doing just all all kinds of different

things and uh like with the two months duration it really uh got people past the point where they were thinking of the experience as like a break from their life and got to the point where people they were thinking about it as like this for these two months this actually is my life and so yeah I was basically trying to figure out like what is that step right that's much more ambitious than what's uh already been done many times so that we would actually learn some uh interesting new things and then at the same time something that we could still just like do and uh and pull off within half a year. And so yeah, I I decided to like try to do Zulu. And um um one thing that I think was very specific and novel

about um Zuzalu was the membership approach to it which is like uh you know people need to obtain a visa. Uh and that means of course that it's not just I buy a ticket it means that I need to apply and then be accepted. And so I'm I'm quite curious about like that particular selection process. What were you discriminating for or against? Like were you trying like to which extent were you trying to identify people that are part of a particular common culture?

Uh to which extent were you trying to ensure diversity or alignment like what what were you trying to achieve through this selection process? >> Yeah. So the way the process like really worked is we uh found about like 10 to 20 people and then we gave each of them the opportunity to suggest people to invite whom we would in most cases just accept. And uh I the goal I think definitely was that we uh saw a lot of those uh inviters as being like people who had a good sense of what kind of people made would make sense for Zolo within their own community, right? So

some of them came from the Ethereum community and then like different corners of the Ethereum community. Some of them came from uh you know like the the longevity space. uh some came from like the Vienna rationalist community, some from a few other places. And uh the goal was definitely to like find uh find and bring people uh who uh were part of a few particular uh cultures and uh like communities and spaces, but also at the same time like more than just one. um and uh people who uh were interesting who would uh like provide

like value to the uh Zuzula while it was happening also we wanted to avoid uh the uh like the kinds of people who would kind of pop in opportunistically. Yeah. So like basically the kinds of people who would like wants to come in because they're like trying to shoulder projects or like trying to identify Yeah. like things to invest in and so on. >> Yeah. Like we're very worried at the be beginning, right? It's uh like this sort of thing would end up being pretty high-profile and then it's uh like it's like how as happens in the internet, you know, you have your geeks and then you have your mops and your sociopaths and uh like we were trying to be selective.

I think one of the interesting elements I mean I wasn't able to join Suzulu at the time unfortunately but I've heard of course many stories about it and what strikes me always is that it was kind of this shelling point of a lot of people who um were already part of network communities and it brought kind of to the surface the potential of what network community building could be in the 21st century. But in many ways um it is still kind of an emerging vision right there were a lot of offsprings was usually inspiration for a lot of people there were all these um offsprings like FC city and so on which tried to incubate like a similar setup to Zuzaloo but a lot of them are still in the process of trying to understand um what it is that they actually trying to construct in many ways. So I was just

wondering where do you see this currently going directionally? Mhm. Yeah. I part of the goal then right was to like try to give uh all of us more information about like what is the next direction that it actually makes sense, right? Because uh like even at the time it was uh obvious that there were a lot of these uh different visions where the first or second step might like all align because the first and second step is just uh like building the community and like going from an online thing to something in person. But then if you look at the uh like the fifth or the 10th step of uh like what like you up wants to do versus you know what Bology

wants to do versus I mean like even what like Mark L from uh I don't know charter cities institute wants to do versus even like what the longevity people wants to do like there's very uh different longer term goals and uh I mean part of the my interest was definitely in like trying to create more um knowledge and like discover like what next steps actually make sense and I think that that was one of those things that like Zuzle of the event actually ended up not doing uh too much of right like I think it still left you what is the next step as this uh kind of big open question and uh then at

the end of uh 2023 right So half a year after uh we like I made the decision to know decentralize in the sense that like we would not try to make one central community. Uh we would try to make uh like basically yeah encourage people to do all of their uh their own um thing and we saw Edge City come out of that. We saw Shanghai come out of that. We saw forces come out of that. We saw Battalia which then Infinida and uh all viva city and all of those projects come out of it and uh the goal was basically to see well like you

know like let's uh see how some of these projects diverge and like try to cooperate where we can and uh I think we cooperated on some like digital public goods like some of digital infrastructure quite a bit um also cooperated on uh like just getting everyone together to do their popups beside each other in Chiang Mai one and a half years later. I guess I saw those next couple of years as that as uh that sort of process of discovery. And uh I think my uh recent uh like change of mindset since then has uh like the biggest part has been that like I I do believe in permanent locations more. And uh

>> I think like the the main reason why I believe in permanent locations more right is that to me the whole point of uh doing these things instead of uh like people just chilling is uh that you're able to like instantiate a lot of things whether it's cultures whether it's uh governance mechanisms with a lot more depth right and uh if you want that depth then you know you need that like I think you need permanence right I think uh this was pretty obvious to me when I saw like how Shan Haiw was doing it, right? Because like I'm very impressed by uh their commitment to like the cultural aspects of uh what they do. But then and like they do a lot of beautiful

things, but then when you've come and you visited and it's just obvious that like the decorations for example are just paper, right? And of course just paper is the only thing that you can possibly do when you have something that lasts for 40 days, right? And so this is uh part of my uh like I think you know we needs to create things that last uh like at least much longer than 40 days and uh yeah so that's starting to happen now. I think this um this actually relate to the distinction that you make in your uh uh recent post which is I think there's a distinction between like a city and uh and the tribe or the what we call the nation uh which is clearly a

city um an ephemeral city will never be able to be as advanced and sophisticated as a permanent city. Um but I think the interesting question is when we talk about the tribes or the nation um are they are they bound to the same constraints meaning that can we actually create a nation or create a tribe that has this nation nationness uh feature uh in a in a digitally like permanent at the digital level with some instantiation at the physical level or is it also something that require this constant and permanent physicality?

And I think the Zuzelu experiment in my view was quite interesting at the cultural level because I think it started by gathering communities that through the internet had identified themselves as having similar values and somehow as similar approximate culture. But then that by bringing them physically together even if just for two months, this initial cultural affinity has actually been increasingly built.

And then new culture emerged like a new culture which is the zuzalu culture if you want to call it like that which has crime this affinity to a point in which it has actually uh pivoted to the degree of kinship that perhaps was not there when there was just a cultural affinity that was digitally bound. Um so to like to my view like Zuzaloo like and all those pop-up cities what's what's powerful is not necessarily the pop-up city aspect in the city aspect of the pop-up city but it's the possibility for uh digitally align culturally aligned communities to actually build culture

through geographical proximity which they cannot for things that they cannot do like you cannot do the coal plunge uh digitally, but that's obviously also part of a culture, right? So, do do you feel like what you just said about like the cities that uh that your convenings that it needs to be a permanent thing? Uh does it also apply for the tribe slash nationness aspect of things? >> Yeah, it's a it's a good question. Like how much permanence do you need? Like I think uh the one thing that I am confident in is that like we don't want uh everyone in this space to be like jumping between locations every 40 days

like I think uh you know like there's always a spectrum here right and like I think you know if that level is a bit too much and uh like generally I mean like when you uh like jump between locations there's a cost and like some and then always some people are able to come other people are not able to come and then you have to like just like pay the economic costs of like figuring the new venue out. One thing actually on uh physical venues that I think uh like we've only come to appreciate over time is that you know like you there is uh like there's sort of generic physical venues then you can think of the idea of like what would a physical venue that's like totally designed around a

particular tribe be like and then there's like this interesting point in the middle which is well what what about physical venues that are sort of designed more for tribes without uh designing like designing for a super specific one, right? And uh like there's a lot of things that need to be different, right? So like for example, uh the really big one is uh just having spaces where you can do collective like events, right? Like basically yeah, a room that has like a 100 to 200 chairs and a big screen, right? It's like effectively the thing that is a movie theater and the conference room, which is really the same thing. And uh like that's something that's surprisingly

hard to find in a lot of places, right? But then uh and like we uh often work hard to make it happen, right? Like in the originals alo like we basically just built an entire dome from scratch and like lots of people use the dome and it's uh was really this uh super important you know like cultural and like strong points, right? and you know like both the like Ethereum specific stuff and uh like the you know the music and dance and like all of those activities happen there and uh I mean one of the things that we've also been seeing right is that like you have 4C is which is a permanent node in Chiang Mai and then you have we actually see popups that are happening inside of it right

and so essentially you know you have something which is sort of a tribe and uh at the same time you know like sort of a sort of a city and then you also have other tribes that it um that it connects to and like I think this makes total sense right so >> I think there is like there's a trade-off right uh which is um obviously it's annoying that uh people have to travel all over the world in which in order to instantiate themselves and build culture uh geographically uh at the same time if we are only uh location based, then we're also missing out on all the people in the world that could

actually be part of the same cultural entity or nation um because they are not in the same place, right? And so we also want to ensure that there is capacity of discovering and connecting with the people from the other side of the world which for whatever reason happen to have a culturally aligned um artifact and potentially therefore could be uh associated into the same community. Yeah, I I agree. And I think this is like actually one of these big differences, right, between all of these projects and like traditional nations is that like with traditional nations, you know, you're accustomed to membership

being like either zero or one, right? Like either you're, you know, a foreigner or you're full-time. And like this is not the model that works for um any of these things, right? And uh like what you actually see is like you see people like there's always some small core that wants to stay full-time. There's people who come in, there's people who come in more frequently. There's people who come in less frequently. That's a healthy thing I think, right? And uh like different versions of that just uh work for different people. Um and uh yes like there's a lot of value in uh going around and uh like like seeing and interacting with different communities.

Then on the other hand like there's people who is just because of their passports it's uh difficult to be able to go to like literally every single one of them and uh you know if they're able to figure out how to get into even one country then uh it's a blessing and uh and so you know like you don't want to sort of overindex on the the nomad side of things either. So you know like like I think the you know the the right path is being able to support both bands of groups. >> Just like um pick on that with the nomadism because I think like there is some sort of bias of course in these communities that it attracts mainly like digital nomads with tech adjacent I would say um which is a specific kind of

community which tends to have not many like instantiations in specific places because people travel and therefore there's a need for gathering spaces around the world. But then there's also another way to think around network societies in a bottomup way which kind of tries to build a network infrastructure for placebased communities which are value aligned. Let's take for instance the bio regional movement. You have a lot of like placebased instanciations around the world of people who are actually coordinating around the same goals of like integrating nature natural and like human systems. they're building culture around this but they're scattered around the world and so far they have like not the scaffolding I would say to really coordinate at a global scale. So I wonder is there also a way to think around these kind of questions of

>> Yeah. I mean like I feel like the this was something that the the Bitcoin community was like sort of trying to like inch towards I remember five or 10 years ago right because like in Bitcoin community of course you know internet- based very global community and then there was this movement of trying to create these like bitcoin embassies right like there was you know one in Toronto there was one in Vienna there was like some everywhere and uh there were this like community of people who would be who were kind of excited about this concept and uh like for them when they go to different places around the world as tourists like one of the things that they would do is they would go to the local Bitcoin embassy, right? And uh you know the idea is basically like you

see something that still is recognizably your culture in the sense of you know if you're a Bitcoiner then you know they're going to know who Halini is. They're going to be able to talk about the you know the 93 billion Bitcoin bug from 2010. they're going to be able to tell you a lot of unfavorable facts about the Federal Reserve um and so on and so on. Um but uh at the same time like you know in every region there's a different kind of Bitcoin community and that's like part of what makes it interesting and it's like part of the point of uh traveling around and uh instead of just being in one, right? Um yeah. So like I assume I'm like I'm assuming that a lot

of like different spaces have that kind of dynamics to them, right? I want to take the opportunity of you using this example uh in order to actually address the question of like what you use the word vibes and I think what we use the word keen um which is even within the bitcoin community actually uh but maybe the bitcoin community is quite exceptional in the sense that oftent times the the the interest in bitcoin is also a representation of a particular cultural mindset.

um which therefore creates kinship. But but even in the Bitcoin community, there is people that are interested in Bitcoin for very different reason. There is like the crypto libertarian vibes, there is the uh crypto anarchist vibe which are very different and and even more so in many other communities uh whether it's like blockchain communities or non-blockchain communities. So um I think there is this really fundamental question um and I'm raising this question because for some reason probably because of the network state book uh when we talk about those community of kinship we always use the one example uh of the keto kosher nation um which is interesting in its absurdity

in my view um which means it's not because I'm keto that I will be culturally aligned with someone else that is keto. keto just because of my food preferences and even less so there is no guarantee that I will have a a kind of kinship around it. Um and so I think like and we kind of tackled it with Zuzaloo but is like there seems to be like people that are thinking in the line of align community means people that are interested in the same topics and that can speak the same language. uh versus align community meaning more people that for whatever reason uh have a cultural affinity have a common sense

of identity and therefore are much more likely to develop this kind of direct or indirect kinship to one another. uh and and you give the example of like saying that the people at Zuzaloo might not necessarily feel uh at ease at the network school and vice versa. Um so so that's to me that's a very good example of like people that are obviously on paper aligned on many layers uh to what they care about uh but the vibes is not the same right and so in that sense like the tribe uh which I think is more the vibe than the interest alignment um how do we actually

build uh tribes because it's it's harder it's really easy to say hey everyone interested in Bitcoin come to the embassy but it's really hard to say hey everyone with this particular vibe come and let's meet so how do we actually discover uh if we cannot build them how do we discover people that actually share those vibes so that we can understand the extent to which they are part they are part of the same tribe >> yeah so I think there's uh there's two things here right one is that like in a long-term community the thing that uh like binds people uh together is not like shared interests. It's people's interest in each other as people which

comes as a result of shared experiences and uh like that's I think the thing that like Zulo for example ended up creating and it's something that I think also like definitely happens in crypto right because uh like everyone can you know they can bond over like what happens to a price chart when uh you know like like SPF did his thing or like when Nonvox did its thing and you know like various situations on crypto Twitter and like like these situation like these collective experiences are very yeah emotionally meaningful for long right and uh the other part of it is uh like when people don't really yet know each other and when people haven't

really been you know like part of a yeah community then like what like brings them together initially and I think uh okay one of the takes that I have about like things like keto culture is that uh like it claims to be about one thing but it's always in practice about other things right because uh the way that people work I think is that people are like the simplest possible model you can make of a person is uh like basically something like you know like the axioms of mathematics where you try to be like have a very strong attachments to a very

small number of uh ideas and then like sort of develop everything from there. But the way that humans tends to work is like we have weaker attachments to a much larger set of ideas, right? And uh if you uh see like in practice, if people come together and meet under the banner of keto kosher, then like they probably align more than average on like a hundred other smaller things, right? With that like possibly they were not even consciously aware of, right? It's uh it's similar I think to how like on the uh other side if uh like you go to these uh like let's say hipster restaurants right like the kinds of places that like sell avocado toast and

uh like like you know the kinds of beach towns where like people come and like they eat that kind of food and then do yoga and like do water sports and so on, right? Then like you can probably predict things about those people's like political opinions about various topics um about those people's approach to life um about uh you know like how much they value money versus uh how much they value enjoyment about those people's uh like level of connection to their family about those people's religion right like you like these things are always more like more correlated than you I think and uh they're correlated in ways that

you can't really uh like always express in words easily, right? And so like I think this is why it's often easier to identify these kinds of clusters uh like when they already exist than it is to create them, right? Because uh like if you try to create keto kosher without any uh understanding of the existing keto community, then it's very possible that you're going to like end up with people who wants to eat the same the the same kind of food, but then on every other access they're just in a totally different universe from you, right? It's uh I mean it's I feel like it's something that like I've uh had to deal with uh a few times because there were these internet

communities that like I really vibed with and then when I came to like meet them in person I realized that there's all these like 10 other different axis on which they're just totally different people and uh like I think part of what happened there is that uh you know like a lot of these communities they have like some in-person component right but then like growing up you know like in Canada and uh not really doing inerson things I would always be like more disconnected from that side right so like that exists too so like basically yeah so I would uh like if keto kosher works I think it would work because of reasons that like were not written down

on paper anywhere >> exactly yeah um so within the network nation we have this um this important distinction that we're trying to bring forward which is um what is the what is the purpose of those communities that that could become network nation um and uh and we always like distinguish between the internal purpose which is literally just we want to build community with people that we feel alignment at the kinship level um and that's the goal the goal is like the self-recursive thing of like we want to make sure that this community is

prospering and that we are creating better trust and and rituals and stuff stuff like that. And then the other one is more like the external purpose which is that community also has potentially a political agenda uh which obviously also go and serve back the interest of ensuring the prosperity of the nation. But there's this distinction between internal and external purpose. Uh which in some way goes one hand in hand. Um and so when we like I feel like when we define those different flavors of how do we identify the boundaries of a community there is the missiondriven one which is like a community that is gathering around a particular telos around a particular mission or goal and

then we have the other uh definition which is more the community that are gathering because they have kinship because they have a sense of belonging etc because they they are building a common identity and so in some ways like the the telos one is very easy to articulate and so it's easy to gather around uh the kinship one is almost impossible to articulate so you just need to discover it um but they're also inter interwe there is always a connection between them and and in some way they are feeding into each other and so in your uh in your perspective and also in your experience uh with Dalu and many other community. Uh to which extent

can you see that uh the kinship element plays a role uh more so or less so or just as much as the telos? And uh and maybe like uh an important question is also do you feel that because the telos is something that can be more easily articulated does that does it have an consequence that the telos is always brought forward at the defment of the kin of the kinship? >> Yeah it's a it's a good question. And I think there's uh like there's always a trade-off between the two right and uh you know the other thing is that uh if you try to think of the the question

like what is the type of Telosoriented community that is uh like the most prominent and advanced in the world right now. The answer is just a corporation, right? And you know, corporations are a type of community that like have been optimized for hundreds of years around >> which is really not optimized for kinship. >> Exactly. It's like it's optimized around around the telos and uh a lot of the time like the explicit wisdom in like corporate land says things like you know we're a sports team not a family, right?

I think uh that was like well one of the the Netflix people's slogans and uh that's something that like sometimes can uh like deliver outcomes but at the same time it like totally does not satisfy all of these other human needs. And uh like if you're trying to build something that's uh not a corporation uh that and like you're like there's always some balance between these uh between these two things right and uh like basically yeah if uh like on the other side if you uh you know if you don't have a toss at

all then like a like if you set that slider all the down to zero then like I actually think that's unhealthy in its own way, right? Basically because >> yeah um like I mean it is a it is basically a family, right? And that's you know like something that people have already and uh like it just it fails to like like speak to a large portion of human motivation, right? >> And what makes this also what some of the network communities which exist at the moment are facing as a problem. And they're realizing I think when we speak to team or when we speak to John Hillis from Kevin like that vibes um in and of themselves are not enough to sustain a longlasting community because while like

more of a substrate I would say to kind of like because also the internal purpose needs to generate value and value is based in the end of the day in like real material needs and like and like in some idealistic needs of like self-expression and so on. So just vibing in the long term is probably not like the best recipe for building actually like an impactful community. >> Yeah. Yeah. And um you know the Telos has a shelling point, right? That's the other thing and I think that we've uh talked about right that like just talking about some goals like it does attract people who share about those goals and because they've come to like hear about those goals from the same time from you know the same internet

then chances are they're like you know people are similar in that in other ways. Um yeah. So I would say uh the thing that we want is uh like definitely yeah some mixture of uh of of both of those things. Um and yeah because if you don't have that mixture then like I do expect that that like you're you're going to lose people. Then I think there is the there is the space um component which is for instance like uh we've got been to prosper um prospera I would say is logos uh teros first uh it's like pretty goal oriented towards let's

actually create a space in which we can do some things that we cannot do uh in other countries uh because of regulations but at the same time because it's a permanent place there is also culture that emerged out of that right so uh at least like I've only been like uh a few weeks there but maybe you've been more but like did you feel that prosper has um also a commonality of culture and therefore a kinship that emerge amongst the participants or is it mostly and exclusively goal oriented towards like let's make business uh with those new startups

>> um I think It's uh it's like starting to grow aspects of uh the uh of the culture, right? Like I think for a long time it was definitely exclusively focusing on like let's set up the legal environment, let's like set up some basic infrastructure and uh you basically started uh having people who were like basing things inside of Prosper but not really uh interacting with each other much, right? Like there I mean there even are some biotech businesses that are like registered in Prosper but then they yeah like they're actually based on a different part of the Rowatan Island. So like actually still pretty close but about like 5 or

10 kilometers away. It feels like it's a newer thing that uh it's like they're it they're trying to be an actual community, right? And I mean I've like I talked to like Nicholas and Aninger and to and like Lewis and Loness and the other people there and like some of them even mentioned that like Zolu helped like inspire them about the importance of uh that side of things. And so they've uh like the they've started bringing people um in by hosting some events um and like they started having more of a of a of a population

and like those things are just hard to do when you don't have any infrastructure, right? Like the other thing is the physical place there, right? They have an apartment building and then that they also have a sort of golf course style venue and these things can hold like 100 to 200 people. um one restaurant who uh you know like options for food are pretty limited right and uh like people are not going to come for long if uh that's you know the level of infrastructure that you have although actually yeah like I actually think you guys would be uh like better at bringing people to Prosper than the Prosper people ironically enough like you know

there's a a uh there like there's definitely a subset of people who are good at like bringing in the kinds of people who are just uh like willing to participate in some exciting and new thing even if the quality and infrastructure is not great and like you just collectively work together and figure it out, right? And uh like that's yeah it's like the kinds of people where if there's no restaurants like they're going to understand that you just have to self-organize you know and like collectively cooking a dinner with 30 people and uh yeah like that's not a thing that uh exists there right like like that's the kind of thing that you know like someone like a near would be like was be able to

figure out how to um how to do right like those kinds of like the more sort of collectist cooperatives. Um I think uh the mood in Prosper is like more on the side of uh like people coming in and uh like having sort of the same kinds of lives that they would that they would have otherwise. Um and not not kind of adjusting too much. Um, but I think compared to what it was before, like it's uh it's it's definitely shifted quite a bit and like I think it's uh had to >> they also have this fantastic beach which never is used because it's very

bad for the longevity to be under the sun. that they have picked this beautiful location that the only people that are on the beach are the people that don't care about longevity. [laughter] >> Yes. So maybe to tie it back to the larger argument of this conversation. I think in the first part we kind of discussed like the emergence of these network communities and the aspirations to you know achieve political and cultural kind of like goals. uh and that there are certain limitations which we kind of flagged um of this and at the same time we see the emergence now of these new regulatory zones right and Prospera is kind of like the the the intersection of these kind of two movements in many ways one of the many examples that are currently emerging because around the world we see as you

also outlined in your article um that there are states who are tinkering with small extra regulatory zones because they're realizing that the world is changing at a fast rate and often the rule making is kind of lagging behind their kind of governance is outpaced by the speed of change in in the world. So there there is an increasing willingness to kind of create sandboxes in different governments and different nation states in order to tinker and experiment with new regimes of governance and um can you maybe help us to better understand like how these two current trends like this network community building and this new emergence of these zones is kind of uh intersecting and what's the potential

there? >> Yeah. So I think there's been like two different uh I mean or potentially even three different strands of uh like thinking about these new zones, right? So there's a bunch of people who really came at it from the libertarian side and basically saying like look there's all of these oppressive uh regulations that you know we want to get away from and like wants to create a territory where people can be free um to whether you know like work on technology or to like do have like businesses that would otherwise not be allowed or even to say things that would otherwise be. Yes.

censored and uh a lot like at the beginning it had like they were really going for pure full sovereignty right like seasteading in international waters and then uh things like sealand and things like uh Liberland um and uh over time I think a lot of people from that community have sort of moderated and uh like they've shifted toward this uh like more cooperative uh up and like more issue specific kind of approach of uh like both working with governments and also like having specific ideas in mind of like these are the types of things that we like wants to have autonomy in order

to support right and like I would call them like Mark and the charter cities institute as being like one of those types of people potry freedman is uh probably also one right so that's one community another group is uh people who have uh Mulik looked at it from the government perspective and uh like a lot of them are inspired by Shenzhen, right? Because like what they did in Shenzhen is basically they established a separate zone in China which was uh it was not like obviously not as autonomous uh as Hong Kong was. I mean Hong Kong was not even part of China until 97, right? But at the same time like it had very

different rules. It even did have like somewhat of an internal border. Um, and you know, people like the goal was to attract people to come and like basically have sort of more open economic policies and like build things from scratch, like basically build a new city from a a fishing village. And it's been super successful. And if you go there, it's like a a really impressive city, right? And so a lot of people like really focus on that kind of example and uh basically ask like from a government perspective, you know, how do you reform and modernize the country um in a

way that still minimizes risk and that minimizes like political constraints, right? And so the solution basically is well if he wants to change those things, don't change them across the entire country. you create this kind of separate sandbox zone that has some level of buffer so it uh you know doesn't uh like affects the whole country and then you know you do you do some things uh differently there right and uh in like lots of countries have this right and like these are countries where they're totally not you know like vibes aligned with like crypto or libertarians or network spaces states or network nations or any of this like it's it's much more of a like industrialish

thing, right? And so, you know, you have like the Dubai International Financial Center. You China has like a huge number of uh free trade zones with like various different types of free trade. I mean, recently, I think they're announcing that they're turning Hainan into like a much more comprehensive sort of semifree zone in a lot of ways. And uh then the uh like I think the Charter Cities Institute really kind of emerged to sort of bridge the libertarian perspective and that kind of perspective which I call sort of developmentalist and uh like figure out like what is uh something that like clearly provides value for countries. Um

so yes and then you know in Bhutan the GMC a Galofu mindfulness city is like also like I view it as being one of these projects that's sort of in the middle between being developmentalist and being sort of idealistic in its own way right that it's uh you know it's trying to like essentially create a a Hong Kong for Bhutan but uh at the same time in uh ways that are kind of unique to I I mean both you know traditional Bhutan culture and to the like the kinds of uh ideas that like the the uh you know like people in Bhutan's governments are interested in um and so like all of these things are like proceeding in uh

their own way and it feels like generally you know the the world of like law regulation is sort of moving away from very large scale uniformity and uh it's uh moved toward much more of this kind of like local you know like two level three level structure and uh like having having different zones having different jurisdictions having you know like nations inside of a nation and uh all of the all of these things and then uh yeah I see the intersection of this with tribes as being something that's like I think it's it happens a little because there's like thematic alignments between these two areas right but The reason why I'm like bullish on that

combination is it's like somewhat more of a a theoretical reason which is basically that you know if you're China like you can do a Hong Kong right or you can do a Shenzhen if you're I mean if you're Saudi Arabia then like you know you can uh like build you know 2 kilometer tall towers and neon and so on uh because they just have such a huge amount of money with oil though I mean there's obviously lots of challenges is in the things that that they're trying to do, right? Like if you have a a massive amount of capital on that scale, then like you have a chance of creating these uh like new nodes that are really at the center of

global network effects. But if you're anyone else, then you don't, right? Like Bhutan is not going to create a literal generic financial hub that's able to compete with Hong Kong, right? I mean even Honduras is not like even if even if Honduras is uh like had full support from the government and the people and Prosper like even then like they would have an uphill battle becoming a yeah a mainstream biotech hub that could compete with America right like playing that network effect is an uphill battle and so if you can't succeed at generic network effects like I think you should try to succeed at specific network effects right you like you should try to succeed within a particular niche. And

uh one of the points I made is that if you think if you look at like examples in the real world of niche specific cities, then like the one example I gave is like ski towns and surf towns like they're 1,000 to 5,000 people and they're great places to live and people live in them. University towns often 30,000 to 150,000 people. Great places to live, people live in them. um Longerbian, you know, the northernmost town in the world, 2,600 people, right? And so if you care about a niche, then like you can survive just fine even for a few thousand people, but then if you wants to organize a niche, then like basically you have to be not generic, right? And so I think the yeah, like

this is it like you basically have to have some kind of community building strategy that is not just, you know, like raw scale. And uh like that that's the thing that uh like I think this other movements can help in. And so in your um in your blog post you do you discuss about the archipelago uh which personally I really enjoy uh because I think it's very line with our we we we call this like the translocal communities but I think it's pretty similar which is um different places um around the world that somehow can interconnect. Um the way you present it is specifically about like having those

zones uh which might be or might not be I guess autonomous or you know autonomous regulatory zone or what not. It can also be just a place that uh that is in the standard jurisdiction uh which become those kind of host uh for the tribes. Um, and I'm curious about like why um why do you specifically uh describe the archipelago as uh not being integrated, right? Having this uh this um this horizontal space in which you have different zone and then the tribe plugging in and out on those zones. uh as opposed to an archipelago being specifically zone integrated with

the tribe uh that also potentially interconnect with one another. >> You see ar the archipelago being like integrated oh I see like why yeah like why I see tribes and zones as being like separate things instead of the two eventually merging. Um yeah, why why is the zone I like the idea that the zone is the platform and then different tribes can plug in and out but I also can see another vision that is hosting together the the tribe mult the tribe that can be also decentralized between multiple zones but that the zone and the tribe are actually um attached.

>> Yeah. I mean I I I do see both being uh possible right like I mean like I think the sort of prototype example probably is forces right where I mean it's like forces doesn't have any kind of autonomy but it's like a physical location and it hosts a lot of pop-ups but then at the same time like it's not a generic space right and it's like a space that is attached to some particular cultures and some particular um ideas and I think like the highle Reason why yeah I was uh thinking about zones as platforms is uh basically because like the kinds of skills that it takes to make a zone is like it's really hard right like you need capital you need to understand

governance you need to understand constitutional law you need to understand like what attracts business uh you need to understand like international diplomacy negotiation um you know you need to be able to like go to the kinds of companies that are building airports and like get them to come and build your airport. It's uh you know it's a lot of uh things that uh like none of the three of uh us are like good at doing at all. Right. And uh and so generally you know when you have like these different parts of a stack that just require different specialties to the point where they require totally different personalities then uh you know like having some kind of uh like

separation and uh collaboration between those two is uh something that just naturally makes a lot of sense. I think uh like to the extent that they like that they would merge more, I would expect like one example to pull on that we could talk about might be like GMC, right? Um because uh like I think GMC is interesting because they uh on the one hand you know they wants to create this autonomous uh zone to try to attract both like international talent and also even Florida to attract Bhutanese people who are otherwise like leaving the country for economic opportunities in Australia uh to be able to come back and uh you know do things inside of Bhutan.

Um but also like they do not want to make GMC into a generic Hong Kong, right? They Yeah. or or or Dubai or something like that, right? They Yeah. Like they want to create something that has some cultural aspects uh to it. And uh I mean even right now right like their government is uh like it's engaging with you know like people like us uh you know like what in the Ethereum Foundation it's engaging with these different groups and so I could see u like places like that as you know like specializing in particular kinds of tribes. Um, I could also see there being like zones that are

like homes of big tribes, but then at the same time they have embassies in uh other places, right? Like you could totally imagine like for in the future if uh like GMC is a big community that has a uh that has a culture and that has people there that know each other and that has like 50,000 people like this that there are going to be such there's going to be such a thing as a GMC in New York, right? And uh at that point then it makes sense for like GMC to have its own space in New York that people go to, right? Like that's uh like I I could I could see that happening. I see that m making a lot of sense. I think like another I think another interesting angle to approach this question for

potential collaboration between zones which are usually embedded in nation states and um these tribes um is to see how the supply of ideas in the tribes which are often like a group of people who are very future oriented right they're tinkering with new governance tech and so on can match actually the real world demands and the needs of these jurisdictions because I think there's sometimes in these conversations it seems a little almost abstract to because I feel to a certain extent it needs to be tied back with the actual needs of the citizens in the spaces where these tribes trying to integrate in. So I think like one question for me would be like how can tribes like for instance ash city which is like specifically stating that they want to be an incubator for future societies. or

can they come to like a place like Bhutan and actually help them to generate maybe new governance regimes or systems or innovations that actually in the local area help to generate public value. I think yeah for zones right like for them to work the a central goal of them has to be generating public value right and uh like GMC is definitely designed around this question of uh basically how do we level up Bhutan in a way that preserves the continuity of the yeah of the people and the culture and like those two things are like bas basically just explicitly yeah you know the goal of the of the whole project.

And uh like for these uh zones to make sense at all, for them to be sustainable, for them to maintain their status in a country and uh like even you know survive uh you know situations where people come in and use the autonomy to you know what do things that uh eventually inevitably generate crazy media articles like you know they have to like provide value that uh to people that's uh like not even just zero that's pretty substantial, But I think it's not always like a pre-given configuration.

If we look at um prospera um with all respect, but there is I think s sort of a mismatch between what is being generated in terms of value in that extra regulatory zone and the needs of the local community for instance right like it's mainly leaving space for people to tinker with health tech and attracts global investment and so on. >> So this is something which needs intentional design. And I think that's just all >> which I think is the difference because GMC is actually by Bhutan is is created by the government as opposed to >> treated by an external group that uh has probably more like profitorium that interest than than the national state.

[snorts] >> Yeah. And I think like I mean was pro prosper I mean know I expect in its uh position like like I think it's it's obvious to them right that you know to to be able to survive like they have to uh turn uh what they have into a win-win for um you know like enough uh enough people in the country that they have borders. Um, so like I uh I would expect even projects that are initiated externally like they're they're going to have to you know end up coming to that kind of realization, right? Like there's just uh like the idea that you just go in and sign a contract and like you get

50 years of autonomy and then you know you have to care at all. I think is just that like the reason why it's unrealistic is that there's like there's always, you know, things that were not that that are not specified in the contract, right? And there like there's always more opportunities for like positive collaboration and know between the two uh the the two sides, right? And uh like to me the uh like the most natural positive thing that you can provide is basically give local people an opportunity to stay in the country while participating in frontier science and technology right and uh like basically you know can we make biotech

um and AI and crypto and all of these things something that uh like everyone's part of instead of being something like you have to be in New York um or SF or or or wherever uh to be part of And uh actually uh like if you actually can achieve that then like you win a lot of local friends right and uh of course you know if you can't then like I mean potentially if you're like somewhere off in a corner like 200 kilometers away and people kind of forget about you then like potentially you can survive right I'm like you know I can like I guess that's like you the

Liberlands uh kind of uh strategy which is sort of more on the side of like okay you know we're far away and we're just doing our own thing. Um >> and there are no locals in Liberland. So there is no risk. >> Indeed. Exactly. There's no but but at the same time you know there are locals who are 5 kilometers away from Liberlands, right? And like if you can turn Liberland into something where like locals from 5 kilometers away are like coming in and uh like they're able to interact uh interact with people working on like biotech and like learn things.

Yeah. then like you get more friends, right? And uh like I think stability is never like is is never as guaranteed as it as it is on like words written on paper. And so yeah that it's uh like basically I think there's a limit to the extents to which you can pursue the strategy of like you know we're uh we're we're just off in the uh in uh in the corner and we're not touching you. So you so you can't uh and so we expect you not to touch us. Like I uh I expect all of these things to be uh you know more stable if they uh if they find ways to engage more and um pro and provide more of that positive value. And then like in

Prosper you know the thing that we've seen so far is like there are Hondurans that are on the team there are people locally who are starting to or who already have been like building businesses. Uh so some of that is like exists. It feels like more like more than it it was before. Um >> one last question because we're running out of time. Going back to the archipelago. So um I think the the concept of the disentangling the zones and the uh and the tribes is great. Um and it also align with uh many of the uh framework uh that we have within the

network nation where like the nation states remains as the landlord and then the network nation can plug in and out or create partnership in different ways. Uh, one thing that actually was surprising uh to me when reading uh your post is that you discuss a lot about like the spaces uh with the zones and the population uh with the tribes. Um but you actually don't discuss more much the question especially in the context of the archipelago you don't discuss much the question of like the institutional government structure and in particular because if if the tribes is connected to the zone then the zone is the governance of the tribe but if

you have tribes that are actually in the ether and uh sometimes instantiating themselves into different zones then the tribe still needs its own governance structure. ructure its own institutional framework. Um, and I'm very curious because of course as the founder of Ethereum and web three uh uh advocate how come like how come you don't discuss that uh and also do you feel that in order for those because like existing nation that exist in a nation states they have the infrastructure of the states the the population of the zone they have the infrastructure of the zone etc. But those tribes or those network nation that live uh not in a particular

territorially um I mean they humans live in a territorial uh area but the network nation as such does not have geographical boundaries. So how do they actually govern themselves and is blockchain or decentralized technology and whatnot are fundamental and require infrastructure in order to create governance structures that are not bound within a particular server which is controlled by a particular sovereign whether it's a corporate sovereign or a or a political sovereign. So yeah, what's your uh what's your take in particular because you promote this archipelago vision like where is the governance infrastructure in that uh

framework? >> Yeah. So one of the things that we discovered after uh Zo was like there's definitely you know strong pressure for the governance like thinking to sort of fall away um especially in the context of some of these popups right because at the beginning um you know we were thinking like okay we did solo and then after it like we should figure out some kind of proper dow but then the thing that I think people sort of quietly realized is like when you just have popups And the governance that what works surprisingly well is just forking right like basically you know you make a popup and then every popup is organized by a small uh founding uh team and it's like basically benevolent short-term

dictator and then if they don't do a good job then like basically someone else can come and uh like say well I'm doing my own and then people will uh migrate over right and you know we even saw like Vitalia like split in half And uh like there were two forks of that, right? And I generally think that uh like forking as governance is uh something that's often underrated because there's like this instinct to formalize uh but then often you know formalizing has its costs like it makes legible the uh the illegible and and it ends up like eliting a lot of things and uh like forking as governance is sort of this uh traditional open-source uh like

approach that always uh sort of works unreasonably effectively in a lot of situations. But then the challenge is that eventually like that is going to run up to its limits, right? Because uh if you build something permanent then like you can't fork it. I mean it's possible even that like you can fork a tribe but you know you can't fork a zone, you can't fork a permanent location. And uh that's uh like I hope that we come back to uh like figure fig figuring out governance more uh thoroughly right and I like I think this is also connected to this uh bigger issue that we see in crypto right it's

like there's this mood in 2025 that sort of house are dead governance is dead let's just go back to companies >> and I think uh you know you have to sort of engage with that and like understands the reasons why people have been disillusioned with the sort of initial decade of Dows >> and but then we have to come back and realize like wait actually yeah we know corporations and financialized governance also have a problem and like and we need to >> figure out the better thing. Yeah, just like a very last thought on this or a question, but um because you're inverting this relationship in a way yourself like you could say we see that crypto is in this kind of identity crisis to certain extent, right? The original web 3 promise is not fully I think rolled out at this point and

there's all these institution players like backrow coming in and like we have a lot of da governance structures without really users and so on. Um so the question is really is there a need for new political projects or a plurality of political projects that can reinvigorate the old promise and and kind of aspiration of the web 3 scene because in a way decentraliz decentralization is a worthy goal but it seems to me at least it's a means to an end right like a decentralized society in itself is not um a political value at least for me personally so I wonder how like the tribes and like constructs like the network nations and network societies and so on can help reinvigorate also the crypto scene and

maybe provide some sort of a new northstar for parts of this community. >> Yeah, there's definitely like a need I think to reinvigorate you know governance and Dows and all these things on like new principles and uh like if I had to guess what some of those principles are. I mean one of them is uh like like privacy right like a lot of governance mechanisms break because I mean know all of your votes are private. Um, another one I think is like we as the crypto space should be willing to be less dependent on blockchains everywhere. I do think uh for a long time we had a kind of hammer and nail mentality where we basically said like hey the thing that we have is a blockchain and therefore we should try to stick everything onto it and uh you

know the reality is like blockchains are one tool sometimes they make sense sometimes they don't make sense and uh like now in things like ZK have become more mature like even things like CRDTs have become more mature like it's h it feels like there is more willingness to work with things that are not uh blockchains um and uh you know that that are also not tokens more and uh I think that's healthy um and then the other thing is like you also need a new season of uh users right like uh the like getting optimism to change how it works is hard because there's an existing set of

stakeholders that are invested in how optimism works today right and then also if you design a new governance for optimism, then like your new governance is going to at the same time create winners, create losers, and uh it creates big incentives for people to like push really hard to try to get themselves into the winning position. And so existing big things are possibly not even the best environment uh for uh figuring out uh like newer forms of governance or Dows. And so, uh, I think like I'm more optimistic about newer projects, right? And I think that includes like newer crypto projects and it includes in like newer, uh, popups or, uh, or tribes or permanent hubs.

>> Okay. Thank you, Vitalik. As a as a closing thought, um can you give uh hopeful uh hopeful positive um take on like for uh us and for many people around us that are trying to promote and build uh this concept of network nations? >> Um what do you think is the thing that uh what is the lowhanging fruit that uh we should be focusing on the most? It's a good question. Um like I think cuz I think the lowh hanging fruit uh depends a lot on uh what specific thing that you're building like cuz I think uh like the wrong way to approach this is

probably I wants to make a nation and uh therefore let me figure out the part and things that a nation needs right like the right way to approach this is going to be more I have an existing community and this existing community has particular needs and like let's figure out a uh a nation as a way of addressing those needs >> and connecting connecting the existing communities. >> Connect connecting the existing communities and empowering um existing communities to like do uh do things that they collectively care about. Yeah. like I would uh basically start with uh the question of uh like what are what are your community's needs in terms of both

being connected to each other and in terms of like things that that community wants to do or things that that community wants to see in the world and then like from there the uh you know this the step one and step two of lowhanging fruit should come out. And um do you have within your own network or uh not directly connected like ideas of uh potential pilot communities that are kind of like navigating around in the space of protoet networkhood? Um and that could somehow benefit from this framework. question like I mean I feel like you know the kind of extended Ethereum community has a lot of aspects of like proto network nationness to it

as well right and uh like I think one of the uh things that's uh happening over the last couple of years right is that like it's uh it's starting to become more clear the uh like the kinds of things that like that group of people is uh interested in that go beyond like Ethereum the blockchain and then at the same time on the flip side that there are a lot of people you know using the Ethereum the blockchain that are not connected to that's like that other side of things at all right and uh yeah like there's a lot of these uh fascinating different corners of the uh Ethereum world and you know they I think there's

a lot of commonalities in terms of like caring about decentralized and self-s sovereign technology um in terms of um you know caring about uh caring about freedom in terms of caring about like things like uh like public goods and like solving these big collective problems. Um and of course it's like a group of people that have uh been with each other in many cases for 5 to 10 years. Um and so I feel like I mean I don't think he wants to like try to organize all of that into one big super tribe, but I feel like you know sprouting um tribes from that is the right thing to do.

>> Okay, cool. Uh, Vitaly, that was great. That is fun. >> Uh, thanks a lot. And, um, yeah, we'll keep in touch. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you.