# The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan  ## Metadata - Author:: [[Balaji Srinivasan]] - Full Title: The Network State - Category: #books ## Highlights >[!quote] > The short version is that if a tech company is about technological innovation first, and company culture second, a startup society is the reverse. It’s about community culture first, and technological innovation second. And while innovating on technology means forecasting the future, innovating on culture means probing the past. But why? Well, for a tech company like SpaceX you start with time-invariant laws of physics extracted from data, laws that tell you how atoms collide and interact with each other. The study of these laws allows you to do something that has never been done before, seemingly proving that history doesn’t matter. But the subtlety is that these laws of physics encode in highly compressed form the results of innumerable scientific experiments. You are learning from human experience rather than trying to re-derive physical law from scratch. To touch Mars, we stand on the shoulders of giants. For a startup society, we don’t yet have eternal mathematical laws for society.8 History is the closest thing we have to a physics of humanity. It furnishes many accounts of how human actors collide and interact with each other. The right course of historical study encodes, in compressed form, the results of innumerable social experiments. You can learn from human experience rather than re-deriving societal law from scratch. Learn some history, so as not to repeat it. That’s a theoretical argument. An observational argument is that we know that the technological innovation of the Renaissance began by rediscovering history. And we know that the Founding Fathers cared deeply about history. In both cases, they stepped forward by drawing from the past. So if you’re a technologist looking to blaze a trail with a new startup society, that establishes plausibility for why historical study is important. The logistical argument is perhaps the most compelling. Think about how much easier it is to use an iPhone than it was to build Apple from scratch. To consume you can just click a button, but to produce it’s necessary to know something about how companies are built. Similarly, it’s one thing to operate as a mere citizen of a pre-built country, and quite another thing to create one from scratch. To build a new society, it’d be helpful to have some knowledge of how countries were built in the first place, the logistics of the process. And this again brings us into the domain of history. ([Location 233](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=233)) >[!quote] > Eroom’s law — as Moore’s law in reverse. ([Location 265](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=265)) >[!quote] > If a startup begins by identifying an economic problem in today’s market and presenting a technologically-informed solution to that problem in the form of a new company, a startup society begins by identifying a moral issue in today’s culture and presenting a historically-informed solution to that issue in the form of a new society. ([Location 360](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=360)) >[!quote] > The quick answer comes from Paul Johnson at the 11:00 mark of this talk, ([Location 365](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=365)) >[!quote] > A key point is that we can apply all the techniques of startup companies to startup societies. Financing, attracting subscribers, calculating churn, doing customer support — there’s a playbook for all of that. It’s just Society-as-a-Service, the new SaaS. ([Location 438](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=438)) >[!quote] > Once you reluctantly recognize that not every aspect of a sociopolitical order can be derived from an objective calculation, and that some things really do depend on an arbitrary consensus, you realize that we need to maintain a balance between political power and technological truth.39 Towards this end, the Chinese have a pithy saying: the backwards will be beaten. If you’re bad at technology, you’ll be beaten politically. Conversely, the Americans also have a saying: “you and what army?” It doesn’t matter how good you are as an individual technologist if you’re badly outnumbered politically. And if you’re unpopular enough, you won’t have the political power to build in the physical world. ([Location 913](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=913)) >[!quote] > Once we generalize beyond God, once we realize there’s not one but three Leviathans in a Hobbesian sense, much becomes clear. Movements that aren’t God-worshipping religions are often State-worshipping political movements or Network-worshipping crypto tribes. Many progressive atheists are by no means astatists; they worship the State as if it were God. And many libertarian atheists may not believe in either God or the State, but they do believe in the Network - whether that be their social network or their cryptocurrency. ([Location 939](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=939)) >[!quote] > As a preview, that’s where the One Commandment comes in. The concept is that you don’t want or need to start an entirely new religion to build a startup society, but you do need a moral innovation of some kind. If all you have to offer is a higher standard of living, people may come as consumers, but they won’t come for the right reasons. The consumer-citizen is coming to enjoy a great society, not to sacrifice to make a society great. They won’t understand the values that underpin your startup society’s valuation. And you likely won’t be able to build that high valuation or higher standard of living without a higher purpose, just as neither Apple nor America itself was initially built for money alone. You want to recruit producers, not consumers, and for that, you’ll need a purpose. ([Location 1200](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=1200)) >[!quote] > A society that puts Watergate on a pedestal is just fundamentally different from one that puts NASA (or SpaceX) on a pedestal. Because if what’s applauded is putting a man out of work, rather than putting a man on the moon, there will be a lot of cancellation and not a lot of creation. Firing someone should be a necessary evil, not the highest good. ([Location 1328](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=1328)) >[!quote] > Both outside and inside the US, there’s the sense that the US-dominated postwar order is either on its last legs or already over, and that the ancient legislators and endless remakes reflect a fading culture trying to hang on by its fingernails to prevent what comes next. ([Location 1655](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=1655)) - Note: Ater watching the grilling of TikTok CEO by the US Congress, this definitely hits different ## New highlights added [[2023-04-05]] at 1:03 AM >[!quote] > First, some reading on techno-economic history: > - [patrickcollison.com/fast](https://patrickcollison.com/fast) — how fast construction once was. > - [wtfhappenedin1971.com](https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/) — how many economic indicators went off track in 1971, around the time the US got off the gold standard. > - J Storrs Hall: _[Where’s My Flying Car?](https://www.amazon.com/Where-Flying-Car-Storrs-Hall/dp/1953953182)_ — how the world used to be on an increasing energy production curve till the regulatory barrier of the 1970s (see also the [review](https://rootsofprogress.org/where-is-my-flying-car) by Roots of Progress). > - Matt Ridley: _[How Innovation Works](https://www.amazon.com/How-Innovation-Works-Flourishes-Freedom/dp/0062916599)_ — how tech founders always had to fight against the establishment, much like the present day. > - William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson: _[The Sovereign Individual](https://www.amazon.com/Sovereign-Individual-Mastering-Transition-Information/dp/0684832720)_ — how the centralized power of the 20th century is actually historically aberrant. > - Ray Dalio: _[Principles of the Changing Economic Order](https://economicprinciples.org/)_ — how today’s America resembles the Dutch and British empires of the past in terms of its monetary overextension. > - Peter Turchin: _[War and Peace and War](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/299306/war-and-peace-and-war-by-peter-turchin/)_ — how quantitative methods can identify recurrent cycles. > - William Strauss and Neil Howe: _[The Fourth Turning](https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Turning-American-Prophecy-Rendezvous/dp/0767900464)_ — how a cyclic theory of history forecasts a serious American conflict in the 2020s (written in the mid-1990s). > - Brian McCullough: _[How the Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone](https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape-iPhone/dp/1631493078)_ — reminds us that the tech era is very new, only really about 10 years old, and only began in earnest with iPhone adoption. > - Kai-Fu Lee: _[AI Superpowers](https://www.amazon.com/AI-Superpowers-China-Silicon-Valley/dp/132854639X)_ — how the recent history of the Chinese tech buildout in the 2010s shows that they aren’t just copycats. > > Then, some reading on 20th Century history: > > - Curtis Yarvin: _[Unqualified Reservations](https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/)_ — a broad survey of Western historical anomalies, with a focus on the 20th and 19th centuries. > - Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn: _[The Gulag Archipelago](https://www.amazon.com/Gulag-Archipelago-1918-1956-Experiment-Investigation/dp/0813332893)_ — what the Soviet Union was actually like. > - Yuri Slezkine: _[The House of Government](https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691176949/the-house-of-government)_ — how the Soviet Union actually worked. > - Janet Malcom: _[The Journalist and the Murderer](https://www.amazon.com/Journalist-Murderer-Janet-Malcolm/dp/0679731830)_ — how journalists “befriend and betray” their subjects for clicks, a book taught in journalism schools as something of a how-to manual. > - Antony C. Sutton: _[Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution](https://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Bolshevik-Revolution-Capitalists/dp/190557035X)_ and _[Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler](https://www.amazon.com/Wall-Street-Rise-Hitler-Astonishing/dp/1905570279)_ — how different groups of capitalists funded the communist and fascist revolutions respectively. > - Ashley Rindsberg: _[The Gray Lady Winked](https://www.amazon.com/Gray-Lady-Winked-Misreporting-Fabrications/dp/1736703307)_ — how The New York Times systematically misrepresented the truth over the 20th century. > - Nicholson Baker: _[Human Smoke](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Human-Smoke/Nicholson-Baker/9781416572466)_ — how World War 2 was far more brutal and confusing than conventionally conveyed in textbooks. > - Sean McMeekin: _[Stalin’s War](https://www.amazon.com/Stalins-War-New-History-World/dp/1541672798)_ — how Stalin drove WW2, and (among other things) sought to push Japan and the US into conflict so he wouldn’t have to fight either of them. > - Viktor Suvorov: _[The Chief Culprit](https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Culprit-Stalins-Grand-Design/dp/1591148065)_ — how Stalin was preparing to attack Hitler prior to Hitler’s attack on Stalin; vindicated by some of McMeekin’s work. > - John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr: _[Venona](https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300084627/venona/)_ and Diana West: _[American Betrayal](https://www.amazon.com/American-Betrayal-Assault-Nations-Character-ebook/dp/B008BU71BM)_ — how the US was indeed riddled with communist spies before and after World War 2. > - Kenneth Ackerman: _[Trotsky in New York](https://www.timesofisrael.com/trotskys-day-out-how-a-visit-to-nyc-influenced-the-bolshevik-revolution/)_ and Sean McMeekin: _[The Russian Revolution](https://archive.ph/83kDl)_ — How the Russian Revolution was enabled by overseas money and the German High Command in WW1. > - Ioan Grillo: _[El Narco — Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency](https://www.amazon.com/El-Narco-Mexicos-Criminal-Insurgency/dp/1608194019)_ — how Mexico is far more beset by violence than commonly understood, and how this relates to recent American influence. > - Wolfgang Schivelbush: _[Three New Deals](https://www.amazon.com/Three-New-Deals-Reflections-Roosevelts/dp/0312427433)_ — how Roosevelt’s New Deal was directly inspired by fascist Italy and Germany. > - Stephen Kotkin: _[5 Questions for Stephen Kotkin](https://www.hoover.org/research/5-questions-stephen-kotkin-1)_ — how the Soviets were in the final analysis actually devout communists, not cynics. > - Frank Dikötter: _[The Cultural Revolution](https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Revolution-Peoples-History-1962-1976-ebook/dp/B01DNDPPH8)_ — how Mao’s cultural revolution resembles the wokeness of modern America, with the BLM riots of 2020 proving particularly similar. > - Cixin Liu: _[The Three Body Problem](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00S8FCJCQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)_ — while fictional, the first chapter of this book illustrates the madness unleashed under Maoism, and what the Chinese people endured before Deng. See also _[The Secret Document That Transformed China](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/20/145360447/the-secret-document-that-transformed-china)_. > - Bryan Burrough: _[Days of Rage](https://status451.com/2017/01/20/days-of-rage/)_ and David Talbot: _[Season of the Witch](https://www.amazon.com/Season-Witch-Enchantment-Terror-Deliverance-ebook/dp/B005C6FDFY)_ — how America in the 1970s involved far more violent acts and domestic terrorism than is commonly remembered. > - William H. Whyte: _[The Organization Man](https://www.amazon.com/Organization-Man-William-H-Whyte/dp/0812218191)_ and James Burnham: _[The Managerial Revolution](https://www.amazon.com/Managerial-Revolution-What-Happening-World/dp/1839013184)_ — how the US in the 1950s was much more corporatist and significantly less capitalist than is popularly remembered. > - Stephen Wertheim: _[Tomorrow, the World; The Birth of US Global Supremacy](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674248663)_ — how the US did not achieve world domination by accident, but intentionally set out to do so. > - Amity Shlaes: _[The Forgotten Man](https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Man-History-Great-Depression/dp/0060936428)_ — how FDR’s “bold, persistent experimentation” helped turn a recession into a Great Depression. > - Adam Fergusson: _[When Money Dies](https://www.amazon.com/When-Money-Dies-Devaluation-Hyperinflation/dp/1586489941)_ and Mel Gordon: _[Voluptuous Panic](https://www.amazon.com/Voluptuous-Panic-Erotic-Weimar-Expanded/dp/0922915962)_ — the monetary and cultural character of the Weimar Republic, and how it resembles present day America... ([Location 1914](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=1914)) ## New highlights added [[2023-08-27]] at 3:07 PM >[!quote] > The first is that there were N tribes fighting in the Americas before the arrival of the Spanish, the British, and the like. The Europeans simply represented tribes N+1, N+2, and so on. Had one of the Native American tribes developed a technological edge over any of the European tribes, had they invented oceanic navigation, they would likely have invaded Europe. We can infer this because (a) when the Mongols had a similar technological edge they did invade Europe and (b) many North American tribes were by contemporaneous accounts people accustomed to war. So, it’s old-fashioned, but it’s probably healthier to think of the Native Americans more like the 300 Spartans than as helpless victims — brave warriors who fought valiantly but lost to superior forces. The second is that if you read books like Reich’s Who We Are and How We Got Here, it makes clear that history is a boneyard. Contra the opening notes of Microsoft’s recent Ignite conference, there’s probably not a single ethnic group on the planet that simply peacefully occupied their plot of land since “time immemorial.” One tribe’s homeland was once their distant ancestors’ frontier. ([Location 2046](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=2046)) >[!quote] > We can attribute some of this to the pause, to the closing of the frontier in 1890. That closing took away paths for ambitious men, and ensured that they couldn’t easily become founders on their own plot of land - they had to become union organizers, or revolutionaries, or demagogues of some kind. Without the frontier, it all became zero sum. And thus we entered the steel cage match of the 20th century between fascism, communism, and democratic capitalism. There were some important frontier-related technological developments during this period in space shuttles (and cruise ships!), but the frontier itself was not open. ([Location 2083](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=2083)) - Note: Where is the frontier in Singapore? >[!quote] > The Fourth Turning came out in 1997 and is based on a quasi-cyclical theory of Anglo-American history, where conflict erupts roughly every 75 years. If you believe in these patterns and want a possible underlying driver of them, 75 years is about one long human lifespan. So perhaps those who do not remember73 history really are doomed to repeat it. ([Location 2103](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B09VPKZR3G&location=2103))