How to Start a New Country - an Extension
Why do you need a new country? What if you had a chance to start again. What kind of world would you like to build?
My ideal world would be a borderless, completely globalised earth. In the cloud country, everyone has the right to enter without baggage and prejudices. It does NOT matter where you are physically or where you’re from. You provide value to the community and you would be paid in cryptocurrency, a global internet money which is not nation based. You’re not paid cheaply in rupee or rupiah just because you’re in India or Indonesia. People would be treated according to the merits of their services and the value they provide. This gives people the same level playing field. Everyone starts the race from the same starting point. Your origin, history, class, prestige points gained in the real world are irrelevant. Your work speaks for itself.
In the cloud country, the society would be built based on social tokens, a sort of karma points based on a vast variety of factors. You gain points by contributing to the community, helping somebody, creating content, building a product, providing a service, entertaining people, anything that provides value. This would be the credibility that people can build and would be measured in.
In the world midst and post covid, the idea of building a vast amount of society and structure on the Internet does not seem far fetched. A lot of us seem to have been doing a lot of that in the past year, staying in our little physical bubble in the real world, and ‘traveling’ really far in the virtual. Once you connect to the Internet, you enter a different universe, you fly through the entire globe, communicate with people, exchange ideas, work, earn income, make transactions, meet new people, while physically your butt does not move an inch. Apparently one’s mind can go really really far.
As a software developer, what I’ve built my entire life comprises of bits on computers and the internet. The bits have translated into physical house, properties, furnitures, food, tangible stuff. It’s not hard to imagine economy that runs entirely in the cloud, that translates to value in real physical world. Obviously we would still be living in the real world and under the jurisdiction of another country. But this is not too different with working remote. When you live in any one country, you occupy a space, you obey the laws, use the infrastructure, and pay taxes.
When the culture and the governance has been established and the kindred spirits have been found, perhaps the idea of crowdfunding territories can be explored, providing safe havens and homes for the citizens of cloud country. Since this is a global community, it’s only natural for the enclaves to be scattered around the earth too. Unfortunately, this is where my imagination has to clash with the real world. The physical space would always be the biggest challenge, as the earth is looking very crowded and I don’t think anyone would spare any piece without a fight.
A thought experiment for now, but one can dream.