I should preface this by saying I have not read the book.

I feel like the concept of Network States can only thrive when they bridge into our physical world, by offering safe travel, shared skills or by offering benefits like legal representation.

It’s clear there is a shift and movement to online communities, but people are just happy to limit this discussion to shitposting & giving opinions, and distracting themselves from their real lives. This chatter is like spam to the idea of a Network State, it gets in the way of coordinated action.

Network States to me only reach their potential when there is a geographical HQ, however small, to build from, to meet or to reallocate resources from. It cannot just be distributed and located in the fetaverse. We would otherwise have seen them emerge already.

What Balaji has effectively done is rebrand the popular view that we will see smaller Sovereign Communities, who can generate outsized returns, no longer requiring economies of scale. He’s a very good salesman, but not yet to me a visionary.