From: Noah Horton (nhorton@ectropic.org)
Date: Wed Oct 30 2002 - 08:49:42 MST
Great thread!
My first thought regarding your idea is that one function of such a
country, short of founding traditional politcal parties in existing
countries, is to function as a lobby in many countries. A group that
lobbied for, say, legalized stem cell research in western countries, or
boosted funding for NASA and such.
My second thought is that virtual nations exist in a manner today. The
example that comes to mind is the Scientologists. They are a group with a
strong bureacracy, taxation/membership dues, an internal legal system and
international lobby power. Another example would be the Roman Catholic
Church. In essence, any religion with an organized bureacracy is a
virtual nation.
I would certainly support an extropian virtual nation, assuming that it
indeed grows through the bootstrapping you mentioned. My suggestion for
an initial step is to create it as a political lobby in an existing nation
like the US or UK. This would give a quick return on investment for
members and would not require the sort of contractual binding that would
probably turn people off in the beginning.
-Noah
On Thu, 31 Oct 2002, Brett Paatsch wrote:
> Hi Extropes,
>
> Not to minimise the differences between what people actually see as
> desirable goals, I think the biggest challenge in realizing many peoples
> desire to move to better futures, to be part of a better society, to
> accelerate the singularity, or whatever you like, is the lack of a practical
> plan, let alone an optimal plan, for getting from here to there.
>
> As a group of polymathic types I wonder if you'd be interested in a sort of
> though experiment aimed at brainstorming the steps involved in founding a
> virtual country.
>
> We live in a world of sovereign countries. UN membership is exclusive to
> sovereign countries. Individual persons have no corresponding
> meta-organisation they can join, yet a virtual country comprised of
> individual citizens who had specifically opted in, could, it seems to me,
> become a potent source for good whilst also benefiting it's citizens.
>
> We have a global financial system but we don't have a global society to
> underpin it. Which is ironic because capitalism or even the security to
> trade and the confidence to invest and build for the long term requires the
> sort of security that only a strong democracy can provide. But it seems
> national democracies are currently being undermined. When politicians on
> electoral cycles of three of four years struggle for votes in a world where
> voters are concerned by jobs and innovation is making jobs harder to come
> by. Multinational corps (to be successful) need to get into the business of
> regime shopping just as politicians to protect the interests of their
> constituents need to make deals to create jobs. But national democracies as
> currently structured can pose substantive blocks to the emergence of an
> international democracy. Its hard to set up Greek city states in 2002,
> perhaps a virtual country is the way to make some new creative space.
>
> It is difficult to manage global systems that effect us all such as the
> environment, or to give teeth to international human rights, let alone
> transhuman ones. The US, imo, for all its flaws is probably the best working
> democracy in the world at present - its constitution and bill of rights seem
> to set the standard for the protection of the rights of the individual - but
> it limits these rights to its own citizens. If you don't happen to be a US
> citizen you don't get to vote for Bush or Gore etc, but you do get to wear a
> portion of the consequences.
>
> I've heard it argued that democracies are usually pretty good at voting
> themselves money, and perhaps this is a key part of what makes them stable,
> but if this has been true in the past, it is showing signs of being less
> true in the future. Money in modern democracies leaks. People cling to the
> right to a job like galley slaves cling to their rights to an oar, when, if
> AI come along, or even if it doesn't, it is going to make almost all jobs
> redundant (ala Han's Moravec's Robot from memory), so the smart thing to be
> defending is not ones job but ones vote.
>
> If you are a wealthy US citizen, and the same applies to other western
> countries, you can avoid paying substantial amounts of tax with the
> assistance of good tax advice. And this is not necessarily an immoral
> action. A person that legally avoid paying say US$1m in taxes may still
> choose to redirect that same amount of money to he/she see as truly
> benefiting the public good either in or outside their native country.
>
> Within all existing countries there are constitutions, forms of government,
> rights and responsibilities accepted by citizens. Its hard to find physical
> space to found new countries as the land is already possessed but why should
> a country, be bounded by land? At some point with a land purchase perhaps
> the virtual country could become a sovereign country, setting up laws less
> paternalistic. Cryonics for instance might be allowed as a matter of
> routine. A stream lines version of the FDA could enable individuals to
> assume greater share of responsibility for making informed choices and
> trying experimental medicines in the context of absolute rather than
> relative medical risk etc. And eventually a virtual country whose citizens
> leveraged the skills and capabilities of each other in preference in their
> contracts and trade would become wealthy. If they paid tax to a virtual
> government (duly elected) that government could eventually buy land. Once
> the virtual country was seeded and had citizens. Those citizens could also
> perhaps set up more traditional political parties in existing countries.
>
> Different existing countries have different feelings about dual citizenship,
> I understand the US requires one to revoke other citizenships, however, this
> need not be a show stopper, contract law alone may be enough to build a
> layer of optional citizenry atop one's national obligations. Extropian or
> extropian like lawyers, tax experts, investment advisors, researchers could
> probably outcompete most comers on merit in a straight contest. Perhaps they
> may not be so good at organisation and implementation - I'm still wondering
> about that.
>
> The founding would need to be a bootstrap operation. Countries are not born
> instantaneously in their full complexity. Perhaps it might kick off by
> putting together a set of core values or tenets (perhaps like the extropian
> prinicples perhaps not), a sort of "declaration of transcendence" might be
> structured by contemporary Jefferson's, Adamses and Franklins.
>
> An important basic question to ask and answer would be who would be allowed
> to join (those who agree to adhere to the tenets), would there be any poll
> tax to do any administrating. And the core question one should ask and have
> answered - what's in it for me why should I join?
>
> It would seem that crucial is the recognition that rights and
> responsibilities are intimately coupled, the country should not assert
> rights for its citizens that it cannot underwrite with commensurate
> responsibilities accepted by its citizens. This is a key difference I think
> between many existing countries founded on notions that human rights can
> exist without human responsibility existing to underwrite them. i.e.. No god
> given rights unless god becomes a citizen and as a consequence we can be
> sure we have the wherewithal not just the will to underwrite them.
>
> Anyway, that's enough of a gas baggy start, my questions are what would be
> the best way, the key engineering principles if you like of founding a
> virtual country, what would be the key blocks that people see, does anyone
> see merit in the idea of working out in crude blueprint form how to set such
> up?
>
> PS: Sorry about the verbosity, I often write long stuff and don't post it,
> cause I haven't the time to clean it up, sometimes I think good content
> doesn't get sent because I over self censor, maybe my inhibitions are well
> founded - I'll accommodate feedback on this point as well.
>
> Regards,
>
> Brett
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