vitalek on 1000 societies bloom ness

vitalik buterin via tweet [https://x.com/VitalikButerin/status/2001368474522878409?s=20]:

My latest views on popups, network states, coordi-nations, zones, and where all of these things could lead us. (Long poast) https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/12/17/societies.html

notes/quotes from post:

Let a thousand societies bloom dec 17 2025

Special thanks to Zachary Williamson, Afra Wang, Mark Lutter, Balaji Srinivasan and Primavera di Filippi for feedback and review

primavera de filippi

One of the recurring ideological themes of the last few decades has been the idea of creating entire new communities, cultures, cities and even countries. Instead of having a fixed number of these, all slowly changing, we can “let a thousand nations bloom” (where “nation” can cover the full spectrum from a glorified internet forum to a literal country), giving people more choice and opening up space for more pluralistic independent innovation. Instead of your membership in one being an accident of birth, *each person can choose to gravitate to the communities that best fit their values.

*not deep enough.. need to start with itch-in-the-soul.. and go from there.. if gravitating to communities ness.. will just be same song.. not legit free people.. only persuaded.. voluntary complianced.. whales

Some strands of this thought include:

  • Various attempts to make “digital countries”, to various degrees of seriousness
  • Balaji Srinivasan’s 2022 book on “network states”, which I reviewed
  • The “coordi-nations” and later “networked nations” movement
  • “Phyles”
  • Seasteading (and also on the purist end, Liberland and Sealand)
  • The Charter Cities Institute (see also: my own thinking about crypto cities)
  • Attempts by existing nations to “renovate” themselves, such as Estonian e-residency, and more recently on a bigger scale, Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City
  • Similarly-themed projects from earlier generations, eg. Freetown Christiania and Walt Disney’s city EPCOT

network state ness.. phyle ness.. estonia ness.. bhutan – himalayan utopia ness.. vitalik on network sovereignties.. et al

to me.. nothing to date legit free.. because no one to date has gotten to the root of problem

legit freedom will only happen if it’s all of us.. and in order to be all of us.. has to be sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do

how we gather in a space is huge.. need to try spaces of permission where people have nothing to prove to facil curiosity over decision making.. because the finite set of choices of decision making is unmooring us.. keeping us from us..

ie: imagine if we listen to the itch-in-8b-souls 1st thing everyday & use that data to connect us (tech as it could be.. ai as augmenting interconnectedness)

the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]

there’s a legit use of tech (nonjudgmental exponential labeling) to facil the seeming chaos of a global detox leap/dance.. for (blank)’s sake..

ie: whatever for a year.. a legit sabbatical ish transition

otherwise we’ll keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. [again].. for (blank)’s sake..

These ideas are diverse. Some of them are explicitly about getting as much legal autonomy as possible, and using that platform to create new laws from the ground up. Others value a more gradualist approach, and a more long-term closer connection to existing groups and institutions rather than re-building everything from zero. Some focus on countries, others on cities, and others on cultures. Some are more left-leaning in ideology, others are more right-leaning. In many ways, it’s like where the crypto space was five to ten years ago.

In 2023, seeing all of these ideas mature inspired me to run Zuzalu, an experimental “popup city” in Montenegro: bring ~200 people, from multiple communities – Ethereum, longevity, rationalism, AI – together in one place for two months, and see what happens. Zuzalu succeeded as an experiment, and in my visits to various other “new city” projects I often heard the feedback that it inspired them to take culture and community building more seriously. But the experiment left unanswered a key question: what happens next?

for notes on zuzalu: michel on pop up villages; jon on pop up villages; ..

again.. not getting to root of problem.. need to try a sabbatical ish transition

In this post, I give my updated picture of this space. I will first review what I think we have learned since 2023, when the space moved from vibes and whitepapers to real-world experimentation. I will then sketch out a concrete world that this movement could be driving towards, what new types of entities will emerge, and what concrete value they can provide.

Table of contents

As a result of all this, I have noticed a worrying pattern: over time, popups would get shorter in duration, smaller in scope, and more generic in substance, to the point where in the limit they approach being simply a few more conferences and hackerspaces. Outside the Zuzalu-verse, I saw Praxis aspiring to big dreams of a new Mediterranean renaissance, but in practice mostly delivering parties in upscale cities in the United States. (Since then, they seem to have switched to pursuing the American military dynamism topic)

For all of these reasons, I have started advocating for Zuzalu-inspired communities to start having permanent nodes. There already are a few: Frontier Tower, Crecimiento, and 4seas’ two nodes (one city, one mountain) in Chiang Mai, with others under construction (additionally, of course, there is Balaji’s Network School). But even with these, in the back of my mind *I always fear the “regression to the mean” that they will turn into glorified coworkingspaces, and lose all of their cultural or experimental interestingness. **Making sure that this does not happen is an ongoing challenge, and indeed it is a primary goal of this post to paint a clearer picture of what alternative future these projects could be driving toward.

*will always be.. as long as any form of m\a\p.. maté trump law et al

**again.. need to try something legit diff.. something we’ve not yet tried.. the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

Now, let’s get into actually explaining what I think this future can be.

So what would a successful “intermediate institution” of this type, adapted for the needs of the 21ˢᵗ century, look like? I will propose my answer. It needs to be some kind of neo-tribe or other institution that focuses, and meaningfully innovates, on the thing that humans do that isn’t generic: culture.

rather.. needs to start from the itch-in-8b-souls.. first thing.. everyday

In short, culture is the patterns of human behavior in a particular community.. In short, culture is a big complicated blob where actions, consequences, statements by leaders and theories by intellectuals all influence each other in every direction.

so already cancerous distraction.. because ie: graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al.. we can’t let go of the idea that we have to influence (ie: people telling other people what to do) .. makes no diff how nice/free sounding we make it.. as long as any form of m\a\p.. will keep perpetuating the same song.. the whac-a-mole-ing ness of sea world.. of not-us ness.. of part\ial ness.. [again].. for (blank)’s sake..

And so I think we need a different path. What we want is a better “world game” for cultural evolution: an environment where cultures improve and compete, but not on the basis of violent force, and also not exclusively on low-level forms of memetic fitness (eg. virality of individual posts on social media, moment-by-moment enjoyment and convenience), but rather on some kind of fair playing field that creates sufficient space to showcase the longer-term benefits that a thriving culture provides.

oi.. all the cancerous distractions.. ie: any form/degree of competition ness et al

Truly instantiating a culture with any level of depth requires not just talking about the culture’s themes, but actually living them. This requires deep immersion, instantiating the culture’s values and aesthetics and practices at a level that goes far beyond a few decorations and posters. . I expect getting hubs right to be the next important step for these kinds of “tribes” to succeed, and an important training ground for them to figure out culture, governance and other issues at a much deeper level.

need to focus on bachelard oikos law ness as ‘hub’.. where itch-in-8b-souls is the driver.. rather than any/all form(s) of m\a\p

So far, we have talked about innovating in culture. The more radical part of the free cities and network states space started by asking a different question: how do we get more innovation in rules – that is, the regulations, laws, and political systems that govern the physical spaces that we are in?

the ‘innovation’ we need here.. is to let go of rules, regs, laws, .. any form of m\a\p

again.. the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

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