Online countries are not countries
No matter how cool their residents are.
There is a book out there making the case for “network states”, that is “states” created out of nothing and nowhere by “a group of people who get together on the internet and decide that they’re going to start a country”, run and managed “in the cloud”, and paid with cryptocurrencies, of course.
The whole idea is a pile of crap because it completely ignores that minutiae like ageing, poverty and illness couldn’t care less what pretend country you like to play with. If that review is not enough to prove that point, help yourself to these posts of mine:
- Cruise ship proves that cyberspace does not exist
- Kazakhstan dispels Bitcoin myth
- Cyberspace NEVER existed
Image source: Wikipedia illustration for “LARP, that is Live Action Role Playing”
Who writes this, why, and how to help
I am Marco Fioretti, tech writer and aspiring polymath doing human-digital research and popularization.
I do it because YOUR civil rights and the quality of YOUR life depend every year more on how software is used AROUND you.
To this end, I have already shared more than a million words on this blog, without any paywall or user tracking, and am sharing the next million through a newsletter, also without any paywall.
The more direct support I get, the more I can continue to inform for free parents, teachers, decision makers, and everybody else who should know more stuff like this. You can support me with paid subscriptions to my newsletter, donations via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net) or LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.THANKS for your support!