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I’m eternally grateful to be alive in this time and age. I’ve been thinking about the end of the nation state for most of my life, but I considered it an abstract concept for the longest time. I was never quite sure if we would achieve it or not during our lifetimes.
But after this wild wild week of bitcoin events — watching regulators steering at crypto-currencies, not quite sure what to do about them, and knowing that their own days are numbered because of it — well, that crystallized everything for me. It’s happening right now, as we speak: not through any violent revolutions; no one is standing on any barricades; there are no slogans, no songs.
We’re simply, piece by piece — slowly and in a disciplined manner — replacing every single service the government is providing, through global, decentralized networks. We’re watching what will perhaps be the biggest shift in human history. Getting rid of geographical monopolies on violence, and becoming our very own, self-governing entities, all now made possible through technology, for the very first time in history. And we’re all part of it, passively or actively.
Westphalia (the modern nation state) won’t crumble because it’s overpowered. It will disappear because it’s simply no longer needed. Remember these three astonishingly beautiful words: death by irrelevance.
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