Julien 'Andrew' Starr

These are some compelling and even novel ideas, though might it not be better for a digital country not to tax and not to borrow if it can get away with doing so? If anything, might it not be better for a digital country to give rather than take? Meaning that a digital country could offer a dividend, a UBI, or some form of negative income tax. Let digital countries compete for citizens and users by offering them the best incentives.

"Historically, nations were not engineered in advance" and "The first internet country will not be declared." These points, beyond being brilliant observations from your awesome article, merit extra attention and praise.

On the first point, you're not only right, but it should also be pointed out that this is one of the big challenges that we at the Startup States Society are facing with respect to supporting founders trying to start new countries on dry land, as well as our peers in the Network State ecosystem. In fact, that is very much what we are proposing to do: engineer new countries from first principles and using best practices within the framework and rubric of existing international law.

To your second point, I couldn't agree with you more, and in fact that's part of the logic behind Network States: that by their sheer size and weight, it will become apparent that they are enjoying a state of existence. I'll take it a step further. To such a degree that whether they are recognised in a de jure form by existing nation-states may not be so relevant, provided, for example, that documents, certificates, or other instruments created or drawn up by the world's first internet country or Network State find themselves accepted by traditional nation-states that may not even recognise their existence.

Big honour and pleasure writing this. Lucky to have had such awesome editorial insight. In an age where the biggest transport companies do not own many motor vehicles and the biggest hospitality companies do not own many accommodations, so too might the countries of the future not need to own any land.

"What if governance worked more like app permissions?" Now we're talking, and that is so well put. The pitch that you bought into was my fork in the road about a quarter of a century ago. The choice was to enter electoral politics to try and reform the old or start a country to try and form the new. I chose the latter and never looked back; it's what we're doing at the Startup States Society.

Thank you for bringing up Amagi because the gentleman behind it happens to be very nice. I always like seeing the names of good people or their initiatives out there; it makes me happy.

Yes! And even if people, inhabitants, residents, or citizens do not own shares in their city, they could, or likely should, be offered stock in the service provider or providers that administer or operate their city. This makes all the sense in the world.

There is also little to preclude those who want to buy preferred shares in their city from doing so as a further vote of confidence and as a fundraising device. And if that results in those preferred shareholders receiving an extra dividend, which is not uncommon in that class of shares, then so be it.

Though, in an ideal sense, it may be better for common shareholders to have more of a say in the hiring and firing of management, or simply to leave that up to voters regardless of the kind of stock they hold in their city.

Let the cities of the future compete for new citizens by offering not only the best places to live, but places that even pay you to do so, and not merely through those one-off stories about a rural Italian village or a remote Greek island.

Mark, you've just laid out a fantastic defence of the Westphalian order compared to the tension we are seeing as it erodes and shifts, though I'm not certain that was your intention. What is becoming clear, though, is that, in many instances, the emperor has no clothes, whether a group of mercenaries is banging at the door of Moscow, or another European nuclear power to the west is unable, at times, to control certain suburbs of its capital, or if its neighbour to the north needed to fight to preserve the far-off islands thousands of kilometres away, as it once did in the early 1980s, it would be much harder for it to do so today.

Some might even say that the world's indispensable power had its own capital overrun by rioters, or insurrectionists, or protesters, depending on which side of the fence a person is on, and that it hasn't successfully won a war since 1945, though Mr. Noriega and a few others may beg to differ.

If, for whatever reason, the treaties which brought us the Peace of Westphalia and resulted in the recognition of the independence of the Dutch Republic, which is an overlooked predecessor to that other great revolutionary state which would emerge about 150 years later in North America, if this Westphalia becomes a westfailure, then whatever comes after it, assuming it even makes it to its 400th anniversary, which will be in the year 2048, a year after Hong Kong special status ends, though some may argue it has already ended, as it is scheduled to do in 2047, then whatever comes next, may it be better and result in mankind being freer.