The Spawning and the Violence: fascism and the operations of the network state
One of the most threatening aspects of the Network State is that its geopolitical aspirations go way beyond a single city per project; rather, projects are designed as hubs to spawn a network of related zones and cities and strongholds, often across continents.
This model for replication can populate the globe with Network State sites, often appearing to locals as unique, one-off projects, but actually part of expansion from a central core of venture capital cash. The ability to learn at scale, develop templates, and deploy them globally — the benefits of global scale projects — means we are facing a new stage of explosive growth from the Network State now that some of its first projects have established a base of operations.
Many fascist projects in the past have engaged in relentless expansionism and imperialism.
Gentile has defined one pillar of fascism as “a foreign policy inspired by the myth of national power and greatness, with the goal of imperialist expansion,” while Robert Paxton provides one of the more illuminating definitions of fascism:
“A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
And this certainly resonates within the Network State… the obsession with the nation-state in decline, the financial system in decline, civilization in decline… the sense of being victimized by the “woke mind virus” and the left and the government, the “compensatory cults” of accelerationism, frontierism, futurism emerging as cures, “hard tech”; the emergence of Network State nationalists… the compromising of the political elites in yes, uneasy bonds… the abandonment of free speech, due process… the lawlessness, the genocide of Palestine, the deportations, the concentration camps of El Salvador… and the ravenous external expansion…
So thus we see that it is not enough to attack Honduras in a filthy and vile colonial outpost, taking over an island, taking over ports, but Próspera announces its expansion to Próspera Africa, Latin America is not enough… it must have Africa too.. Zuzalu spawns a devil’s litter of crypto and biotech pop-up cities around the world, inspires the burgeoning town of Edge Esmeralda in Healdsburg and the new Berlinhouse in San Francisco … Praxis goes on world tour… Afropolitan envisions a network of global zones… Metropolis targets both Palau and the Philippines… Each cell producing more cells, reaching out, expanding… eventually there will be strongholds everywhere, an era of colonial rule to rival the Romans they fetishize… with the capital of venture capital cash. (Read more about the status of the Network State in more depth here)
Network State Próspera, Honduras, founded 2017, construction began 2021
The startup model as always is the template. Fund a bunch of shit, whatever works, give it more money to grow, expand it globally, reach out into every corner of the world… ultimately, an operating system with spies and citadels and weapons bases and harvesting machines and cryptomines and surveillance everywhere, able to make the most of market arbitrage, national resource extraction, the harnessing of labor, gathering the wealth of nations… and this is why they would never be content with just a few cities.
The Network State eating the world.
And because the Network State is way too often dismissed as a “fantasy”, which it isn’t, a “imagining”, which it isn’t, a “failure”, a “dream”, which it isn’t… no one pays attention to the growing “redemptive violence”.
Few have addressed the huge movement of the Network State, the movement of tech and crypto class… the Network State as a global movement… nor their growing militancy and their fantasies of violence and defense…
Some quotes from X I’ve collected from their parties over the past few years:
“Network states will not succeed without private armies. The first function of the state is to protect the citizenry, everything else is downstream.”
“The Network State Conference was very good, a mini SF conf in EU. My takeaway is take it seriously. If you want a commune start a commune. If you want a network state think about the laws of nations, drone warfare, cybersecurity. This isn’t B2B SAAS. Kings die for their realms.”
“@balajis wen network state sponsored drone swarms”
“We need MercDAO - DAO owned and operated private army (probably mostly drone pilots but need some boots on the ground as well). Network state needs network security. Who is building this?”
“I’d like to see a plan for a network state/ SEZ but that’s defended NOT by corrupting the host nation-state, no, that’s too predictable. Defend it by forming a mutual defense org on-chain and arming the shit out of the participants”
“DAOs can be used to create decentralized, autonomous militias by setting rules and regulations for members and coordinating their actions. The use of a DAO can enable a militia to be more decentralized and less susceptible to infiltration or co-optation by outside forces. The DAO can automate many administrative tasks, allowing members to focus on their primary mission and making the militia more agile and responsible. A DAO-powered militia could potentially be used to provide security for a specific region or population, coordinate patrols and search and rescue operations, and respond to threats. A DAO-powered militia could therefore be used to establish and maintain a decentralized network state”
And lest you dismiss this as the chatter of fools… at the very highest level of venture capital they are building defense tech specifically to defend the Network State:
This from HawkEye 360, a weapons startup funded by Blackrock and Shield Capital, both deeply in bed with Andreessen Horowitz.
The hundreds of defense, surveillance and weapons startups being built out by THE VERY SAME FIRMS AND BILLIONAIRES that are backing the Network State, are somehow, not connected in the popular understanding. But it is absurd and naive to think they are building a military at the same time they are building a fascist state, and that never the twain meet.
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