Based Camp - What's Better than Democracy？ Radical Governance Theory for Charter Cities

00:00:00.000 Existing governing systems assume that every citizen has equal value when they objectively do not.

00:00:05.260 Our system assumes an individual's value is correlated with their utility to the state.

00:00:09.540 Well, if your vote is based on the amount that you're paying in taxes, now there's a huge disincentive to using tax loopholes.

00:00:15.480 This is the core of governance design as it should be approached by everyone going forward.

00:00:19.860 What will incentivize people to do a thing that is good for everyone?

00:00:23.740 It is about aligning incentives, period. Don't look at what was done in the past.

00:00:27.820 Would you like to know more?

00:00:28.860 Hello, Simone! Our country is dealing with the aftermath of the election, and yet we filmed this before the election.

00:00:36.580 With that being the case, I need to say that democracy doesn't work.

00:00:40.860 It is a terrible system, one person, one vote.

00:00:43.740 This year we explored the failure of democracy, while the social scientists brought our world to the brink of chaos.

00:00:49.500 The Guardian caught us saying this, and did a piece on us recently, where they aired for us, on our behalf, our plan for a new governance system for a charter city.

00:01:04.940 Thanks, Guardian!

00:01:05.600 I love it. The Guardian has been our biggest supporter.

00:01:11.160 I feel so much, when I watch them trying to deal with our raise in fame, as being very much like...

00:01:18.600 Four! I mean five! I mean fire!

00:01:25.760 That is typical! Why has it done that?

00:01:34.860 I'll just put this over here with the rest of the fire.

00:01:40.700 And all they can think to do to attack us is more and more articles that get our message to more and more people.

00:01:51.200 And nobody, like, you know, they'll do an article, like, here is their horrifying system of government that they developed.

00:01:57.700 And then they put the whole slide deck there, which shows that they're just being misleading, and it's actually a pretty nuanced and neat system of government.

00:02:10.520 Which is fundamentally, like, what is this system fundamentally?

00:02:16.040 Elitist communism, you could call it.

00:02:18.380 And I actually think, when we talk about the Haven State Network, that I think society is going to descend into, so a quick note on why charter cities are important and the direction I think society is going.

00:02:29.140 So, with rapid fertility collapse, you're going to have two phenomenons. 0.97

00:02:33.660 One phenomenon is many countries are going to have depopulated regions and regions that are experiencing massive brain drains, especially if they're a smaller country, like the Isle of Man, which is where we were going to pitch this.

00:02:43.900 Or, you know, think of something like Greece or so many countries around the world that are in otherwise relatively stable areas, but as soon as somebody gets educated, they leave, right?

00:02:53.120 Like, there's no reason to stay.

00:02:54.680 And they've got beautiful landscapes, beautiful areas that people could set up shop, but it is really hard to keep people.

00:03:02.020 And the best way to do that, the best way to draw educated people back is to get the types of businesses that employ educated people back.

00:03:09.700 And that means the types of companies doing, like cutting-edge genetic research, or crypto, or AI.

00:03:15.520 And so, I created a governance model that was designed to draw all of those types of companies into the country.

00:03:22.440 One where AI can have citizenship, where cutting-edge genetic research can be done, where the governance model was baked into a DAO, which is a type of blockchain ledger, basically.

00:03:36.240 Every aspect of it was designed to be as friendly to, like, cutting-edge economic stuff as possible, and as adaptable to changing things as possible.

00:03:46.380 But, that's why I was like, okay, so I'm going to pitch this to these regions.

00:03:51.000 But at the same time, the second effect of fertility collapse is going to be that right now, you know, you have, like, one elderly person for every, let's say, three working-age people.

00:04:01.460 We will reach an age where every working-age person is going to be supporting, like, three elderly individuals.

00:04:06.940 And in addition to that, elderly individuals will make up the majority of the electorate, and they will be able to vote more and more resources to themselves.

00:04:14.860 And so, even though it's not, like, a viable system, they're not going to say one day, oh, we should cut Social Security.

00:04:20.460 I mean, we've already seen that they're unwilling to do that.

00:04:22.420 And so, what ends up happening then?

00:04:25.900 Well, taxes go up on the few economically productive individuals that are left.

00:04:32.240 And as we pointed out, it's the economically productive regions of countries that typically have the lowest fertility rates.

00:04:37.640 So, if you look, like, it was in the United States.

00:04:39.320 And it would be so great if kids from poor family had just as much of a chance of being economically productive as somebody from an economically productive family.

00:04:47.020 However, that's just not true.

00:04:49.280 That is not a nut that societally we have figured out how to even come close to cracking, which means in the next generation, dramatically fewer people are going to be economically productive than it was in this generation, which means the taxes on those individuals need to be astronomically higher.

00:05:03.380 Well, here's the problem.

00:05:05.060 Things aren't region locked in the way that they used to be in terms of economic models.

00:05:09.560 It used to be that if I was a big CEO, I'd have a skyscraper and tons of people and hundreds of thousands of employees, or I'd have oil fields that I needed to protect.

00:05:19.240 And so, a country could tax me, and I couldn't just, like, leave.

00:05:22.360 They're like, oh, well, then we'll just see the assets or the oil fields or the, you know, human talent, right?

00:05:27.220 Now, with AI, this has really flipped on its head to an extent.

00:05:31.320 And we've seen this with the new startups, but we've also seen this in the way that big companies are going, where, like, they're just hiring a lot fewer people and, like, programming and stuff like that.

00:05:38.340 Because they just don't need it, which concentrates the wealth in fewer and fewer people, which means these smaller and smaller groups of economically productive individuals, when the state goes after them for their money, they're just going to say, F it, I'm leaving.

00:05:51.640 Especially if charter cities exist as an alternative.

00:05:54.300 And these charter cities are nice, fun places with a lot of interesting people.

00:05:58.960 And you're like, well, how can you do that?

00:06:00.620 How do you sort of work your way into it?

00:06:02.560 Well, you can start with them being vacation spots.

00:06:04.600 By that, what I mean is you build, like, yearly conferences there.

00:06:08.460 Like, maybe the next iteration of, like, a hereticon or something like that is always happening at one charter city, so everybody knows.

00:06:15.000 And you also can create it as a place where people take research sabbaticals.

00:06:19.600 So some early city-states have reduced regulation on biomedical research, and that's something we would certainly propose for any city-state we were involved with is, like, a no-holds-barred, though always with informed consent, medical research area.

00:06:35.260 So then in that case, you would create a temporary market of medical companies and researchers who will come and take a sabbatical in this area to run clinical trials on something or to run a PhD, you know, thesis, like, on some experimental treatment or thing that would be really cumbersome from a regulatory standpoint to study or research or vet or validate in some other country.

00:07:00.820 And these are what we call the haven-state network.

00:07:05.180 And so we'll go over a governance model for one proposed of these.

00:07:08.760 But before we get into that, I will note, ironically, I think one of the most common governance types within the haven-state network is likely going to be communist.

00:07:17.940 And people can be like, what?

00:07:19.000 Aren't these, like, hyper-capitalist and elitist?

00:07:21.480 And it's like, well, communism actually kind of works when you can kick out nonproductive individuals.

00:07:27.720 And given the level of post-scarcity that these may have, like, you go to something like Hereticon.

00:07:34.540 We don't pay for anything at Hereticon because the individuals who are running it just have so, so, so much money that they're like, oh, if I have interesting people there, that's fine.

00:07:42.280 You know, people will have new ideas.

00:07:44.080 I'll get to meet new people.

00:07:45.260 That's what I'm there for.

00:07:46.460 The people running these havens might have so much money that it's just like, oh, you know, I pay for all the daily expenses of individuals so long as they are economically productive.

00:07:59.840 Yeah.

00:08:00.000 And I think that this is where The Guardian, when they were talking to me about the haven model I set up, they were like, yeah, but what about people who aren't economically productive?

00:08:10.820 And I was like, well, my state's not really for them.

00:08:13.660 I'm so sad they didn't publish that.

00:08:15.340 I was like, there's plenty of other countries that can take people like that.

00:08:18.660 And right now, we just haven't really done that, globally speaking.

00:08:22.000 But I think that more states need to be like, oh, the economically productive people who need the state to support them.

00:08:26.700 Yeah, maybe somebody else can take care of them.

00:08:29.040 When you were talking about this last night, you simply cannot have, in any sustainable fashion, a country or city-state that both has porous borders and generous social programs.

00:08:41.380 You can have one or the other, period.

00:08:43.640 And this is a quote from my grandfather that somebody on Twitter tried to get us to denounce him for.

00:08:48.700 And I was like, that's actually a great quote.

00:08:49.140 Because he uses an out-of-date, not flattering, possibly slur term to refer to immigrants. 1.00

00:08:56.880 And some goddamn fries, you fucking goo bags! 1.00

00:09:00.960 Stan Marsh! 1.00

00:09:03.000 Uh-uh! 0.99

00:09:03.880 But I don't think the term was considered that offensive back in his day.

00:09:08.940 They're like, denounce your grandpa for saying something racist in a really poignant, so forethoughtful economic point that most mainstream politicians of today still don't understand.

00:09:21.100 And it's a really good point.

00:09:23.180 When you hugely restrict who can come into a country and who can stay in a country, you can be incredibly socially generous.

00:09:31.220 But when you are completely free for anyone to enter, then you have to be incredibly socially restrictive.

00:09:36.640 Eventually, any system that is socially generous and has open borders will, like osmosis, equalize with the outside environment for individuals who are not economically productive in training the state until the state is offering nothing more.

00:09:50.000 And then it's just no reason to live there.

00:09:51.880 So let's get into the actual plan we put out here.

00:09:55.600 The slide deck was titled, The Next Empire.

00:10:02.560 Really, really catchy there.

00:10:05.380 So on page one, and I'm actually going to read it and then we'll discuss each page.

00:10:10.040 Is it possible to create a region with a high economic output and a high fertility rate?

00:10:15.760 Fertility rates are falling in every developed nation across the world, especially in technologically engaged regions with high economic output.

00:10:21.740 This yields a unique opportunity to create a charter city poised to become a dominant world power in the near future.

00:10:28.860 Almost every nation in the world is based on a failed experiment.

00:10:32.380 Two and a half centuries ago, an ancestor of one of this project's founders, George Washington.

00:10:37.460 So that's one of Simone's.

00:10:39.000 She is descended from.

00:10:40.380 He's a great, great, great, great something uncle.

00:10:43.120 Yeah.

00:10:43.360 And he didn't have any kids himself.

00:10:45.280 So that would make her the closest related living pathway. 0.90

00:10:47.940 Worked with a diverse team of visionaries to create a new model government.

00:10:52.700 Unfortunately, the model failed to match their vision almost immediately with safeguards against things like political party formation failing within their lifetimes.

00:11:00.580 Despite this, almost every nation on the planet today has based their governing structure on the outline of the failed compromise this group tentatively created.

00:11:08.280 When creating a new governing system under which large populations will live, it makes sense to go with systems that seem relatively safe and functional while distributing as much power to stakeholders as possible to lower the odds of revolt.

00:11:22.200 Never to less, if we were to craft a world power de novo with an opt-in population, they would almost certainly build something very different.

00:11:30.260 These systems were built not just for computers, but for an agriculturally focused subsistence society without trains and planes.

00:11:37.380 Imagine how a system intentionally designed from the ground up could fare.

00:11:41.740 And I do think a lot of people forget that.

00:11:46.680 That the model that the founders created was both a compromised and a failed compromise within their own lifetimes.

00:11:55.720 And yet almost every democracy since then has been based on it.

00:11:59.140 Yeah, it made sense to do because you don't want to make up a new system if you just fought a revolution and you can't really risk that.

00:12:05.120 And you have, you know, hundreds of thousands of millions of people living under it and you don't want to risk something falling apart.

00:12:09.680 But if you were creating something de novo, of course, you would want to create a completely new system.

00:12:13.620 Why would an existing country succeed land to this kind of experiment?

00:12:17.220 With rapidly collapsing and aging populations across the developed world, especially in rural areas, many countries are desperate to save their faltering economies.

00:12:27.140 Why would a young person who is left a decaying rural area for college return once they are educated,

00:12:32.300 when almost all of our world's economic opportunities are clustered in one of a handful of dense population centers around the world?

00:12:39.580 Our project will allow us to transform a region on a downward trajectory into one of the world's future tech hubs,

00:12:47.360 a center for dynamism, investment and growth.

00:12:50.240 Why won't existing charter cities succeed?

00:12:52.040 For a charter city to succeed, it must be appealing to the host country, generate revenue, e.g. attract companies, and generate citizens, e.g. attract immigrants.

00:13:03.300 Most extant charter cities are primarily concerned with realizing an ideological vision.

00:13:08.680 While ideological vision can attract a small number of immigrants, it will always be fundamentally less sustainable than a persistent and obvious economic opportunity not available anywhere else in the world. 0.97

00:13:20.160 To bring the smartest, most economically productive people in the world to a place, that place's opportunities must be economically attractive and meaningful in a global context.

00:13:30.060 And this is what we're getting at.

00:13:32.880 When a lot of city-states are focused on just being vacation areas, you really have to have a reason to go, because there are, there's an endless number of amazing vacation areas to go to.

00:13:42.420 I'm not going to say that vacation areas, they make a few big mistakes.

00:13:46.900 They try to attract ideological extremists.

00:13:50.940 They're like, you agree with our ideology so much more than your host country's ideology, or wherever you were born's ideology, that you will move to where we are.

00:13:58.840 Well, and a risk of making it like a social club, and framing it as such, like a society, is, well, then it's attractive to people who really care about social ties.

00:14:09.920 And what you're proposing to them is essentially socially isolating them.

00:14:13.140 You're taking them away from major international cities, and you're putting them in a city-state.

00:14:18.240 That is the opposite.

00:14:19.260 So it's like trying to select for people who are the least likely to buy into this.

00:14:23.320 If they were going to take that approach, you would need to select for religious extremists who want to go off and make a compound and be in isolation.

00:14:29.700 Which is what we tried to do in the way that we structured this to an extent.

00:14:31.800 Exactly, yes.

00:14:32.760 But religious extremists have multiple religious factions, and you'll see how we do that.

00:14:36.920 But in addition to that, I will note that one, that Patrick Friedman, who has been on this show before talking about charter cities, he finally got fed up and decided to just start his own.

00:14:45.900 And I really like the charter city that he's starting as a model, which is, it's in Africa, and instead of focused on trying to get, like, white people from the United States to move there, who already have, like, great jobs and live in a fairly stable country, it's focused on just being marginally better than the other countries in Africa, and focused on disproportionately getting economically productive people from the other African countries to move there.

00:15:07.640 Can we actually just create Wakanda? 0.88

00:15:09.380 That would be so cool.

00:15:11.660 Oh, I don't think so.

00:15:12.560 It's just supposed to be, like, marginally safer, marginally economically more productive, marginally.

00:15:17.480 And I'm like, that's great.

00:15:19.120 I mean, yeah, that does sound good.

00:15:21.560 And it would attract talent.

00:15:23.400 And it bothers me so much that I've met, while traveling, you know, sitting around in airports or in cars, so many people who have immigrated from African countries that are unstable, who are very smart, very educated. 1.00

00:15:38.520 And then they go to a country like the UK or the US, and they are Uber drivers, they're cooks.

00:15:45.560 What?

00:15:45.960 Like, this is totally wasted talent.

00:15:47.680 If they could just move to a country in Africa that allows them to be what they have trained to be, what they're educated to be. 0.97

00:15:54.300 I mean, I see the same with Venezuelan immigrants as well.

00:15:56.720 We saw this all the time in Peru.

00:15:58.000 Some guy would deliver groceries to us and be like, so, like, what's your background?

00:16:01.360 And he'd be like, well, actually, I'm from Venezuela.

00:16:03.420 And, you know, I used to be a biomedical researcher, and here I am delivering your groceries.

00:16:09.140 And I just hate that so much.

00:16:10.840 So I love this concept.

00:16:12.120 But I also wish Wakanda existed because it would be so cool.

00:16:15.300 If you look at the way that we structured this going forward, what you're going to realize is that a lot of charter cities are built to try to attract people.

00:16:22.380 And we are building this to try to attract dollars, which is very different.

00:16:28.240 Well, and beyond that, to attract intelligence.

00:16:31.820 So not just intelligent, agentic people, but intelligent, agentic AIs who can count as citizens in this city-state.

00:16:40.040 Right.

00:16:40.480 But the larger point being is that do not think when you're building a city-state, how do I get people to move here?

00:16:47.440 Think, how do I get cash-producing assets to move here, whether it's companies or AIs or anything else?

00:16:54.700 Oh, because if there is cash there, people will show up.

00:16:56.940 Yeah, people come when there's cash.

00:16:58.980 Yeah.

00:16:59.460 People don't necessarily bring cash, especially if they're ideological extremists.

00:17:03.900 I signed a permit allowing them to have their concert here.

00:17:06.280 Their little festival should pump some money into our economy. 0.97

00:17:09.140 They're hippies.

00:17:09.820 They don't have any money.

00:17:10.760 Yeah.

00:17:11.680 Like with the EA movement, when suddenly Daddy Crypto Bucks, Sam Bingman-Fried, showed up and was like doling out those grants.

00:17:20.260 Everyone was an effective altruist all of a sudden.

00:17:22.680 Yeah, everyone was an effective altruist.

00:17:23.620 Yeah.

00:17:24.180 Anyway, let's keep going.

00:17:25.520 So how the city-state will attract and create economic demand.

00:17:30.080 So one, and this is probably my favorite part, although I love AI citizenship too, but number one, no holds barred medical research.

00:17:36.840 So you get the vacationers coming in for the cancer treatment that the FDA wants to approve, and you get the researchers who are doing their fellowships.

00:18:06.560 But okay, AI citizenship is also super cool here.

00:18:09.980 Enshrine into the Constitution citizen rights for synthetic intelligences.

00:18:14.360 As AI develops, much of the world's economic opportunity will be generated by AIs themselves.

00:18:19.520 However, restrictions on AI owning property or capital will make most nations difficult places to host these centers of economic production.

00:18:27.800 So I love being a safe haven for them.

00:18:30.120 And then DAO operation.

00:18:32.200 Writing the government into blockchain allows us to make the city-state's currency literal tokens within the government.

00:18:37.860 This will make the region attractive for cutting-edge Web3 projects.

00:18:40.980 So I think that this is – and this is the interesting thing is if you're thinking right now, how could you make AI a citizen, right?

00:18:51.380 Because if you go as a one-person, one-vote system, making AI a citizen doesn't make any sense because an AI could just clone itself and then have tons and tons of votes.

00:19:01.300 And you don't know – like what if an AI, it's not a well-programmed AI and it's dramatically less competent than the average person?

00:19:08.100 You can't have AI be a citizen in that respect.

00:19:10.800 So many people may hate that we have moved away from a one-person, one-vote system.

00:19:15.200 But in a way, we've actually made the system more inclusive by doing that because now we can have AI politically participate, whereas it's impossible for AI to politically participate in a one-person, one-vote system.

00:19:27.500 Yeah, I like that.

00:19:30.480 So to move on, most importantly, the government must incentivize the creation of highly productive economic actors.

00:19:36.840 To your point, Malcolm, our model achieves this by, one, creating reproductive technology due to the conditionally enshrined protection for medical innovation,

00:19:45.840 which allows for the possibility of mass production of genetically selected humans,

00:19:50.640 and, two, providing incentive systems that grant more voting power to the creators of economically productive agents, including AIs and corporations.

00:20:02.800 You're most excited about the governing structure, aren't you?

00:20:05.580 What?

00:20:06.560 You're most excited about the governing structure, aren't you?

00:20:08.500 Do you want to talk more about it?

00:20:09.480 Yeah, you can go straight to the governing structure.

00:20:11.720 The mass production of, what we should mean is what we meant by that, is government-subsidized genetic selection,

00:20:19.720 not that, like, people would be forced into genetic selection.

00:20:22.400 Obviously, nothing in the system causes that.

00:20:24.800 Oh, no.

00:20:25.020 And I think that becomes apparent when you look at the sort of tribal, religious-tribal-based system of distributing the government.

00:20:32.040 Yeah, but we'll get to that in a second.

00:20:33.700 First, let's go over the overall governance structure.

00:20:35.740 The proposed government is run by a single executor, basically a dictator,

00:20:40.520 who has full control of the government's laws and operational structure during their tenure.

00:20:45.080 Though, to be clear, and I'm adding this, it's not in the deck,

00:20:48.040 they can't just nullify this system, for example.

00:20:52.100 You know, you can't, like, wish for more wishes when you get a three-wish genie.

00:20:55.680 This maximizes efficiency and flexibility,

00:20:58.200 while also allowing for the judicious and timely removal of an inefficient executor,

00:21:03.080 or one who exploits their position for personal gain.

00:21:06.400 Note, executors can be AIs, and honestly, I imagine most of them will be.

00:21:11.720 Once every four years, an executor must be unanimously selected by three wards.

00:21:16.120 At any time, an executor can be immediately recalled and replaced if ever two wards decide so.

00:21:22.520 Executors are therefore given much more power than the head of any existing government structure.

00:21:27.640 However, they are also easier and faster to recall.

00:21:30.760 So, they're the three wards that are selecting the executor.

00:21:34.120 So, before we get to the wards, I want to talk about the executor model and why I chose it.

00:21:38.140 Yeah.

00:21:38.340 So, it allows for, like, if you look at problems in the U.S. government right now,

00:21:42.420 with all the bureaucracy that's been building up and everything like that,

00:21:45.660 this would allow, for example, a president to immediately just clear it all out if they wanted to.

00:21:50.960 If that was the will of the voters,

00:21:54.220 you can completely restructure the way the state structures in between electoral cycles.

00:21:58.660 You could flip between a capitalist system and a communist system.

00:22:02.260 You could flip between a currency based on a DAO to a currency backed by gold.

00:22:07.480 You could flip from, you know, a, like, one type of medical system to a completely different type of medical system.

00:22:13.760 It allows for radical, radical, and fast changes to happen within the government.

00:22:20.140 But because you have the system where if two wards ever turn against you, you are immediately removed,

00:22:26.520 you have a reason to be paying attention to what the voters actually think of the various voting bodies.

00:22:33.880 And you can't just run, you know, through everything, right?

00:22:39.360 You need to pay a lot of attention to what the actual voters are thinking of the things that you're doing,

00:22:45.380 because the voters have a much more direct lens to sort of touch you.

00:22:50.480 I'd also note here that it also provides the break between the voters

00:22:56.440 and who is actually running things, the executor that the founders tried to create with our governance system.

00:23:04.080 It was our electoral governance system.

00:23:05.920 So what the founders thought is, well, your average citizen isn't really smart enough to know how to vote for,

00:23:11.040 but they'll, like, know who's smart locally.

00:23:13.620 So they'll vote on an elector, and the elector, who will be better educated

00:23:17.920 because they were, like, a popular, smart, local person,

00:23:20.780 will then vote on, you know, who's the president, for example.

00:23:23.560 But the problem is, is because we ended up with so, so, so many of those,

00:23:29.280 it doesn't really make sense to vote on them anymore.

00:23:31.260 Now, you just vote on the president directly, so you know who's going to be.

00:23:34.820 For people who don't know that that's how the U.S. system works, that's how the U.S. system works.

00:23:37.660 I even think it's legally enshrined in some areas, that they have to vote for whoever.

00:23:41.420 Like, I don't even know, I think in most states,

00:23:44.180 who I'm really voting for as my elector to vote for me for Donald Trump,

00:23:48.300 but that's the way it works.

00:23:49.720 Now, this system rebuilds what the founders were trying to do with that system.

00:23:56.800 Because there's only three wards, and because there is three wards,

00:24:01.180 that means it's the discussion between the three wards as to who they choose as the executor.

00:24:07.220 And so it wouldn't necessarily make sense if you're running for a ward to run and say,

00:24:13.660 I want this particular candidate to be the executor,

00:24:17.200 because then if another ward who was running on a different candidate ends up the executor,

00:24:22.380 then the executor just then gets chosen by the third ward,

00:24:25.260 which is basically an unelected ward.

00:24:27.100 We'll get to how they work.

00:24:28.360 But the point being is that would be a very bad way to run.

00:24:32.920 It makes it so that you would never do that.

00:24:34.960 So you're always actually going to be voting on a ward,

00:24:37.900 not voting on the executor themselves.

00:24:40.340 And because you're always voting on a ward,

00:24:42.200 and it'll make sense why you would only want to vote on the ward in just a second,

00:24:44.860 the wards themselves, when they get in a room and they're saying,

00:24:47.860 okay, who's the most competent person to run the country right now,

00:24:51.400 in line with what I told the voters that I was going to achieve for them,

00:24:55.140 they're actually having that conversation in a meaningful way,

00:24:58.480 and in a way that the founders wanted us to have as a country,

00:25:01.860 but we've never really had.

00:25:04.380 So continue.

00:25:05.600 So how are these wards selected?

00:25:07.980 Remember that companies, programs, AIs,

00:25:09.980 and any other productive member of the economy counts as a citizen.

00:25:14.440 We have the ward of the present.

00:25:15.920 The voting power of citizens in this election

00:25:18.400 is determined by their local tax contribution to the governing system,

00:25:22.460 minus the amount the governing system has spent on them

00:25:25.260 to determine their net utility to the state.

00:25:28.320 Any salary paid to a government employee

00:25:30.380 is treated the same as payouts like welfare.

00:25:33.640 If an individual...

00:25:34.440 So continue.

00:25:35.300 If an individual wants to pay more than their share of taxes

00:25:39.660 for additional voting power, title, privileges, they can.

00:25:43.740 So this is the first ward is elected basically

00:25:47.680 by how much you pay in taxes, net how much you take home.

00:25:50.780 And an individual could say, well, why don't govern it workers?

00:25:54.960 Because basically this would mean they'd be very hard

00:25:56.680 to get any vote within this particular system

00:25:58.640 if you are, say, a teacher paid by the government

00:26:01.160 or a doctor paid by the government

00:26:03.000 if the government ends up subsidizing doctors.

00:26:05.300 And this goes to something that we argue in our governance book,

00:26:08.640 which is to say wards of the state should never have a vote.

00:26:12.960 If you can vote to just increase your own salary, basically,

00:26:16.380 if that's one of the things that you may want,

00:26:18.800 then you shouldn't have any voting power.

00:26:21.140 Obviously, you should be given a salary

00:26:24.140 based on the desires of the people who are actually paying you,

00:26:28.740 which are the other citizens.

00:26:29.800 It's reflective of the utility you offer to the state.

00:26:32.040 Well, no, it's not reflective of the utility totally

00:26:34.700 because a teacher or a police officer still has utility to the state.

00:26:39.260 But in the same way, like if you look at the United States

00:26:41.740 and people are like, oh, people in D.C.

00:26:43.440 don't have a vote in presidential elections

00:26:45.720 because they can influence what's happening in Washington

00:26:49.100 just through like socially what's happening in D.C.,

00:26:52.040 which is absolutely a true thing.

00:26:54.240 It's sort of the same thing.

00:26:56.400 A police officer or a teacher or anyone who's working on behalf of the government administration

00:27:01.660 intrinsically touches and affects that administration

00:27:06.440 and that administration's policies.

00:27:09.200 And as such, they don't need an additional vote to have their voice heard.

00:27:13.720 Their voice is already being disproportionately heard within the governance system.

00:27:19.160 So that's the other thing here.

00:27:20.620 One is, is you don't want to create the negative incentives by giving words of the state a vote.

00:27:24.480 And the other is, is to say they already have an ability to outsize impact the voters.

00:27:30.200 But the second note I'd make here with these sorts of individuals is I find it really perverse.

00:27:36.500 And I was telling this to the Guardian article

00:27:38.220 that one person could pay like 50,000 times as much of another person as taxes.

00:27:43.160 It gives the state 50,000 times as much as another person.

00:27:45.620 And they don't get one iota more say in how that money is spent or what's the best way to spend that money.

00:27:51.080 Like that seems to me ridiculous and deeply unfair.

00:27:55.240 I wonder if it's a cultural thing because I definitely, with everything in my life,

00:27:59.520 have this intuition of, well, if someone paid for it, then they get to call the shot.

00:28:04.400 Like if someone paid for my vacation, then they get to decide what we do every day.

00:28:10.040 If someone is paying me to do work, then they get to decide how I do that work.

00:28:13.840 And I think this should be the same way with government.

00:28:20.880 I mean, if someone's paying for government, then they get to decide how the government works, right?

00:28:24.840 It seems, but is that a cultural thing?

00:28:27.360 Because this seems to be so foreign to other people.

00:28:31.240 I, well, whether it's a cultural thing or not, this system is sure to draw economically productive agents.

00:28:38.360 Whether they are, and you see how this breaks the AI problem.

00:28:41.220 No longer do you have the problem of like AI is being able to spam themselves.

00:28:44.980 If an AI is being economically productive and contributing to the state, then it should have a say in what the state is doing correlatory to how much they're contributing to the state, at least within this branch of the government.

00:28:54.440 If a company is paying a bunch of taxes, that company gets a vote.

00:28:57.940 And there's other places where companies get votes, by the way.

00:29:00.160 In London, companies get votes and companies get votes in Hong Kong.

00:29:02.540 So that's not a particularly novel concept, but the vote being correlatory to how much they're paying into the state is.

00:29:08.320 The same with individual human actors.

00:29:10.000 If I'm an individual with a ton of money, I can come into the state.

00:29:12.560 And now, in addition to this, I am actively punishing myself by cheating my taxes or by finding tax loopholes.

00:29:19.900 Because I have a lower vote the more I take advantage of tax loopholes.

00:29:23.960 So this has the additional model of sort of forcing taxes onto the table.

00:29:27.580 The ward of the future.

00:29:32.620 A citizen's voting power in this election is determined by the net utility to the state of all citizens they have brought to the state,

00:29:40.740 either by having and raising citizens, coding them, in the case of AI, or founding them, in the case of corporations,

00:29:46.360 plus half the net utility of any secondary recruits of their direct recruits brought, for example, grandchildren or spinoff AIs or companies.

00:29:53.260 So this system is essentially meant to increase the number of people that exist within the state.

00:30:00.120 And you could think of it as a bit of a pyramid scheme.

00:30:02.680 But that's the way society really needs to be structured population-wise for people to have more people.

00:30:08.680 And as you can see here, it means that me as an agent within the state,

00:30:12.780 you know, the Guardian obviously wanted to frame this as the more kids you have, the more votes you have.

00:30:16.700 But that's very explicitly not what it says.

00:30:19.040 If I bring an economically productive immigrant into the state, because when you immigrate to the state, 0.99

00:30:24.140 you always say this person was my benefactor who brought me in,

00:30:27.300 that person's taxes, any taxes they end up paying, ends up contributing to this portion of my vote.

00:30:33.380 However, if I bring an immigrant into the state and that immigrant is a net drain on the state, 1.00

00:30:37.740 but I have like economically productive children,

00:30:40.320 that immigrant's economic weight to the state ends up subtracting from the economic benefit that I produce through my children. 1.00

00:30:46.360 So I really love this as a system.

00:30:49.260 It also means that people who found successful companies are going to have an outsized impact within this part of the system.

00:30:54.340 And if you have, you know, grandchildren or an AI you write, then creates another thing,

00:30:58.380 or a company you create, then creates another company or creates an AI,

00:31:01.480 you also receive some benefit from that.

00:31:03.920 So there's a huge reason to look into the future within this particular one.

00:31:10.400 Exactly.

00:31:11.400 Then finally, there's the word of the past.

00:31:13.220 And I find this uniquely fascinating because it provides a sense of continuity,

00:31:18.420 but I never would have thought of it.

00:31:20.260 And I think it's brilliant that you did.

00:31:21.520 And this is something you first started discussing in the Pragmatist Guide to Governance.

00:31:25.840 So it's the word of the past.

00:31:28.060 This word is elected by a vote from all past living executors.

00:31:31.580 This lowers the influence of party politics and enables those with the most knowledge of being an executor to have say in who gets the job.

00:31:40.000 Actually, you know where this is also?

00:31:41.280 It's in Asimov's Foundation series.

00:31:44.060 Oh, he has this?

00:31:45.160 Yeah, because the Empire, although it's not a great example because the Empire is like crumbling and poorly governed,

00:31:50.500 but it's run by this clone of just the same person always.

00:31:54.240 But there's like the old retired version of the clone.

00:31:58.120 There is the active middle-aged governing version of the clone.

00:32:01.360 And then there's the young kid clone who's like apprenticing and learning under like the grandfather and the dad and then like the young one.

00:32:11.220 And it's kind of an interesting, I mean, it sort of creates a sense of...

00:32:14.580 How is there any correlation between these two systems?

00:32:17.200 Well, because you have the previous ruler of the Empire advising the current ruler of the Empire.

00:32:24.440 It doesn't function that way.

00:32:27.200 We talked about a system like that in the governance book, but this system explicitly isn't that.

00:32:32.240 They're voting.

00:32:33.500 I'll explain it in different words and it might make more sense to you.

00:32:35.640 This system is like having a council of presidents being one of the bodies that is important for electing the next president.

00:32:43.800 Oh, yeah. Sorry. No, no, no. Take off this. Take out this whole thing.

00:32:46.140 I was... I'm very sleep deprived.

00:32:47.800 I was thinking of something.

00:32:48.920 Yeah, this is... Yeah, it's like having all past presidents choose who they're voting for, but they're not influencing this person.

00:32:55.380 They can take them out.

00:32:57.200 They can... Well, kind of.

00:32:58.980 Working with the word of the future or the word of the present, yes.

00:33:01.380 The word of the past is why you would never have party politics for.

00:33:05.640 So I'll explain why.

00:33:07.640 If there are party politics that differentiate between the two wards, like somebody is much more likely to win one word than the other word, the two voted wards.

00:33:16.260 This is the word of the present and the word of the future.

00:33:18.900 I suspect that it will be pretty broadcast from the perspective of the word of the past if they are going to vote for one of these two parties.

00:33:28.140 And because of that, it doesn't really make sense to do that.

00:33:32.240 I.e., you would basically know whoever the word of the past was going to support is going to be the person who wins the moment party politics ends up developing, which is why you need party politics to not end up developing.

00:33:44.100 The word of the past also has a huge benefit.

00:33:47.740 If you look in, like, the U.S., one of the things that's always talked about is, like, past presidents are usually very friendly with each other, and they always like to go golfing together, and a lot of the animosity between them dissolves really quickly because, you know, they've experienced something unique, and now they're interested in the future of the state. 0.97

00:34:03.900 They've seen some shit.

00:34:04.840 Well, also, they have more knowledge about the job than anyone else, right? 0.99

00:34:09.340 You know, they're going to be very good at potentially choosing somebody.

00:34:13.480 But in addition to all of that, it means that you aren't going to have the NASA problem, where you have wild party swings where one person – because the executor can do so much to overhaul society, right?

00:34:26.340 Like, just say, well, okay, we're going to build, like, a totally different system for our governance structure.

00:34:29.980 This makes it much harder to do that unless most past presidents also think that's a good idea, which is a really good system to prevent radical changes.

00:34:40.500 And the only case in which you could do that in which most past presidents don't agree to it is when the general population, or at least the economically productive population, vastly agrees with it.

00:34:51.320 Anyway, continue.

00:34:52.140 So why not one-vote-one-person, because apparently people think this is absolutely crazy.

00:34:57.840 Here's what I was just thinking this morning.

00:34:59.820 I was like, oh, yeah, I mean, because the United States started out as one-man-one-vote, but we didn't find that to work forever, because we found that, oh, there were actually other contributing members to society that maybe also deserve to say, like, maybe not white people. 0.60

00:35:17.220 Like, maybe women. 0.99

00:35:18.840 Like, there's no, why would we assume that the voting system we have today is perfect?

00:35:22.920 It wasn't perfect when the founding fathers started the United States, and it's not perfect now.

00:35:26.820 I'm not saying that our system is applicable to the United States at all anyway, but I'm just saying, like, it's funny that people are so insistent that our current voting system is unimpedal.

00:35:37.040 So anyway, why not one-vote-one-person?

00:35:39.920 Our system recognized that competence is not evenly distributed among a population and rewards individuals with more control over governing decisions when they have demonstrated proven, measurable competence.

00:35:53.180 Our system furthermore lowers the voice of those who have already worked within the government or receive government support as they are adversely incentivized to protect their own positions and privileges.

00:36:04.140 Productivity is not the only contributory factor that warrants governing power.

00:36:09.420 The system must also reward those who raise or build productive elements in a society while punishing those who bring citizens into the system that are net drains on resources.

00:36:20.020 Finally, the influence of past leaders on present leadership is designed to allow for more continuity than existing systems of government,

00:36:28.720 dampening the NASA problem, as you say, Malcolm, in which particularly large long-term projects are severely undermined with every administrative change.

00:36:39.040 But I think here's where they'll get even more spicy, like, because some people are like, well, well, maybe I can get with one, like, different kinds of voting.

00:36:47.840 But this is where I think it's so fun, because why not yes and this, right?

00:36:52.640 So a tiered society, existing governing systems assume that every citizen has equal value when they objectively do not.

00:36:59.880 Our system assumes an individual's value is correlated with their utility to the state and optimizes around these individuals with the most utility to the state,

00:37:08.480 all to ensure the competent operation of a state that attracts productive immigrants. 0.99

00:37:12.660 To this end, not all citizens are equal within the state.

00:37:16.360 Individuals can be rewarded with titles and additional privileges determined by the executor by opting into lump sum payments or higher tax schemes.

00:37:24.320 This is akin to paying for a premium membership, but at the state level, I love that.

00:37:28.860 A premium membership in a government.

00:37:31.180 Is it being able to pay for, like, a lord title or a knight title that gives you access to people?

00:37:34.940 But why not?

00:37:35.620 And honestly, honestly, though, what were lords, original, like, lords, but premium members?

00:37:41.980 That's what they were.

00:37:43.000 It was a premium membership.

00:37:44.140 Yeah.

00:37:44.380 We just need to bring things back to a natural order here.

00:37:46.260 You could either win it or buy it often.

00:37:47.920 That's how it was.

00:37:48.660 Yeah.

00:37:49.080 What do people think lords were?

00:37:51.120 What do people think barons were?

00:37:52.860 And I think what's funny is that we've lost this utility in society by getting rid of classes.

00:37:58.580 And I mean, titles now are only a name.

00:38:00.360 They're only inherited.

00:38:01.240 They're functionless.

00:38:02.240 They aren't real anymore.

00:38:03.280 A real title is one that's bought.

00:38:05.240 That's it.

00:38:05.740 If you are not buying your way into a title, you don't really have a title because it doesn't do anything.

00:38:10.860 Anyway, the set of laws an individual has to follow is determined by their title, e.g.

00:38:16.140 a person opting into paying more taxes may have a different speed limit that applies to them and have reserved parking spaces.

00:38:22.920 I love this.

00:38:24.200 I love this so much.

00:38:25.580 I mean, obviously, from a certain perspective, it's incredibly dystopian because you're thinking about this from the perspective of some comedic movie in which some loser in society can't even park to go for a job interview because he's not, you know.

00:38:40.400 Here's what you're not thinking about is when you can create opt-in mechanisms for the ultra-wealthy to pay more than their fair share and be happy and excited to do so, that's tax burden that's not going to the middle class and poor.

00:38:54.980 Yeah, I mean, yeah, the flip side of that scene in which this guy is getting frustrated about not being able to park, well, yeah, but this guy also isn't paying very much in taxes, you know.

00:39:03.040 The way I put it this way is, am I okay with wealthy people in society having it a bit easier if they're paying like billions extra in tax dollars that I don't need to pay?

00:39:13.180 Yeah, of course.

00:39:14.540 It seems dystopia until you think about it for five seconds and you realize it's perfectly rational.

00:39:19.360 Well, and again, that's us on, okay, that's at least me on airplanes.

00:39:24.060 You know how I am with business class.

00:39:25.260 I always wish I could fly business class everywhere. 0.97

00:39:27.620 But then whenever it comes to it, because I obviously have my own discretionary income, I could spend my money on that, but I don't because it's dumb. 0.68

00:39:34.140 I don't want to, right? 0.81

00:39:35.500 It doesn't matter to me.

00:39:36.600 So every time I walk by business classes, I board a plane.

00:39:38.860 I'm like, yeah, you know, they're sitting there and I wish I were sitting there.

00:39:42.220 But also, like, I don't want to pay for that.

00:39:44.260 So they deserve to be here.

00:39:45.380 They're subsidizing your flight.

00:39:45.980 Yeah, they're subsidizing my flight.

00:39:47.560 Like, that's fine.

00:39:48.620 This is a choice that I've made.

00:39:50.600 And I think that that's what this comes down to, is that as long as people are framing things logically, instead of being like, oh, I deserve to be in business class.

00:39:57.780 But, I mean, I don't want to pay for it, but I still deserve to be here.

00:40:00.760 Well, that's not a plane that works.

00:40:02.040 That's not a plane that exists, okay?

00:40:04.080 You can either pay for business class or you can sit with the chickens and Simone, begrudgingly.

00:40:11.480 And that's how it is.

00:40:12.540 Anyway, I'll continue reading your slide.

00:40:14.280 Words of the state, individuals with net negative contribution scores who are not state workers are always treated as a separate class.

00:40:22.420 The consequences of this status are determined by the current executor.

00:40:26.300 This system is designed to encourage productive immigration while also pressuring nonproductive citizens to leave the country.

00:40:33.500 It works.

00:40:34.960 It's a great system.

00:40:36.180 If you don't want to sit in basic economy, don't fly on the plane.

00:40:41.160 Don't fly on the plane.

00:40:42.240 Social structure.

00:40:44.200 For a person or entity to become a citizen, they must either start a new tribe or be accepted by an existing tribe.

00:40:50.200 This is where we're getting into describing what Curtis Yarvin was the first person who was like, yeah, this sounds like the millet system.

00:40:55.400 And you're like, yeah.

00:40:55.960 Tribes are associated with cultures and cultural norms, e.g. Catholics, Mormons, et cetera.

00:41:03.640 An individual's tribe is responsible for social services, medical care, schooling, social safety nets, et cetera, and can demand independent taxes that are collected by the state and distributed to the tribal group.

00:41:15.200 An individual can switch tribes if they choose to, but only after both paying a fine and paying back their tribal group for all services rendered to them, net their tax or voluntary contributions to the group.

00:41:26.840 For example, if an individual joined the Catholic group for their good medical care, they would not be able to deconvert immediately after the medical issue was dealt with unless they paid for the tribe's net tax loss on their medical expenses.

00:41:40.320 Individuals moving out from their parents' homes, as well as individuals marrying for the first time, are exempt from this rule.

00:41:48.160 Tribal groups can apply any restrictions they want on joining and can impose additional laws on their members.

00:41:53.920 For example, a tribe may enforce monogamy, but are responsible for internally policing them.

00:42:00.220 This works well for me.

00:42:01.680 If people struggle to understand why this is so valuable, it makes it much easier for religious extremists to protect their culture and individuals with unique cultures to protect their culture.

00:42:12.440 Which is to say, when you move into the state, a portion of your social services and a portion of your taxes are going to your tribal group.

00:42:22.080 So when the state collects your taxes, it collects an additional amount of taxes, which can almost be thought of as like, in the United States, you have your federal taxes and your state taxes.

00:42:31.580 And in this, you would have your federal taxes and your, basically your religion taxes.

00:42:36.040 But it might not be religion.

00:42:37.220 It might be like the urban monoculture.

00:42:38.860 It might be like the hippie group.

00:42:39.980 It might be like the atheist group.

00:42:41.240 Whatever group it is, it's like your religion slash cultural group taxes. 0.63

00:42:44.460 I'm trying to think, so how would things be different for the Amish, for example, who already lived in a very isolated state and sort of provide their own services to their own community?

00:42:53.360 How would it be different for them if they operated within this city-state governing system versus what they already operate with?

00:43:01.460 Right now, the Amish, so in the United States, when I am choosing which state taxes I want to pay, I have to choose which state I want to live in. 0.97

00:43:10.300 Okay, and then that determines which state taxes I'm going to pay.

00:43:13.880 So if I'm an Amish person, I'm paying for like the public school system, even though I'm not using the public school system.

00:43:19.860 I'm paying for Medicaid and medical costs, even though I'm not using any of that.

00:43:24.200 Like it's very unfair to the Amish. 0.53

00:43:26.700 I, anywhere in the United States, I'm often paying for things that are not things that I may culturally use. 0.97

00:43:32.480 For example, I may be Catholic and I'm paying into government-funded abortions or government-funded PrEP for gay orgies. 0.97

00:43:39.160 You know, I, well, you should see our episode on that. 0.96

00:43:41.980 It's absolutely wild that this is happening.

00:43:43.880 But in this system, I move there and instead of choosing like which state I want to be to, wherever I live within the system, I choose which tribe I am affiliating with, which is basically like a religion.

00:43:55.260 And then that determines an additional part, in addition to like my federal, my state taxes, an additional tax I'm going to pay, which is determined by the tribe.

00:44:03.460 But the tribe also gets to distribute things like medical care, things like education, things like all sorts of different social services that might be like free psychologists, free counseling, free, you know, all sorts of stuff like that that might be very valuable to me.

00:44:21.660 And so if I'm something like the Mormon church and I'm coming here, basically the 10% tithe would be automatically added to the taxes and then distributed to the Mormon church and the Mormon church would distribute their, their services to members, you know, whether it's systems, et cetera.

00:44:36.680 And this is a really great system because it means that now me as a cultural group, I need to on a per cost basis also appeal to people.

00:44:46.180 And the reason we have the system where a person cannot opt into a group and then opt out is it prevents scamming these groups.

00:44:52.020 So I couldn't, for example, join the Mormon group in name only just to get access to their like medical care and then nope out the moment my medical bills were paid, you know, I'd have to pay that back. 0.52

00:45:01.580 And somebody is like, well, that could cause abusive situations, but we noted that and we allowed for loopholes for the two most likely abusive situations.

00:45:08.820 Yeah, this is your, this is as far as you can go with porous borders and a heavy social state.

00:45:13.700 Yeah, one is when you're married, you can pop out whenever you want, which is great.

00:45:17.660 You can pop into a new tribe whenever you want.

00:45:19.180 You don't need to pay back stuff.

00:45:21.020 And two is, and this is only for first marriages.

00:45:23.240 And two is when you leave your parents' household, you can pop out of any religion you want.

00:45:28.460 So you're not stuck in your birth culture.

00:45:30.140 Now this is assuming another culture will have you.

00:45:33.160 Keep in mind, because you will be a burden to these cultures, or you may be a burden to these cultures in terms of caring for you, they may just say, eh, we don't want you because you're not a productive member, you don't seem sincere, you don't seem whatever.

00:45:47.260 And I suspect that we're going to see a much more exclusionary view of who can join their membership by religions that are in this system.

00:45:55.860 And when you even saw this, when the Puritans went to the colonies, there would be all these discussions on, can you bring this servant?

00:46:04.360 I don't know.

00:46:04.820 Well, are they like a solid person?

00:46:06.540 Are they productive?

00:46:07.500 I don't know.

00:46:07.980 When they leave the indentured servant, do we actually want them being a Puritan? 0.97

00:46:11.120 Yeah, there was, there was, yeah, these were exclusive communities and people were very selective about who they brought in because they also knew that they, they were going to be largely dependent on each other and they couldn't afford a world in which they were deadweights.

00:46:26.580 All right, continue.

00:46:28.320 Individual bonds.

00:46:29.840 This is largely inspired by Robin Hanson, right?

00:46:32.660 Yeah.

00:46:33.300 So hat tip, Robin Hanson, we love you.

00:46:35.740 Every individual AI or company registered in the state, for example, every politically relevant unit, pays two tax streams.

00:46:43.120 One is paid to the state like normal taxes, while the other, consisting of 25% of whatever the state is paid, is paid to their bondholders.

00:46:52.400 The initial owner of an individual's bond is the individual's creators.

00:46:56.820 For example, the child's bond would be split 50% between their parents.

00:47:01.340 Some tribes may demand a portion of this bond in exchange for membership.

00:47:04.940 For example, the Mormon community may own 50% of this bond for every child born within their community.

00:47:10.360 This system is designed for three purposes.

00:47:12.840 One, it yields a direct and large cash benefit for having a child and raising them well.

00:47:17.920 This cash benefit exactly scales with the presumed economic productivity of the child.

00:47:23.420 As parents can sell their children's shares, shares that will be worth less if parents do not raise the child to be economically productive.

00:47:30.580 Two, it provides an economic incentive for those with capital to invest in those without it.

00:47:35.960 For example, those born into disadvantaged families.

00:47:38.480 For example, if an otherwise smart kid was born into a disadvantaged family and their parents traded or sold their shares at a discount to an elite educational institution, that institution would be financially incentivized to educate the child and help them in any way it can.

00:47:54.740 We imagine most of the time these shares will be sold to educational institutions or other types of companies that specialize in improving people's economic status is that will be in the best interest of both parents and children.

00:48:06.980 Three, it provides a large economic incentive for companies, educational centers, and cultural groups to study methods for raising economically productive individuals.

00:48:17.060 This is a super fun idea.

00:48:19.000 Yeah.

00:48:19.260 So for people who don't understand, it'd be like if Simone and I had a kid and then that kid, 25% of all the federal taxes they paid, end up going to ever hold the bond on them.

00:48:28.880 And so suppose like polygenic screening costs a lot of money, but the companies that are offering it have a really high degree of confidence that it will help these people be more productive members of society.

00:48:39.060 Then the polygenic screening companies can say, okay, for 10% of any child we create bond, we will do the polygenic selection for free or an educational institution.

00:48:50.480 And this is the problem with existing educational institutions is they have no reason to actually care about a child's outcome.

00:48:55.340 And I suspect that many services like educational institutions and polygenic screening companies will only be able to sell for bonds because me as a parent, if one educational institution is like, I'm going to charge you X many hundred thousand dollars a year and another is like, oh, I just want the bond.

00:49:09.860 I'm like, okay, well, one of these is actually motivated to improve the kid's economic outcomes while the other is just motivated to take my money.

00:49:16.420 Obviously, I'm going to choose the bond holder.

00:49:18.080 So there's so many society externalities to this or like a company like Google, if they're like really convinced that we can make X type of people more productive, they could go into like a whole poor community and then just buy all the bonds in that community and then increase the value of those bonds by improving the quality of life of that community.

00:49:40.200 This is the core of governance design as it should be approached by everyone going forward.

00:49:45.060 So in the past, governance design was created by based on, well, this is how we do it.

00:49:50.600 Maybe if I tweak it a little bit, it might be less shitty.

00:49:54.020 Whereas what you really need to look at is what will incentivize people to do a thing that is good for everyone.

00:50:00.740 It is about aligning incentives, period.

00:50:03.120 Don't look at what was done in the past.

00:50:05.060 Don't think that that and people hear this, this concept that we first heard of from Robin Hanson and they're like, oh, that sounds weird.

00:50:11.680 I don't know, like selling a bond or you're like selling that person.

00:50:14.100 And just stop, stop thinking about that and think about incentives.

00:50:17.580 This is brilliant.

00:50:18.820 Yeah.

00:50:19.100 As I was saying with Google, so like suppose Google does something, it makes predatory actions beneficial.

00:50:25.800 So let's talk about a predatory action.

00:50:27.940 Google goes into a ghetto and they buy up all of the kids' bonds in that ghetto and people will be like, oh, this is so predatory.

00:50:35.720 Well, now what does Google have an incentive to do?

00:50:37.700 It has an incentive to renovate all the playgrounds, to renovate all the school systems, to make sure all the houses get renovations and all the lead is tested for.

00:50:45.340 To give scholarships to all the children, to give them tours.

00:50:48.900 Yeah, that's how it maximizes its earnings from these bond holdings.

00:50:52.540 Like that is the key to making a state.

00:50:56.260 It reminds me of this scene in Dune when they're like, oh, well, the smugglers operate underground.

00:51:02.600 We can't know what they're doing.

00:51:03.780 And he goes, well, then why don't we just tax the smugglers but make it legal?

00:51:07.860 And they're like, wait, I hadn't considered doing that.

00:51:10.380 And it's like, yeah, if it's legal but taxed, now there's a benefit to them being above board with us.

00:51:15.700 But we can also better monitor what's happening.

00:51:17.800 And this is what we mean with things like, well, if your vote is based on the amount that you're paying in taxes, now there's a huge disincentive to using tax loopholes.

00:51:25.720 And it's the same with bondholders.

00:51:28.060 Now there's a huge incentive for predatory actions, which aren't predatory at all, but benefit everyone involved.

00:51:33.740 All right.

00:51:34.240 Well, I am so excited that we got a chance to go over this.

00:51:37.140 We've been meaning to do something on this deck forever.

00:51:39.320 I am so glad The Guardian published this for us.

00:51:42.020 Thank you.

00:51:42.440 Yeah, and their outrage.

00:51:44.160 We love you to death.

00:51:45.160 They thought we were harboring in this or trying to bring in this dystopian revolution.

00:51:52.960 And Patrick, I loved Patrick's tweet of he just shared this image of this beautiful sci-fi utopia.

00:51:59.940 And he's like, this is the world that The Guardian doesn't want you to bring in.

00:52:04.420 This is the dystopian they're afraid of, our solar funk future.

00:52:08.560 How horrible.

00:52:09.740 Oh, my gosh.

00:52:11.340 Oh, my gosh.

00:52:12.020 He has the best comments, by the way.

00:52:14.040 Patrick, you got it, man.

00:52:17.780 I read YouTube comments just to find yours.

00:52:21.000 Simone, were the comments weighted towards negative or positive on this one?

00:52:24.580 The Guardian?

00:52:25.660 Yeah.

00:52:27.300 People don't go to Twitter to post positive stuff.

00:52:31.740 They don't go to X and pat you on the back and say, good job.

00:52:36.740 People actually think that this governing system would work.

00:52:40.800 What are the flaws that we haven't thought of?

00:52:42.560 What are the negative externalities we haven't thought of?

00:52:45.200 And yeah, I'd be very interested to hear all of that.

00:52:49.220 I honestly, I think it's a brilliant governing system.

00:52:52.580 I'd be really excited to see it implemented.

00:52:54.200 And Simone and I, even this morning, we're talking about going into the charter city business.

00:52:58.420 I was saying, you know, we should really look at pitching this to a few countries, see if we can get this off the ground.

00:53:03.020 I think people get really excited.

00:53:04.520 Let's get a few ultra religious groups in on this.

00:53:07.580 I mean, I think that that's what you really need to make this happen.

00:53:09.760 And a few, like, incredibly tech forward organizations.

00:53:13.060 And then we can build the first of the future charter cities or the first of the future haven networks.

00:53:17.680 Now, on a less bright note, and this is something that I'm just really coming to terms with, because most countries are not willing to or politically unable to come to terms with the fact that you cannot have both porous borders and generous social services, they will fall apart.

00:53:35.260 And we need, we need somewhere, I'm sure most people want somewhere they can flee to that is okay.

00:53:43.040 And I think most people are going to be willing to work for it.

00:53:45.840 They're going to be willing to be productive members of society.

00:53:48.160 And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that even most people who are heavily dependent on social services and handouts would much prefer to be independent citizens.

00:53:58.280 It's just that once you get stuck on this stuff, you get stuck in a loop and it's really hard to get out.

00:54:02.760 And I think that creating this and many other haven states that have similar systems, it's not just something of like, this could be a solution.

00:54:15.060 We need this because we are going to end up between this, this, this social services and porous borders dynamic and demographic collapse.

00:54:23.000 We are heading toward civilizational collapse and we need, we need that techno feudal system of little cities upon a hill, little city states that survive this.

00:54:37.040 So yeah, maybe we do need to get into this because there has to be something left for people to flee to.

00:54:44.480 Well, yeah, that we do. We do. There has to be something for people to flee to because the existence.

00:54:50.940 I don't like this. I don't like thinking you think through things. I'm like the rest of society. I don't think through things. This is fine. I like thinking this is fine. And you're just showing me the flames all around us.

00:55:04.320 If we have any ultra wealthy people who watch this and want something like this set up, let us know.

00:55:10.840 We are actually competent enough to put this together, but I want to see some bites before we do.

00:55:15.380 Because the last time we tried to do this, we got a lot of interest from people who wanted to buy into the project.

00:55:20.240 This was Project Eureka, but we didn't have connections with Capital that was interested.

00:55:25.740 We didn't have the property.

00:55:26.860 Yeah, we had the property. We could have done the whole thing for like $10 million. It would have been so inexpensive. I was very disappointed.

00:55:33.140 And this would have been right outside Manhattan, which was so frustrating. Such a good property. It was an old convent.

00:55:38.340 But they're a completely different model than the model we're describing here.

00:55:41.660 And I don't want to go into that model right now. That's for a different episode.

00:55:45.160 But for the model we're describing here, if you buy into this early, you could end up making an astronomical amount of money if things play out the way that we predict they will play out.

00:55:56.160 But you would need to buy in enough to get this off the ground.

00:55:59.340 So let us know if you're interested.

00:56:01.580 This is one of the things that hard EA, if we end up getting a lot of money, is going to maneuver to make realistic.

00:56:08.440 And I just love you to Decimum.

00:56:10.440 Yeah, I love you too. And I love everyone else who's working on City States because the more people working on this, the better.

00:56:17.380 I mean, we want to get involved, but that's not to shit on the people who are trying.

00:56:20.720 I admire everyone who's trying. 0.64

00:56:22.260 And obviously, people have done a ton of groundwork.

00:56:25.140 The fact that Prospera has people living there.

00:56:27.760 I mean, this is happening.

00:56:29.100 It's incredible that Prospera is off the ground.

00:56:31.140 I just can't believe what you've done.

00:56:32.340 And being a first mover in this space, I have such massive respect to all the first movers.

00:56:36.500 This is, to me, it's so impossible.

00:56:39.460 I mean, it can be done and it has been done.

00:56:41.360 But anyway, huge respect.

00:56:42.540 I love you.

00:56:43.140 I love them.

00:56:44.240 I love that we have a shot at the future, but I'm also so scared.

00:56:47.460 I'm so scared.

00:56:48.680 I'm so scared.

00:56:50.040 Love you to Decimum.

00:56:50.960 Love you too.

00:56:51.600 Oh, it's scared.

00:56:54.980 Oh, a Skeletor.

00:56:58.160 I need the sign.

00:57:00.520 You need the sign?

00:57:05.560 Let me get the sign.

00:57:07.180 The sign's right here, buddy.

00:57:09.960 Can I take this sign home with us?

00:57:13.540 I don't know, buddy.

00:57:14.320 We'll have to ask them.

00:57:15.860 Okay.

00:57:18.260 Doors closed.

00:57:21.280 On a Skeletor! 0.95

00:57:24.620 Do you know what this say right on top here?

00:57:27.980 Not on the bottom.

00:57:29.680 What do you think it says?

00:57:31.420 You do it.

00:57:33.240 It says, Trump Vance.

00:57:35.500 And what does this say?

00:57:37.500 It says, Vance.

00:57:39.240 And what does this whole word say?

00:57:41.640 That sentence says, Make America Great Again.

00:57:45.180 And what does these numbers make?

00:57:50.700 2-0-2-4.

00:57:52.140 And we say 2024.

00:57:54.600 2024?

00:57:55.100 Wow.

00:57:57.540 That is a long, long number.

00:58:04.420 That's a long number, all right?

00:58:06.560 I sold a car.

00:58:09.660 So, Wes, let's put up this sign.

00:58:12.760 Can you hold these stickers for me?

00:58:15.780 Wes, we got to put up this sign.

00:58:18.180 For the show, because they got a boat.

00:58:24.460 Everybody boat!

00:58:26.420 Hey, come on, Mommy! 1.00

00:58:27.680 Let's go.

Based Camp - November 06, 2024

What's Better than Democracy？ Radical Governance Theory for Charter Cities

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