1729: A New Kind of Country

1729 is a group working to build a new kind of country called a “Network State”. My experience with 1729 reminds me of when I co-founded a bitcoin exchange in 2011. However, times have changed. When I say “We are founding a new country” people in 2022 seem more likely to believe me than when I spoke about bitcoin in 2010 or 2011. Eleven or twelve years ago the reactions to bitcoin were “that’s crazy” or “sounds like a ponzi scheme”. Today, the reactions to me saying “we’re creating a new country and starting online” are quite different. They tend to be more along the lines of “Yeah, that sounds about right”. 

In this article I will cover: 

1. What exactly is 1729?

2. What has my experience been like so far?

3. How can you learn more or get involved?

So what exactly is 1729?

The mission of 1729 is to build a “Network State”, which would be a country that differs from other countries in a variety of ways. One main way this country is different from other countries is that we are starting online and will take several actions *before* we seek to acquire land. Here are some of the steps we would take before attempting to acquire land. 

1. Collective bargaining / collective negotiation with currently existing cities around the world to make policy changes. Our thesis with collective negotiation is that there would be many cities that would like to attract the pool of experience, knowledge, and capital that we possess. As such, we would either ask for a city to make a certain policy change in exchange for moving there or we would ask a city to fix a certain problem they have in exchange for not leaving. 
   

2. Building online competitors to government regulation. The thesis for creating online competitors to government regulation is that a large component of regulation is giving people access to the right information about products. In other words, many look to government regulators for information about products. They look to regulators to answer questions such as, “Is it safe to get in this taxi or stay at this hotel?”, “Will this financial product increase or decrease my net worth?”, and “Will this product improve or harm my health?”
   
   Innovations such as Uber, AirBnB, and cryptocurrency compete with more than just products; such as Taxis, Hotels, and, financial assets. Uber, AirBnB, and cryptocurrency also all provide information to stakeholders. In this sense, they actually compete with government regulators of hotels, taxis, and financial markets. Consumers using these products use tech-based solutions, instead of government regulators, to make decisions.
   
   1729 intends to continue building online competitors to government regulators, in terms of information. One particular area of interest is providing online alternatives to health information that are independent of the FDA and essentially compete with it. To be clear, we plan on keeping everything 100% legal.
   

3. Negotiating diplomatic representation. Currently, about 30% of countries in the UN have less than one million people. We could potentially obtain international diplomatic representation with less than one hundred thousand people.

The last step would be acquiring land. The current plan is to have 1729’s land be decentralized. In other words, we would have a lot of small plots of land around the world instead of one large land mass. Imagine a bunch of dots on a map.

This would have some advantages such as being harder to attack than one land mass. Also, it would allow our population to move away from certain areas of the globe. For a variety of reasons, one area of the globe could be more or less habitable. After all, things come up such as wars, natural disasters, political issues, and unfavorable weather. 

What has my experience in 1729 been like so far?

So far, the main events of 1729 have been the weekly meetings in VR. Our VR setup works with just a screen but you can also use a headset. We all start off in a VR room which looks like a giant tent from an outdoor exposition with a giant screen at the front of the room. In this VR environment, the tent is surrounded by mountains. 

We currently meet at 12AM EST. Everyone is represented by an avatar and you can move around the VR space, similar to a video game or computer game. Many have linked their avatar with a twitter account so you can see who they are. Some participants choose to remain anonymous or semi-anonymous by creating a separate twitter account. Other individuals link their avatar to their main twitter account with a picture of who they are. It seems there are normally about 50 of us in the lecture hall, but that is just a guess from the amount of Avatars I see. 

Below is an image of what the VR classroom looks like. Normally, you would see user names and twitter profile pictures above the avatars. However, I edited this image to remove any information and respect anyone who wants to remain anonymous. The countries listed at the top of the screen are the breakout rooms that we go to after the lecture ends. In this image, they all say “0” because everyone is in the main lecture hall.

The VR meetups start with a moderator explaining the rules of the room. Normally there is a minute of downtime and we all ask the moderator to tell jokes. So far, I haven’t heard any jokes though….maybe one day. After that, Balaji Srinivasan’s Avatar appears and will give a lecture. For those unfamiliar with Balaji, he previously taught at Stanford, built a start-up called Earn.com (which was acquired by Coinbase), and then served as Coinbase’s CTO. He also invests in different projects and companies.

The lecture normally lasts about an hour. During the lecture many people ask questions in our discord which links to a separate chat window that is displayed next to the virtual lecture hall. At the end of the lecture, Balaji answers a lot of our questions which we post in Discord / linked chat window.

After that, we divide into break out rooms which look like Stonehenge but with rubber duckies. See image below which has been edited to hide usernames and avatar images. There are normally about 25-30 of us in the breakout rooms. This is the place where we all talk about topics related to the lecture, ideas we have related to 1729, and what we are working on apart from 1729. Balaji and some moderators also participate in the breakout-room conversations. 

At the end of the lecture an Airtable link is posted for participants to give feedback on the lecture. Feedback topics include the content of the lecture, the audio and video quality, and how the VR technology behaved.

If you fill out the feedback form then you will receive an email after, where you can mint a POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) https://www.ledger.com/academy/what-is-poapn 

The weekly lecture and meeting is the main event. However, we also have a discord group with interesting and stimulating conversations going on. The group of people involved have been extremely curious, smart, thought-provoking, and supportive. 

Some of us “1729ers” are also starting to write about ideas related to 1729. I have been brainstorming some ideas to keep more people engaged on a daily basis.

How can you learn more and get involved?

If 1729 sounds like something you would love to learn more about and/or get involved with, here are a few things you can do. 

1. Listen to this interview with Balaji on Tim Ferris’s podcast or this one.

2. Read “The Network State” essay by Balaji

3. Apply to 1729 Please be patient, my understanding that there is currently a long waiting list.

Feel free to contact me on Twitter at @BerkeleyWanner

Thanks for taking the time to read about 1729, stay tuned for more!