Thanks Amaia,<br><br>there is interesting context in David De Ugarte's history of alt.sovereignities, at <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/From_Nations_to_Networks">http://p2pfoundation.net/From_Nations_to_Networks</a><br>
<br><br><p>Part two of the book has a fascinating history of 19th cy.
Segregationist attempts, i.e. refusals of the nation-state such as
Mormonism and alternative Zionisms, and of 20th cy. Libertarian and
other microstates. Their common mistake is to want to ground alternative
socialities in derivatives of imaginary nation-states. But early
attempts at internet ‘societies’ like Freedonia are also failures,
because they lack a viable shared economy, which coincides with the
human network.
</p><p><br>
Thus, after this vital and interesting history of post-national
attempts, comes a very interesting passage:
</p><p>David de Ugarte et al.:
</p><p>“The Freedonia story represents the transition and continuity
between the
Randian segregationism and the new world of trans-national communities.
The
segregationist temptation appeared repeatedly in virtual networks in the
second
half of the nineties. It was the easiest option. When network life
occupies the
identitarian space and explains more about who we are and who we speak
to than
the nation, the immediate temptation is to replicate the national model,
seeking a
territory and building a customised micro-state. Segregationism was
always there,
underlying, inviting us to occupy a distant island or build a floating
city where the
real community can be accommodated and new forms of social organisation
can be
tried. And the myth of Mormon success is still powerful.
</p><p><br>
But the 20th-century groups were no longer like 19th-century ones.
Randian
attempts are unlike those of the Mormons, a presential and real
community. With
their form of shareholders' society, Randian experiments resemble more
the failed
colonisation societies than John Smith's persecuted and cohesive
religious parishes,
where, despite their being more people, everyone knew each other, worked
alongside each other, and personally trusted each other, generating, in
so doing, an
economic basis and emotional tries which were strong enough to support
the
gigantic efforts and sacrifices which proved to be necessary.
Actually, when we think about it, Sealand, once the mythical layer of
Cryptonomicon and Wired is stripped, is nothing but the adventure of a
family of
British squatters who kept some bad company.
</p><p><br>
Freedonia, the first internet-era community that sought its own
territoriality,
was, in its naivety, both a forerunner and a frontier. Its scarcely 300
members led a
real and intense political life. They built a conversation that provided
them with an
explanation and a meaning. They shared their daily lives and built a
common
identity which bound them together more than their respective national
contexts.
Briefly put, they constituted a trans-national community. But they never
had an
economic basis, a map, a common space between the conversation flows and
their
own way of making a living.
</p><p><br>
It is true that a community can be based on collective conversation and
the
consequent political play. In an extended and interesting experiment51,
Dutch
ethologist Frans de Waal showed how a group of chimpanzees all whose
members
enjoyed unrestricted access to food not only preserved power structures,
but
experienced them more intensely than ever. Politics does not arise in
politics as a
result of scarcity: it is not only an organised struggle for the
surplus, as Marx
thought. It is there before and after abundance.
</p><p><br>
But maintaining a conversation and social game does not equal supporting
a
human community. Beyond conversation, nothing generated the need or the
possibility of a headquarters territory in Freedonia. There was no
persecution
forcing them to do so, not a prior economic activity among its members
which
justified their settling in a specific place. Randians likewise lacked
both. That's why
Freedonians and Randians sought their destiny from the settler's logic.
Believing
that the territory would generate its own economic structure, an economy
hardly
sketched out from libertarian principles which would ground a community
which
would not longer be trans-national or virtual but territorial. This is a
mistake.
</p><p>…
</p><p>Segregationism fails. Without a shared economy, there is no human
community which will endure in time. That's why unfaithfulness,
transitoriness, and
temporary alliances are, as Juan Urrutia points out52, common to all
network
conversational identities.
</p><p>After Freedonia, trans-national conversational communities
evolved
dramatically, both in number and in form. Some of them, like Second
Life, included
as an extra attraction a small parallel economy – which artificially
produced scarcity
– and a certain political space. But, for the time being at least, they
are merely a
game and a representation, a pastime and a simulation of a world which
can
already be intuited but which must come from elsewhere.
</p><p><br>
New identities will only emerge when trans-national conversational
spaces
are superimposed onto economic spaces within a similar domain and they
interact.
</p><p><br>
On different scales, from the networks constituted by tens of thousands
of Neonomadic
individualists to the great corporate Venices, this is exactly what we
are
starting to see this decade, and what prefigures the forms of the great
future postnational
map.”
(<a href="http://deugarte.com/gomi/Nations.pdf" class="external free">http://deugarte.com/gomi/Nations.pdf</a>)
</p><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Aug 15, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Amaia Arcos <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:amaia.arcos@googlemail.com">amaia.arcos@googlemail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<a href="https://freecity.ufm.edu/index.php/Videos_of_presentations" target="_blank">https://freecity.ufm.edu/index.php/Videos_of_presentations</a><div><br>I have no idea whether this is good or bad. Just found it.<br><br>
Universidad Francisco Marroquín is proud to have co-hosted, along with The Seasteading Institute, the first Future of Free Cities conference in April 2011 on the tropical island of Roatán in Honduras. This event brought together leaders from several different fields and countries for a series of high-level discussions that focused on how to establish successful politically autonomous communities.<br>
<br>Interest in free cities continues to grow as more and more people recognize their potential to expand individual liberty throughout the world.<br><font color="#888888"><br>--<br>“We would think and live better and be closer to our purpose as humans if we moved continuously on foot across the surface of the earth” Bruce Chatwin<br>
</font></div>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a> - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
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