#157：Inside Network School | Conversation with Berkeley Wanner and Sterlin Lujan
49:00 Share

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Chiwi Journal podcast. I'm your host, Camille Yang. And today we have two guests from the network school, Berkeley and Sterling. Can you guys give us a brief introduction about who you are and why you joined network school?

Yeah, sure. I'll try to be brief. I mean, essentially, I like Bitcoin. I like Ethereum. The idea is behind them. I'm not really into trading. I've been very interested in...

libertarian ideas and I would say in general better alternatives to current systems for a very long time in my life. The network school for me sort of falls under that category. I think of it a lot as trying to apply some of the ideas of Bitcoin and Ethereum to things beyond the software world. And I think that that's essentially the shortest reason, shortest explanation as for why I'm here.

Yeah, it's kind of funny. I think we're all like peas in the same pod, right? Because I'm also in crypto. So I've been working in the cryptocurrency ecosystem for the last 10 years, primarily on the communication front. I've worked for organizations like Bitcoin.com. More recently, I'm working with Logos, which is actually in the network state space, developing infrastructure.

I'm also an author. I've written a book called Dignity and Decency, Rhapsodic Musings of a Modern Anarchist. And I'm primarily here because of the philosophical vision behind the idea, the idea that we don't need the legacy and the traditional systems, especially because those systems look like they are falling into decline and disrepute.

So my whole vision is that we can eventually live in a society where

our own making in an experimental sense and I think that's beautiful. What kind of a Balaji's idea draws you to him? How did you first come across to his idea? Maybe I should have mentioned before, you know, I did start at Bitcoin exchange with some friends in 2011, did my undergrad degree in Chile starting in 2007. So I think I came at this with a

perspective like Sterling of definitely interest in cryptocurrency and the ideas behind it. More specifically, being able to hold your own assets, not having to rely on a third party to send transactions. And then also a bit of a, for someone who grew up in the US completely,

maybe more of a less us centric perspective than a lot of other people who grew up in the us first time i heard biology speaking about network state related ideas was tim ferris podcast in 2021 i was living in columbia at the time i still remember you know the apartment i was in when i was listening to it and i think i would maybe just sum it up by saying that uh

A lot of the ideas I heard him talking about on that podcast, there's two of them actually in 2021, were sort of like much more developed, much more thought out versions of ideas that I had had on my own or curiosities that I had on my own. Yeah. So is there one idea that Bology said that they really jumped out?

I don't know if there's one idea because there's a lot of them. I mean, a little bit in my own words of my own understanding of his ideas, I think it basically comes down to

I think that Ethereum and Bitcoin are very meaningful projects and have had a lot of impact on the world already. But I think we're sort of at a point where we need more besides just software to create better alternatives for people in the world that have to do with health, wealth, free speech, a lot of other things.

Yeah, same. That's the first time I heard about him in 2021 on Tim Ferriss' podcast. Because I normally listen to the podcast when I'm jogging and normally the podcast is only one hour. So it's a

decent amount of jogging time but that's what he did on Team Ferris is four hours. I remember I was like running on Hyde Park for like four hours long and I was like, God, this guy is amazing. He's very knowledgeable and mentioned that 1729, the idea, the community he wants to build. So also that's how we met each other, Berkeley, on the, yeah, on line first in 1729. What about you, Steph?

Yeah, so my experience is a little bit different than you guys. I came across Bology later down the road. I didn't come into contact with his material until he published the Network State book. And let me explain a bit why this happened that way. So since I'd already been in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, one of my focuses has been on the cypherpunk movement and crypto anarchism. So I was familiar with these ideas before.

through that lens, through the lens of crypto-anarchism, right? Timothy May in 1992 wrote an article called Libertaria in Cyberspace. And in that article, he made a case for what is virtually the same idea as Bology's, except it has more of that cypherpunk tenor, meaning there's

a focus on enhanced privacy, anti-surveillance, and more freedom-oriented infrastructure. Of course, this was way before the idea could be fully realized in terms of where we were technologically, right? So, of course, go down the line many years,

and me having worked in crypto and being focused on this and then eventually joining logos which has that same cypherpunk background and those guys working on that same idea developing infrastructure for network states so it was then that around that time that balji published his book and i was like oh so he's on essentially the same path his ideas differ a little bit but

I think the core, the crux of the idea behind the network state is the same thing that Timothy May had envisioned. And the thing that I like most, you mentioned ideas that stuck out. So Balaji's idea of having a hub, like network school, for spinning up

and bootstrapping more experimental governance communities really resonated with me because the only way that we're going to be able to push back against legacy systems that endanger us on every possible front is to have a number of different network states, parallel societies, parallel pulley, whatever you want to call them,

Running simultaneously in conjunction and experimenting with a vast array of governance ideas. I think that's a beautiful thing. And that's why I really loved his ideas. And I read his book multiple times. Some parts I read twice and three times over because I do a lot of writing myself and I wanted to be able to articulate the ideas better.

I'm curious to know when you apply to join the network school, we all know there are more than 3,000 applications. And we got in as the first bunch of 150 people. So how did you write your application to make you go in? Can you share a little bit? Yeah, this is going to be interesting. This will be one of the high points probably for the background sake. So when I wrote my... This is...

story that I use whenever I'm trying to get any kind of alternative position because it's a true story and it resonates I think with people in the crypto ecosystem particularly so one of the things I point out in my story when I wrote it up to the network school is the fact that I was arrested in 2009 for possession of 500 pills of MDMA right it was that experience that

like snapped me out of my coma. I had realized that the state was not a great entity. It definitely wasn't serving any kind of needs. I was just voluntarily engaging on a market environment, right? I wasn't hurting anybody. People could hurt themselves, but that's their choice, right?

Anyway, so that's the story that I told in my application, or at least part of it. I'd mentioned, of course, that I'd worked in crypto for 10 years. But everything that I've done in crypto and being in this ecosystem has been a result of that formative experience. It really changed my life and it changed my perspective of the status quo, of the system that we're embedded in. It made me realize that, for lack of a better phrase, it has imperfections and flaws that

And in a lot of way, it's corrupted. I get reminded of that Frank Herbert quote when I think about this all the time, where he said, it's not that absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's that absolute power is magnetic to the corruptible. And that's what's happened to our, to our quote unquote nation states and our governments. They're so corrupted as to be completely unsuitable for a rational and logical person to live embedded in them. So that's why I got into the network state idea. And that's,

why I filled out my application the way that I did because it's true and because it's real and it's

It's what brought me here. I don't. So it's interesting. I don't remember exactly what I put. And, and, and I do have an email that shows how I filled out all the plus 10 negative 10 for anyone who's filled out the application or for who hasn't, it asks you how you feel about different things like, like Karl Marx and you put, you know, plus 10 to negative 10. But when I filled out the application, I,

There was the written sort of paragraph component was on its own. And I don't think I got any email showing what I wrote for that. I mean, I think kind of what I remember putting was that, you know, I've been extremely interested in network state related ideas for years.

several years and even before hearing the term and that, you know, not only my, my thinking, but also my actions align with that. So I think I probably mentioned, you know, deciding that education in the U S was, was overpriced back in 2007, getting my undergrad under undergrad in Chile, which, you know, I see as sort of, uh,

being a little bit ahead of the curve on that decision. I think now a lot of people think that makes sense, but 15 years ago or whatever it was, that wasn't such a common decision. So I think I mentioned that. I mentioned starting a Bitcoin exchange with friends in 2011.

I also mentioned, you know, for four years, I managed a real estate project in San Francisco that included a co-living space for tech, crypto and art. And then I lived in a more health oriented as opposed to tech oriented, smaller group living situation when I was in Columbia.

Did some podcasts in Spanish related to cryptocurrency there and also got interviewed by sort of like the equivalent of Fox News, but for radio in Colombia about the network school several years ago with with Bology's blessing to to do that.

So I think I sort of mentioned all those things and that how not just my ideas, but actions that I had taken in my life aligned a lot with the idea of the network school. And then I remember also mentioning, and maybe Camilla and I could talk a little bit more about this, being involved in 1729, which I sort of view as the...

online precursor to the network school. You know, we would have weekly lectures in VR. It was actually used the same discord and they added more channels for the network school. Yeah, I mean, I think for Camilla and I, there's maybe we had a little bit more of an idea of what might be happening here because we had sort of seen the online version before. So that's sort of how I applied and what I said. Yeah.

I think I only wrote three or four sentences. I was like, I'm in 1729 and you know my name, you should let me pass. Yeah, and then I just dropped my website. I feel like, I think I probably, yeah, yeah, I feel like, I think Balaji first shared the link in the Discord before public.

So I think I'm probably the top 10 person who applied immediately because I was super excited. I said, yeah, I need to get in to see how he built this school from scratch. Yeah, so I was over excited. So I just, yeah, yeah, very excited. Just to put a few sentences. I don't know. I didn't realize you need to write a proper essay because when I chat to the students here, a lot of them like write a

probably like 800 or 2000 words. I say, wow, I feel super lost. I mean, I wrote a few paragraphs. I didn't write something super long. So how's your daily routine in network school? Yeah, mine is really interesting. So there's a lot of events. One of the big pieces of the network school, and I think one of the most enjoyable, is the fact that we're here with a lot of really intelligent people.

And not just people with great ideas, but people who implement those ideas, who want to put them into practice, and who want to build things that matter for the future. And so I try to go to as many of those events as possible, but my day's been a little rough recently because I, especially during the week, I'm really busy with my own work. Plus, and this is probably a good thing, I booted up a project with a few fellow network schoolers here recently.

And we've been developing that. So we're working multiple hours a day on that project to get it going. And it's a really, really fantastic thing. But overall, there's this idea that the network school is supposed to be built for people who

work remotely, you know, who make their own way in life. And so it's not like a traditional school where every single day you're getting up and you have a curriculum and you have a schedule and you got to go to class and like the bell rings and you're like a Pavlovian dog and you're drooling on yourself and then you go to the next. So I like that structure. Let's call it an anti-structure. There is no structure. You just, you do what you want to do and you interact with people who are really smart. And I think that's really cool.

And I do think a lot of really neat things are going to come out of this. I think there's going to be a lot of projects and probably a lot of people who end up getting put on the map because of what they did showing up here as the first cohort. It's really exciting times. And I don't think it's all for naught. I think some people here are going to build things that actually matter. And that's what I'm seeing so far. Just one thing you said sort of reminded me of. I've had this idea a little bit, and I'm curious to see what you guys think that –

I think the best attitude to have while you're here is to not try to put it in a pre-existing category in your mind of like, oh, this is a coding boot camp or this is a conference or this is a college or something like that. So I had a tweet that was something to those effects of the idea being that, uh,

Maybe this is one of those things that it's best to create a new category in your mind for what this is. And I mean, in my case, it would be related to, you know, I've lived out and managed a co-living space before. So the idea of seeing people around is not completely new to me. Yeah, I mean, I think definitely I just spent kind of like a day and a night in the Bay Area and I hadn't been in the Bay Area in a long time.

It's interesting because the first couple of days I was here, it almost felt like in terms of the people that maybe I was in the Bay Area before you interacted with them. But then as I interacted with them, it became very clear that a lot of the people here, besides being intelligent and having a lot of skills, are very sort of forward-looking people.

individuals who are able to see a vision and then also maybe adapt to what I was mentioning about this isn't going to be exactly like some other thing you've done before. It's not going to be exactly like a school or a conference or a co-living space or whatever. So anyways, in short, I would say that

Maybe the biggest value add for me here has been the other attendees or participants. I don't even know what word we want to use for them.

and essentially the kind of the informal conversations at dinner. The official talks by Balaji and the guest speakers are also great, but I would say that, you know, as someone that's seen not only the interviews with Balaji and others online, but also did 1729 in VR, the part that can't be replicated online, I would say, is interacting with

other people in a community yeah so true the first week because we're all in a like a social state when we first join in we all talk with everybody and have a fantastic dinner or breakfast table conversation and i wrote two sci-fi stories in five days just by talking to people they inspired my ideas

I found it's very valuable. What else can you add on for your routine? Like it's a daily workout. How do you find about that? And the meal plan, the food, can you give more details? Well, I guess, yeah, I mean, daily routines, I do work out most days here. I'm someone that tries to be physically active outside of the network school as well. So I've sort of mixed doing the official workout

group workouts with lifting on my own. And, uh, yeah, I mean the area we're in, um, I know other people have put the location online, but I'm not going to be one of those, those people, you know, there's a beach, there's, uh, a lot of, uh, green like plants, uh, around, uh, there's also buildings. And, uh, so I frequently go for walks as well, besides the workouts and lifting weights. Um,

And yeah, obviously, you know, the blueprint dinners, the lunches definitely go to events that different people organize here. So we use a group Luma and everyone posts different events that they do. I did, I did one talk myself, which Sterling gave me some, some really great feedback on before I gave it. So yeah, I mean, definitely the workout part, definitely going to group events and,

Definitely preparing a talk, thinking about other things I could do. I've been trying to be a little bit more active on Twitter, sharing my experiences here. And then, yeah, I guess I did also...

have a one-on-one with biology at one point and, you know, also prepared for that. Some, uh, you know, my, my ideas, what I was thinking, et cetera. So that's a little bit about what my days look like. Yeah. I'm glad you asked to get deeper into that. I had momentarily blanked on the whole workout point, which is a huge, which is a, which is a huge part of this.

Yeah, that's right. So, Bology really set up the network school to have three core components. Learn, burn, and earn, I believe, are the three components. So, yeah, my thing is I'm also like Berkeley. I tend to be as active as possible online.

outside of the network school. But since I've been here, I've been even more active because the burn part of it, we're doing high intensity training workouts every single day. If you want to go every single day, you can. And some of the days on the weekend are a little bit more what they call active quote unquote recovery. So they're not quite as hard, but

I've definitely gotten into a little bit better shape, especially cardio-wise since I've been here. So I think that's an amazing facet of this because the idea of the network school is also premised around Brian Johnson's work, which is on Don't Die. Probably not going to get into his full spiel right now because we'll be here for a while. But the idea is that you're trying to live as healthy as possible and you're trying to prepare for...

the the ai apocalypse right in whatever form that that takes but it's working out because we're doing we're working out a lot we're also eating right berkeley mentioned the blueprint meals blueprint is brian johnson's meal plan program which is an extremely healthy diet that consists definitely of a

And other than that, there are, we mentioned earlier, it's not hardcore structured, but biology does give one kind of all hands talk during the week. And then he has a speaker who usually does a talk either remotely or comes here in person. And my experience with those is they've been really valuable, really enjoyed those talks and

So I do think if anybody's thinking about coming to the network school, if they want to apply and get in, the value is 100% here. But Berkeley's right. You shouldn't think of this as a traditional school. This is more like

It's intended to eventually, in my understanding, turn into a network state where people are just living here and so like you guys are my neighbors. But instead of your neighbors being people you don't know and who probably don't share your political views and who could hurt you depending on the neighborhood that you live in, the people here you're more likely to be able to connect with easier. You have things in common. You share values and aspirations. You're likely builders or creators of some kind here.

So it's very much a value aligned community and,

And I think that's a beautiful aspect of that. And that's what Berkeley mentioned too, with reference to the informal meetings with different students here and the constant really, sometimes I get, sometimes I'm scared to come out of my room because I know I'm going to get enmeshed in some philosophical conversation and get deep into Hegel and Nietzsche. And we're just going to sit in the room for hours at a time talking and I'm not going to get anything done. So sometimes I have to lock myself in my room and,

Right. But it's easy to want to go out because I get FOMO, right? I want to FOMO into these conversations. You know, I left for one week for work in New York. And when I check all the Luma events, I was like, I have a strong FOMO here. I want to join this philosophical talk. I want to join this party and this workshop. I know you did a Toastmaster workshop.

just before the recording. Can you share more, like how did you get into that? And also tell us more about your book. Yeah, so Toastmasters is an international organization that focuses on developing public speaking and leadership skills.

And it has been an invaluable resource in my life. I've done Toastmasters for years. There was a time for about a year and a half that I did it consistently, and I showed up every week to the meeting. And what Toastmasters really helps you achieve in your speaking is that you learn the art of speaking. You learn not to say uhs and ahs, and you learn not to say like and and so. You know, you hear Gen Zers, right? Every other word, like, like this, like that, like, like, how are you? Like, this is good.

That is not what we would call quality speaking. Actually, I've done so much public speaking in my life. I've gone to some events and a speaker gets up on the stage and they have so many uhs that people just get up and they walk out of the room. Not to offend the speaker, but because if you can't communicate your message clearly, if you say too many uhs, people don't get anything out of that. So it's

That's why I decided – this is where the huge value add was, I thought, for the network school. We're all leaders here. We're all trying to build stuff. We're trying to change the world. And if you can't do – if you can't go out in public and talk about your ideas, if you can't articulate them with some type of fluency –

then they're gonna fall on deaf ears. So we're all leaders, right? So we wanna be able to go out and talk about these ideas in ways that matter, in ways that connect with other people. So that's why I started up Toastmasters. And this is actually the third meeting

that we've had. And it's been the people who come absolutely love it. And they tend to come back again and again because they know that they see the value in it. I think it's a powerful thing. I think everyone should do public speaking. And I think they should practice their public speaking. And I think they should go to Toastmasters. Toastmasters is amazing. Can't speak highly enough of it. Now, my book, that's another animal. Starting in 2009, around the time I got arrested for possession of MDMA,

I had an emotional, very much an emotional, visceral reaction to that experience. And I immediately turned against all the systems. Before that happened, I thought I was living my life freely. I wasn't hurting anybody. I was enjoying it. I was making money. And then...

What happened after that, getting arrested and going through the criminal justice system, having almost go to prison for 40 years, and then being on probation for five years, and having people come to my house and watch me pee in a cup, completely dehumanizing stuff, that changed my mind about the system. So I started...

writing pretty aggressively online, anarchist ideas, criticizing the military industrial complex, criticizing the educational system, criticizing the government itself, saying we should abolish and tear this thing down immediately. I was very aggressive during that time. But I started accumulating a writing practice where I was writing about these ideas very consistently. I was making posts online.

And eventually that turned into a body of work in and of itself. So over the course of 10 years, I accumulated so much writing that my wife and I sat down and we had a discussion and said, why don't we get all of this material that I've written about and compile it into a book? And this particularly became important when Facebook started censoring people's material. I was like, all my good chunk of my material is on Facebook or some other centralized platform. Who's to say it just doesn't exist tomorrow, right? Censorship is a huge issue. So...

We put it together, and I submitted my – we put all that stuff together. First, I hired someone who's in the community. Her name's Carrie Wedler, actually. Thanks to Carrie. She did an excellent job over the course of three years editing the book. So the editing process took a long time because it all had to be organized, sorted, ordered. I spent some time in there re-editing stuff that I'd previously written. It finally came together as the book –

And luckily through my friend Derek Brose, who is a major activist in Texas and in Mexico, he had his book previously published by a publisher. And that publisher is called Discovery Publisher based out of Ireland. They publish a lot of activist material online.

I reached out or he reached out to them, connected me with them and they accepted my book, my manuscript and then they published it. Now that took, we started putting everything together in 2016, my wife and I did all the material and then we finally finished it in around 2020 and then it got published around 2021. Thanks for sharing that. I also wrote a book during COVID that I used to live in China but the censorship problem, yeah. So I started to,

write in English because they probably won't read that much. I totally feel for you and yeah, it's great and especially nowadays we can even self-publish and we don't need to go through the traditional gatekeeper which is great. And Berkeley, back to you. You live in South America, different cities and

Also, you mentioned that you organized a co-living space. So what's the major difference between what we are now and the places you lived before? So this is my first time living in a place that is, you know, related to a network state. So in that sense, it's very different. Yeah, I mean, essentially in San Francisco,

I lived at and managed a building that included a co-living space on one of the floors. It's about 40 units. And that was focused on crypto tech and art. While doing that, I thought a lot about doing something like that, but with 15 branches around the world and having more...

health components, healthy lifestyle components integrated into it, along with the tech art cryptocurrency focus. I didn't do that. I think this is a good time to mention that Camilla and Sterling have definitely heard me say this already. But I think a lot of what's going on here, not just here, but in general with network states, pretty much hinges on this idea of

I do think the next wave of truly innovative value generating projects will be not just software, but they will also include land and hardware. Essentially, my thinking behind this is that Bitcoin and Ethereum, their fundamental value is that they're an alternative to governments. And that I think that we already have

We can certainly build out more, but I think we already have a decent amount of options when it comes to software for alternative to current governments. But then if you want to have your own biological lab to study longevity or if you want different laws or anything that involves land or hardware, that's definitely lacking.

Um, so, you know, the, the clothing space I managed, uh, you know, in the belly of the beast, if you will, it was, it was literally in San Francisco. And, uh, so when biology talks about, uh, how hard it is to build, build in the physical world in the Bay area, uh, I might be one of the people at the network school that, that, that, that, uh, feels the pain the most when he's describing that. But yeah, I mean, so, so that in San Francisco, you know, we did parties, uh,

There was definitely art. It was very influenced by Bay Area things, also by cryptocurrency technology. A little bit before I got there, I think Vitalik filmed quite an early video explaining of what Ethereum was.

maybe in like 2014 or so. That was a little bit about like San Francisco. And then when I was in Columbia, it was a much smaller group. There were five of us and there wasn't really any sort of tech cryptocurrency focus. It was more the, you know, health component. You know, I had a meditation space. We had an ice tank every Sunday. We would do ice bath with barbecue and tea, which is a really, really cool thing.

way to sort of have like a healthy social life. I guess what I love about here is it's combining the health elements and the technology and the innovation elements in the same place, which is something that I've wanted to do for a very long time. And I mentioned before how I think the companies that are going to be truly value generating in a way that Bitcoin or Ethereum was starting

10 plus years ago, depending on which one you're talking about. I think they are going to have more than just software in them.

And, you know, just as we're recording this on, what is this, October 20th, just the other day, Praxis announced raising, I think it was like $525 million. Last year, Andreessen Horowitz made a $350 million investment into Flow, which is a company that has buildings with hardware and software integrated into them.

And so I think we're already getting some of the data points. But in terms of things that are different, one, there's the sort of practical level of it's really cool that health and technology are being integrated into this together, into the same community. But I think also we're starting to see more and more of a shift. The network school is part of that.

Towards this model of, you know, we need to be not only investing in, in companies that have land hardware and software, but essentially investing in them, giving them the same sort of valuation that you would give a Web3 company or that you would give a SaaS company that

And I think for, I'm aware that for a lot of people, that's a bridge too far right now. But I definitely saw when Bitcoin and Ethereum were a bridge too far for people. So I see a lot of parallels there. That's sort of the short and long answer. Was one thing at network school beyond your expectation? And one thing you think we should improve on? And one thing...

From biology's vision, like you predict the future, what's the one thing that excited you about the future of network school? Oh gosh, Camelia, you had to drop the bomb, right? Okay. The one thing that I like, right, or the one thing that turned out really great, I think the structure, right?

I really, really, really like the structure. If I would have come here and had to abide by some strict schedule, it would have been impossible for me to do that because of my work schedule that I already have being really busy. Because I do product marketing and that's a really time consumptive job, right? So I really like the way he structured it. There's just the right balance of educational material with the free time, right? And that's really, really important.

Now, anything that could potentially change or that they could do better? See, this is the bomb scenario. This is one of those topics where you really have to choose your words wisely, right? It's like a bunch of little things, I think, that add up. But that also has to do with the fact that this is V0. We're just off the ground. It's going to be messy and chaotic in a lot of ways. And so I'm the type of person who doesn't have a lot of

expectations of perfection or some idea that I'm going to come here and it's going to be my wildest dreams. It's going to be fucking Thomas More's Utopia. I didn't have that expectation, so it's fine. I think everything... One thing that they've done really well in regards to that is they've tried to react to criticisms and to feedback as quickly as possible and then iterate on that. That goes back to what Berkeley was saying that

In relation, at least, to the fact that Balji and his team can change things really quickly here. Unlike you can't change anything in San Francisco. Oh, I want to build a fence? Well, okay, do you have your permit? Do you have millions of dollars? And here, Balji likes to use the term, everything's editable. Like an app, you just go in, you edit, and you need to fix. I think he views the world as sort of an app. You're going to edit everything as you go in and see if it fits. So I don't have any...

constructive feedback. It almost doesn't matter because I think they're going to fix anything. And that's a good thing. They're very open to feedback. Now, the question that I really like is, how do I see the future of where all this is going? So I really see this as the beginning, a part of the beginning of a mass exodus from people living in

traditional nation states that are bounded by arbitrary borders delineated by politicians who have no fucking clue what they're doing, right? And the creation of overlapping jurisdictions that are ultimately some type of network state or virtual territory, right?

or cloud community or internet first nation. There's like a million terms for these things and they exist even outside the scope of Bology's vision, right? You have Prospera and Vitalia, which I believe he did help fund. But those are somebody's own vision of how to run a particular society. Same thing with Vitalik's Zuzalu vision, which have currently just been pop-up cities without any necessary... They don't right away have long-term staying power. But I think there are some of those...

that have started contemplating having a more long-term existence. So I think what we will continue to see is the development, the proliferation, and the growth of more and more network states. And my hope is, and you can see this as a vision, is to move away from the nation-state model of

because it is not serving us as a species. I think the idea of democracy, if it is the only thing that exists, it's inherently broken. I'm going to use a quote right now. H.L. Mencken, who was writing in the 19th century, he was a journalist and a satirist in the U.S., he said that democracy is the worship of jackals by jackasses. And I always thought that was a really interesting quote because...

the problem with democracy of course is it ends up being a like a mobocracy where everyone gets cannibalized under one rule right so why not experiment with different governance models why not experiment with different societies of what's working doesn't satisfy our inner drives and our passions and our spirit as human beings we should be able to change things right and we are agents for chains that's what we are as human beings

So it's my hope that we live in a world at some point that is strictly based on this network state model where the exit costs are kept low. You can travel between them very easily, right? And then you can opt in via some type of actual contract, not some social contract that's imagined. And to me, that is the world I would want. This has been my modus operandi since day one. I'm an activist at heart, right? I want to see actual change, right?

And the only way to do that is to go out and build the future. And that's exactly what we're doing right now. So, yeah, I mean, I guess in terms of the, you know, what would I improve? How do I see the future? And then what's my favorite thing? Yeah, so I mean, I guess what's beyond my expectation, you know, the informal interaction with the other people here. I more or less thought that I would enjoy biology and the other guest lectures, and I have.

I think I had some idea that there would be, you know, and there is different quizzes online for learning different topics about history and cloud cartography. You know, a lot of things met my expectations, but I think, or exceeded them. But I think the thing that was a little bit more of a question mark in my mind was that I wasn't really sure what the group of people here would be like.

And personally, I've really enjoyed a lot of my interactions with people here. And I think there's something about being around people for weeks as opposed to hours where I think you end up just having much deeper interactions. There are different things that I could see improving, but I think in general, I'll just say that...

Having managed co-living space before, I think I'm rather sympathetic to some of the challenges that they're going through right now. And it's interesting. So I've heard both Vitalik talking about his pop-up city and Balaji talking about here, where a lot of times when they've built a new product in the past, it's software. And now it's not, and they're living...

you know, close to or with the people that are their users so that it's not just like an email. They ignore people walk up to them in person and say like, Hey, what's, what's up with this or what's going on with that? Or when, when is this going to happen? So that's, that's something that I can relate to as well from my past. And then, yeah. And in terms of the future. So one, one thing I've thought about is, um,

You know, because I think the value add of spending time in person with other people that are very network state aligned. And, you know, I'm a big fan of looking at, you know, how are you spending? How are how are how am I and how are others spending, you know, time, energy, money, you know, everyone that was here.

We paid our own travel here. We all eat everywhere, but we are paying some amount of money to stay here and eat here as well. We took time out of our schedule and we also put energy into this. So I think everyone that's here, that in itself selects for a really aligned and valuable group. So I guess the way that I see this sort of working is I think that as it expands, we might see...

you know, the bi-weekly lectures in VR the way they were in 1729, and that as, you know, people come here, they essentially get integrated in in groups of 150 people the same size as the network's school, conserving the Dunbar number. And that's sort of your core group that you watch the bi-weekly lectures with.

that you have most of the talks with over dinner. Of course, you can interact with everyone else in the city as it grows. But that's sort of how I envision the scaling is that, you know, here you have different groups of 150 people, you know, living together sort of as the core village watching the talks in VR. And then at that point, you know, you might not even know

or care if the speaker is in is where we are so yeah that's a little bit how i see it evolving and then at that point you could not just have one one place where this is happening but if that's the model it becomes much more easy to do uh new nodes in in other continents uh around the world um so that that's sort of how i see um this going and then uh

you know i'm i i went to burning man only once so i wouldn't i wouldn't call myself a burner but for some reason i have compared in my mind that this

you know, this place where we are now might become sort of a hub for network states the way, you know, Burning Man and Black Rock in Nevada is a hub for people that consider themselves burners. And that even if lots of other things are popping up around the world, they might want some sort of an embassy, if you will, here.

Let's wrap up this podcast with one advice you will give to the future network school to let them fit in quickly and have a better life here. Yeah, I think the biggest thing any future network schooler needs to know is just be open-minded about experiences, have an openness to experience. I would assume that if you're wanting to come online,

here that you probably already have that psychological quality. But if you open yourself up to just going with the flow and engaging in conversations, a lot of really spontaneous beauty comes out of that, right? Because not only will you make friends, but you'll realize that people are working on things that are similar to yours and that maybe you're both passionate about. Maybe a project comes out of it. Maybe a long-term friendship comes out of it.

But yeah, I think keeping an open mind and realizing that this goal of this, of the network school and the network state idea in general is to build the future. It is to create things that will ultimately outlive us

Notwithstanding, we realize Brian Johnson's idea of eventually merging with the machine. I don't think he makes a statement as to how that will iron itself out, but something's going to happen, right?

As long as we live a long time. But yeah, I think just being open-minded and wanting to continue building and working while you're here is the key. I don't think there's any very hard-lined way you have to be, but you certainly can't be expecting rigidity and lots of structure because that wouldn't probably work for you as a person.

I'll start with the caveat that everyone's different, so maybe this does or doesn't apply to you. But I would say the network school is very immersive, is a word that I would use, in the sense that you're going to be around a lot of network state ideas most of your waking hours.

And then, so I guess from there, I would say that if, you know, somehow you apply, you get in, you're not super familiar with, with some of the ideas, uh, at that point, I would just, you know, start trying to immerse yourself here before you come. Uh, in my mind, it reminds me a little bit of, uh, even though completely different in a way, when, when I was 19, I went to Guatemala for a month when I was still learning Spanish with, you know, sort of the, uh,

you know, the mission and the purpose of learning Spanish more. And once I set that up, I started learning more and studying more in preparation for that month.

So I think, you know, whether it's learning or working more on whatever network state related project you have, I would say the more that if you apply and you get in, the more sort of preparation you get to be ready to absorb everything in this sort of immersive environment.

would be helpful where can people find you guys online if they want to follow your works and get to know you better so i'm on i'm on twitter i'm on all the different social media platforms probably the easiest is if you type in uh berkw.com b-e-r-k-w.com i have a little landing page that pops up with all my different uh social media um and so that that's an easy way to follow me where you want to

Yeah, on X, you can just type in Sterlin, S-T-E-R-L-I-N, Lujan, L-U-J-A-N, and I should pop up relatively quickly. Also, if you do a Google search for counter governance, you should be able to find my substack, which I try to write fairly regularly on. Yeah, on YouTube, you can find me just typing in Sterlin Lujan. I'm going to be ramping up the content there as well. So cheers. Thanks, Camelia. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you to both of you.