The Technological Progressive Nation
This is essay 4 of 7 for The Tech Progressive Writing Challenge. Join the conversation in the build_ Discord.
Technological progressives are people who believe in technology improving people’s lives and are committed to contributing to technological progress. This is a community of optimistic builders. Balaji Srinivasan is a leader in this informal community and coined the term technological progressive. This essay comes from listening to hours of podcasts with Balaji, following him on Twitter, and generally being super inspired by his ideas in the last couple of years.
Technological progressives have been living online for years. Many have been playing massively multiplayer online games and contributing to globally distributed open source projects for decades now. Forming a high-trust community online and working towards a common, constructive purpose is normal to them.
As tools of creation and collaboration improve, the projects get more and more interesting and ambitious. From buying virtual land in MMORPG’s to buying land in Wyoming with CityDAO. From in-game currencies that die when the game does to cryptocurrencies held and valued by people all over the world.
Now technological progressives are thinking about creating new cities and even countries. Given the run techie dreamers have been on in the last few decades, the crazy dream might be worth taking seriously.
Everybody wants to be around likeminded people, to get a real sense of community and belonging. So far, people have had needed strong motivation pack up and go off in search of their people. Gay people experiencing discrimination and violence moved to cities like San Francisco and New York. People with an all-consuming desire to make movies moved to LA. More typically, people moved for more ordinary purposes like better job prospects, not to find their people and live out their childhood dreams.
But now it’s much easier to find and hang out with your people. Now you can hang out in the crypto neighborhood without moving to New York or Miami. Follow a few people on Twitter and jump on a Discord and you’re in. Although this might seem like a substitute, and it can be to some extent, it might also inspire people to actually physically move to a place with likeminded people.
Being in such a community gives a person space to build out a part of themselves that the people around them might not be interested in. Your neighbor probably doesn’t care about DAO’s, but plenty of people online do. On the Internet, you don’t have to shut up about ConstitutionDAO. So you get more comfortable with it, you embrace it, it becomes more important to you. You go to a crypto convention and meet people you know online. The next step is actually living around likeminded people. And sure, many, many people will not. But a lot will, far more than ever have before. And that’s a new thing in the world.
It could lead to unprecedented progress as people create environments well adapted to experimentation with things like autonomous cars and planes. It could also just lead to individuals actualizing themselves more.
Early players in the space are, of course, Srinivasan’s 1729, as well as Praxis, which counts Srinivasan among its investors (the guy is everywhere). Check them out, feel the energy, and try thinking optimistically on a grand scale. It just might lead us out of complacency and into dynamism and abundance in the 21st century.