We're All Emigrants Now
America is a nation of immigrants, as we all know. But as Balaji Srinivasan has pointed out, that means it’s also a nation of emigrants. The New World enabled emigration, exit from the Old World, new beginnings.
Americans have a streak of zealotry and extremism, as early waves of American immigrants were largely made up of people from extreme religious sects that were rejected back in Europe. America created space for people to try out radical new ideas. Extremism can be extremely good or extremely bad. Americans come up with a lot of the world’s best and worst ideas and spread them all over. Americans invented Apple, but they also invented Jonestown.
America was the frontier, the outlet for the crazy ambitious, crazy zealous, and just plain crazy from all over the world. Now it’s matured and become less ambitious and more complacent.
What’s the next frontier? You’re in it right now as you read this on your pocket or desktop supercomputer. It’s the digital mirrorworld we all step into every day, where we spend more and more of our time, at an astounding rate.
Frontiers enable and encourage emigration, and emigration encourages individuality. Now we’re all looking at new horizons and seeing new possibilities. We’re looking for something better. And now it’s a keystroke away instead of an ocean away.
The Internet creates a space for every niche, every dream, a community sharing every idea you thought nobody else had. Emigration releases energy and creates possibility. This moment holds great possibility, but also great danger. You can start the next Apple or the next Jonestown.
We’ve become resigned to the idea that the Internet basically fosters chaos, but it doesn’t have to be so. Maybe we just need better tools. Maybe we just need it to be a little easier to join communities that bring out the best in us, a better alternative to mindless scrolling. Look at the web3 Discords, where people excitedly exchange ideas, prototype, and build. People are excited and optimistic and aggressively acting to realize their crazy ideas.
A new New World has opened up. You can enter your own personal heaven or hell, starting with a single click. It’s going to be a hell of a ride.