Skepticism: Civil Society vs Political Community

New @greenpillnet pod out today! 🌐

In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, host Primavera De Filippi sits down with Liav Orgad, Rainer Bauböck, and Yancey Strickler to explore one of the biggest questions of the digital age:

Can communities built online become real political communities or even nations?

They discuss how digital proximity, shared identity, translocal culture, and decentralized governance may lead to new forms of belonging beyond borders. The conversation dives into nationhood, coercion vs. voluntary membership, diaspora models, digital tribes, "dark forests," and what political agency looks like when communities coordinate across the world without territory.

🎧 Learn more → networknations.network 🌱 greenpill.network 🐦 @owocki @greenpillnet x.com/OrgadLiav x.com/ystrickler https://www.ystrickler.com/

🌐 Timestamps

00:00 – Cold Start 00:29 – Welcome to the Network Nations mini-series 01:31 – What are network nations? A new space for civil society 03:53 – Introducing today's guests 05:22 – Are translocal digital communities forming new identities? 07:42 – Digital proximity vs territorial proximity 09:52 – Are these real political communities or just civil society? 12:13 – Coercion, birthright, and the nature of political membership 13:41 – Cloud communities vs nation-states 15:57 – Crisis of governance and the need for new models 17:58 – Internet culture reshaping society 20:21 – Will digital communities become private states? 22:36 – Intrinsic purpose vs instrumental communities 24:46 – Can network nations scale without becoming homogeneous tribes? 27:08 – Internet power, dark forests & new kinds of institutions 29:27 – How culture emerges in online spaces 31:31 – Are we witnessing a new form of governance? 33:35 – What's actually "new" about network nations? 38:00 – Identity, ethnicity & digital self-government 40:15 – Diaspora parallels and non-territorial belonging 42:34 – Overlapping sovereignties & cross-border kinship 44:56 – Religion & non-territorial governance analogies 46:23 – Redistributing political power beyond the state 48:37 – Tribalism vs human flourishing 50:38 – Closing reflections + where to follow the guests