For this episode of OTNS, Primavera and I spoke to Chris Berg, a cryptoeconomist, co-director at the RMIT Blockchain Hub, and a "former professional libertarian". During the conversation we spoke about Chris' revisionist history of blockchains, the shortcomings of TNS from a libertarian point of view, and Balaji's state envy. Like we mentioned at the beginning of the series, we want to talk to people who have different views than us, but we found interesting about Chris is that he is a prominent libertarian but still has many criticisms of TNS.

Overthrowing the Network State (OTNS) is a series in collaboration with Blockchaingov where we critique The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan while also pulling out the salvageable parts and concepts in discussion with a variety of guests. We are overall critical of Balaji’s specific ideas in the book, but we want to discuss it with intellectual honesty and highlight the larger concepts around how these technologies are and could subvert state structures. You can find the first episode of OTNS where we give our initial criticisms and alternatives here.

Blockchaingov is a 5-year long, transdisciplinary research effort aimed at restoring trust in institutions at the community and global levels, by promoting better on chain and off chain distributed governance practices. Throughout the series, each discussion will include me and a member of Blockchaingov with either a new guest each episode or just a discussion between us to tackle various topics from the book.

If you liked the podcast be sure to give it a review on your preferred podcast platform. If you find content like this important consider donating to my Patreon starting at just $3 per month. It takes quite a lot of my time and resources so any amount helps. Follow me on Twitter (@TBSocialist) Mastodon (@theblockchainsocialist@social.coop) or Lens and join the r/CryptoLeftists subreddit and Discord to join the discussion.

Send me your questions or comments about the show and I'll read them out sometime.

ICYMI I've written a book about, no surprise, blockchains through a left political framework! The title is Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It and is being published through Repeater Books, the publishing house started by Mark Fisher who’s work influenced me a lot in my thinking.

The book is officially published and you use this linktree to find where you can purchase the book based on your region / country.

Episode 9 – Where True Beauty Comes From