A Network City Breakdown and Overview

Time to rip the bandaid off

I am foregoing the regular report for a special edition focus piece following up where my last long form article left off. If you haven’t yet checked out the required long, long, really long REQUIRED READING. So so now. [LINK]

This contains no news of they day, just a more in depth look at what ‘Network Cities’ are at their core.

I have hesitated going into detail because most of what yarvin and NRx acolytes are pushing for seems too far fetched to be believed, so I wanted to put together a grounded and realistic view, free of hyperbole and my typical sassafras. It’s time to rip the bandaid off and lay out exactly what I mean when I say “Network Cities”.

This is serious, but it takes time to research, read and understand. There is no long form or short form way to really help you understand the gravity and scope of the situation.

I suggest clicking links in this article and going down rabbit holes. Google anything that sounds really odd or ‘just can’t be right’. There is much, much more. This is a really long article, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Everything I’ve been saying about Yarvin and the NRx is a precursor to this.

Understanding Yarvin and the NRx ideology and their stated plans for how they will take over a government helps us put our current political chaos into context.

Understanding what Thiel, Balaji and other mega-billionaires want out of the deal, helps us understand their motivations and end game. So get about 3 cups of coffee and strap in.

Or just skip this one and get some sleep.

Part I
Part III

The New Frontier After Neo-Reaction

In a previous article (READ HERE), I explored the rise of the Neo-reactionary (NRx) movement and figures like Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel, who champion replacing liberal democracy with more centralized, “CEO-like” governance. Now, a profound follow-up question emerges: what happens when tech elites stop merely theorizing and start building their own cities and even countries? This article picks up where I left off, uncovering how Silicon Valley power players are moving from ideas to implementation. Their vehicle is the rise of so-called Network Cities and the vision of “The Network State” popularized by tech entrepreneur and billionaire Balaji Srinivasan.

Remember! No matter how insane the following details seem, it is not science fiction or creative writing. These ideas are actively underway, backed by immense funding and unchecked, megalomaniac ambition.

When you hear Donald Trump mention “Freedom Cities”, this is what he is talking about. When you hear Jeff Bezos talking about Personal Liberties and the Free Market, this is what he’s talking about. When they talk about developing Gaza, this is what they are talking about.

First off I want to discuss what Network Cities and Network States are, especially for readers familiar with the NRx concepts from my previous article. After that I will explore Srinivasan’s blueprint for decentralized, sovereign digital communities, as detailed in The Network State book. I will also examine the real world, concrete manifestations of these ideas – from a secretive new city plan in California’s Bay Area to a private enclave in Honduras and futuristic seasteading ventures on the ocean. Throughout, I hope to connect the dots between these initiatives and the ideological goals of the NRx movement, arguing that this trend isn’t about tech innovation or urban planning. It’s simply circumventing democracy and exerting a new form of elite control through privatized infrastructure and governance.

Finally, I will highlight the pushback. Local governments, citizens, and civil society are beginning to respond, raising urgent questions. Are these network-governed enclaves compatible with democratic values and public accountability? Or do they represent a high-tech revival of the feudal notion that those with wealth and power can rule as they please, separate from the rest of society? As these experimental cities advance from theory to reality, the answers are becoming increasingly consequential.

What Are Network Cities? Online Communities & Sovereign States

The term “Network City” is often used to describe a new kind of community that blurs the line between the virtual and the physical – a city founded not by historical accident or geographic necessity, but by an online network of like-minded people. In Balaji Srinivasan’s formulation, when such a networked community gains enough cohesion and resources, it can evolve into a full-fledged “Network State.” Srinivasan defines a network state succinctly as “a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.”​ (Source: thenetworkstate.com)

In other words, it starts with people united by a common vision on the internet, and ends with a globally distributed but connected sovereign entity – effectively a new country born from the web.

Crucially, this model upends how we normally think of cities or nations. Traditional municipalities are defined by geography first: a city is typically a contiguous place on a map, and its identity and government are tied to that location. A network city, by contrast, is defined by people and purpose first. Srinivasan emphasizes that “when we think of a network state, we should instantly think of the minds” involved rather than any single spot on the map.​ (Source: thenetworkstate.com)

Membership is based on shared values or a mission (often encapsulated in what he calls the “One Commandment”) rather than simply residency. And unlike a normal city government that’s accountable to a local population through elections, a network state’s governance is centralized and corporate – an outgrowth of the founding team or charter that the community rallies around.

To put it plainly, network cities are an attempt to “startup” a city like one would a tech company. “Unlike traditional nation-states defined by geographic borders, network states are founded on a virtual community of like-minded people united by a common set of values,” explains one summary of Srinivasan’s concept.​ These communities exist online first, building cohesion and even economies in cyberspace, and then crowdfund land across multiple locations to establish a physical presence – what Srinivasan calls a “network archipelago” of outposts​.

Imagine hundreds or thousands of members pooling funds to buy plots of land or campuses around the world, all governed under a shared new jurisdiction they design from scratch. If and when these dispersed enclaves reach critical mass (in population, economic output, etc.), the endgame is to negotiate recognition as a sovereign state in the international system​. (Source: medium)

It sounds audacious – and it is. Srinivasan has explicitly analogized it to a kind of “Tech Zionism,” a quixotic but purposeful founding of a new homeland built by a diaspora of true believers​. (Source: gizmodo)

Like Zionism or other ideological nation-building missions, the network state vision mixes idealism with a strategic blueprint. Srinivasan’s book The Network State (2022) reads partly as a manifesto and partly as a how-to guide. It lays out stages like: forming a startup society, attracting a dedicated core of citizens online; creating internal economy and services (often crypto-based for financial sovereignty); crowdfunding territory (land purchases or leases in friendly jurisdictions); then leveraging that base to gain legal recognition either through diplomacy or aligning with a host nation’s laws​. The rationale, Srinivasan argues, is that existing states have “failed to uphold their founding principles” and are too sluggish or compromised to tackle modern challenges.

the shiny, snake oil pitch is that by building new communities from first principles – with updated “social smart contracts” and opt-in citizenship – network cities could reboot governance in a way that better protects rights and enables innovation.

This is the theory. But theory alone isn’t what I’m here to talk about. What makes this movement remarkable now is how rapidly it is moving from theory into practice. Within the past few years, several initiatives have sprung up with the explicit aim of creating network-based cities or autonomous zones, all backed by prominent tech investors and sometimes tacitly inspired by Neo-reactionary ideals. Srinivasan himself often describes exit (founding new jurisdictions) as a necessary complement or alternative to voice (participating in existing democratic politics). And many of his peers in Silicon Valley are taking that message to heart – and to the ground.

Building Utopias: Network State Visionaries Turn to Brick and Mortar

For a long time, ideas about creating new city-states were niche musings in blogs or dinner conversations among libertarian-leaning tech elites. Not anymore. Today, real money and real land are on the table. The movement for network cities has coalesced around a core belief in “exiting” the current system – essentially seceding in place – to form what one observer calls a “marketplace of nations,” where people can shop for governance like a product​. It’s an alluring fantasy for those disillusioned with U.S. democracy: instead of trying to reform or fight the existing political order, just build your own mini-nation where your rules reign.

What separates this from a bunch of internet dreamers in a chatroom, however, is two things: a concrete plan and a whole lot of money.

Over the past decade, a cadre of billionaire investors and evangelists have been quietly funding “startup societies” with the explicit goal of creating privately governed enclaves. They are no longer content to theorize; they are breaking ground – sometimes literally – on model cities. Below, I’ll examine a few of the most noteworthy examples, from California to Honduras to the high seas. While each project has unique elements, they are united by a common thesis: that optimal innovation (and personal freedom for the elite) requires breaking away from the legacy state and building new jurisdictions from scratch.

California Forever

One of the most eye-opening developments has been unfolding in Northern California, where a mysterious entity spent five years surreptitiously buying up over 50,000 acres of land in Solano County, about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco​.

The land surrounds Travis Air Force Base and had locals and officials on edge – at first, nobody knew who was behind this massive land grab, sparking concerns about everything from foreign espionage to corporate malfeasance. The veil was lifted in August 2023 when it was revealed that the buyers were a who’s-who of Silicon Valley billionaires. Operating under a firm called Flannery Associates, the group included LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, former Sequoia Capital partner Michael Moritz, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Stripe founders Patrick and John Collison, Laurene Powell Jobs, and others​. In short, some of the biggest tech fortunes had quietly pooled hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire enough land to build a new city.

Their project, now publicly dubbed “California Forever,” envisions creating a city for up to 400,000 people on what is currently rolling farmland​. Renderings released by the group show a kind of idealized, walkable community with Mediterranean-style architecture, solar farms, and green space – “something like tech billionaires’ favorite Mediterranean vacation spot,” as one report wryly noted​.

The slick promotional pitch is all about renewing the California Dream: affordable homes, jobs, and sustainable design, built from scratch. Jan Sramek, the young former Goldman Sachs trader fronting the venture, has cast it as a solution to the Bay Area’s housing crisis and a canvas for “some of the brightest minds in California planning”​.

But behind the sunny renderings lies a darker story about power and governance. California Forever wasn’t just buying land for a real estate flip; it was running a “stealth campaign” to engineer a new municipality​. Because the area is zoned strictly for agriculture, the only way to actually build a city is to convince local voters to approve a county ballot initiative changing the zoning and permitting an entirely new jurisdiction​. This is precisely what the group prepared: a 97-page ballot initiative for Solano County voters, full of lofty guarantees about parks, infrastructure, and jobs​.

Essentially, the tech investors asked the community to let them incorporate a new city on their vast private holdings – a city that these investors would finance and effectively control as “master developers” for decades to come​. In return, they promised benefits like $400 million for local schools and services, housing for locals, and no new taxes for existing residents​.

The plan, unsurprisingly, has met with skepticism and concern. Even before the investors revealed themselves, the secrecy and scale of the land purchase had alarmed local and federal officials (a national security review was launched when Flannery’s identity was still unknown)​. Since going public, California Forever’s team has faced pointed questions at town halls. Legal experts noted that many of the “guarantees” in the proposal might be unenforceable, or could change once the company-controlled city government is in place​.

And while some residents are intrigued by the promised investment, others bristle at the notion of billionaires building a company town in all but name. “It’s uncharted territory,” one local official said of the unprecedented scheme to essentially let a private venture capital consortium play city-maker​.

The initiative was slated for the November 2024 ballot – until it wasn’t. In a twist, the group abruptly withdrew their ballot measure in mid-2024 after spending over $16 million gathering signatures​.

Observers say the pause likely reflects strategic recalibration after the initial backlash; California Forever insists it will return with a revised plan. In the meantime, what remains is an extraordinary fact: Silicon Valley’s elites have already sunk on the order of $900 million into this social experiment​.

They now own a tract of California larger than the city of San Francisco itself, effectively a blank slate on which they hope to imprint their vision of a privately built utopia. It’s a vivid illustration of the “exit” ethos – rather than fight San Francisco’s politics or zoning, these investors literally went out to the country and bought themselves a future city.

Critics point out an irony here: many of the same tech moguls bankrolling California Forever have opposed densification or affordable housing projects in their current posh neighborhoods​.

Their newfound enthusiasm for development raises questions. Are they truly intent on alleviating the housing crisis for ordinary Californians, or is this about building a refuge where they set the rules? The project’s website speaks of partnership and working with the community, but the power dynamics at play are impossible to ignore. If the city gets built, its infrastructure, charter, and governance model will effectively be defined by the investors and the entity they control.

Democracy enters the picture only at the initial ask (the county vote to greenlight the project); beyond that, one can imagine a “company town” dynamic, albeit dressed in the language of techno-optimism.

California Forever is just one example – albeit the most dramatic on U.S. soil – of the network city impulse. It shows that, given enough capital or federal cooperation, the dream of a breakaway tech-governed enclave can quickly move from blog posts to bulldozers. It also demonstrates the stealth and savvy with which such efforts can and are advancing: five years under wraps, operating in legal gray zones (Flannery even sued local farmers accusing them of colluding to inflate land prices​), all to assemble a territorial foundation for a new city. If and when that city rises, it will owe its existence not to any grassroots petition by local citizens, but to the long-range strategic plans of Silicon Valley financiers.
(​Sources: Wikipedia, Gizmodo, Calmatters)

Próspera: A Privatized Paradise (or Colony?) in Honduras

Travel about 3,000 miles from California Forever’s fields and you land on the island of Roatán, off the coast of Honduras – home to another real-life network city experiment named Próspera. Here, the concept isn’t building a new city from scratch on empty land, but rather carving out an autonomous city-state within an existing country. Próspera is a flagship example of a “charter city” – a zone where private investors essentially act as the government, enabled by special national legislation. If California Forever is trying to work around U.S. laws via a ballot initiative, Próspera got its legal basis served up on a platter: in 2013, Honduras passed a law creating Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs) – semi-autonomous city jurisdictions that outsiders could set up within the country​.

The premise was bold. Under the ZEDE framework, Próspera’s developers have powers that normally belong only to sovereign governments. “These cities are to be governed by private investors, who can write their own laws and regulations, design their own court systems, and operate their own police forces,” explained a 2021 investigative report​.

In late 2017, Próspera obtained official ZEDE status, giving it broad autonomy from Honduran authorities​. In effect, the Honduran state outsourced a piece of its territory to a startup society. Próspera’s land – a patch on Roatán’s coast – is run by an entity called Honduras Próspera Inc., which has a veto over the city’s governance and answers largely to its investors rather than to Honduran voters​. The project has even been branded “the Hong Kong of the Caribbean” by its promoters, alluding to its semi-independent, business-friendly orientation​.

Unlike California Forever, which is still in the planning stage, Próspera is up and running (albeit on a modest scale so far). Office buildings and luxury residences have been constructed on Roatán; promotional videos show sparkling pools and modern villas aimed at luring foreign professionals. Próspera markets e-residency and even citizenship in its virtual nation to people around the world through a website, complete with its own regulatory and tax incentives. The ideological underpinning is unabashedly libertarian. “Próspera’s founders believe the future of government lies with privatized startup cities,” notes a Rest of World report. They see Próspera as the prototype of governance-as-a-service, a place governed like a lean startup rather than a messy democracy.

Indeed, Próspera is part of a broader trend of implementing libertarian theory in practice, essentially beta-testing the NRx anarcho-capitalist theories on real jurisdictions​.

The Silicon Valley connection is strong. Próspera was incubated and funded with the help of American tech-aligned capital. One of the key backers is Pronomos Capital, a venture fund dedicated to startup societies and helmed by Patri Friedman (grandson of economist Milton Friedman and a prominent seasteading advocate)​.
(Source: gizmodo.com)

Pronomos’s investors include Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen – the same billionaire duo behind the California Forever land grab.​ (Source: thedailybeast.com)

In other words, the same cast of characters investing in breakaway enclaves at home is also investing abroad. “High-profile Silicon Valley figures, like PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, put their money behind startup city initiatives,” writes Rest of World, explicitly naming Próspera as one such initiative​. To these backers, Próspera offered a rare chance: a real legal jurisdiction to experiment with, in a country willing to open the door to private governance.

So how has this private city fared in reality? The results have been mixed and controversial. On one hand, Próspera has established itself legally and physically – something many network state efforts have yet to do. It’s attracted some businesses (including a biotech firm) and residents to its low-tax, low-regulation haven. On the other hand, it faces fierce resistance from locals and the broader Honduran society. Many Hondurans see ZEDEs as an affront to national sovereignty, a sentiment amplified after a new government took power in 2022. In villages neighboring Próspera, residents have held protests, worrying that this enclave will encroach on their land and operate as a law unto itself​, which is of course the goal.

They have good reason to worry: Próspera’s expansion ambitions are not secret – its CEO has talked of growing across the island and even to mainland Honduras​. For people whose families have lived there for generations, the idea of a foreign corporate enclave swallowing their community is alarming.

Tensions boiled over in one incident in 2020 when Próspera’s CEO Erick Brimen insisted on holding a public meeting in the local village (to fulfill a consultation requirement) despite pandemic restrictions and local objections. Honduran police showed up to disperse the gathering, resulting in a physical scuffle between Próspera’s security guards and law enforcement​. Brimen’s defiant attitude – he lectured the police about “protect my human rights” as his guards manhandled an officer – only reinforced fears that Próspera’s leadership does not feel bound by the same rules as everyone else​.

“If this is how Próspera’s developers behaved on other people’s turf, what would they be like once they ran the show next door?” a local community leader wondered grimly after witnessing the incident​.

By 2023, the future of Próspera hung in a precarious balance. Honduras’s new president had campaigned on doing away with ZEDEs, calling them an unconstitutional surrender of sovereignty. Legislation to repeal the ZEDE law passed, and while Próspera insists its rights are vested, the climate turned hostile. In response, Próspera’s backers have taken an aggressive stand: they filed notices of intent to pursue international arbitration lawsuits against the Honduran government, seeking astronomical damages for any expropriation or nullification of their project​. One such claim warned Honduras it could owe $10.7 billion (nearly one-third of the country’s GDP) for violating Próspera’s legal rights​.

In other words, this startup city is prepared to financially cripple an entire nation via legal means if its autonomy is threatened.

For supporters, it’s framed as a defense of their contractual rights. For critics, it confirms the worst fears: Próspera is prepared to force its will on Hondurans, even against democratic rejection, by wielding extraterritorial legal power. Small wonder that we call the network state movement neo-colonial – Próspera shows wealthy foreigners effectively moving into a poorer country and, through a mix of incentives and strong-arm tactics, dispossessing locals of governing authority over their own land​.

Próspera encapsulates both the promise and peril of this movement. It demonstrates that with the right political opportunity (in this case, a willing host nation), network city ideals can indeed manifest in concrete form: gleaming buildings, separate laws, an emerging expat community. It also lays bare the inherently anti-democratic impulse at the core of many of these projects. Próspera’s governance is not answerable to the Hondurans living around it, and when Honduras’s national democracy decided such zones were not welcome, the response was essentially, “Too bad, we’re staying – and you’ll pay if you try to stop us.” This is Exit, it is a direct challenge to the very notion of democratic control over territory.

(Sources: restofworld.org, en.wikipedia.org, wired.com, gizmodo.com)

Seasteading and Beyond

Land isn’t the only canvas for these utopian experiments. What if you could build a city on the ocean, outside of any country’s jurisdiction? That is the core idea of seasteading, a concept long popular in libertarian tech circles. Co-founded in 2008 by Patri Friedman and seeded by Peter Thiel’s money, the Seasteading Institute set out to “open humanity’s next frontier” by creating floating cities in international waters​.

The appeal was straightforward: if you really want to escape the laws and taxes of existing nations, why not slip the bonds of terra firma altogether? In theory, a seastead could be a fully sovereign start-up country, as easy to update or iterate on as software – if a platform’s governance model didn’t work, residents could physically detach and float to a different micro-nation. Thiel, in his famous 2009 essay, explicitly pointed to seasteading as a route to escape “the deadly race between politics and technology” and create the “machinery of freedom” needed to make the world safe for capitalism​.

Over the past decade, seasteading has seen grand visions and false starts. Designs for sleek floating islands – from hexagonal modular platforms to lily-pad-like eco-resorts – have been drawn up​. (Source: pinterest) One particularly striking concept called Artisanopolis depicts a cluster of interlocking domes and platforms bobbing on the waves, complete with solar panels and aquaponic farms for self-sufficiency​. The dream briefly seemed on the cusp of reality in 2017 when seasteaders struck a deal with French Polynesia to prototype a floating island project in its territorial waters​.

But that agreement collapsed after local opposition; citizens and officials in Polynesia grew wary of what looked like foreigners trying to establish a semi-independent enclave in their backyard. A similar fate befell an early private seastead launched off the coast of Thailand by a Bitcoin couple in 2019 – the Thai navy deemed it a threat to national sovereignty and forced the structure to be abandoned, with its occupants fleeing under legal danger.

Today, no permanent libertarian cruise-ship nation exists yet. But the effort has not died – it has merely evolved. Instead of placing all hopes on anchoring in international waters, seasteading advocates now often seek partnership with host nations (as in the Polynesia attempt) to get legal approval for floating districts. And tellingly, many seasteaders have converged with the network state movement on land: it’s no coincidence Patri Friedman shifted from pure seasteading to charter city investing (via Pronomos Capital) – the ultimate goal of autonomous governance is shared. In a sense, a project like Próspera is “seasteading on land,” enabled by a host country’s laws. Nonetheless, the image of ultra-modern floating cities remains a powerful symbol of the movement’s ethos: no frontier is too far if it means freedom from the perceived constraints of democracy and regulation.

Ever wonder why Elon is so obsessed with getting to Mars?.

While full seastead cities remain unrealized, this vision reflects the movement’s drive to escape traditional nation-states entirely.

(Sources: seasteading.org, niskanencenter.org, loe.org, futurism.com, archpaper.com, businessinsider.com)

Other Forms of Network States

Apart from seasteading, other international network city projects are quietly taking shape, often with far less media attention than Próspera. In Africa, for example, a project in Nigeria called Talent City (Itana) aims to create a tech hub with special governance in Lagos State, with backing from Pronomos Capital​.

In the small Pacific island nation of Palau, an initiative dubbed “Metropolis” is working with the government to establish a digital residency program and lay groundwork for a “network city” for global citizens​. (Sources: pronomos.vc)

There’s also talk of Afripolitan, a network state envisioned for the African diaspora, which raised seed funding (with Srinivasan’s support) to build a “digital nation” leveraging cryptocurrency and Web3 tools​. (Sources: politico, afropolitan.io)

And in the Mediterranean, a startup society called Praxis has been rallying a community of founders and creatives around plans for a new city-state. Praxis, notably, is Peter Thiel-backed and reportedly even explored the audacious idea of trying to buy land in countries like Greenland for its city-building ambitions.
(Sources: curbed, theblock).

While that headline-grabbing idea went nowhere, Praxis did announce in 2023 that it secured a $500 million investment commitment to acquire a site for its city​. The location remains undisclosed, but they claim to be negotiating with multiple national governments for a home – underscoring that even without land yet, the network of would-be citizens and financiers is coalescing in advance.

One has to wonder if California Forever abruptly pulling their proposal from vote and Praxis suddenly becoming mum on their Greenland plans could in an any way be because they had a sense that the political climate was about to turn their direction in a major way. Perhaps they won’t have to to negotiate with local governments to start building their cities. If Trumpotato can just issue an Executive Order that gives them the right to start building, or if we invade or otherwise coerce the occupation of Greenland, they will get everything they want and more.

It’s important to stress that these endeavors are not fringe hobby projects by obscure cranks. They are being driven by well-known figures of the tech industry and financed by serious venture capital. Pronomos Capital alone raised at least $13.3 million to invest in network state startups​, and it showcases a portfolio from Honduras to Nigeria to South Asia​.

Many of the individuals involved – Thiel, Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan, Vitalik Buterin (of Ethereum, who has mused about network states), and others – are names that carry weight in both business and political circles. Even Y Combinator’s president, Garry Tan, has emerged as an outspoken supporter of the network state movement, speaking at its conferences and advocating for tech-built governance models​. (source: The Nerd Reich)

Tan’s involvement is telling: as an investor and influencer with mainstream clout (YC has nurtured companies like Airbnb and Dropbox), his alignment with network state ideals shows how these notions are leaking into the broader tech zeitgeist. It’s not just a few iconoclasts on the fringe anymore; it’s becoming part of the conversation at the heights of the startup world.

The NRx Connection: Utopian Innovation or High-Tech Oligarchy?

On the surface, the drive to innovate in governance – to “disrupt government” as one might disrupt an industry – can sound optimistic, even idealistic. After all, many network state proponents pitch their ideas as solutions to problems: housing shortages, ineffective bureaucracy, lack of economic opportunity, etc. There’s a futurist sheen to talk of “smart cities” and “cloud communities” that suggests progress.

However, to truly understand the network state movement, one must reckon with its ideological underpinnings – which trace back directly to the Neo-reactionary philosophy we discussed in our previous article.

In many ways, network cities are the literal implementation of NRx theorist Curtis Yarvin’s vision of a “Patchwork” of privately governed city-states, and of Peter Thiel’s belief that “freedom and democracy are no longer compatible”​.

Recall that the NRx movement fundamentally avows that liberal democracy is a failed system. Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) argued for “exit” from democratic society and the creation of new sovereign units called patches – city-states run by a CEO or monarch, with citizens as customers or shareholders rather than equal voters. Thiel, influenced by Yarvin and other reactionary thinkers, wrote in 2009 that “we are in a deadly race between politics and technology” and that only technological escape – not political reform – could “make the world safe for capitalism.”​

He mused about settings where a single founder-type figure could implement visionary changes unencumbered by elections or public opinion, explicitly likening startups to monarchies in their efficiency​.

“A startup is basically structured as a monarchy… anything that’s not democracy makes people uncomfortable, but the truth is founders lean toward the dictatorial side because that structure works better.”

-Peter Thiel

In his view, the biggest leaps – whether the Apollo program or Manhattan Project – came from top-down authority wielded by “great men,” not from democratic consensus​. (Source: theatlantic).

This worldview directly animates the network state projects. They are, almost without exception, designed to minimize or eliminate democratic governance. As Patri Friedman – one of the movement’s intellectual leaders – put it, “The idea, at a meta-level, is let’s try alternatives” to liberal democracy​. Those alternatives, he says, could be just tweaks, “or could represent a total departure from democracy.”​

The selling point, in his framing, is choice: people dissatisfied with their government can “vote with their feet” by moving to a new charter city or network state that aligns with their preferences​. It’s the Tiebout hypothesis of competitive governance taken to the extreme – a marketplace of micropolities competing for “citizens”, who are treated more like customers. In theory, this competition pressures each mini-government to be efficient and responsive (or else lose residents to a better-run city-state). But in practice, as even some economists warn, it can also create fiefdoms of unaccountable power and exclude those who lack mobility or means to opt out​.

Those “voting with their feet” will often be the privileged, leaving behind a populace with fewer wealthy advocates inside the traditional system. Meanwhile, within the new enclaves, leadership isn’t up for a vote – power flows from ownership and investment stake. In short: exit for the few may mean disenfranchisement for the many.

Look closely at our case studies and this dynamic becomes clear. In California Forever’s vision, the new city’s charter was written by the investors and binds the local county to certain terms, but ordinary citizens have no say beyond the initial yes/no vote. Should the city be approved, it will start life effectively run by a private developer (Jan Sramek’s outfit) with broad latitude to shape services and governance. In Próspera, the governance is literally by a private council and technical secretary, wherein Honduras Próspera Inc. holds special veto power over any rules​.

Próspera’s residents – whether locals or foreign expatriates – do not elect a mayor or legislature; they join a community regulated by bylaws the company largely dictates. It is governance by terms of service, like joining a gated community or even a Facebook group, not by democratic social contract. If you don’t like it, your recourse is to leave (exit); there is no meaningful voice mechanism for internal change.

This is by design. The network state ethos implicitly trusts elite technocrats or entrepreneurs over mass voting publics. Yarvin’s blunt assertion was that “Americans... are going to have to get over their dictator phobia.” And while the network state builders don’t advertise themselves as dictators, the model clearly concentrates power. Often a “recognized founder” (to use Srinivasan’s term​) or a founding team sets the guiding philosophy and rules early on, and those are hard-coded into the community’s identity. For instance, a network state might be organized around a “moral innovation” or single axiom (Srinivasan’s “One Commandment”) – say, a community that explicitly values free-market absolutism or a crypto-anarchist code.

Everything flows from that, and those who disagree will simply self-select out. It is homogeneity by design, very unlike a pluralistic city where diverse values coexist and clash. The risk is that each network micro-nation becomes an echo chamber governed by an ideology – and by those wealthy enough to initiate its founding – without the moderating influence of broader public input. Democracy, with all its inefficiency, at least forces a government to consider all its people.

In a network state, the people are filtered to those who accept the premise, and power belongs to whoever controls the servers, the land deeds, or the investment funds.

Some observers have not minced words. San Francisco journalist and Network State guru Gil Duran characterizes the Network State movement as essentially “a tech billionaire cult that seeks to build sovereign mini-nations ruled by ... tech billionaires.”​
(source: The Nerd Reich)

This highlights the elite-centric nature of the whole enterprise. To this end, Many network state projects pitch themselves to “founders, creatives, and investors” as Praxis does​, or to “digital nomads and entrepreneurs” as Prospera does – these enclaves are being designed by elites for elites. Even the urbanist trappings (walkable streets, glossy smart homes) cater to a narrow demographic. This is neo-feudalism: a world where governance is privatized and stratified, and citizenship becomes more like a club membership granted by an owner-king. The NRx thinkers themselves sometimes use the term “corporate governance” approvingly – essentially city-states run as corporations, pursuing efficiency and profit. Thiel mused that a “better metaphor” for the future than democracy might be “making the CEO of the state into an effective absolute monarch,” given that startups thrive under strong CEOs​.

The network city is the petri dish for that theory. As the Niskanen Center acidly noted, this model is “corporate feudalism or enlightened absolutism” dressed up in futurist jargon​.

At the core are the issues of accountability and consent. Innovation in governance isn’t like launching a new app. The “users” are human lives woven into communities and nations that already exist. Network states may start with volunteers – e.g. crypto enthusiasts who buy into Afropolitan, or Western investors moving to Roatán – but they inevitably impact outsiders, from neighbors to host countries. Those people never consented to live under what can look to them like a foreign colony. Democracy is slow and frustrating, but it gives those affected by a decision some say in making it. The NRx-flavored network state denies that say to anyone outside the in-group. It opts instead for exit over voice at every turn. Thiel and others explicitly lost faith in influencing government through the ballot (Thiel notably said he no longer believed voting could ever bring real change​ (Source: splcenter.org), which is one reason he funded seasteads and charter cities as a parallel strategy.

Now, as network cities blossom, we are witnessing an attempt by a subset of affluent, predominantly white American technologists to “exit” the American republic (and other democracies) not by emigrating, but by building islands – literal or figurative – within or alongside them. It’s a striking development: the creation of semi-sovereign refuges for capital within the very nations that provided that capital’s opportunity. a true “Billionaire Exit Strategy.”

Consider also that proponents of Network cities also own the largest defense contractors in the world, from private armies to Palantir and Andruil, if they ever get a physical city locked down, they will be able to defend it, brutally.

And once they are fully established they will be capable of waging war and expanding territory through force.

Resistance and Reckoning:

As these network city initiatives gain momentum, they are provoking a response. From local town halls to national governments and international forums, people are beginning to push back against the idea of private micro-states with self-appointed leaders. The forms of resistance are varied – legal battles, public protests, investigative scrutiny – but the message boils down to a demand for transparency, accountability, and inclusion.

In Northern California, as we saw, officials in Solano County forced the California Forever backers into the open, and are scrutinizing their every move. State lawmakers have also taken note: after the Flannery Associates mystery was solved, California’s government began exploring safeguards to prevent unknown entities from mass land-buying near strategic assets​.

While the California Forever project pitches itself as cooperative, any missteps could lead to regulatory or legislative hurdles. The investors cannot simply decree a city into existence; they must persuade voters. And early signs suggest that will be an uphill battle, given the inherent public distrust of a billionaire-driven project that was secret until recently. Again, there is one orange faced baboon who may soon try to simply decree them into existence.

Should California Forever ever reach the ballot again, expect a fierce campaign with community groups, possibly environmental coalitions and anti-sprawl advocates, raising alarms about water use, wildfire risk, and the specter of an elite enclave. Even some housing activists who would normally cheer development are wary – they support more housing, but democratically planned, not a package deal cooked up in Silicon Valley boardrooms.

However, keep in mind that it may never have to go to the ballot box if the Trump regime decides to issue an Executive order to start building Trump’s Ten Freedom Cities.

In Honduras, the resistance has been even more direct. Grassroots organizers, indigenous leaders, and Garifuna Afro-Honduran communities have marched against ZEDEs, framing them as a new form of imperialism. The pressure contributed to the new administration’s anti-ZEDE stance and the legal cancellation of the ZEDE framework (though existing projects claim grandfathered rights). Próspera’s fate may ultimately be decided in court or arbitration, but the broader political sentiment in Honduras has turned sharply against private cities. One telling detail: Honduras amended its constitution back in 2011 to allow ZEDEs, but in 2022 the legislature amended it again to prohibit anything resembling them, declaring the country “indivisible”​.

That’s an explicit rejection of Yarvin’s patchwork model. And Honduras is not alone – several other countries that flirted with charter city proposals, such as El Salvador and Sri Lanka, saw domestic opposition halt those plans, often out of fear that sovereignty would be eroded and local people marginalized.

On the global stage, the rhetoric around network states is starting to draw eye rolls and concern in policy circles. The notion of ultra-mobile “crypto nomads” picking and choosing jurisdictions, or tiny private city-states proliferating, raises obvious questions about tax evasion, money laundering, human trafficking and human rights. If a network state doesn’t like a law – say, financial regulations or labor protections – it can simply locate its physical nodes in countries with laxer rules or lobby for exemptions. This arbitrage could undermine reforms and allow bad actors to hide behind the legal shield of a pseudo-nation.

We may soon see international bodies like the UN or OECD discussing how to handle entities that claim to be new sovereign states founded by online communities. For instance, if one of these projects declares independence, do other nations recognize it? Likely not, unless it’s negotiated (as Balaji suggests it would be).

But what if, in the meantime, thousands of people are living under an unrecognized regime’s “laws”? It could create conflicts over citizenship, extradition, and rights – a messy scenario recalling historical incidents of unrecognized micro-states or breakaway republics.

Within the United States, aside from California Forever, there are subtler signs of pushback against the ethos behind these enclaves. Consider Nevada: in 2021, the governor floated a plan to allow tech companies to form “Innovation Zones” with powers equal to counties – essentially letting companies like Blockchains LLC govern their own lands near Reno​. (Source: Review Journal)

The proposal initially had support, but it died after public outcry and skepticism from legislators. “Carving out a separate government within the county is not necessary,” a state panel concluded bluntly in 2022​. (Source: leg.state.nv.us)

The failure of the Nevada plan showed that even pro-business politicians have a hard time selling the idea of corporate sovereignty to the public. Americans have a deep-seated (if sometimes subconscious) attachment to the notion of one person, one vote – the idea of one dollar, one vote governance doesn’t sit well when made explicit.

There’s also a cultural resistance forming. Media investigations – like the ones we’ve cited – are bringing sunlight to what were often shadowy projects. Satirical and critical takes in the press label these ideas as “techno-colonialism”​ or “feudalism for the rich.” Such framing can influence public perception and, ultimately, policy. If network states get tagged broadly as billionaire tax havens or neo-colonialist playgrounds, it could galvanize coalitions against them.

We might see unlikely alliances: progressive leftists concerned about inequality, nationalist conservatives concerned about sovereignty, and local community activists concerned about displacement could all find common cause in opposing these semi-private cities. Indeed, in Honduras the anti-ZEDE movement united activists on the left with citizens simply proud of national autonomy.

That said, it is early days. Many network city initiatives are still in nascent or stealth phases, trying to avoid scrutiny until they’re ready to launch (as Flannery did). Policymakers are often two steps behind, unsure how to respond to something that doesn’t fit neatly into existing categories. Are these projects private developments, like real estate – or political entities? If a company buys 50,000 acres and effectively runs a town, at what point does it become a de facto government? These blurred lines challenge our regulatory frameworks. You can’t exactly apply the Charter of the United Nations to a charter city, but maybe new laws will emerge. For instance, states could legislate limits on the size of landholdings or require public governance structures once a private development exceeds a certain population. Local jurisdictions might tighten incorporation rules to prevent “company towns” from gaining legal city status without safeguards. Already, some U.S. states have company town laws on the books (a legacy of past mining and lumber towns) to ensure residents have at least some rights and recourse.

Civil liberties organizations are also starting to weigh in. One concern is that residents of network cities might sign away rights under the guise of a user agreement or contract. For example, a charter city could require arbitration (instead of public courts) for disputes, or set its own rules on free speech, surveillance, etc. If an area like Próspera is exempt from certain national labor laws, workers there might not have the same protections against exploitation or harassment. Who safeguards the rights of citizens in a privately run city if the “constitution” of that city is essentially a corporate terms-of-service? These are questions groups like the ACLU or Human Rights Watch should start asking, especially when network states begin running headlong into scandals (say, a crime or abuse happens and it’s handled internally or covered up). It’s not hard to imagine a Brexit-like regret scenario, where early residents of a network city realize that opting out of the state also meant opting out of protections they took for granted. At that point, they may seek help from the very governments they left – a contradiction that underscores how intertwined we all are in existing nation-states.

A New Gilded Age or a New Techno-Fascist Frontier?

The story of Network Cities and the Network State movement is still being written, but its trajectory so far should raise both eyebrows and alarms. What began as niche internet discourse – a few iconoclastic blogs yearning for monarchy in America – has evolved into bricks-and-mortar projects backed by billions of dollars. The Neo-reactionary dream of escaping democracy is no longer confined to obscure online tracts; it’s breaking ground in Solano County and staking claims on tropical islands.

In 21st-century America, the frontier spirit has been reborn in an unlikely form: wealthy technologists carving out autonomous enclaves where they can be the law, ostensibly for the betterment of all.

We stand at a juncture where the infrastructure of secession is being laid quietly under our feet. It’s telling that many of the same figures exerting influence over mainstream politics and media – financing candidates, running influential companies – are simultaneously financing escape pods from the system. Perhaps it’s a hedge: if efforts to reform or “disrupt” existing cities fail, have a bolt-hole ready where the old rules don’t apply. But if enough elites opt for the bolt-holes, what becomes of the public commons?

It’s a question as old as the Gilded Age, when tycoons built company towns and private estates insulated from the masses. Back then, reformers eventually reined in monopolies and asserted that certain utilities (water, power, roads) must remain public or regulated for the common good. Today’s situation has a cyberpunk twist – data centers and blockchain networks instead of railroads – yet it rhymes with history. Once again, immense private wealth is seeking legally unaccountable zones to exercise power.

As Trump continues to disassemble the safeguards and oversight of America, we are quickly descending back into a world where everything from the postal service, to weather to water and safe food and even free speech will be a premium luxury, hidden behind a paywall and no longer a guaranteed right.

The next chapters will be critical. We may see one of the first major showdowns in California, if and when the California Forever proposal comes back for a vote, or is forced upon the locals through Executive Order.

That will be a bellwether: if even deep-blue, democratic Northern California can be convinced to hand over the keys (and 60,000 acres) to a tech consortium, it will send a signal that this movement’s time has come in the U.S.

Conversely, a resounding rejection or show of public force to keep the city from being built would slow the momentum and embolden regulators to scrutinize similar attempts. Internationally, keep an eye on the now 3 year long battle in Honduras and any arbitration outcome – a win for Próspera could embolden more charter city pushes in developing countries while discouraging local pushback, whereas a loss or withdrawal would be a cautionary tale.

The combination of digital community-building, abundant private capital, and a ideological drive to experiment with governance is not going away. Even if individual projects fail, others will iterate on the model. The allure of being a founding father (or founding CEO) of a new micro (or macro) polity is too intoxicating for the techno-utopian megalomaniac mind to resist. And the frustrations that drive these experiments – government dysfunction, political polarization, global crises – are very real. In a way, these network state builders are holding up a mirror to our societies, highlighting where people feel trapped by current systems. But the reality is that their solution will create new and more horrible traps: enclaves of privilege and control that abandon the project of improving our shared republics.

As citizens, we cannot ignore this trend as mere eccentric futurism. It is happening now, largely outside the spotlight. The choices made in these early stages – by investors, by governments, by communities – will set precedents that are hard to undo. Will we see a future fragmented into “patchwork” city-states, where citizenship is transactional and inequality is zoned into the landscape? Or can democratic societies rise to the challenge by addressing the root causes that give network states their appeal, thereby keeping our talent and innovators engaged in improving the system we have, not exiting it?

What’s at stake is more than a few islands or a patch of farmland; it’s the principle of democratic governance in the modern age. The network state movement asks, “Why not let people choose their rulers by choosing their city?” The implicit follow-up is, “Why have shared rule at all, if the talented can go it alone?” How we answer those questions – in policy, in public discourse, at the ballot box and in the streets – will determine whether the United States (and other democracies) experience a new renaissance of inclusive innovation, or whether we stand by as a new aristocracy builds its castles in the cloud, high above the ground where the rest of us continue to eke out a common life.

The rise of network cities should instill a sense of urgency in all who care about the future of community and governance. The elite exit from democracy is not a thought experiment anymore; it is an active enterprise. And if we believe that the power to shape society shouldn’t only belong to those with the most money and code, now is the time to engage, to question, and to ensure that whatever future cities emerge, the door remains open to all stakeholders – not just those who built the escape hatch.

Part I

Part III