(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Starbase City - Welcome to the "Network State" [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-05-04

Hot off the presses — from the Cameron County Elections Department comes the (currently) Unofficial Election Results from the May 3 Joint Elections and folks, please welcome to Texas, the City of Starbase! In perhaps his greatest “invention” ever, Elon Musk has given America its first Network State.

Musk gets his Texas wish. SpaceX launch site is approved as the new city of Starbase (AP) BY VALERIE GONZALEZ AND JIM VERTUNO Updated 10:36 PM EDT, May 3, 2025 McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The South Texas home of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company is now an official city with a galactic name: Starbase. A vote Saturday to formally organize Starbase as a city was approved by a lopsided margin among the small group of voters who live there and are mostly Musk’s employees at SpaceX. With all the votes in, the tally was 212 in favor to 6 against, according to results published online by the Cameron County Elections Department. Musk celebrated in a post on his social platform, X, saying it is “now a real city!”

it looks like it’s time to present the concept of the “Network State” at least as espoused by Balaji Srinivasan, an “American entrepreneur and investor” — yet another key player in the cabal of “tech bros Venture Capitalists” currently in the process of attempting a hostile takeover of the United States.

The Network State In one informal sentence: A network state is 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.

For a stark view of this dystopian future, let’s turn to Jenny Cohn on Bluesky:

x Balaji Srinivasan suggests giving Elon Musk “control of a huge swath of land surrounding Starbase, Texas” & designate that land as “a military base or … similar, so that [Musk] can fence it off & determine at his sole discretion who can enter.” Then replicate in other states w/ other Tech Bros. 1/ — Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) 2025-03-16T18:45:47.957Z

Here’s the broad strokes of Srinivasan’s suggestion:

THE SPECIAL ELON ZONE (SEZ)There's a simple way to rebuild manufacturing in the US: just give Elon Musk control of a huge swath of land surrounding Starbase, Texas and allow him to set whatever regulations he wants.

1) First, sunset the regulations

Balaji is saying that America has talent but pesky regulations gotta’ go, especially LABOR and ENVIRONMENTAL concerns. He writes, “Think of Starbase as a "sanctuary city", but for innovation — using leftist tactics in reverse.”

2) Then, allocate capital

This is pretty great — you know, the capital will flow in freely but in case it doesn’t?

… then you can do government VC. Basically: Democrats gave $370B+ to John Podesta to waste on climate graft, so the precedent is already established. But Elon is a proven capital allocator. So have Treasury back up the truck to make Elon —or his designates — the #1 VC in America. Obviate all charges of conflicts of interest by giving the US itself a large stake in any company that's funded, with significant distribution of funds to Texans themselves …

3) Ensure border security

Given the security risks Elon faces, he'll need border control. So you might designate the land surrounding Starbase to be a military base or something similar, so that he can fence it off and determine at his sole discretion who can enter.

Um, and who can leave?

4) Proceed at the speed of physics

Finally, with all man-made barriers removed in the form of regulation and capitalization, Elon and his designates can move at the speed of physics — not permits. Perhaps the single most important thing they could build would be mass-produced Tesla humanoids, which (if successful) could in turn build everything else.

I’m hearing that mass-produced Tesla humanoids will be released in similar model nomenclature to the cars except only three models — S, E, and X (not sure why no Y).

5) Nail it, then scale it.

… replicate the idea in other states, giving other proven founders like @PalmerLuckey their own special economic zones. I'm sure Florida and Ohio would want theirs after Texas proves it out.

Jenny does a great job connecting the dots — manufacturing, techligarchian city-states, even friggin’ crypto since of course those “Network States” will need their own currency.

x Tech billionaire Marc Andreessen is reportedly getting involved w/ DOGE. He’s also invested in the “network state” movement led by Balaji Srinivasan, which aims 2 build crypto-based countries w/in existing states via the creation of “parallel institutions” like X. Listen. 1/ — Jenny Cohn (@jennycohn.bsky.social) 2024-11-30T01:28:02.321Z

Coming soon to land near you…

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/4/2320418/-Starbase-City-Welcome-to-the-Network-State?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.