A Match Made in Heaven
A Match Made in Heaven
Christianity as a Network State
In The Network State, Balaji Srinivasan covers five factions: left authoritarians, left libertarians, right secular nationalists, right international capitalists, and right religious conservatives. Of the five, the religious conservatives are given the least coverage. Yet, despite declining numbers, Christians currently make up roughly 63% of the US population.
What follows is a brief look into how Christianity could fit into a world where network unions, the precursor to network states, are starting to form. This exploration will consider Christianity’s behaviors when faced with new technologies and discoveries, demographics, and the technology adoption lifecycle.
But first, what is a network union?
Network union
A network union is part social network. It organizes groups of like minded people together in the pursuit of a common objective or goal. In addition, it must have a strong leader who enables focused collective action.
It’s also part union. Unlike the unions of today, which focus on labor concerns, it is much more focused on defending the interests of the group as a whole. This includes the labor point of view, but it expands with other points of view such as consumption, production, and use.
By adding a blockchain component, a network union allows for economic alignment of members. This is a powerful addition as it incentivizes behaviors such as recruitment and the crowdfunding of public goods. It also provides for secure, private communications which cannot be disrupted by a centralized authority. Given enough decentralization, members would be safe from being deplatformed, while maintaining the sovereign ability to leave at their own discretion.
So, we have an organization which is capable of defending the collective interests of everyone within, while providing community, support, and a unified sense of purpose. That sounds similar to a church, but at scale:
Both emphasize community and collaboration
Both encourage a sense of belonging through a shared purpose
Both envision a world that is different from the current system
It would seem religious conservatives could be unlikely, but powerful allies in forwarding the concepts of the network state.
Embracing Change
There have been many times throughout history where Christians and the Church were faced with new technologies and discoveries. Are there trends in how they reacted to these changes? What follows is not exhaustive, but it provides a clear picture on how I believe religious conservatives will adapt in the coming years.
There are numerous examples of Christianity rejecting new technologies and discoveries. One of the most obvious is Galileo’s heliocentric view of the solar system. Galileo leveraged self-improved telescopes and new manners of observation, recording, and communication to discover the geocentric view of the solar system was incorrect. Because the Church’s teaching of the time were being now being questioned, it reacted unfavorably by sentencing Galileo to house arrest for the remainder of his days. Ultimately, this discovery came to be fully accepted.
Other examples include Darwin’s theory of evolution and the inventions of anesthesia and birth control. There is a central theme to the examples. All of them ran counter to the sacred teachings of Church.
Let us now turn to times when the Church embraced new technologies. While there were initially some opponents in the following cases, what’s important is there were also proponents who quickly moved to adopt them.
Many religious leaders quickly saw the potential of the printing press to spread the Bible and other religious texts more widely. The same is true of radio broadcasts of the 1920’s. Television and social media are more recent examples where some church leaders quickly seized the opportunity to use the new technology. The unifying characteristic of all these technologies is communication. They all allowed for faster and more vibrant dissemination of thoughts and ideas.
The concept of a network union does not counter any Christian teachings. It is a new and improved form of communication. This suggests religious leaders will behave in the same manner as previous advances in communication by leveraging them to spread the message of Christ. They will be the innovators of Christian network unions.
Technology Adoption Lifecycle
The initial adopters of a new technology are enthusiastic innovators. They’ll experiment and try to make it work, because they have some vision of the future which is important enough to go through the pain. Poor documentation, a lack of tooling, and an unrefined ability to even explain what’s happening to others are some examples of this pain. But all of those pain points begin to fall away in time.
Typically, this initial group of adopters is just a percent or two of the total number of users that will eventually use the technology. This was true for radio, it was true for television, it was true for social media, and appears true for network unions. I can think of no reason why innovative, religious conservatives will not be a part of the initial rush to form network unions.
But what does that mean as far as possible numbers?
On Chain Census:
These numbers were not found on chain; therefore, some margin of error should be expected. 1 2 3
1. 63% of US population * 332M people = 209M US Christians
2. 31% of World population * 8B people = 2.48B World Christians
3. 70% of World wealth * $445T = $311.5T If we take just a single percent of the population and wealth, it works out to roughly two million Americans plus 23 million more from around the world, with $3T in capital. It’s unlikely all those folks will be a part of a single network union, but social structures are gravitating at present, so alliances are likely in the short term.
Assuming an overall alliance of Christian network unions, the on chain census of population would be just shy of Australia’s. The on chain census of wealth would be on par with that of Sweden. That sounds like a recipe for diplomatic recognition.
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”
Ephesians 6:10 - KJV
Pew Research Center's 2021 report on Religion in the United States
2015 report by the Pew Research Center
2018 report by Credit Suisse