Powerful Populations
Powerful Populations
How Empowered People Create Unstoppable Societies
It has been recently posited we are living in a dark age. How can that be possible when there is so much technological progress? From ChatGPT to SpaceX reusable rockets, are we not on the cusp of a golden age, if not already well into it?
The world’s best product companies, like those mentioned above, understand one primary path to product success it to empower your product teams to do great work. This means getting out of the way, allowing them to make decisions and the inevitable mistakes that come from them, and trusting in them to grow into something greater than the sum of their parts. A great product team is not one product manager, two back end engineers, a front end developer, and a user experience expert. Instead, it is a group of individuals who are fully aligned in the pursuit of a mission worthy of the talents they’ve yet to fully mature. In other words, they level up on a regular basis.
What would happen to a society if this methodology were applied more widely across an entire population? It appears network states may soon provide the answer. Being “a social network with a moral innovation,” network states will attract the humans most aligned to its cause. Existing digitally at the start, they will be unencumbered in pursuing this cause to the best of their abilities. As the power and influence of the network state grows, the physical locations in which members find themselves will have less influence to regulate certain behaviors and market conditions which negatively impact the objective. Let’s hope this ends the one-size-fits-all approach that many nation states currently inflict upon their populations.
Number Go Up
US citizens are currently subject to many investment laws. One such law, the Social Security Act, has been in effect since 1935. Employer and employee each “contribute” 6.2% of employee wages or salary towards this safety net. These funds go to the Social Security Trust Fund. This fund is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. A quarterly prospectus or annual report detailing the status of the investment is not sent to investors. Furthermore, the government dictates the complex rules on how these funds are dispersed. How well does a society invest in its future when forced to invest the first 12.4% of wages into such a system?
There are those who take greater ownership of investing. Roughly 60% of U.S. households participate in some type of retirement account. This number is up from 20% in the early 1990’s. What’s driving this significant increase? Around 10% of Americans are entrepreneurs and the United States is recognized as having more entrepreneurs compared to most other countries. However, the National Small Business Association estimates the average small business owner spends about 20 hours per month on federal regulatory compliance; half spend more than $10,000 each year on external regulatory compliance. Are these the most efficient ways to invest in the future of their business?
Now imagine a society with individuals completely responsible for their own long-term investing and well being. What if there were no government program(s) to fall back on in times of distress? How would the average person be incentivized to behave when receiving their paycheck? How would money management and investing curriculums differ from today for those under the age of 18?
Lessons Learned
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 89% of eligible U.S. children were enrolled in public schools (K-12) during the 2019-2020 school year. The remaining 11% of children were participating in homeschooling or enrolled in private or alternative schools. Within public education graduation rates are roughly 85%, while private rates are 89%. Homeschooling rate are nearly impossible to track given the lack of centralization and standardization. How dynamic is a society where more than 80% are receiving a similar education? How resilient is it to technological or cultural shockwaves?
During the same time period, roughly 20 million students were enrolled in undergraduate programs. Graduation rates within a six year period are 62%. Unfortunately, this additional education comes as a cost. Student loan debt is over $1.7 trillion, and has doubled in the past decade. How does this debt affect graduate and non-graduate alike in their investment strategies?
What would education look like in a network state? Would it be a public system based on standardization? How likely is a Cambrian explosion of learning (not necessarily teaching) methodologies? Children raised in a competitive educational atmosphere are likely to have involved parents who experiment with their own children's educations to see what works best. Each child would walk a unique educational journey which further amplifies their own and the population's understandings. Over time, would this result in a society far more educated over a wider variety of subject matter, and at a younger age?
Power to the People!
With no regulations forcing you to fit into the generally accepted mold of society, there will be far more experimentation within network states. Instead of relying on bureaucracies or blaming others for ones setbacks, self-ownership will increase as people really start to deal with their own choices. I don't use the term mistakes here, as everything in life is experimental. Those experiments lead to outcomes which could be perceived as mistakes if they're sufficiently negative. But perceptions and cultural mindsets could shift from viewing outcomes as negative to viewing outcomes more surgically or openly. This shift in cultural belief could be massive in introducing change within a society. Meanwhile, socialist societies are going to fall further and further behind. If network state actors can penetrate those societies in order to win the hearts and minds, we will see a large immigration to our way of life. Results speak louder than demagogues.