psychology of new societies. network states, identity, pseudonymity.
Zuzalu / Network States
Joined March 2021
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ParallelCitizen.xyz retweeted
* Zuzalu Doesn’t Exist: One pop-up became a scattered family of nodes:
nitter.cf/AnalogueUSB/status/211…
Parallel Citizen:
Kiba likes to say Zuzalu doesn’t exist. The original 2023 pop-up in Montenegro happened, but there’s no single place, channel or event today through which you could reach that same community or capture the ethos and magic of that event.
Its people carried the format everywhere: Zuitzerland, Zu-Grāma, ZuAfrique, ZuThailand and more. A few became permanent. 4Seas in Chiang Mai calls itself a permanent Zuzalu hub, Frontier Tower in San Francisco a Zuzalu-inspired vertical village, and ZuCity is Kiba’s own experiment in Komoro, Japan.
His sharper point is that most pop-ups are experiential tourism. You pay for a curated month with interesting people, which can be worth a lot. Then everyone goes home. Pop-ups help you find your people, but they rarely give you somewhere to live with them. In that vein, I think what Kiba is doing in ZuCity is special: building and proving a direct path to ownership and community, where transience is otherwise the norm for pop-up experiments around the world."
(nitter.cf/AnalogueUSB/status/211…)
ParallelCitizen.xyz retweeted
Stop frying your brain with endless short form content. Read long, complicated, books. Especially novels. Cultivate the ability to think deeply. To focus for long periods. Stare into space and enjoy boredom. Do tasks without any media playing in the background. Resist the urge to reach for your phone every time you feel uncomfortable. Get used to being with uncomfortable emotions instead. Wonder and think about the questions you have instead of asking AI. Become deeply present with everyone around you. Your ability to focus, pay attention, to think deeply, is one of your most valuable assets. Reclaim the immense beauty of experiencing your life directly instead of living it through a screen.
ParallelCitizen.xyz retweeted
I think of this Venn diagram a lot. We all have finite lives, and most of our highest strivers would rather (and quite sensibly) optimize for personal success on more fertile pastures than undertake the improbable, Sisyphean task of transforming the broader culture at home, bit by bit.
This is why those I like to call our "re-founding" types (e.g., Shopify's @tobi, but also figures like @astrorahul_) are so remarkable.
We have our fair share of ambitious Canadians. But far fewer who are ambitious in the service of the Canadian project itself.
ParallelCitizen.xyz retweeted
I couldn't do it better, so I'm sharing this.
What's happening there is genuinely different. @KibaGateaux idea is not a resort, but real cultural integration.
Don't expect a welcome pack but a group of people determined to make things happen.
ZuJapan is the real thing.
A month in rural Japan, and what happens when network-state ideas meet an enduring culture. Empty houses, blurred roles, affinity that scales vs. obligation that doesn’t.
Drawing on @KibaGateaux @zucity_japan @369meteor @AkiyaCollective @michellehuang42.
Might interest @Noahpinion @mbauwens @observingjapan.
Farcaster by.. Balaji lol
All Twitters become founder-moderated Twitters.
Farcaster by @dwr.
Poaster by @lastcontrarian.
Twitter by @elonmusk.
And so on for every Mastodon.
This is a huge shift from the Zuck/Jack era. From social media as neutral utility, to social media as founder-moderated community.
Network + state.
The Kazakhstan arrangement gives the network land and a legal home; the host gets talent and attention. It stays a network only while exit remains easy: private money, portable credentials, second passports.
Succession, the privacy sessions, and nodes going permanent at NS 2026 this year all suggest the hard part has moved from getting onto land to keeping the community voluntary and mobile.
Covered in the article:
@balajis @VitalikButerin @Zhaslan_Madiyev @jswihart @hosseeb @drakefjustin @m2jr @ericweinstein @curtis_yarvin @nfergus @ns @JoinEdgeCity @themu_xyz @noma_collective @UsaRidge @ipecity @James_of_Arc @HenleyPartners @CitizenX @polychain @a16z @coinbase @Zcash @uaustinorg
I'm joining the Chiang Mai Build Lab with @SuperteamTH. Coming with an idea, building fast and taking it to @Colosseum :)
BITS & BRICKS
Sep 2, 2026
• Network School opens in Astana
• Exit to Community maps 14 transition cases
• Próspera hosts Infinita Startup Week
• Growing the Commons warns on tech adoption
• Crecimiento and Circle launch Arc program
Network School is now on the ground in Kazakhstan at Alem AI, with ministry backing and a stated role as a prototype for the planned Alatau crypto city. Próspera is using a permanent jurisdiction to host a week-long popup around Infinita Startup Week and the Free Cities Conference. Crecimiento is taking the opposite route with an online program for Latin American founders building on Arc. The two publications ask what happens after a community forms: how founders transfer governance, and why community software fails when developers build outside the communities expected to use it.
Sources:
[1] @ns: luma.com/nskz
[2] @BlockchainGov: colorado.edu/lab/medlab/2026…
[3] @ProsperaGlobal: prospera.co/en/visit
[4] growingcommons.substack.com/…
[5] @crecimientoar: crecimiento.build/blog/circl…
Pareto principal still applies: 80% of the tokens are useless or marginal benefit to humanity, whereas 20% tokens unblock us from humanity's limitations and maybe we can reach for the stars.
Thinking clearly has never been a greater moat
see this is my problem with AI.
you can supposedly make anything with it, your imagination should know no bounds, and yet you STILL choose to play in a sandbox that someone else made. this is ghiblification all over again. it's not about cost or speed, it's that even without the technical limitations, you're still deeply unimaginative or curious and so you resort to imitation.