Prepare for the century of the internet (maybe)
A bullish essay in Foreign Policy from the always-interesting Balaji Srinivasan, co-authored by Parag Khanna, makes the case that neither China nor America can win the twenty-first century, because it already belongs to the rapidly-developing, decentralised technology of Web3.
[R]ather than a unipolar Pax Americana or a bipolar “New Cold War,” the future will be a decentralized race to the top as countries, cities, companies, and communities—physical and virtual—compete to attract talent and capital. We do not argue that states are irrelevant; rather, they will be more relevant if they embrace the arrow of history and work with the network and less relevant if they attempt rearguard actions against it.”
Given how badly some older utopian predictions about the internet’s power to limit central power have fared, all this should be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. Talk of inevitability is always questionable. But it’s a clear statement of the optimists’ position, and a useful corrective to other narratives of inevitability, especially about the rise of China.
A bullish essay in Foreign Policy from the always-interesting Balaji Srinivasan, co-authored by Parag Khanna, makes the case that neither China nor America can win the twenty-first century, because it already belongs to the rapidly-developing, decentralised technology of Web3.
[R]ather than a unipolar Pax Americana or a bipolar “New Cold War,” the future will be a decentralized race to the top as countries, cities, companies, and communities—physical and virtual—compete to attract talent and capital. We do not argue that states are irrelevant; rather, they will be more relevant if they embrace the arrow of history and work with the network and less relevant if they attempt rearguard actions against it.”
Given how badly some older utopian predictions about the internet’s power to limit central power have fared, all this should be taken with a heavy pinch of salt. Talk of inevitability is always questionable. But it’s a clear statement of the optimists’ position, and a useful corrective to other narratives of inevitability, especially about the rise of China.