> The forces of the Intelligence Inversion: global networks, dematerialized capital, and algorithmic power, are making the traditional state irrelevant. It is too slow, its jurisdiction too territorial, its tools too clumsy. It is a fortress designed for a world of invading armies, now besieged by forces that flow through its walls as if they were not there. Capital flees to the lowest tax jurisdiction at the speed of light. Information, true and false, ignores borders. The greatest challenges we face, from climate change to AI alignment, are fundamentally global, mocking the very idea of national solutions. -- [[The Last Economy]] --- Nation-states = Industrial Age product; losing relevance as violence-based control mechanisms fail ## Fiscal Crisis **Revenue collapse** from inability to tax mobile capital & encrypted cyber-commerce "Cows will have wings" - taxpayers can escape the field **Consequence:** Cannot fund welfare/entitlement programs ## Fragmentation Weakened central government → legitimacy crisis Large nation-states break into smaller jurisdictions ## Draconian Control Measures **Capital controls** - trap wealth/people within borders Covert/violent restriction of liberating technologies ## Nationalist-Luddite Backlash Welfare state collapse → Low-skill workers in wealthy countries who depent on it feel abandoned Politicians exploit anger, stoking nationism & populism **Anti-technology reaction** against information tech enabling escape ## Sovereignty Commercialization In a desperate search for revenue, some states will begin to sell the one asset they have left: their sovereignty. They will compete to offer low-tax environments, becoming more like service providers than rulers ---