Picturing a different life

Network State x 100-year-life x Nomad

From ArtStation

The core idea in this post is inspired by three themes—the first being a longer life, the second being the network state, and the third being a nomadic existence. Below are the cruxes of those three individual themes; I’ll keep them short. They will help convey the core idea simply at the end:

1: A longer life

In the The 100-Year Life, the authors talk about how life spans are extending—to the point where generally, a person born in the mid 2000s has a 50% chance of living till a 100-years-old.

Due to this, the traditional life model where we’re born, go through schooling, work, retire, and then die is unlikely to persist. There are a few reasons why. One of them is the need for upskilling where for example, a 60-year-old man might re-enter university to earn a degree and subsequently enter an alternative career.

If we take this a step further, a longer life might imply a life filled with dramatically different phases. You might spend 30 years of your adult life as an architect, ten as a teacher, and twenty as a nomad travelling the world.

Key Message: Multiple phases can become the norm.

2: The Network State

I will only touch on what the network state is and will not go into how a network state may come to exist. If you’re interested in the latter, I highly recommend Rohit’s post here. The full book by Balaji is here.

To convey this idea in a relatable way, let’s look at Rose Island.

Imagine joining a community on Reddit—perhaps this community is full of people living in urban cities who all wish to spend a part of their lives living like nomads or humans in prehistoric times. You all become so attached to this community and wholly decide to coordinate and buy your own land. Eventually, all of you move to your new land and start a new life. This new land has its own economy and is self-sustaining.

It is like traditional migration—you move to a new country because it is more in line with your values. Except here, this country came to be via an online community, and by virtue of that, there’s more customizability and it’s easier to create new countries with specific values.

The idea behind a new country doesn’t necessarily have to be dramatic. Sure, it could be something like a nomad community, but it could also feel closer to moving from Singapore to Switzerland.

Key Message: Being able to form our own digital communities with people from anywhere on the planet can become normal, and in turn, these people will migrate and live together in a common geographical location.

3: Into the Wild

This serves as a good (and striking) example for why multiple phases might be desirable. Here is a quote from adventurer Chris McCandless:

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

Key message: new experiences are desirable, and if given the opportunity, most people will set out in search of new experiences. This is why we look forward to holidays—or even new Netflix shows.

The Core Idea

Let’s quickly recall the three core messages from the three separate ideas above:

First, multiple phases become the norm.

Second, connecting with anyone from anywhere in the world to eventually migrate physically together with them is possible.

And third, humans innately desire new experiences.

The convergence of these three ideas is powerful because most people are only gutsy enough to follow through on what they want to do (let’s say you really want to be a nomad) when they have a community doing the same thing. Being a nomad all by yourself for five years is scary. But doing the same thing with a hundred thousand other people? It seems more conquerable.

Ultimately: with longer lives come greater cravings for new experiences. The network state will allow us to connect with likeminded people, and the community that eventually forms will give us the guts to embark on some of those experiences. This is how the future might look like and this is the core idea of this piece.

You can find me on Twitter @ramwithouthorns.