From “belonging” to a state to the idea of “creating a state.”

QUESTION

Is “belonging” to the state you were born into the only option?

Most of us study at schools in the country we were born in, use its currency and work under its laws. A state has been less something we choose to join than something that is simply there from the start.

In “The Idea of Creating a State,” what I followed were attempts to reverse that order: people gather first on the internet, build trust around shared ideals, and only later put places and institutions in order. That is the idea known as Network States, and the practices being tried around it.

This book, however, is not a manual for building a country. There are temporary shared-living experiments, partnerships with existing states, schools and research bases. Under the same word “state,” the book separates what is still a vision from what has actually been established, and how far.

So what remains after reading is not a procedure but a question. What kind of society do I want to live in? Is the news I am reading an announcement of a vision, or an institution that has actually been established? I wanted to create a way to keep thinking through those questions together with the book.

THREE WALLS

A wide-ranging book has three walls.

1. 01You can't see the whole

   An introduction and 34 chapters, from ideas and history to partnerships with states, governance, currency and finance, AI, education and culture. It is hard to tell at once which chapter your interest lives in.

2. 02You can't cross chapters

   Links that span chapters — like “partnerships with existing states” in Chapter 10 and “the difference between an MOU, enacted law, entry into force, operation and results” in Chapter 14 — are yours to assemble.

3. 03You can't talk with it

   A book doesn't respond to the town or community you have in mind.

AI has the power to get past all three. But to have AI correctly follow the distinction this book cares about most — between a vision and what has actually been established — the connection itself has to be designed.

DIALOGUE

For example, a dialogue like this.

In practice, you ask whatever you like, and your AI thinks it through with you by tracing the book's knowledge. Here are three examples of how a dialogue can begin (the buttons below switch between them).

Illustrative dialogue. Actual exchanges vary with the AI you use. The cases in the book are observations as of the time of writing, so check later developments separately.

Have this dialogue with your own AI — see the product page →

CREATE

From dialogue to creation.

A dialogue with a book doesn't end with hearing an answer. Using the book's distinctions as tools, you can read the news more carefully, test your own plans, or imagine societies that do not yet exist as stories. Below are sample requests to your AI; word them however you like.

See more ways to ask — Tips (Japanese) ↗

WHY WALLET

Why start with a wallet?

Like the first book, the Network States — Knowledge Access Pass is bought directly from your wallet with JPYC or USDC, on your choice of three networks: Ethereum, Polygon or Avalanche.

I want to keep testing a form in which writer and reader connect directly, without a large intermediary in between, and the reader uses their own wallet as the key to “the access right to this book's knowledge.”

In this book, I wrote that being able to send money digitally is a different thing from legal ownership or user protection being in place. The same goes for this pass. Even though you pay from a wallet, what you hold is an access right to the book's knowledge — not any further right, and not a token.

Other payment methods that are easier for more people, such as credit cards, are also under consideration.

I wrote about non-replicable value in the essay “When Labor Becomes Replicable, What Remains Non-Replicable?”

TWO WAYS

Why the full text is not included.

The Access Pass is not a sale of the book's text or a PDF. What the Access Pass gives your AI is the key points and structure related to your question, together with chapter and section sources. The text itself is not handed over.

This book in particular describes its cases in separate stages, such as “vision and declaration,” “agreement,” “enactment of law,” “entry into force” and “actual operation.” After widening a conversation with your AI, I hope you will use the chapter and section sources to check those distinctions in the book itself.

As the author, I want the book to be read as a book. Giving yourself to the flow of an author's words and tracing knowledge from your own questions are different experiences.

If you have read the book, go deeper. If you haven't, use it as a way in. You can start from either side.

WHAT'S NEXT

From the second book to a bookshelf.

The Network States — Knowledge Access Pass is the second book in the Knowledge Access Pass series, after “Physical AI.” Just as each card has its own color, more books will be added one by one.

AI beginning to act in the physical world, and people beginning to build societies across borders — these may not be separate stories. I hope to grow, little by little, a bookshelf where you can think by moving back and forth between books.

Not only “belonging” to a state, but thinking about what kind of society you want to live in, creating it with others, and choosing again if needed. I invite you to start thinking through that question with your own AI.