What’s up everyone. Balaji dropped some new heat on the MoZ podcast which is worth tapping in to. For the uninitiated, MoZ is rapidly becoming the new All-In podcast, with Tech/VC famous hosts talking about society and news from an intelligent/moderate point of view. Where All-In is more billionaire VC, MoZ hosts are still very much in the building arena.
Balaji’s new stuff is a tangent on his ever present theme of decentralization and his concept of The Network State. Whereas in the past, Balaji’s ideas were presented a little bit more conceptually by describing our heliocentric history, the new idea is presented more linearly and overt: how Tech can take back San Francisco.
I wrote about the Network State here, and have referenced the idea of the swirling political axis many times, which Balaji was kind enough to reference on several prominent podcasts.
I realize not everyone is tapped into the non-partisan perspective that sits above the political parties in America, but that’s where I reside and I try to push as many people off the binary party ledge and into reality as I can. When talking from this perspective, it’s important to not paint everything in broad strokes.
So let’s start with a few quick definitions to understand the nuance. We have Red (Republican), Blue (Democrat), and now Balaji is positing Gray (Tech). But I also want to define Left and Right, and as well as Progressive and Conservative, because it is very important in the larger context of my writings. In today’s society people often refer to Blue/Left/Progressive interchangeably, and vice versa Red/Right/Conservative, but that version of semantics stems from the perspective that there are only two parties, and everyone and everything is defined in the binary (not true).
The most empirical historical definition I have seen thus far is simply: the Left is the progressive energy in terms of pushing values forward, and the Right is the conservative energy that is against anything the Left does. This definition serves to encompass all Left vs Right conflicts throughout history, which applies to most of revolutions that have ever happened.
Progressivism always wins over time. It is human nature that the collective consciousness continues to evolve and with it morality, kindness, and mindfulness. The moral revolutionaries are always the Left, and the incumbent, holding on to their economic power by installing ardent roadblocks to progress are always the Right. In this sense, the Left and Right are tribes, but the underlying people and political parties that make up each tribe historically shift and trade places over time. This is the heliocentric nature of relationship between progress and power. The Left seeks to make change by bringing about moral authority, and then they impose that authority with economic power once in charge. The Left and Right are the groups that battle over change, Progressivism and Conservatism are the ideological values, and Red and Blue are simply the two groups squabbling over change in America today.
To be completely overt so there is not confusion: Left does not always mean Blue, Right does not always mean Red. In fact, the definitions are changing before our eyes in this hyperactive political media cycle. Both sides are both, which is the real-time indicator of the swirling quadrants. Red and Blue seem to matter less and less, with the real battle being fought over authoritarianism versus freedom. We can see the contradictions of both political parties with our own eyes. Blue can be progressive on abortion rights, but conservative on free speech. The historic Left would never limit freedoms in such a way. Reds can be libertarian on banking or gun rights, and authoritarian on religious or social issues. Going back to recent microswirl of history, the economically progressive Reds, popularized in the 80s, also served as the beacon for morality (“just say no”), then came into power (as Leftists) and tried to halt all progress (turning Right). The modern socially progressive Blues (as Leftists), came into power fighting against the social conservatism of the modern Reds. Now, Blues are fighting to maintain their superiority by keeping things as they are, picking fights with any and all other tribes, turning Right.
As Balaji wrote in TNS: Left is the New Right is the New Left.
But here’s the new take: The Left, currently inhabited by the Blues, has the opportunity to be replaced instead by a new tribe and not have power swing back to the Reds. This new tribe is the Tech Gray. I presume, although it was not explicit, that Balaji was indicating the opportunity to buck the historic heliocentric trend of power that resides in only the two major political parties in America. The supposition is that Gray does not become the new Left, but they take off orthogonally in a new direction. Or, perhaps if and when Gray takes power, they become threatened by a new color, dig in their heels to maintain power, and the paradigm repeats itself.
“Tribal lens is also the digital lens. Rather than thinking of of it as the map of the lands and the countries of the world, think about it as the map of the minds, and the social networks and tribes of the world.” - Balaji
The concept here is that physical borders do not define idea alignment, as they did in our historical societies for so long. The tribal lens can manifest in the cloud, sitting above geographic territories, but they can harness that cloud power into geographic power should they want to. This is the concept of the network state, and the tactic that is being proposed on how to save San Francisco.
So Red loses to Blue, as Blue are the most culturally progressive, and have the most economic power (media, tech, institutions). This is the historic theme as Left always replaces Right, until they become them.
But now Blue is fighting everyone: Russia, China, Hungary, Brazil, KSA, France, Tech, Religion, AI, decentralized currency, nuclear energy, oil. That last one is a doozy. Regardless what you think of global warming or oil as an environmental issue, all progress is tied to energy consumption. If you want something to cost less you produce an abundance of it. Conserving energy is the worst thing you can do for energy prices. Consume more energy and the price will go down. Cheaper energy leads to cheaper food, cheaper processors, cheaper tech, cheaper everything, and solves the problems that progressive society claims they want to solve (inequality). The conservation agenda pushed forward by the Blues are inherently Right (not progressive), but they are labeled as progressive under the guise of moral superiority. It’s hard for some people to reconcile this conceptually. If Blues came into power as the Left, and still hold many Left values, how can they turn so far Right? The answer is easy? Money. Moral authority leads to economic superiority leads to power consolidation.
This is a difficult position to maintain, especially on a global scale, so it is unlikely that they are able to keep the power forever, and history shows that they will not. Lots of people talk about the BRICS taking over, but the more likely scenario is that the political pendulum swings back and forth faster and faster (the “new” 4 year alternating cycles is rapidly becoming too long), until something new proliferates. Gray Tech could be this new thing.
Gray is culturally both Red and Blue, but historically Left, as they want to push change into the world and create a better future. You can argue all day that certain tech companies just suck money out of the atmosphere which actually regresses society by increasing opportunity cost. This is actually the overt strategy of Facebook and Google, hiring thousands of engineers out of the top schools, and effectively stashing them on the bench, so as to limit their competitors. In aggregate however, Tech is the only place where interesting things are happening. You can’t actually can’t move Left without Tech.
Gray may have bits and pieces of Red and Blue culturally, but what they really desire is freedom. Freedom to be safe on the streets. Freedom of speech, which is prelude to freedom of expression, which yields truth which yields true political representation. Elon’s purchase of X is an important cog here, as other major platforms are still under the cultural suppression of Blue.
Forming the Gray tribe requires buy in, or skin in the game. Same as a network state (which is what this is, basically) requires allegiance in the form of cryptocurrency, a Gray tribe would require investment, so as one could not “virtue signal” the way Reds and Blues do. Because being Red or Blue costs no money, people can act one way publicly, but have their reveal preference position be the exact opposite. The public shaming of non-mask-wearers during Covid comes to mind. Blue was quick to make draconian rules, shame those who did not follow them, while secretly having parties or private dinners completely maskless. Similarly, Red will virtue signal by voting for abortion bans, but get them in secret whenever they need them. The political posturing has become comical, and in 2023 anyone who still believes that any representative believes what they say they believe, needs a harsh wakeup call.
Perhaps my favorite example of this hypocrisy is with the word “retarded”. In public life, it is politically incorrect to use it in a derogatory way, but in personal life it is used by 100% of people I know. It is only the ardent supporter of speech suppression that is not in on the joke.
A quick anecdote that exemplifies what happens to your brain when you stay in the echo chamber for too long: Last year, an obviously mentally unstable homeless person (which is also becoming a publicly incorrect word to say) used a fake shotgun (which looked quite real) to terrorize people outside of the Trader Joe’s next to my building in Los Angeles. The cops came in full force and detained the perpetrator swiftly. As the four police SUVs surrounded the man and detained him, a middle aged white woman came running into the mix to vouch for him. The woman had clearly never met the man before but was telling the police that “he was her friend” and was calling the cops bastards, pleading to let him go. All of the witnesses, Black and Brown alike, started commenting about the absurdity of the situation, as the man was literally terrorizing the sidewalk with a very real looking shotgun several minutes ago. He most definitely needed to be detained, and the cops weren’t doing anything even remotely close to a George Floyd situation. But the woman had lost the plot. After months of racist Karen shaming, ACAB, and defund the police rhetoric, she had lost the ability to objectively analyze reality. Her desire to virtue signal was greater than her desire to keep the neighborhood safe (and in all likelihood she did not live around there). All of this is to say that the delta between virtue signaling and revealed preference can often be quite large. Virtue signaling exists to shame and divide, but above all else keep those who are creating the rules in power.
So in any event, the Gray tribe can collectively put together a plan, start having meetings, create totems and symbols, have sub-tribes that roll up to the greater tribe, and generally start to consolidate power around the common goal of making the city of San Francisco habitable again. They can have Gray/Red meetings as well as Gray/Blue meetings. Even Gray/Green meetings and Gray/Forward meetings (for the Yang fans). Then the Gray tribe buys land in the form of city blocks as commercial real estate plummets due to tech companies exiting the city. Of course Blue will legally try to block this on all fronts, so there will need to be a competent legal team on call.
Gray will also need the help of the police, because the number one problem in SF is the lack of their presence. They are simply not allowed to prosecute certain crimes. Money is the great equalizer, so hiring cops as private security, or making any sort of deal or donations would guarantee that the Gray-defined blocks are patrolled more effectually, and crime was in fact made illegal in these territories. Quite a controversial stance, I know. In short, the Gray tribe would operate as a company, using capital investment to increase their geographic value, and give themselves a place to work and live again.
“You can build a billion dollar business in the cloud, but need a billion permits to build something on land.” - Balaji
Polarization is good for Red and Blue. It helps them stay in power. But the reality is that the majority of Americans agree on most things. Americans are inherently Leftist, no matter what political party they belong to. The virtue signaling from both parties is the authoritarianism shining through, under the guise of morality. The moral authority is what begets the economic power, but when they start to throw false flags, it becomes apparent that they are not the arbiters of morality we thought they were. We all know some new direction is needed, and whether you agree with Balaji’s techno-utopia or not, he has a vision for how the world of the future is going to work (cloud based tribes), and a clear path on how to use this vision to enact much needed change in a city of major global importance.
The grey tribe is tech centric and localized around tech hubs. Maybe it will work in SF. That doesn’t feel like it has any potential politically as far as state or national elections go. There are plenty of tech savvy right wingers and abysmally tech-Ignorant left wingers.