An oddly parochial article, and arguably a misinterpretation of what Balaji was going for in the first place. Some of the points he tried to make are:
- The American system of government is ill-suited to the strange times that lie ahead of us, and is becoming an increasingly poor role-model in general.
- Smart people are increasingly checked-out where matters of governance and power are concerned, moving frequently to other nations where they can live in somewhat greater comfort, despite having no involvement in political processes, just as he himself moved to Singapore.
- Manufacturing will happen wherever it makes sense for it to happen. This is increasingly, and to some extent irreversibly, outside the US. ("China is just better at deployment in the physical world than the US government or military.)
- Ultimately, it's not _about_ America. America is the past. What the future looks like is, to some extent, in our hands.
To turn all of that around and say, "hey, the Atoms tribe are trying to re-shore the USA and make it stronger, and here's how they can work together with Balaji's conception of the Digital tribe to make the USA stronger and reinforce the American Dream!" This seems like it badly misses the point, and is rather backwards-looking.
> Smart people are increasingly checked-out where matters of governance and power are concerned, moving frequently to other nations where they can live in somewhat greater comfort, despite having no involvement in political processes, just as he himself moved to Singapore.
It's a point I have often seen made by people who chose to move to Singapore but I have always seen it as a kind of distortion they setup to justify to themselves choosing money above liberal values. Few want to face the fact that they are mercenaries. Plus, these people tend to gravitate towards the same places and end up amongst each others shielded from the rest of the population.
I don't think it holds true from a general point of view.
Yeah, Balaji. Those are points that Boss Balaji made in his book, "The Networked State." The author of the article tries to make it all about the USA, but Balaji's book is, rather explicitly, about a post-US future -- about innovation in self-directed governance from the ground up, in a way that is more or less neutral where existing nation states are concerned. (Which is to say that what it has to say doesn't apply to the USA any more than it might apply to Switzerland, Egypt, or Indonesia.)
Thanks for clarifying - I wasn't quite clear if you were reiterating what the article author was trying to communicate, or what the previous source material was! But I'm not quite awake, either.
- The American system of government is ill-suited to the strange times that lie ahead of us, and is becoming an increasingly poor role-model in general.
- Smart people are increasingly checked-out where matters of governance and power are concerned, moving frequently to other nations where they can live in somewhat greater comfort, despite having no involvement in political processes, just as he himself moved to Singapore.
- Manufacturing will happen wherever it makes sense for it to happen. This is increasingly, and to some extent irreversibly, outside the US. ("China is just better at deployment in the physical world than the US government or military.)
- Ultimately, it's not _about_ America. America is the past. What the future looks like is, to some extent, in our hands.
To turn all of that around and say, "hey, the Atoms tribe are trying to re-shore the USA and make it stronger, and here's how they can work together with Balaji's conception of the Digital tribe to make the USA stronger and reinforce the American Dream!" This seems like it badly misses the point, and is rather backwards-looking.