Last month, venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan announced the Network School, a three-month learning retreat marketed to people interested in “netw

A Mysterious School for the Network State Crowd Is Now in Session

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2024-09-24 14:00:11

Last month, venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan announced the Network School, a three-month learning retreat marketed to people interested in “network nations,” a kind of utopia for the anarchocapitalist set. The inaugural class is 150 people. It starts today.

Details about the school have been shrouded in secrecy, even for the applicants. Aspiring Network School participants put down deposits of up to $2,000 without even knowing the Network School’s location. Srinivasan has still not disclosed it publicly, although social media posts and WIRED reporting indicate that it’s Forest City, Malaysia.

The Network School is one of the most ambitious projects yet for people interested in creating what Srinivasan calls a “decentralized country.” The goal is for people dissatisfied with their own society to band together and create a movement spawning “parallel” societies, special economic zones that have alternative education systems, media institutions, and currency—as well as wealth-friendly tax laws. A crucial step is having physical territory, and the Network School clears that bar. On Sunday, Srinivasan said he is working to “build out the real estate” with the goal of “scaling the school.”

While Srinivasan has still not publicly disclosed the Network School’s location, he’s been more clear about its values, to which he says students should conform. According to his Substack post introducing the Network School, these requirements include an admiration of “Western values,” seeing Bitcoin as the successor to the US Federal Reserve, and trusting AI over human courts and judges.