Would love feedback on this:
The SovStack as it is today:
"Proto-stack" - a scattered set of high-leverage tools, communities, and experiments, some genuinely sovereign, some semi-captured, all heavily dependent on global infrastructure, and already under targeted legal and memetic attack.
Yes, we have: Bitcoin + NOSTR + non-KYC P2P + FOSS OS + self-hosting + mesh + circular economies + crypto-anarchist hubs = the current technical and cultural skeleton of something that could be called a Sovereign Stack
But:
- It’s heavily parasitic on state-corporate infrastructure (chips, clouds, DNS, app stores, overlay networks).
- It’s increasingly criminalized by association in key tools (GrapheneOS, mixing, P2P).
- It’s fragmented (Bitcoin maxis, Monero people, prepper/agro communities, hacker collectives, charter-city VCs) with no unified architecture.
- It is already partially co-opted at the narrative and legal level (ZEDEs, “self-sovereign” IDs, “sovereign stack” brand-jacking).
- And the human layer—skills, trust networks, succession, defense, care, logistics (food, water, shelter, medicine, etc.), law, governance, myth/narrative—is by far the weakest link and least developed.
I'm not much of a self-sovereignty maxi (using and holding bitcoin is about all I do in that realm), but I'm curious what your ideal scenario would be?
There's a lot of people in the world. It's hard to live without bumping up against them. And evidence I see is that most people want the comfort of the state or something -- few are the people who want to choose the harder path of self-sovereignty that is also the path of personal responsibility.
Another observation from my own life: it's very easy to get so caught up in the little details of doing something fully (being fully organic, fully righteous, fully sustainable, fully privacy-protecting, fully self-sovereign) that you end up optimizing for a bunch of really small details and miss the larger picture.
You say you aren't much of a self-sovereignty maxi, that all you do is hold and spend bitcoin. Is this entirely true? Does this mean that you care only about wealth and NGU? I mean clearly you put a lot of effort into Bitcoin Maximalism so why bother calling out CBs, saying privacy matters, promoting self custody, all the 'true and accurate histories', or the Cypherpunk books, etc. if that is the case? Maybe self sovereignty to you is simply to just hold and spend Bitcoin?
My ideal ultimate dream state scenario: the SovStack is the dominant substrate of civilization. Its primary purpose is fourfold: Each person can exist as a self-determining node. No entity holds unavoidable, totalizing power. Coercive centralization is structurally and symbolically disallowed. Collapse, fork, and exit are built-in at every layer. Now the scope of this stack is massive and covers all sorts of things from the treatment of kids or vulnerable populations to existential hazards to epistemic infra to future generations and so on. I'd rather not go into that now but its a civilizational operating system that I think, albeit almost ridiculously idealistic (for the uninitiated), is entirely realistic. And to be sure, things like Bitcoin, NOSTR, FOSS, and others I mentioned in my original post fit very neatly in there.
Now, despite the fact that I think it is plenty realistic in that it could happen, I do not think it will happen. So what I am building for is the same thing just on a much much much smaller scale. I estimate only about 5% (maybe 10% at the highest peak. And these numbers are probably already too generous.) of the human population will want to build such a civilization. But I do think the Sov Stack will be able to be completely built out, again just on a small scale. Not the ubiquitous global scale.
The best image in my head is something sci-fi like Zion in the matrix or one of those eco-communities you see in the movies. I am limited in my sci-fi movie knowledge so I'm sure there are much better examples. Also it certainly doesn't have to take on any eco-friendly shape by necessity, that's just the image in my head. I imagine most of the SovStack will be very intentional, so yes, 'intentional communities' in rural areas (at least not urban) and in jurisdictions where the wider population within them, even if they aren't SovStack aligned, tend to prioritize individual sovereignty, private property, small government, etc. I imagine people living in close proximity to others, and maybe some nodes scattered throughout the Synth Stack cities and urban areas. But more to your point, I completely agree, I think the comfort and convenience of authority/the Synth Stack will never go away. And will in fact probably grow. And that only a small percentage of people will choose the harder, disciplined life of sovereignty and responsibility.
On your last point, I again turn the question back at you and ask what the larger picture is for you? Do those details not matter? Are we not supposed to go all the way? Are those smaller details not also part of the bigger picture? Is the larger picture for you more spiritual/metaphysical? or more stoic maybe (stoicism is just a trend I am seeing lately from people within this ecosystem, not trying to corner you there)? Or is it like spending time with your loved ones and enjoying life? Or is it more hedonic? Something else?
For me I often think about spirituality, nonduality, metaphysical things like this, higher consciousness, etc. and being present. Ram Dass, Alan Watts type of stuff I guess (to sum it up very simply, not precisely at all). So yea I ask the same question of myself a lot, when thinking about all this sovereignty stuff, like maybe I am forgetting about the 'bigger picture' (to use your words as best as possible). But even when I do ask myself that, I genuinely feel like the answer is no, that this, all these small details (that we must satisfy if we are to go all the way, like you mentioned) are more than entirely worth it, and I am willing to die on that post, not to be too overdramatic, but forreal.
It's the law of diminishing returns.
For example, many people with backyards could grow some food, and maybe become 50% self-sufficient. But to be 100% self-sufficient is not twice as hard; it may be orders of magnitude as hard.
Build local. Outside synth cities. Grow. Harvest. Network. Develop new ideas, myths and social infrastructure. Wear a cowboy hat. Do munk shit. Await the metaphorical flood.
Dis too brilliant
I totally agree with your point of view. Most people are happy being in fiat system. People are simply not being comfortable in choosing the less travelled path, even if it's sovereign.
Education call definitely help grow everyone.
And thanks that we have: Bitcoin + NOSTR + non-KYC P2P + FOSS OS + self-hosting + mesh + circular economies + crypto-anarchist hubs.