Who needs Mars when there's an isle!

In a move that's part crime lord Han from Bruce Lee-starring Enter the Dragon, and part Burning Man brochure, tech-crypto entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan has bought a private island near Singapore to inaugurate his 'Network State' - a society that revolves around 'building online communities united by shared values, which would eventually acquire physical territory and seek global recognition as a sovereign entity'. So, Srinivasan wants to be a (Bruce) Lee Kuan Yew with WiFi, AI and yoga mats.

Armed with a vision, a router and possibly a $600 ergonomic hammock, Srinivasan is set to prove that physical geography is optional when your citizenship depends solely on agreeing to terms and conditions. Citizens will be digitally onboarded, geofenced and gently nudged to read William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson's The Sovereign Individual under palm trees - only available in NFT format, obviously. So, is this deregulation with sunscreen? Hell, yeah. Wouldn't you want to be part of an opt-in technocracy with zero potholes and infinite Discord servers, where taxes are negotiated via DAO votes and your passport doubles as a .eth address? Rumour has it that Srinavasan's plan to out-Musk Martian Musk will ultimately lead to the island's GDP measured by daily GitHub commits. If Plato dreamt of Republic 2.0, Balaji may have just launched its beta.