NN Ep:15 - Catalysing Network Nations: Movement Building with Benjamin Life & Patricia Parkinson
Release Date: 02/06/2026
GreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, Primavera De Filippi is joined by Patricia Parkinson and Benjamin Life, long-time community builders working on the OpenCivics Project, to explore how Network Nations can evolve from a conceptual framework into a real political movement. Together, they unpack what it takes to move from ideas to action: building a shared theory of change, nurturing a scenius before formal institutions, balancing commons-based governance with movement leadership, and avoiding the traps of co-optation, extraction, or...
info_outlineGreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, host Felix Beer is joined by Helena Rong, Assistant Professor at New York University Shanghai, to explore SeeDAO as a real-world case study of a proto Network Nation. They unpack how SeeDAO evolved from a Web3 startup into a translocal, diasporic community rooted in Daoist philosophy, kinship, and the pursuit of a βgood life.β The conversation dives into co-presence, emergence, non-coercive governance, social ledgers, on-chain identity, and how SeeDAO blends digital infrastructure with physical...
info_outlineGreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the VDAO Γ Greenpill Anti-Fragile Network States mini-series, host Kris Miller speaks with Danilo, a software engineer who left city life behind to rebuild his health, relationship with food, and sense of resilience through permaculture, natural building, and community living in Uruguay. Danilo shares how a health crisis pushed him to rethink his lifestyle, why growing food changed everything, and how moving closer to nature reshaped his understanding of resilience. They explore food autonomy, water catchment, natural house building,...
info_outlineGreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, Primavera De Filippi is joined by Jessy Kate Schingler, co-founder of the Embassy Network, to explore how intentional communities and new jurisdictions can give Network Nations real-world grounding. Jessy shares lessons from over a decade of building translocal co-living communities, explains why the Embassy Network thought of its spaces as βembassies to the future,β and how identity, culture, and entanglement emerge without formal membership rules. The conversation then turns to jurisdictional...
info_outlineGreenPill
In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, Primavera De Filippi speak with Santiago Siri, founder of Democracy Earth, DemocracyOS, and Proof of Humanity, to explore a central question of the digital age: Can we escape politics with protocols or do protocols simply create new political arenas? Santiago shares his journey from building Argentinaβs internet political party Partido de la Red, to creating open-source democratic infrastructure, to running one of the most ambitious on-chain identity and governance experiments in Web3. They discuss identity as the core bottleneck of digital...
info_outlineGreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, Primavera De Filippi & Felix Beer are joined by Vitalik Buterin to reflect on one of the most influential experiments in recent community-building history: Zuzalu. Vitalik shares the motivations behind Zuzalu, what actually worked (and what didnβt), and why many pop-up cities risk drifting into βlong conferencesβ instead of becoming real communities. Together they explore kinship vs telos, culture vs mission, permanence vs mobility, governance by forking, and how zones, tribes, and regulatory...
info_outlineGreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, Primavera De Filippi explore one of the most influential community experiments of the last 40 years: Burning Man. Theyβre joined by Erika Blair, who leads engagement and network strategy at Burning Man, to unpack how a one-week event in the Nevada desert evolved into a global, year-round network of communities bound not by territory, but by shared principles, rituals, and identity. The conversation dives into the origins of Burning Man, the emergence of the 10 Principles, regional burns around the...
info_outlineGreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the Greenpill Podcast, Kevin Owocki sits down with Jake Hartnell reality engineer, builder, and the mind behind ENOVA to explore the idea of hyperstitions: beliefs and narratives that become real by spreading through networks. Jake explains how hyperstitions operate as a new coordination primitive, why technologies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and AGI can be seen as successful hyperstitions, and how tools like hyperstition markets blend prediction markets, incentives, and storytelling to drive collective action. They discuss ENOVA, egregores,...
info_outlineGreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the Greenpill Podcast, Kevin Owocki talks with Raymond Cheng software engineer, researcher, and co-founder of Open Source Observer β about the Prosperous Software Movement and why open source licensing needs to evolve. Raymond explains how todayβs open source economy underfunds its own foundations, why existing licenses fail to reflect modern financial realities, and how a new class of revenue-sharing licenses could sustainably fund open source dependencies. They explore the history of free software, the limits of voluntary public...
info_outlineGreenPill
New @greenpillnet pod out today! π In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, host Felix Beer is joined by Nick Srnicek (author of Platform Capitalism and Silicon Empires) and Sofia Cossar (BlockchainGov) to explore the emerging concept of Network Sovereignty. They unpack how power is shifting from nation-states to digital networks, why platforms now function like political infrastructures, and how algorithms, protocols, and platforms increasingly shape governance, speech, and economic life. The conversation examines platform empires, AI infrastructure, state power, civil society...
info_outlineNew @greenpillnet pod out today! π
In this episode of the Network Nations mini-series, Primavera De Filippi is joined by Patricia Parkinson and Benjamin Life, long-time community builders working on the OpenCivics Project, to explore how Network Nations can evolve from a conceptual framework into a real political movement.
Together, they unpack what it takes to move from ideas to action: building a shared theory of change, nurturing a scenius before formal institutions, balancing commons-based governance with movement leadership, and avoiding the traps of co-optation, extraction, or techno-elitism.
The conversation dives into functional sovereignty, parallel societies, movement inclusivity beyond tech, progressive protocolization, and how Network Nations might grow as a pluralistic, polycentric movement capable of real-world impact.
A foundational episode on movement-building, legitimacy, and how communities can coordinate without losing their soul.
π± greenpill.network
π networknations.network
π¦ @owocki @greenpillnet
opencivics.co
omniharmonic.com
patriciaparkinson.com
https://x.com/yaoeo
https://x.com/kosmicgardener
https://x.com/omniharmonic
β±οΈ Timestamps
00:00 β From concept to movement: why ideas arenβt enough
01:20 β Introducing Patricia Parkinson & Benjamin Life (OpenCivics)
02:25 β Why Network Nations must become embodied in real life
04:15 β Theory of change & βparallel societiesβ
06:30 β Network Nations vs Network States
08:20 β Categories, scenes & movements (from idea to scenius)
10:15 β Shared culture vs shared markets
12:30 β Functional sovereignty as a unifying principle
14:25 β Vibes, aesthetics & kinship in movements
16:45 β Meta-politics vs politics
18:55 β Design criteria for healthy systems
20:50 β Territorial sovereignty & neo-colonial risks
22:55 β Who is this movement for?
26:30 β Scenius: collective genius & proximity
29:00 β Insiders, outsiders & beyonders
31:10 β Dual power & negotiating with institutions
33:15 β Forking the system (and re-merging)
35:25 β Making Network Nations inclusive beyond tech
37:45 β Web3 vs Occupy: lessons from past movements
40:05 β Centering the βwhyβ before the tools
42:10 β Infrastructure for post-capitalist futures
44:05 β Commons governance & movement fragility
46:10 β Movements without charismatic leaders
48:15 β Progressive protocolization & anti-fragility
50:30 β Protocols as culture (Burning Man example)
52:10 β Network Nations Alliance & early constitutions
54:05 β Concrete ways OpenCivics supports the movement
55:30 β Pattern languages & civic infrastructure
57:30 β Calls, rhythms & shared artifacts
59:10 β How to get involved & closing thoughts