NTARI was founded initially to support the development of the Fruitful App, an idea proposed to coordinate networks of small farms in urban areas using human-based computation. The project underwent development in 2023 but failed to produce a viable product. Research and development continued at NTARI however, further inspired by the work of Christian theologians like Dr. Tim Mackie et.al and secular authors like Balaji Srinivasan seeking to establish decentralized communities called network states.
The Church is the original network state:
“A network state is a social network with a moral innovation, a sense of national consciousness, a recognized founder, a capacity for collective action, an in-person level of civility, an integrated cryptocurrency, a consensual government limited by a social smart contract, an archipelago of crowdfunded physical territories, a virtual capital, and an on-chain census that proves a large enough population, income, and real-estate footprint to attain a measure of diplomatic recognition”
–Balaji Srinivasan, the Network State
The early Church used the prominent social media network of the time –the primitive postal system– to spread every letter in the New Testament. They had a moral innovation-- the Good News of Jesus reconciliation of man horizontally and vertically. They gained a sense of national consciousness from the circulation of letters and suffering persecution, eventually bound under the term “Christian” in the city of Antioch. Their recognized founder was clearly Jesus of Nazareth, and the earliest capacity for collective action was expressed in fundraising not only to help congregations under persecution, but to send messengers like Paul in the first place. They had an in-person level of civility even when they were at odds. Cryptocurrency wasn't involved, but I've long argued that network states don't need crypto and Mr. Srinivasan was just inspired by his previous success at Coinbase. Their consensual government was the apostles and elders at Jerusalem which for a time was also the quasi-capital. Today, the Church owns a huge amount of real estate and is recognized and respected by all but a handful of nations.
After recognizing this in 2024, NTARI shifted its mission back toward the Church. What is network theory then? The word "spirit" is a chuchy word that is largely empty in English; meaning everythign from "a ghost" to God himself. Here at NTARI, we like to use the word "character" instead of spirit. Here is why:
"Spirit week" is about a school's character, "the spirit of a nation" is about national character, "indomitable spirit" is about characteristic fortitude. The Holy Spirit is thus the Holy Character. The Bible argues that this Character emanates from YHWH, through Jesus into a network-- a species on Earth. This Character is freely given in exchange for whatever character one may be in the habit of expressing. The network theory then, is that every human will benefit from being a part of this collective expression having rediscovered the defeciency of Character lost in the Etiology of Fruit
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