Yep.
States figured out how to turn automobiles into tanks, essentially strengthening their power. Yet the article implicitly posits that somehow the same won't happen with microprocessors and nanomachines? The entire article seems a bit fanciful. States aren't going anywhere.
Many bitcoin proponents have the same fallacy - i.e. "this is better than banks, therefore banks are obsolete", ignoring the fact that banks will work with new technology as it suits them.
So did this disgruntled citizen:
The "killdoser", designed and built by the non-state actor inside the US nation state?
Or the M1 Abrams, designed and built by the US nation state itself?
Even if you build yourself a "killdozer", you are powerless against the US state. Because the tanks that the US nation state built substantially increased the strength and power of that nation state years ago.
Agreed, and as I've pointed out elsewhere[0] (see also the parent comment[1]), his ideas are also not that new. I think it's quite sad that people somehow think that, because it shows how history -- even the development of ideas in the 20th century -- can be so easily forgotten.
Honest question - could the U.S. Government be considered an Abstract State Machine?
Yeah, it's hard to see why not if your view of technology is something like that of medieval demonology, which appears to be the thesis of this article.
Meanwhile, in reality land, you can make explosives and poison gas out of stuff in your kitchen, automobiles put a ridiculous amount of kinetic energy in the hands of individuals, this has been true for 100 years, and somehow "the state system" has done just fine; strengthened even in that period of time.
Also Bostrom is a nincompoop and no article that mentions him deserves to be taken seriously.