The Internet and the Destruction of the Nation State

Inability to control cross-border flow of ideas and money weakens national governments, since foreign internet sites prevent enforcement of local laws concerning

• censorship (politics but also child pornography)
• libel and slander
• fraud (false charities, outright swindles, including counterfeit medicines)
• gambling
• spam and denial-of-service attacks
• copyright and other matters of intellectual property
• money laundering
• taxes

Do these effects empower or disempower the individual?

Compare dystopian visions of obsolete national states in cyberpunk science fiction: Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash and The Diamond Age, Bruce Sterling's Islands in the Net, and William Gibson's Neuromancer triology.

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