
I'm a Citizen of the Internet, Where's My Passport? - ColinWright
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/03/11/im-a-citizen-of-the-internet-where-do-i-get-my-passport/
======
brm
Thinking a lot about nationality and citizenship lately and I've come to
realize just how absurd is that far and away the easiest way move citizenship
in this world is still marriage.

While a global citizen passport would be nice, simply making it easier for
productive members of society to move around would make a great deal of
difference. Imagine if all you had to do to move was to trade your American
citizenship with a British person who wanted to move to the States. Wanna move
back in 10 years? Trade your UK Passport to an American looking to move to
Britain etc...

~~~
crazygringo
I had this idea, but even better: make the passport trades temporary, on a
monthly basis, and turn it into a financial market.

US/UK switch? Probably basically free for both, if both are seen as equally
desirable. But citizens from "less desirable" countries would pay ($30K/yr?)
to have to the right to work in the US/UK. And, for example, US/UK doctors
would receive money ($30K/yr?) to work in third-world countries. The rates
would vary depending on each pair of countries and relative demand.

It seems abhorrent at first to ask already-poorer third-world citizens to pay
money, but the $30K/yr would presumably come out of salaries paid from the
first world -- so people from third-world countries would only be able to work
in the US if they were making excellent money, and therefore contributing
greatly to the economy. No money is actually being "taken" from the third-
world. And the $30K/yr payment to doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. living
abroad would provide a fantastic transfer of skills from the first world to
the third world, helping to counteract "brain drain".

I'm not sure any governments would want to sign up for something like this,
and it may feel rather questionable morally, but it could solve a lot of
problems.

~~~
_exec
Do you think this should be limited to passports, or extended to citizenship
as well?

~~~
crazygringo
I'm basically just thinking about the right to reside and work. And it would
be on a monthly or yearly basis, not a permanent thing. Citizenship is a
permanent thing, so it's a different beast entirely.

Of course, if citizenship were an option after n years of residing and working
in a country (which is the case in many places), then one would expect the
market prices to change considerably...

------
icebraining
_Imagine there's no countries_

 _It isn't hard to do_

It's hardly a new position: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_citizen>

~~~
nextparadigms
But does that mean we'd need a "World Government" too? That part kind of
scares me, although I think something like EU is pretty democratic, although
still not perfect, which means that at some point in time, maybe during a
crisis, they'd call for "streamlining" the Government, making things more
centralized, and therefore the thing I fear most about a World Government.

~~~
spindritf
By no measure is EU "pretty democratic". I never voted for anyone who matters
in the EU bureaucracy, nor was I given an opportunity. We have people running
the EU like baroness Ashton who has never been elected in any elections, ever
in her life, not just for her current position. The democracy deficit is
painfully obvious.

------
doc4t
A nice yet very naive idea. The passport you hold represents a key to the
walls which surrounds your country. Without these walls international trade
would flow unhindered - resulting in the devastation of the western economies
and our artificial upheld position as the worlds supreme beings.

If you really want this world join ATTACK or a similar organization and try to
bring down WTO for starters.

Note: Not arguing one over the other - just stating the obvious

------
drucken
I wonder if this article is a really an unconscious railing or secret diatribe
against the cost of renewing a UK passport these days :)

* Minimum cost to renew a UK passport in 1997: GBP 18 ($28).

* Minimum cost to renew a UK passport in 2011/2012: GBP 77.50 ($121).

That's _431%_ in 14 years or 11% per year! This does not include Post Office
handling charges.

This is more than twice the highest single data point inflation (even
including housing) and almost four times the annual average over that period.

Oh, and if you were tempted to fast track it for the 1-day service renewal,
that's GBP 129 ($202).

~~~
seanmccann
This is interesting. Consumer prices increased 24% from 1998-2009, passport
renewal increased 269%. It seems the product has greatly changed and adopted
technology and more bureaucracy. It appears the major reasons for £56 price
increase were: * 40% new anti-fraud measures * 27% update passports, new anti-
fraud, interview for 1st timers (2006) * 12% to deal with 500k backlog in 1999
* 20% because of falling number of passport applicants and to pay for ID cars.

The world has changed a lot over the last 14 years.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_passport#Fees>

~~~
junto
Not to mention the costs of integrating the UK passport system with the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security.

------
floodfx
The great thing about the internet is you don't need a passport...

------
rodolphoarruda
Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't stop thinking about taxes (and its
collection) while reading the article.

~~~
hexis
Taxes are often levied on residence and behavior, rather than citizenship.

~~~
anamax
> Taxes are often levied on residence and behavior, rather than citizenship.

But not always. The US govt taxes overseas earnings of its citizens and
resident aliens. (There's an exemption for the first $95k (plus some
deductions) - see
[http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,...](http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97130,00.htmlhttp://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=97130,00.html)
)

------
zobzu
My passport is my GnuPG public key.

------
reustle
I'm a citizen of the Internet and sadly, Facebook is my passport.

~~~
jarek
And the best part is it's so much easier to get a fake ID.

------
WiseWeasel
Who's going to help negotiate your release from some 3rd world prison on
trumped-up charges, and with what leverage? And who's going to fight your
extradition to some random country whose laws some judge deems your service to
be infringing. Sometimes having a real country behind you can be a good thing.

~~~
Unseelie
Well, I don't want to come off as libertarian, but presumably you could buy
insurance against this in an environment where there's a bunch of people who
need such a service.

There's more such arguments, like suggestions that you need a nation to
subsidize your health care or protect you from every day crime, but all of
those are reasonably privatize-able as well.

~~~
WiseWeasel
How is an insurance company going to stop an extradition? Unless it manages to
claim sovereign status over some land where you can live and have your
business, you're still at the mercy of your generous host country. And if that
happens, I think they call it a country.

~~~
Unseelie
Insurance Company A has mercenary company B and diplomat C on retainer in case
of conflict with foreign nations.

Really, we pay taxes, and taxes cover things like the aforementioned
ambassadorial services. It is arguably doable that we could pay some other
organization to do the same thing.

~~~
WiseWeasel
OK, let me illustrate my point. Let's say you, a US citizen, renounce your
citizenship and vow allegiance to this new entity which doesn't hold any land,
but with which the US has generously agreed to a permanent residency status
for any of its citizens (however unlikely such an occurrence). You run your
online business from the US, and a judge in, say, Thailand rules that your
product is in violation of their laws incriminating insults to the king. The
Thai embassy files for your extradition, as the country has an extradition
agreement with the US, and since you are not a US citizen, you are placed in
US Immigration & Customs custody until your residency status can be
determined. Now, why would the US ICE administrator or Justice Dept. official
in charge stick his neck out and prevent your custody from being transferred
to Thai authorities? What could your "ambassador" possibly offer as leverage
comparable to what his Thai equivalent brings to bear?

------
utopkara
Corporates are not bounded by citizenship. Perhaps we should start considering
people as corporates rather than corporates as people. As long as you can be
economically viable in a new country, just go ahead and settle there.

~~~
icebraining
What do you mean? Corporations can't just start selling stuff either, they
have to be registered, comply with the prerequisites, pay taxes, etc. Some
countries are very lax, some are more restrictive, but that's true for
citizenship too.

If you mean they aren't bound as in, forced to be in just one country, then
citizens aren't either: I myself am a citizen of two countries.

------
alaskamiller
Facebook is the defacto. About.me along with its slew of clones are the long
tail.

Think about it... certain demographics around the world all recognize the
Facebook logo. Certain demographics will recognize the utility of a Facebook
profile. Certain demographics will accept your Facebook login to exchange for
access.

Month by month that legitimacy will only grow.

Your "hood passes" are different.

Who's the custodian of how long you've been on Reddit? How much karma you've
gotten on Hacker News? How much influence you have on Twitter? How many
followers you have on Tumblr?

Some roll their own with their own domain name while most others end up using
About.me.

oAuth has a lot of your data too, maybe it's a matter of timing before someone
takes that, make it into a legit passport service and sell it Google. Or
Microsoft.

~~~
icebraining
_oAuth has a lot of your data too_

Wait, what? oAuth is just a protocol.

 _make it into a legit passport service and sell it [to] (..) Microsoft._

Interestingly, it's Microsoft itself who tried to give people online
passports:
[https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/10-11passp...](https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/1999/10-11passport.mspx)

~~~
alaskamiller
Bad phrasing. I see oAuth as having access to your data.

The joke I was making is that Microsoft started, kept changing, and ironically
may one day just end up buying a startup to make their passport scheme finally
useful.

~~~
icebraining
Oh, OK, I didn't catch it, sorry ;)

------
tkahn6
Nations and borders exist because different peoples have different values and
different collective aspirations.

Even the notion of an 'internet citizen' is not an entirely universal
citizenship. How much interaction do people on HN really have with the Chinese
internet populace or the Russian internet populace or the Arabic-speaking
internet populace? There are entire internet subcultures which do not or
hardly intersect.

I'm sure at some point in human history being a 'world citizen' will be
possible, but we're not even remotely close to that at this point.

~~~
guard-of-terra
In fact, HN consists of Chinese, Russian and Arabic populace along with more
traditional US/UK.

Reading comments to any submission I sometimes play "spot the Russian" and
more often than not I find one.

HN perhaps have less interaction with Yahoo populace than they have with
Russian populace. In internet, you have another axis orthogonal to citizenship
- the services you're on.

------
user2459
Yes because the internet will defend you, protect your natural resources,
provide you with health care, provide you with unemployment insurance,
negotiate treaties to your benefit, inspect your food, regulate your drugs,
educate your children and pave your roads.

The reason it's so hard to move between countries is standard exploitation.
People would exploit the resources(be them natural or otherwise) and move on
to the next place if there was nothing stopping them. Maybe you wouldn't. Or
maybe you wouldn't notice yourself doing it. But people would. Tourism is
really only good for local economies if you leave after a few weeks. Otherwise
you're putting to large a burden on the place you're visiting and the payoff
of having you come and leave money is no longer there.

People should be able to move to other countries if they want but it should be
a serious and large decision. And realistically, you should care about your
local government. It's not like democracy doesn't need you just because you
have cute ideas about global citizenship.

