Dictionary

geostate en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Pre-Greek der. Proto-Hellenic *gayader. Ancient Greek γαῖᾰ (gaîă)clip. Ancient Greek γῆ (gê) Ancient Greek -ο- (-o-) Ancient Greek γεω- (geō-)der. English geo- Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Indo-European *stéh₂-tu-s ~ *sth₂-téw-s Proto-Italic *status Latin statuslbor. Old French estatbor. Middle English stat English state English geostate From geo- + state, coined by author Zach Weinersmith.

Meanings

1. A political unit that is defined by its geographical borders.
   • Weinersmith, who is best known for his webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, describes the polystate as a geopolitical entity in which multiple overlapping states exist — but each “state” consists of citizens who have agreed to the laws of a single non-geographic state; typical geographically-bound nations, or traditional “geostates”, would be replaced by “polystates”, which are collections of “anthrostates”. 2014 June 12, George Dvorsky, “12 Futuristic Forms of Government That Could One Day Rule the World”, in Gizmodo, archived from the original on 24 Jul 2021:
   • Even in a geostate, some people are willing to fight and die for their views, but the institutional change to a polystate seems somewhat orthogonal to such issues. […] I don’t like geostates (I don’t think many people truly do), but I think geographically localized governance is effective because it reduces interaction by people with contradictory conceptions about good behavior and so reduces conflict while supporting order. 2014 March 22, Rick Weber, “Polystate: Book 2”, in Notes on Liberty, archived from the original on 23 Jun 2021:

Forms