An expensive game of pretend, while it lasts. TBD whether the end will be some real nation running out of patience with their antics, or a hurricane sweeping over the tiny (1.2 acre) island, or some drug lord sending a few of his toughs to take over, or ...
I can totally understand not being optimistic about such a small island succeeding in creating a lasting paradise on Earth, but I think it's pretty incorrect and demeaning to view this as a game of pretend when they're actually attempting what they set out to do.
Whatever else you want to say about these people, unlike some "real nation", none of them are using coercion and force to get people to organize as they see fit. That in and of itself should be lauded.
> when they're actually attempting what they set out to do.
Buying the land is the easiest step in this process. It's like dreaming of being a star athlete and going to the store to pick up some athletic shoes. But then buying them and not being sure what the next step is.
They have the option of using state coercion should someone contest their ownership, but they're not using it right now. Even with that pedantry aside, saying that property rights leverage "state coercion" is not a good take.
The strength of a government,
and thus, the property rights it “grants” people, is the degree to which it has been successful in establishing a violence monopoly.
People in countries like Finland have a 'freedom to roam', showing that property rights don't need to include the right to control who can enter a piece of land.
This dates from a time when people recognized property ownership, but there was no government monopoly on violence. (See especially the Icelandic Commonwealth and the Icelandic sagas.)
There have been at least two "crypto island" schemes.[1][2] Those are, at least, on bigger islands. Cryptoland didn't make the payment to acquire their island.[2] Not that you'd know this from their web site. Crypto Island is really a time-sharing condo scheme.
Both islands are too small for the number of people they want to cram on them. And the plans show no infrastructure. No water, power, sewerage, docks, maintenance facilities, or warehouses. For comparison, see Great Stirrup Cay, which is owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines and is a tourist stopover. It's 268 acres, and about half luxury hotel and half support facilities.[4] Something that size could be a viable mini-state.
No economy. No infrastructure. No housing. Little of value except a concept, a minimum viable product, and something to sell to investors. This is something that can part people with their "investment" dollars. In many ways analogous to so many venture "investments" without any of the potential exit strategies, except by boat. This particular investment has a literal chance of being under water for the investors. Very telling that at the end of the piece, the folks who sold the investment said they don't know where to take things next because they hadn't thought farther than buying the island and getting investors. This is quite the analogy for tech startup investing in many ways.
With enough cooperation from the Government of Belize, this could turn into great marketing for an independently-run "Special Economic Zone", or "charter city". It's a very risky endeavor as you point out, but not without potential.
The island is only 1.5 acres though. The size is too small to build any significant infrastructure. The island could maybe fit 100 people on it comfortably. I cannot find any reason that someone would want to visit this place for longer than a few hours.
I'm a big fan of charter cities/SEZs and new city/country projects but I'm more skeptical this is a practical avenue for making money. There are plenty of established jurisdictions to do this (e.g. basically all the former British colonies, a few American states) and the 'infrastructure' of lawyers, accountants, etc. who know how to deal with it are already established. This is the same reason I don't get why people are bullish on e-Residency for Honduras, Liberland, etc. What's the real value prop of incorporating an entity in these places?
100 people is about 5m² per person. That's already a crowd. The island is smaller than Times Square. It's 100 times smaller than Vatican City, it's in fact a fifth the size of St Peter's square.
49 m² per person, enough for a small house, not 5. If you build a skyscraper (or, more ambitiously, underground) you could have luxury space for hundreds of people. Energy would be a problem, but not as much of a problem as the Belizean government.
$ units
Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD base) on 2019-05-31
3460 units, 109 prefixes, 109 nonlinear units
You have: 1.2 acres
You want:
Definition: 4856.2277 m^2
You have: 1.2 acres/100 people
You want:
Definition: 48.562277 m^2
Less useful in the era of high explosive artillery shells, much less high-altitude bombers, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and precision-guided munitions.
I think this has nothing to do with defence and everything to do with Kowloon Walled City that was sort of a no law enclave where everything was built very high and shoulder to shoulder to maximize floor space.
Oh, I was just thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_city, which describes nearly all cities for the past ten thousand years, though less so for the last 5% of that time.
More importantly they need connections to the US government. If you want true sovereignty in the Monroe doctrine sphere of influence, then you better have friends in Washington.
> No economy. No infrastructure. No housing. Little of value except a concept
Coastline could be the answer to all of those. Ships are housing and have their own self-contained infrastructure. Fishing and transport are a few major economic activities of significant value. With motivation, time, and a bit of capital, this could turn into something. I just wouldn't bet on it.
From a quick glance, it appears to be inside the outermost barrier islands of Belize. Consequently, I believe UNCLOS would typically mark their EEZ equidistant from the nearest Belize coastlines (either mainland or island). Which is to say: small.
And that's even assuming they overcame the insurmountable challenge of becoming a recognized party to the convention.
Everyone wants to be a sovereign island nation, but no one wants to sit through 20+ years of UN proceedings to make it happen.
Does that automatically cascade to maritime claims? I was trying to figure out what right is actually used for deciding whose coast a given coast is, for international treaty purposes.
The comment I was replying to was discussing the economic possibilities inherent in having a coastline. A large number of which are governed by actual, taxable control of the waters in question. Which in turn is defined by international treaties (and local power acceptance of same).
Anyone can call themselves a nation, but being one requires an economy based on something. And presumably agriculture isn't an option with 1.5 acres of sandy soil.
I still don't see how international recognition impacts any of this. For example, the tax status of someone in Hawaii doesn't depend on what the UN or China says about it. It only depends the ability to enforce the taxes locally.
As I understand it, the most likely economic purpose of this island would be a tax haven.
This only depends on people using the haven willing to pay for it, and Belize agreeing that they will not try to tax it.
> Coastline could be the answer to all of those. Ships are housing and have their own self-contained infrastructure. Fishing and transport are a few major economic activities of significant value.
You're going to be hard pressed to construct an economy around any of those without an international agreement defining you as the sovereign entity.
Otherwise, why would I, the captain of a Mexican ship, pay taxes to Coffee Caye?
Because Belize tells me to? Well, then we've just found out who has sovereignty.
>why would I, the captain of a Mexican ship, pay taxes to Coffee Caye?
Like any country, You wouldn't unless they have a gunboats to stop you. Hell, most countries around the world can't keep Chinese fleets from exploiting their EEZ.
I'm saying that coffee Caye could make its money by signing citizenship papers and renting some yacht slips and moorings. You don't need a navy or recognition to do that.
S
If someone doesn't pay taxes, you don't renew citizenship. Someone doesn't pay dock fees, you cut their power.
You don't need UN recognition to turn off someone's power, and the UN isn't going to send peacekeepers to prevent eviction.
They bought an island to start a country in the same way Key West is the Conch Republic[0] with passports, currency, and a flag. They won't be recognized by the UN, no diplomatic outpost, and your zarpe won't be recognized by any other border agent.
Given the low profile of the island in the few photos in the article, it looks like the island will be submerged in a number of decades. Anything built on the island will need to deal with hurricane forces at the beach level.
The island is only 7.5km from a major port. So that is an incredible bonus. For that alone, it's not the worst investment.
Even if it's swamped it's still cheaper than building an island from scratch, like China's been doing in the South China Sea - but Belize is a little less strategically important... Still, I could imagine some kind of storm-hardened resort on stilts or something. Otherwise they'd need to try and capitalize on extralegal things that having a pseudo-nation could provide: tax haven, smuggling, etc., hard to get traditional investors excited for that, though I am sure there would be takers somewhere.
Amazing they wrote such a long article about pretty much nothing. TLDR: A bunch of people bought some land together and call it a country (but it's not, as they admit themselves).
Just because hurricanes don't typically hit an area doesn't mean they won't (especially as climate change shifts global weather patterns). I was in northern Costa Rica when hurricane Otto hit the Nicaragua / Costa Rica border. This was the first hurricane we have a record of hitting Costa Rica.
1.2 acres seems too small to be practical. My suburban plot is larger than that, and I'm guessing the 1.2 is 'optimistic'; it's probably less than 1 acre that can actually support much of anything (i.e. not wet.) It's certainly not large enough for agriculture or much of anything besides what Google Maps calls it: a campground.
If they will manage to get recognized and get a UN membership they will instantly have a ton of ways of making money.
Flag of convenience for ships and airplanes -- millions and millions annually. Mongolia has a huge merchant fleet. Thousands of commercial airplanes are registered in Bermudas.
Own top-level domain name -- if they will get creative naming their country they may land a popular domain.
Driving licenses -- Would love to pass all the rigorous tests to get an extra drivers license which I could use when traveling abroad.
Passports -- assuming they will implement all the necessary measures to filter out crooks, they can start offering 2nd citizenship. Second passport is super valuable to those who travel a lot.
Orbits and space in general -- valuable resource!
WTO quotas and re-export -- uh, oh!
Etc., etc., etc.
Becoming a recognized country opens a lot of opportunities.
They just need to crowdsource a few more billions and persuade neighboring countries to recognize them.
What infrastructure? They don't need too many people living there to manage all these. A landing strip, a pier, couple houses for the maintenance team.
A bungalow and a bar for their parliament.
"By December 2019, the group's aspirations became reality, raising over $250,000 to complete the purchase of Coffee Caye, a 1.2-acre, uninhabited island off the coast of Belize"
"And I don't know about you," says Mayer, "but I certainly can't afford to buy an island on my own!"
Again, best of luck to them. They had to crowdfund $250,000 for the tiny piece of land, they're a LONG way from being able to do anything ambitious with it. That takes DEEP pockets that they themselves admitted to not having.
It'll be a fun little campsite for a few years though, until it's underwater. Then it's just a heck of a story to tell at the bar.
Yep. Sounds like most of the investors have spent the cost of a mid range Caribbean holiday for a permanent spot to pitch a tent or build a hut alongside other people that think it's a fun idea. If you see it in that context rather than as an investment, its quite good fun.
> Second passport is super valuable to those who travel a lot.
Only if you can actually enter somewhere with that Passport. That's why an US/EU passport is way more valuable than a Belize one. Their passport would require an entry visa everywhere to start with.
Is the market for other people wanting to spend $250,000 on a tiny island campground really that big? Kudo's to whoever sold the island, but honestly I'm not seeing how this will end well for anyone involved.
It's already ended well for most of them because they've had fun. A $3000 investment, plus whatever it takes to get there. A quick look shows a $500 round trip ticket from NYC to Belize City, then whatever it costs for the relatively short boat ride to the island. It's really not that much money for an interesting vacation to visit your own island.
Everyone seems to be forgetting the most obvious problem: this island is still territory of the nation of Belize. It is less than 5 miles from the coast of the capital city. There are inhabited islands further away from this one that are solidly part of Belize. I can't buy an island a few miles off the coast of Seattle and then call it an independent country.
If I had a dollar for every "libertarian" including McAfee who thinks that Belize is some sort of lawless free-for-all zone... Or a dollar for every weird shady "entrepreneur" that thinks relocating their legal residence to Belize or Cyprus will solve all of their tax problems...
There is a whole gross venn diagram overlap of libertarians, cryptocurrency bros, penny stock pump and dump, internet porn and casino hosting operations, NFT promoters, "hustle culture", amateur tax avoidance offshoring self proclaimed "experts", people selling naturopathic dick pills online, people selling shares in bare land real estate ventures on economically-uninhabitable sandbar islands, etc.
and prior to that he seemed to be treating belize like some sort of libertarian utopia and promiting it as such (right up until the totally weird murder case/sudden unexplained death of some neighbour of his, when he went on the lam)
A couple of $100M political donations may win hearts and bi-partisan support of some decision makers in one powerful country.
An offer to Belize along the lines of "Hey, we will fund higher education of all your citizens for the next 50 years if you let us secede" may get people listening.
"Hey, we will build several top-class hospitals and huge solar farms if you recognize us" may interest neighboring countries.
All in all it may take less money than some startups raise.
> A couple of $100M political donations may win hearts and bi-partisan support of some decision makers in one powerful country. An offer to Belize along the lines of "Hey, we will fund higher education of all your citizens for the next 50 years if you let us secede" may get people listening. "Hey, we will build several top-class hospitals and huge solar farms if you recognize us" may interest neighboring countries.
You can already "buy" a small/third-world country with that kind of money. No need to go mess up with an island.
$100M is not that much money. I'm pretty sure that's less than the money already going towards charter cities, which are actually a meaningful possibility and currently being developed e.g. in Honduras Special Development Zones.
Taxes basically. The motivation is to avoid paying taxes but every country that's a country has to pay taxes, it's just too obviously necessary. Same thing as pooling money for a party, even investing is pooling money.
I can't recommend you be as tax-docile as I am, I don't spend any time recommending it to anybody, but come on. "Taxation" is considered such a bad thing but there's just no way for eg. an orphan to have a dignified existence without it. Donations just don't work, depending on them is too degrading, the orphans end up having to forcibly write thank-you notes if they want the less-bad food (thank-you notes on a good day, there's much worse).
That is bullshit. I'd rather pay taxes (in my case way above what is mandatory) and have those orphans write fuck-you notes instead. To whom? To all the people in society who want to benefit from their vulnerability.
How's that going for Chagos? Whose people pretty clearly own their own land, have UN decisions in their favor, and still haven't been able to gain control of the islands.
Or, to put it another way, why wouldn't Belize just "do nothing" and refuse to recognize their sucession?
Oh, bless your heart. Do you think that if you buy a piece of property in downtown SF or NYC, that you can just declare independence from the US and not be subject to US law?
That's a nice idea up until the point where Belize's police officers show up on your island because you've been breaking Belizian laws/not paying taxes/whatever.
I don't think Belize cares that a bunch of rich white kids are playing pretend on one of their islands. They'll do as they were.
What a country really needs is people (lots of them) with some kind of shared cultural identity and commitment to glue them together. A people is more important than a territory. These folks are focusing on the wrong problem.
Speculative future: there are a number of Hasidic/Haredi enclaves close to New York City, such as Kiryas Joel, Monsey, Kaser, New Square, Lakewood. These communities have very high birth rates, and low attrition rates (upwards of 90% of the community's children are retained in their faith community as adults) – Kiryas Joel's population is only around 30,000 now, but is growing by about 50% a decade. By sometime next century, there could be many millions of ultra-Orthodox Jews living in that area.
It seems plausible this could lead to ethnic conflict – we are already seeing some signs of that, if you look at situations such as the East Ramapo Central School District – which might produce some kind of secessionist movement. There has already been a secession at the level of local government – Kiryas Joel seceding from the town of Monroe to form the new town of Palm Tree, which was supported by the non-Hasidic/Haredi residents too (both non-Jews and mainstream Jews), who were pleased to regain control of their political institutions through the removal of the ultra-Orthodox voting blocs – so, secessions at higher levels of government might one day also be supported by both sides.
Possibly, we'll see further secessions/incorporations at the village/town level, followed by secession of one or more Hasidic/Haredi-majority counties, followed by an attempt by those counties to form their own state, followed at last by the secession of that state from the US. While the idea of a successful secessionist movement from the US may seem implausible now, a century of American decline may make it much more plausible. Maybe, come next century, Israel will no longer be the world's only Jewish state.
First off, human population can't grow exponentially, cubically at absolute most if there are three spatial dimensions and a finite speed of light, in reality less. It's relativity, biology can't move at superluminal speeds, everything macro is limited in speed to a fraction or a fraction of a fraction (depending on how macro it is) of the speed of light.
Second, I'm not sure Orthodox Jews are that culturally homogenous. I bet there's subtleties outsiders don't pick up on. I've read different Hasidic Jews have different rabbi lineages (Lavrov and Bobov are two?), if they were identical they wouldn't. It's a question of zooming in. It is probably further obscured by solidarity and voting as a bloc, meaning agreeing ahead of time privately to present a united front to outsiders.
And, if Israel is not the only Jewish state, it would be similar to the past. There were two in the past, Kingdom of Judea and Kingdom of Israel.
> First off, human population can't grow exponentially
In the long-term, no. In the short-to-medium term, yes. If we are talking about relatively small religious subcultures, numbering in the tens/hundreds of thousands, the idea that they might make it to many millions before hitting fundamental barriers to further population growth is not implausible. And going from tens/hundreds of thousands to many millions would have huge political consequences, especially if we are talking about communities with a history of bloc voting.
> Second, I'm not sure Orthodox Jews are that culturally homogenous.
Of course not – and I think my comment acknowledged that by speaking of Hasidic/Haredi. There is a great deal of internal diversity within ultra-Orthodox (as opposed to Modern Orthodox) Judaism. However, at the same time, the different groups cooperate with each other heavily, through organisations such as Agudath Israel, Central Rabbinical Congress, Edah HaChareidis, etc. There is frequent intermarriage between them–indeed, it is the norm for marriages to be arranged between the children of the leaders of the different Hasidic dynasties. Their internal cultural differences are, by and large, not an obstacle to political cooperation between them in North America, when it comes to domestic political issues such as education, zoning and development, etc.
Most ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that the modern-day State of Israel is a sinful attempt to pre-empt the Messiah; but, they disagree on whether accepting Israeli government payments or voting or standing for election to the Knesset makes one sinfully complicit in that sin. These different attitudes towards the Israeli state are a major obstacle to the cooperation between the different groups in Israel; but that is a very Israel-specific issue, it doesn't impact their political cooperation in North America – especially since ultra-Orthodox Jewish political lobbying in the US focuses on practical domestic issues and (unlike other streams of American Judaism) is rather disinterested in foreign policy issues such as relations with Israel and the Middle East.
So, I doubt their internal cultural differences would be an obstacle to the scenario I'm suggesting.
> It is probably further obscured by solidarity and voting as a bloc, meaning agreeing ahead of time privately to present a united front to outsiders.
Of course they disagree among themselves on a lot of things, such as details of Jewish religious law – but those differences have little political relevance. They don't believe in using the government to force other (Orthodox) Jewish groups (or non-Jews) to follow their particular interpretation of Jewish religious law. They would, however, likely support the government forcing people to follow generically socially conservative mores (not fundamentally different from those espoused by conservative Christians and Muslims)–bans on abortion and pornography, anti-LGBT measures, etc
> And, if Israel is not the only Jewish state, it would be similar to the past. There were two in the past, Kingdom of Judea and Kingdom of Israel.
I think a fundamental difference is that those two kingdoms used to be one kingdom, which then split in two, and even then they were bordering on each other. By contrast, my hypothetical ultra-Orthodox Jewish state in North America would be a long way from Israel, would have a very different history, and a rather different culture and politics too–among other things, its dominant language would be Yiddish not Modern Hebrew. (That's putting aside the thorny historical debates about whether those two ancient kingdoms really existed or are legendary; and whether or not it is anachronistic to call them "Jewish".)
> In the long-term, no. In the short-to-medium term, yes. If we are talking about relatively small religious subcultures, numbering in the tens/hundreds of thousands, the idea that they might make it to many millions before hitting fundamental barriers to further population growth is not implausible.
You don't "hit barriers to population growth" they're more like asymptotic limits, derived from relativity. Population growth is pushing against these limits the entire time, and they push back harder and harder.
I really like your other points, though, very illuminating.
> You don't "hit barriers to population growth" they're more like asymptotic limits, derived from relativity.
For a civilisation at our level of technological development, I think the limits are primarily classical rather than relativistic.
Relativity is more of a limit when you start to run out of resources within the Solar System - a quite distant prospect at present - it makes it very expensive to spread to further star systems; and then once you run out of resources in the galaxy, intergalactic travel is so ludicrously expensive you have to doubt it will ever be practical. My speculative scenario was about the next couple of centuries, while interstellar colonisation (if it ever happens) is likely many centuries distant.
> I really like your other points, though, very illuminating.
A micronation in Belize, the Central American nation too sketchy for John McAfee, although he may have gotten away with murder there just the same. What could possibly go wrong?
114 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 187 ms ] threadWhatever else you want to say about these people, unlike some "real nation", none of them are using coercion and force to get people to organize as they see fit. That in and of itself should be lauded.
Buying the land is the easiest step in this process. It's like dreaming of being a star athlete and going to the store to pick up some athletic shoes. But then buying them and not being sure what the next step is.
The strength of a government, and thus, the property rights it “grants” people, is the degree to which it has been successful in establishing a violence monopoly.
People in countries like Finland have a 'freedom to roam', showing that property rights don't need to include the right to control who can enter a piece of land.
This dates from a time when people recognized property ownership, but there was no government monopoly on violence. (See especially the Icelandic Commonwealth and the Icelandic sagas.)
There have been at least two "crypto island" schemes.[1][2] Those are, at least, on bigger islands. Cryptoland didn't make the payment to acquire their island.[2] Not that you'd know this from their web site. Crypto Island is really a time-sharing condo scheme.
Both islands are too small for the number of people they want to cram on them. And the plans show no infrastructure. No water, power, sewerage, docks, maintenance facilities, or warehouses. For comparison, see Great Stirrup Cay, which is owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines and is a tourist stopover. It's 268 acres, and about half luxury hotel and half support facilities.[4] Something that size could be a viable mini-state.
[1] https://cryptoland.is/
[2] https://www.cryptoisland.com/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/16/cryptolan...
[4] https://www.google.com/maps/@25.8251893,-77.9123977,1132m/da...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City
Coastline could be the answer to all of those. Ships are housing and have their own self-contained infrastructure. Fishing and transport are a few major economic activities of significant value. With motivation, time, and a bit of capital, this could turn into something. I just wouldn't bet on it.
From a quick glance, it appears to be inside the outermost barrier islands of Belize. Consequently, I believe UNCLOS would typically mark their EEZ equidistant from the nearest Belize coastlines (either mainland or island). Which is to say: small.
And that's even assuming they overcame the insurmountable challenge of becoming a recognized party to the convention.
Everyone wants to be a sovereign island nation, but no one wants to sit through 20+ years of UN proceedings to make it happen.
Maybe I'm missing the context where the island would need be recognized as independent by anyone besides Belize
Anyone can call themselves a nation, but being one requires an economy based on something. And presumably agriculture isn't an option with 1.5 acres of sandy soil.
As I understand it, the most likely economic purpose of this island would be a tax haven.
This only depends on people using the haven willing to pay for it, and Belize agreeing that they will not try to tax it.
You're going to be hard pressed to construct an economy around any of those without an international agreement defining you as the sovereign entity.
Otherwise, why would I, the captain of a Mexican ship, pay taxes to Coffee Caye?
Because Belize tells me to? Well, then we've just found out who has sovereignty.
Like any country, You wouldn't unless they have a gunboats to stop you. Hell, most countries around the world can't keep Chinese fleets from exploiting their EEZ.
I'm saying that coffee Caye could make its money by signing citizenship papers and renting some yacht slips and moorings. You don't need a navy or recognition to do that.
S If someone doesn't pay taxes, you don't renew citizenship. Someone doesn't pay dock fees, you cut their power.
You don't need UN recognition to turn off someone's power, and the UN isn't going to send peacekeepers to prevent eviction.
Still seems like fun!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic
The island is only 7.5km from a major port. So that is an incredible bonus. For that alone, it's not the worst investment.
Our local beach gets raised by a couple feet every few years by beach replenishment projects. Just pumping sand from offshore.
Flag of convenience for ships and airplanes -- millions and millions annually. Mongolia has a huge merchant fleet. Thousands of commercial airplanes are registered in Bermudas.
Own top-level domain name -- if they will get creative naming their country they may land a popular domain.
Driving licenses -- Would love to pass all the rigorous tests to get an extra drivers license which I could use when traveling abroad.
Passports -- assuming they will implement all the necessary measures to filter out crooks, they can start offering 2nd citizenship. Second passport is super valuable to those who travel a lot.
Orbits and space in general -- valuable resource!
WTO quotas and re-export -- uh, oh!
Etc., etc., etc.
Becoming a recognized country opens a lot of opportunities.
They just need to crowdsource a few more billions and persuade neighboring countries to recognize them.
The billions will be needed to bootstrap their infrastructure.
Good luck putting any of that on a single acre
BTW, USS Harry S. Truman may get retired soon. That would give them plenty of space for anything.
Again, best of luck to them. They had to crowdfund $250,000 for the tiny piece of land, they're a LONG way from being able to do anything ambitious with it. That takes DEEP pockets that they themselves admitted to not having.
It'll be a fun little campsite for a few years though, until it's underwater. Then it's just a heck of a story to tell at the bar.
That sounds like a project for letsbuyanaircraftcarrier.com . No island necessary :)
Only if you can actually enter somewhere with that Passport. That's why an US/EU passport is way more valuable than a Belize one. Their passport would require an entry visa everywhere to start with.
https://prospera.hn/
The Behind the Bastards podcast had an interesting history of seasteading and similar schemes recently:
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
Seems like a small price for someone giving this a serious effort.
Yeah I would not invest in this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festival
There is a whole gross venn diagram overlap of libertarians, cryptocurrency bros, penny stock pump and dump, internet porn and casino hosting operations, NFT promoters, "hustle culture", amateur tax avoidance offshoring self proclaimed "experts", people selling naturopathic dick pills online, people selling shares in bare land real estate ventures on economically-uninhabitable sandbar islands, etc.
Where "right" means "properly structured to create the necessary opacity".
I find it hard to blame the small guys with big dreams since they're only trying to emulate their tax evading, asset-hiding heroes.
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/12/uks-kleptocracy-problem...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/04/murky-...
https://apnews.com/article/business-london-europe-media-f914...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/opinion/pandora-papers-br...
All in all it may take less money than some startups raise.
You can already "buy" a small/third-world country with that kind of money. No need to go mess up with an island.
I can't recommend you be as tax-docile as I am, I don't spend any time recommending it to anybody, but come on. "Taxation" is considered such a bad thing but there's just no way for eg. an orphan to have a dignified existence without it. Donations just don't work, depending on them is too degrading, the orphans end up having to forcibly write thank-you notes if they want the less-bad food (thank-you notes on a good day, there's much worse).
That is bullshit. I'd rather pay taxes (in my case way above what is mandatory) and have those orphans write fuck-you notes instead. To whom? To all the people in society who want to benefit from their vulnerability.
Or, to put it another way, why wouldn't Belize just "do nothing" and refuse to recognize their sucession?
Belize is still the "sovereign" owner of that island, the ultimate owner that trumps every other one.
I don't think Belize cares that a bunch of rich white kids are playing pretend on one of their islands. They'll do as they were.
Speculative future: there are a number of Hasidic/Haredi enclaves close to New York City, such as Kiryas Joel, Monsey, Kaser, New Square, Lakewood. These communities have very high birth rates, and low attrition rates (upwards of 90% of the community's children are retained in their faith community as adults) – Kiryas Joel's population is only around 30,000 now, but is growing by about 50% a decade. By sometime next century, there could be many millions of ultra-Orthodox Jews living in that area.
It seems plausible this could lead to ethnic conflict – we are already seeing some signs of that, if you look at situations such as the East Ramapo Central School District – which might produce some kind of secessionist movement. There has already been a secession at the level of local government – Kiryas Joel seceding from the town of Monroe to form the new town of Palm Tree, which was supported by the non-Hasidic/Haredi residents too (both non-Jews and mainstream Jews), who were pleased to regain control of their political institutions through the removal of the ultra-Orthodox voting blocs – so, secessions at higher levels of government might one day also be supported by both sides.
Possibly, we'll see further secessions/incorporations at the village/town level, followed by secession of one or more Hasidic/Haredi-majority counties, followed by an attempt by those counties to form their own state, followed at last by the secession of that state from the US. While the idea of a successful secessionist movement from the US may seem implausible now, a century of American decline may make it much more plausible. Maybe, come next century, Israel will no longer be the world's only Jewish state.
First off, human population can't grow exponentially, cubically at absolute most if there are three spatial dimensions and a finite speed of light, in reality less. It's relativity, biology can't move at superluminal speeds, everything macro is limited in speed to a fraction or a fraction of a fraction (depending on how macro it is) of the speed of light.
Second, I'm not sure Orthodox Jews are that culturally homogenous. I bet there's subtleties outsiders don't pick up on. I've read different Hasidic Jews have different rabbi lineages (Lavrov and Bobov are two?), if they were identical they wouldn't. It's a question of zooming in. It is probably further obscured by solidarity and voting as a bloc, meaning agreeing ahead of time privately to present a united front to outsiders.
And, if Israel is not the only Jewish state, it would be similar to the past. There were two in the past, Kingdom of Judea and Kingdom of Israel.
In the long-term, no. In the short-to-medium term, yes. If we are talking about relatively small religious subcultures, numbering in the tens/hundreds of thousands, the idea that they might make it to many millions before hitting fundamental barriers to further population growth is not implausible. And going from tens/hundreds of thousands to many millions would have huge political consequences, especially if we are talking about communities with a history of bloc voting.
> Second, I'm not sure Orthodox Jews are that culturally homogenous.
Of course not – and I think my comment acknowledged that by speaking of Hasidic/Haredi. There is a great deal of internal diversity within ultra-Orthodox (as opposed to Modern Orthodox) Judaism. However, at the same time, the different groups cooperate with each other heavily, through organisations such as Agudath Israel, Central Rabbinical Congress, Edah HaChareidis, etc. There is frequent intermarriage between them–indeed, it is the norm for marriages to be arranged between the children of the leaders of the different Hasidic dynasties. Their internal cultural differences are, by and large, not an obstacle to political cooperation between them in North America, when it comes to domestic political issues such as education, zoning and development, etc.
Most ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that the modern-day State of Israel is a sinful attempt to pre-empt the Messiah; but, they disagree on whether accepting Israeli government payments or voting or standing for election to the Knesset makes one sinfully complicit in that sin. These different attitudes towards the Israeli state are a major obstacle to the cooperation between the different groups in Israel; but that is a very Israel-specific issue, it doesn't impact their political cooperation in North America – especially since ultra-Orthodox Jewish political lobbying in the US focuses on practical domestic issues and (unlike other streams of American Judaism) is rather disinterested in foreign policy issues such as relations with Israel and the Middle East.
So, I doubt their internal cultural differences would be an obstacle to the scenario I'm suggesting.
> It is probably further obscured by solidarity and voting as a bloc, meaning agreeing ahead of time privately to present a united front to outsiders.
Of course they disagree among themselves on a lot of things, such as details of Jewish religious law – but those differences have little political relevance. They don't believe in using the government to force other (Orthodox) Jewish groups (or non-Jews) to follow their particular interpretation of Jewish religious law. They would, however, likely support the government forcing people to follow generically socially conservative mores (not fundamentally different from those espoused by conservative Christians and Muslims)–bans on abortion and pornography, anti-LGBT measures, etc
> And, if Israel is not the only Jewish state, it would be similar to the past. There were two in the past, Kingdom of Judea and Kingdom of Israel.
I think a fundamental difference is that those two kingdoms used to be one kingdom, which then split in two, and even then they were bordering on each other. By contrast, my hypothetical ultra-Orthodox Jewish state in North America would be a long way from Israel, would have a very different history, and a rather different culture and politics too–among other things, its dominant language would be Yiddish not Modern Hebrew. (That's putting aside the thorny historical debates about whether those two ancient kingdoms really existed or are legendary; and whether or not it is anachronistic to call them "Jewish".)
You don't "hit barriers to population growth" they're more like asymptotic limits, derived from relativity. Population growth is pushing against these limits the entire time, and they push back harder and harder.
I really like your other points, though, very illuminating.
For a civilisation at our level of technological development, I think the limits are primarily classical rather than relativistic.
Relativity is more of a limit when you start to run out of resources within the Solar System - a quite distant prospect at present - it makes it very expensive to spread to further star systems; and then once you run out of resources in the galaxy, intergalactic travel is so ludicrously expensive you have to doubt it will ever be practical. My speculative scenario was about the next couple of centuries, while interstellar colonisation (if it ever happens) is likely many centuries distant.
> I really like your other points, though, very illuminating.
Thanks
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