Brown also kept a private collection of “bad books,” as one of those former staffers described them, that he would only share with someone he thought was likely to be on the same ideological page.
Having a hard time thinking about what books could have been in this collection. You could say it’s my struggle.
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i think these are the same guys thiel was trying to astroturf as the Dimes Square neoreactionary podcast Urbit crew
oh fuck, I was just thinking how similar the vibe (as relayed by two different journalists) felt between the two. it’d make a lot of sense if it’s the same general group and they swap the faceplate around depending on what bullshit feels like it’s gonna sell
these are not very bright guys, and things keep failing to get out of hand
Yeah they are the nerdy version of the alt-right/MAGA, so they are doomed to fail to get any popularity (apart from having their ideas stolen as an postrationalization for the mega rich to remain megashit).
it’s actually surprising how many of these I’ll be scrolling through and then see that either FTX or Alameda threw a few million at them shortly before imploding. Sam was really trying to speedrun the whole illegal internet banking to real-life Bond villain career arc that assholes like Thiel and Musk pioneered, wasn’t he?
You can outrun a cop but you can’t outrun a
radioextradition treaty.
The article links to this blog post from when these lads made a notorious attempt to set up a city in Ghana. It’s pretty good value.
For the record, Dr. Bawumia is an economist and a banker, and so how two white boys with no capital or credentials were able to get a meeting with him to discuss an urban planning project is anyone’s best guess. Perhaps Dr. Bawumia harbors a secret obsession with Minecraft that the nation is of unaware of.
Is it wrong to hope they manage to realize one of these libertarian paradise fantasies? I’d really love to see how quickly it devolves into a Mad Max Thunderdome situation.
every real life galt’s gulch situation devolves into thunderdome so quick! see this convenient list of attempts on rationalwiki for comedy gold
Are there any bears nearby? I’m looking forward to another wildlife infiltration.
(In measured david attenborough voice) Ahh, the majestic bear. A natural consequence and counterpoint to libertarian enclaves.
Well, Bears hate libertarians, with a passion, and for a good reason. What a lot of people don’t know is that, like elephants, they have very good memories, this is in addition to being very protective of their smaller kin. So Walter Block really fucked up when he included a cartoon making fun of twinks in his book Defending the Undefendable.
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“Dryden Brown” is the sort of villain name a strike-breaking LLM script generator would come up with.
Isn’t he from Fighting Baseball?
No location picked let alone land bought or planning permission approved but they’ve already announced they’re building a city. You can just say anything I guess if you’re a hip right-winger.
tbf this is how charter cities have worked so far. See also seasteading.
“worked” seems like an overstatement. This wikipedia page is great, just a catalogue of grand plans that never got off the ground. It’s easy to see why. They’re effectively asking the host government to create a breakaway state within their own country which will get all the foreign direct investment and do all the economic activity. That is a recipe for a power struggle and a civil war which could end with the racist techmen as dictators of a banana republic.
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Italy’s current government is probably to their liking, but even they would be unlikely to give them what they claim to want. As for Morocco, it’s just their colonial arrogance to think they can take over a country with a bit of cash and their superior white intelligence. A quick glance at wikipedia gives you a list of all the territorial disputes Morocco is involved with.
It’s a pity Cathal Coughlan died a few years ago. He could get a whole album out of this.
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You’re right. I don’t know if the EU could actually stop Italy from creating an independent city-state within its borders - probably not. But TechTopia would have to either join the EU and submit to all the legal, financial and tax obligations… or negotiate a trade deal with the EU from scratch.
Negotiations between the EU and Britain, which is an actual country that only has 1 EU land border, ended pretty badly for Britain. I can’t imagine them even being considered for a tiny city-state with no resources that’s entirely surrounded by another EU country. There are states in Europe that aren’t in the EU, but they’re either states that are trying to get into the EU or independently wealthy states like Norway and Switzerland that pre-date the existence of the EU and have negotiated agreements with them over the decades. Plus Italy would probably get punished by the European commission. I don’t think they would have even considered it.
You get the impression they’ve done absolutely no groundwork on the places they want to set up their cities. I assume it’s a scam and they don’t actually have any intention of setting one up - but maybe that’s being too generous.
Maybe they’re counting on it being like San Marino only more Galty
Plus, the main attraction of a place like this to prospective inhabitants is free access to drugs and sex workers. It’s hard to see either the government of Morocco or its inhabitants be in favor of ceding a part of their country to a bunch of literal infidels.
Actually a guy from Hong Kong had a plan to set up a new Hong Kong in Ireland a couple years ago right after the new laws/protests meant a lot of people decided to get out of Hong Kong. The Irish government politely stonewalled him. I had a vague notion it was meant to be in Meath, apparently it was meant to be “between Dublin and Belfast”…
While this is a dumb idea it’s a great article, and led me to some enjoyable wikidives on Ceuta and San Marino.
Frankly, the gall of someone imagining they can carve out a piece of a country around the Mediterranean , an area that’s been contested since the literal dawn of history, is breathtaking.
Or it’s just a grift, which makes more sense.
Look up the Phoenix Foundation. Its been tried before.
A powerful earthquake has struck Morocco, so I guess the homesteaders are revising their plans as we speak.
https://apnews.com/article/morocco-earthquake-marraskesh-7f4a503009dede0dec0208c08d6b100b
Off-topic, I really hope the country gets the help it needs to save as many lives as possible.
