politics

Those already have a name - company town.

They failed the last time they were tried and will fail again.

A city run by a corporation is the opposite of a "freedom city"

“ You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go I owe my soul to the company store “

In September of last year, the podcast Behind the Bastards did a two part series on right wing blogger Curtis Yarvin, his connections to Peter Theil, and his influence on JD Vance. I highly recommend these episodes for anyone who wants to know where this is all headed.

Yarvin has, for years, pushed the notion of RAGE (retire all government employees), and his dark enlightenment movement centers on dismantling democracy and installing a neo-feudalistic system of government in which oligarchs rule as kings.

This is not some crazy new proposal that will be ignored by the people in power. This is the endgame. The oligarchs and right wing fascists Trump has surrounded himself with have been pushing this for years, just waiting for their moment.

If you don't think this is a big deal, then you probably won't realize until it's too late.

This is the dumbest branding exercise ever. There are no additional "freedoms" that you can get in a corporate-run city versus a regular city; except that perhaps the corporation has more freedom to trounce upon the rights of the citizenry.

If the future that Curtis Yarvin and his type envision starts to shape up, we're gonna need to go full, 100% anti-corporation to push back.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go

I owe my soul to the company store

These zones would allow wealthy investors to write their own laws and set up their own governance structures which would be corporately controlled and wouldn’t involve a traditional bureaucracy.

Why do I read this as incel rape cities?

According to interviews and presentations viewed by WIRED, the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Yes because the first thing I think needs regulations is fucking nuclear power!

Do you want Night City? Because this is quite literally how you get Night City.

Tech bros love to rename terrible shit from the past and call it an invention.

I just wish they would be honest with their naming schemes. Stop with the "freedom this" and "freedom that" nonsense. They don't give a good goddam about freedom and we all know it. They are just trying to build "company towns" with touchscreens. We've already been down this road. You can slap all the lipstick you want on it, but it's still a fucking pig.

This reads like an email or news message you find on random computers in dystopian computer games like Deus Ex or Cyberpunk 2077.

I didn't think I would live to see Cyberpunk become a reality. Or the return of Company Towns. Either one sounds preposterous.

Ah, corporate run cities?

“It’s a fine day, full of opportunity!”

“If it took more than one shot, you weren't using a jakobs.“

"Hyperion would like to take this opportunity to say: cha-ching!"

"Anyone can live. Have the courage to die!"

“Just remember, you died doing what you loved! And what you were told to do!"

Libertarians do not understand how society works.

So they basically want to bring back the company towns from the gilded age, but more dystopian thanks to the possibilities of modern technology. Characteristics of company towns often were: "controlling and/or exploitative".

Control: If your employer does something unethical, will you dare go against it, if it means that not only will you lose your job, but you and your family will be also be kicked out of your house, school, town, ... Very few would.

Exploitative: where can the company town residents shop and find services? In the company shops of course. This constrained supply also leads to subpar service for high prices. And if company sales are down, the company will spend less on wages, but keep the company shop prices the same since the shoppers have no alternative anyhow.

Add in modern technology, and some of those towns will be like Brave New World, while others will evolve into 1984. Dystopian.

So like a town, owned by a company, like some sort of company town, but now with freedom! The freedom to live in a house owned by your employer, shop at a store owned by your employer, and you have to use special money that your employer pays you in. Yup, nothing says freedom more the having incredibly limited choices.

I guarantee those execs think they will be building Star Trek / Federation level society. But the comment above is right, it will be Cyberpunk just with shittier technologies driven by “the invisible hand of the market” or some other drivel.

They keep trying this shit even though it never works. (Like there's literally no pictures of this actually, totally existent place. But it's a paradise. Trust me.)

More people need to play BioShock to understand why this is a bad idea.

government officials ending every phrase with, "brought to you by carls jr" is getting more real of a likelihood all the time.

Isn't this how RoboCop starts.

These tech libertarians never stop trying to make their own company towns.

Here was a recent failed attempt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewalk_Toronto

Also this piece never gets old. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department

Every time an oppressor wants to enslave people, they use "freedom" as an excuse.

Exhibit A: People's Liberation Army. Its not a conquering, its liberating 🤣

Or Exhibit B: Maga

How do people ever get fooled by this? Its so dumb

Freedom Cities is a branding exercise in the same tradition as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The more you have to advertise how free a society is, the less free it tends to be in practice.

Christ, why did we have to get the Shitty Dystopia versions from Snow Crash, Jennifer Government, and every Gibson novel, but none of the cool and fun shit like flying cars, off-planet living, and advanced medical/cybernetic tech.

Gonna have the corpo company town again. Instead of an online walled garden it’ll be a walled city with it’s own currency that gets traded at a steep loss if you try to go anyplace nicer. Keep you in your place.

Ah, so Peter Thiel's crazy ass ideas are spreading. This is the same shit Musks' granddad dreamed of - a technocracy with governors...

"Sold my soul to the company store."

Why are billionaires such free loaders? Build your own shit with your own money!

I think it’s hilarious that they are so dumb that a satire movie like RoboCop is regarded as blueprint for the future. How cartoonishly evil do they have to be?

Yay! Corporate towns! I look forward to be paid in company script!