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.
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 ~~radio~~ extradition 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.
"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.
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.
Hurling ordure at the TREACLES, especially those closely related to LessWrong.
AI-Industrial-Complex grift is fine as long as it sufficiently relates to the AI doom from the TREACLES. (Though TechTakes may be more suitable.)
This is sneer club, not debate club. Unless it's amusing debate.
[Especially don't debate the race scientists, if any sneak in - we ban and delete them as unsuitable for the server.]