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- Hacker News
- by Avicebron
- The recent citations are definitely interesting, but none of this is really new. I met with some VCs in the early 10s, and some of them talked about "free enterprise zones" in various areas in the region. Frankly, I'm a little surprised this isn't discussed more. Maybe because the need for "liberty" is less in the realm of bits & bytes for these developments, it is less publicized.by saguntum
- Interesting that Larry Ellison owns 95% of one entire Hawaiian island (Lanai) and no one seems to notice.by wbshaw
- This reminds me of New Utopia and Lazarus Long. I think he wanted to build it on an unclaimed seamount in the western Caribbean.by nephihaha
- Guess a lot of these guys heard about Little Saint James from the news.
- I just wrote about this https://open.substack.com/pub/greggbarbers/p/the-productive-...by taivare
- A fool and his wealth is soon parted
- In 2014 it was Chile, in 2017 it was Honduras, then Colombia and El Salvador in the early 2020s. In Chile and Colombia they were coasting on tax authorities not pursuing them and relying on the cultural cachet of being thought-leading risk takers who were forward-thinking enough to take on a new frontier (remember this is when they started flying south for ayahuasca ceremonies). In the case of Honduras and El Salvador, they were setting up in tax-free zones (which is effectively a transfer of wealth from those outside of the zone to those inside). Notable that the periods of Chilean and Salvadorian history that these “libertarians” tend to celebrate were periods of political repression. I can’t imagine these ventures will be any different.by lurk2
- Remember the scene in Blow when Johnny Depp’s character goes to Columbia to make a withdrawal from the millions he’s been sending to their banks and they are like like “huh, we don’t remember you creating an account here. Good day sir. Please leave.”by supertroop
- They'll figure out soon enough why people vacation instead of live thereby schlap
- There's nothing wrong with living in the Caribbean. Tons of people live there for a reason. Biggest issue with the Caribbean is the price of property, susceptibility to climate disasters and susceptibility to external political forces which means constant securit threat.by krisboyz781
- These are billionaires, pretty sure they will only do 183 days and being on your boat probably counts.by CGMthrowaway
- At some point people will also figure out why these people are fleeing.by lacy_tinpot
- As someone with no plans to live or vacation in the caribbean, I'm curious. Is there a specific notable reason, or is it just a combination of littler things (cost, convenience, politics, weather, etc.)?by hatthew
- These projects obviously have limited success. I found it interesting to learn about a couple that were very successful, though.
1) the Republic of Venice from 7th to 18th centuries, basically a merchant-run state controlled by a tight circle of wealthy traders. Its whole setup revolved around safeguarding trade and property and staying clear of the Catholic church and European kings.
2) the Republic of Ragusa from 14th to 19th centuries, in what’s now Dubrovnik, run by a small group of merchant families. Strong focus on open commerce and neutrality, made early advances in public health and infrastructure and had its own privately funded healthcare and insurance, all paid for by trade profits
by CGMthrowaway - If you consider them libertarian projects they failed. That's the thing about libertarianism - to succeed it needs to reinvent stuff that it is so opposed to.
Venice and Ragusa (and Genoa) were oligarchic states, had laws, and used force to enforce these laws. Civic liberties were suspended or heavily restricted.
by wolvesechoes - https://archive.is/gWfRv
This article is about a project called "Destiny" (https://destiny.com), an economic zone to be created in an undeveloped region of Nevis (of St. Kitts & Nevis)
The project goal is to become like Dubai with a 50m dollar investment, which I don't think is an admirable goal btw.
St Kitts & Nevis has had a history of being friendly to crypto and there was an initiative to make bitcoin cash legal tender, although don't think it ever actually happened.
https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/bitcoin-c...
by m348e912 - Bitcoin Cash, legal.
Or
Bitcoin, cash legal.
by a_paddy - A glance at their website shows 25% of the profit being paid out between the government, residents, scholarship funds, etc.
So you're effectively paying US taxes from the get go, before you even get to the point of anything at all going towards basic services.
by mothballed - Without a proper supply chain 50m is just a fart in the wind.by sampton
- I been to St. Kitts & Nevis. The only thing I can remember is the very stark contrast between the commercialized beaches versus where the locals lived, and the roaming cows everywhere.
Nevis (the baseball) was only boat accessible, and St. Kitts (the bat) is mostly hills of national park.
Vast majority of things must be flown or shipped in. I am hard pressed to see some "techno libertarians" doing techno without Amazon/Temu/Walmart/<insert fav vendor> in 24h drop ship.
by WaitWaitWha - > The project goal is to become like Dubai with a 50m dollar investment
Thanks, I needed a good laugh.
To "become like Dubai" they'd need at least another 3 orders of magnitude on that investment.
For reference, the university I worked at until last year recently renovated the building I was working in. It was a fairly standard-sized academic building for a small liberal arts campus—three stories, with roughly 3-8 classrooms on a side. The renovation was the replacement of its HVAC system, and adding a fairly small "bump-out" addition on one of the short sides, of roughly one medium-large classroom's width.
It cost $35 million.
$50 million would build maybe a couple of decent-sized buildings, or a handful of smaller ones. No skyscrapers. Nothing fancy.
Certainly nothing like Dubai.
(According to Wikipedia, when it was built, the Burj Khalifa alone cost $1.5 billion. With a "b".)
by danaris - What, again? Neither of the "Bitcoin island" schemes ever happened. The seasteading people failed to convince anybody that living on an old anchored cruise ship just for a tax break was worth it. The Sea Pod didn't look survivable in a storm.
Red Rock Island in San Francisco Bay [1] is apparently for sale again. It was supposedly sold in 2025, but that deal may have fallen through. Nobody built anything on it. Five acres of rock with cliffs. It's basically a mountain peak sticking out of water. It would take a lot of money and work to do something with it. At least as much as the Eagle's Nest [2], plus the costs of operating on an island. Which means there are about a dozen people in the Bay Area who could afford it.
[1] https://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/red-rock-island-isan-fr...
by Animats - I'm eternally disappointed that none of these libertarian projects even manage to survive long enough to hit the "oops we just reinvented government and taxes" stage.by p1necone
- Casting seasteading as a tax avoidance strategy because some loud self proclaimed Libertarians were briefly involved is really sad. Some people really are entranced with the idea of living on the seas and building communities there. Given what goes on with cruise ships and aircraft carriers this isn't even a particularly challenging goal. Put down your aggressively critical politics for a moment and let yourself enjoy that others can dream.by m0llusk
- Libertarians did make an actual island, Republic of Minerva, but the Australian/western and Polynesian governments were so scared shitless of a tiny island of libertarians that they concocted a story about it being "Tongan fishing lands" (despite the fact being way out of Tongan waters and Tonga basically ~never having mentioned it until some other people decided to put an island there). Then they sent the Tongan Navy to take it by force.
http://www.queenoftheisles.com/HTML/Republic%20of%20Minerva....
by mothballed