[HN Gopher] A Libertarian Island Dream in Honduras Is Now an $11...
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       A Libertarian Island Dream in Honduras Is Now an $11B Nightmare
        
       Author : impish9208
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2025-02-14 20:47 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
        
       | impish9208 wrote:
       | https://archive.is/ZQI1U
        
       | ceejayoz wrote:
       | Reminds me of how the "Free State Project" ran into "people feed
       | bears and it sucks for everyone". https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
       | politics/21534416/free-state-...
        
       | smackeyacky wrote:
       | Huh.
       | 
       | Prospera smells a lot more like re-colonisation efforts instead
       | of any kind of libertarian paradise. I especially like how the
       | founders just assumed they'd have access to the groundwater
       | without paying for it. I imagine one of their requirements to set
       | something like that up is for the local government to be
       | terminally corrupt.
       | 
       | At least the sea steading initiative didn't rely on the local
       | government and people being exploited. You had to volunteer to be
       | exploited there.
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | This is fairly typical of third-world countries. Your business
       | only lasts as long as your patron survives politically. The mayor
       | complains that the city-state of Prospera buys power from the
       | local power company. Of course they do. That's the point usually
       | of SEZs: that they bring local industry and they pay for local
       | services. He complains that the revenue from the apartment tower
       | would have paid for a lot if they paid normal fees and were
       | subject to normal permitting but if they were they wouldn't have
       | built there.
       | 
       | These are all fairly typical to any place and mostly intended
       | outcomes. The SEZ approach is usually a mechanism to promote
       | industry in a place that usually won't see it. But local
       | governments are corrupt. About the one reason you can be sure
       | that Prospera isn't malevolent is that they didn't spend some
       | fraction of those billions of dollars in rigging the election so
       | that their guy would continue to be in power.
        
       | daveguy wrote:
       | > His plan called for "Prosperity Zones" where laws and
       | regulations would be "reset" and governmental powers like
       | taxation, eminent domain, and policing would fall to a private
       | corporation that ran the zone.
       | 
       | It's like they read Neuromancer and thought it was an
       | aspirational goal.
        
         | ceejayoz wrote:
         | Pretty common. See Musk's love for Iain Banks' Culture novels.
        
           | jkmcf wrote:
           | Musk didn't read very carefully.
        
         | yxre wrote:
         | I think this is a pretty common goal. This video is a bit
         | pessimistic, but it shows a lot of evidence that many tech
         | billionaires are aspiring to that end. Most notably Peter Thiel
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpPTRcz1no&t=67s&pp=ygUQZGF...
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-14 23:02 UTC)