That’s when all hell broke loose
August 31, 2024 6:50 PM Subscribe
The For-Profit City That Might Come Crashing Down [NYT Gift link]
As we peered over the edge of the tower’s rooftop, I considered the story of a subcontractor who was working at the apartment tower at night two months earlier. The power had gone out, and he walked to the edge of the floor to yell down to his crew to turn on a generator, but took a step too far and fell to his death. If companies choose their own regulatory frameworks, as they do in Próspera, who holds them accountable if they endanger or harm one of their employees?
The dream of Próspera, founded by a U.S. corporation off the coast of Honduras, was to escape government control. The Honduran government wants it gone.
As we peered over the edge of the tower’s rooftop, I considered the story of a subcontractor who was working at the apartment tower at night two months earlier. The power had gone out, and he walked to the edge of the floor to yell down to his crew to turn on a generator, but took a step too far and fell to his death. If companies choose their own regulatory frameworks, as they do in Próspera, who holds them accountable if they endanger or harm one of their employees?
Also, contra the Times, the US was a big fan of the 2009 Honduras coup, and probably a behind the scenes actor in the "elections" which put the conservative in power.. The sainted Hillary Clinton thought the elections were necessary, and of course they were - if you are the US.
posted by Frowner at 7:20 PM on August 31 [24 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 7:20 PM on August 31 [24 favorites]
This isn’t a place for people to live. This is a place to set up businesses that can’t pass the sniff test anywhere else. You know, like providing bleach injections for discerning plague victims (RTFA, this is not a stretch).
And maybe “investing” in property with an eye out for the (almost) always-available Greater Fool.
Edited to clarify that the RTFA suggestion was a generic recommendation not directed at Frowner.
posted by skyscraper at 8:14 PM on August 31 [5 favorites]
And maybe “investing” in property with an eye out for the (almost) always-available Greater Fool.
Edited to clarify that the RTFA suggestion was a generic recommendation not directed at Frowner.
posted by skyscraper at 8:14 PM on August 31 [5 favorites]
Be a real shame if the closest military just seized their stuff. Obviously they wouldn’t want any government assistance.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:27 PM on August 31 [7 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 8:27 PM on August 31 [7 favorites]
They could have so easily escaped government control like so many of their peers; with legions of lobbyists. I mean, how much do senators cost anyway? That's just lazy.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:44 PM on August 31 [11 favorites]
posted by Hardcore Poser at 8:44 PM on August 31 [11 favorites]
I was more thinking of J G Ballard, Super Cannes. You know the residents will be hunting the neighbours (inside and outside the boundary) for sport sooner or later.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:17 PM on August 31 [4 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:17 PM on August 31 [4 favorites]
That's a lot of words to say "the promised quantity and size of bribes are not materializing"
posted by ctmf at 9:25 PM on August 31 [12 favorites]
posted by ctmf at 9:25 PM on August 31 [12 favorites]
A previously about ZEDEs.
Also, I lost all interest in the finer details when I read this: "(In order to enter the jurisdiction, I was told I needed to sign an “agreement of coexistence” binding myself to 4,202 pages of rules, violations of which would be subject to the jurisdictional authority of the arbitration center.)" Holy shit.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:09 PM on August 31 [9 favorites]
Also, I lost all interest in the finer details when I read this: "(In order to enter the jurisdiction, I was told I needed to sign an “agreement of coexistence” binding myself to 4,202 pages of rules, violations of which would be subject to the jurisdictional authority of the arbitration center.)" Holy shit.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:09 PM on August 31 [9 favorites]
...a magnificent and isolated city populated by the most talented and/or the best-looking of humanity, all of whom have been made immortal. Both he and the immortals believe that they're going to use their talents to conquer the world, make great scientific discoveries
a not dissimilar idea from bob the angry flower
posted by i used to be someone else at 10:22 PM on August 31 [6 favorites]
a not dissimilar idea from bob the angry flower
posted by i used to be someone else at 10:22 PM on August 31 [6 favorites]
'Enjoy your life
Be happy
Work hard
Always answer the phone
Do not discuss the past
Do not discuss your life before
Do not try to leave: '
posted by clavdivs at 11:10 PM on August 31 [5 favorites]
Be happy
Work hard
Always answer the phone
Do not discuss the past
Do not discuss your life before
Do not try to leave: '
posted by clavdivs at 11:10 PM on August 31 [5 favorites]
Mod note: One removed. Sorry, murder / assassination / violence imaginary scenarios are against the guidelines.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:29 PM on August 31
posted by taz (staff) at 11:29 PM on August 31
In a year full of strong contenders, “Patri Friedman, grandson of the economist Milton Friedman and the founder of a start-up-cities fund that invested in Próspera, had a chip with his Tesla key implanted into his hand” may be the most cursed sentence of 2024.
posted by ActionPopulated at 11:54 PM on August 31 [42 favorites]
posted by ActionPopulated at 11:54 PM on August 31 [42 favorites]
The use of arbitration as a basis for an entire judicial code is interesting. Your judge (sorry, arbitrator) is essentially an auctioneer, taking bids on the winner. Deadwood, at the scale of Dubai, with cryptocomicbux as the state religion.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:13 AM on September 1 [7 favorites]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 12:13 AM on September 1 [7 favorites]
Yeah, I was on the “assholes being assholes to each other” until I got to the part about the worker deaths and “you get one vote for each square meter of land you own” and “they can forcibly eminent domain other areas surrounding them”. Fuuuuuck.
posted by corb at 12:59 AM on September 1 [18 favorites]
posted by corb at 12:59 AM on September 1 [18 favorites]
I'm torn between:
"people who don't like how other people have agreed to live together surprisingly can't agree how to live together, lol"
versus:
"the West has no right to export our toxic waste into less developed nations and these little shitheads are intellectual pollution"
posted by happyinmotion at 1:59 AM on September 1 [17 favorites]
"people who don't like how other people have agreed to live together surprisingly can't agree how to live together, lol"
versus:
"the West has no right to export our toxic waste into less developed nations and these little shitheads are intellectual pollution"
posted by happyinmotion at 1:59 AM on September 1 [17 favorites]
Romer argued that charter cities would give developing countries a chance to prosper by ceding uninhabited territory to wealthier nations to develop.
Because that has worked so amazingly well over the last couple of centuries?
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:40 AM on September 1 [14 favorites]
Because that has worked so amazingly well over the last couple of centuries?
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:40 AM on September 1 [14 favorites]
It is my understanding that your client Mr. Romer is a citizen of Earth and merely playfully alluding to the Romulan salutation 'Live long and prosper by ceding uninhabited territory to wealthier nations" here, and is in no way affiliated with the Romulan Empire, is that right?
posted by Ashenmote at 4:16 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Ashenmote at 4:16 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]
Delgado seemed bewildered by the staunch opposition to Próspera. How had his dream to enrich Central America become a political piñata? “We’re not crooks,” he told me. “We’re just guys trying to get something good done.” He said he was inspired to help found Próspera after reading Machiavelli’s writings on the impossibility of reforming a system from within. “The idea is that if you go to a place where nothing, nobody has a stake, there’s no entrenched interests, you can make really deep reforms that won’t affect any of the players,” he said.
This is the pure colonial mindset, where there are endless vistas for your enrichment since the futures and people already there are nothing and nobody and have no stake. They can just stop being what they are and become adjuncts to your plan for yourself.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:22 AM on September 1 [26 favorites]
This is the pure colonial mindset, where there are endless vistas for your enrichment since the futures and people already there are nothing and nobody and have no stake. They can just stop being what they are and become adjuncts to your plan for yourself.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:22 AM on September 1 [26 favorites]
”The idea is that if you go to a place where nothing, nobody has a stake”
Yep, just to second and reinforce GenjiandProust’s comment, this Terra Nulis assumption is a colossal bit of ignorance (likely stemming from racism / it’s-inconvenient-to-me-to-notice-that-detail-ism) on the part of the people who want to build these colonies, and a foundational flaw (no doubt among many) in their plan.
posted by eviemath at 5:13 AM on September 1 [8 favorites]
Yep, just to second and reinforce GenjiandProust’s comment, this Terra Nulis assumption is a colossal bit of ignorance (likely stemming from racism / it’s-inconvenient-to-me-to-notice-that-detail-ism) on the part of the people who want to build these colonies, and a foundational flaw (no doubt among many) in their plan.
posted by eviemath at 5:13 AM on September 1 [8 favorites]
...the US was a big fan of the 2009 Honduras coup, and probably a behind the scenes actor...
it is vanishingly unlikely we will ever know the depths of US fuckery in central and south America.
wonder if Ronnie is bitter, knowing he could have lead the whole Iran/Contra criminal end-run in broad daylight, with Absolute Presidential Immunity (TM).
posted by j_curiouser at 7:31 AM on September 1 [4 favorites]
it is vanishingly unlikely we will ever know the depths of US fuckery in central and south America.
wonder if Ronnie is bitter, knowing he could have lead the whole Iran/Contra criminal end-run in broad daylight, with Absolute Presidential Immunity (TM).
posted by j_curiouser at 7:31 AM on September 1 [4 favorites]
Rhodesia was a bad idea. Dear Rich people, stop trying to do Rhodesia again
posted by eustatic at 7:51 AM on September 1 [12 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 7:51 AM on September 1 [12 favorites]
"(In order to enter the jurisdiction, I was told I needed to sign an “agreement of coexistence” binding myself to 4,202 pages of rules, violations of which would be subject to the jurisdictional authority of the arbitration center.)"
I sure hope the NYT lawyers reviewed this for a potential Wesley Crusher steps on the grass situation.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:37 AM on September 1 [7 favorites]
I sure hope the NYT lawyers reviewed this for a potential Wesley Crusher steps on the grass situation.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:37 AM on September 1 [7 favorites]
”The idea is that if you go to a place where nothing, nobody has a stake”
you inevitably end up with cannibalism?
posted by philip-random at 9:05 AM on September 1
you inevitably end up with cannibalism?
posted by philip-random at 9:05 AM on September 1
The idea is that if you go to a place where nothing, nobody has a stake Yeah, definitely some serious racism involved there.
There's nothing, all the people who live there don't exist. Nobody has a stake, especially not the icky brown people who had the laughable idea that they had a stake in their nation.
I increasingly despair that any non-revolutionary method will ever bring the rich and powerful to justice for their many crimes.
posted by sotonohito at 9:07 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]
There's nothing, all the people who live there don't exist. Nobody has a stake, especially not the icky brown people who had the laughable idea that they had a stake in their nation.
I increasingly despair that any non-revolutionary method will ever bring the rich and powerful to justice for their many crimes.
posted by sotonohito at 9:07 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]
As to the arbitration dispute, it looks like Honduras has withdrawn from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. However, due to the way the contract has been written, the withdrawal does not take place for 6 months and Honduras is supposedly still has to deal with the arbitration around the 11 billion USD claim against it.
Reading the rest of the article I just linked to, it looks like the bilateral investment treaties, which are governed by the ICSID do not actually do anything to stimulate investment and are instead simply a cudgel private companies can use to beat back laws they do not like.
It seems like the way to do this is to first withdraw from the ICSID, wait six months, then undertake the actions that the country would be sanctioned for.
I do not know what would happen if Honduras ignores an ICSID demand, but remembering how Argentina had funds seized in the US to pay off a vulture hedge fund, I imagine that any and all international accounts may be in jeopardy.
posted by Hactar at 9:12 AM on September 1 [6 favorites]
Reading the rest of the article I just linked to, it looks like the bilateral investment treaties, which are governed by the ICSID do not actually do anything to stimulate investment and are instead simply a cudgel private companies can use to beat back laws they do not like.
It seems like the way to do this is to first withdraw from the ICSID, wait six months, then undertake the actions that the country would be sanctioned for.
I do not know what would happen if Honduras ignores an ICSID demand, but remembering how Argentina had funds seized in the US to pay off a vulture hedge fund, I imagine that any and all international accounts may be in jeopardy.
posted by Hactar at 9:12 AM on September 1 [6 favorites]
These tax havens are likely targeting criminal officials in corrupt regimes, in hopes they dump their dirty money there so that the club founders profit from laundering it.
posted by Brian B. at 9:20 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Brian B. at 9:20 AM on September 1 [1 favorite]
While it's impressive that they're returning to the 18th century maxim that land does, in fact, vote ("one vote for every square meter of land she owned") and considering how the writer Rachel Corbett eluded over decades of torture, expropriation, and brutality ("where many see a story about exploitation, Colindres describes one of private-sector productivity,") given that the "lead educators" there have bookshelves 'stocked with Ludwig von Mises’s “Bureaucracy,” Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism” and Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life,”' really amazing they could have failed at the whole sovereign nation state thing even while trying to annex their poor, Black neighboring townships.
posted by meehawl at 9:26 AM on September 1 [4 favorites]
posted by meehawl at 9:26 AM on September 1 [4 favorites]
...was to escape government control...
...that was preventing them from being heinous assholes. My default assumption is that anyone complaining of government interference (particularly when it's from my fellow white men) is trying to do something shitty and the government is rightly preventing it.
When I finished the basement in my last house one of the inspectors said, "Building code is the least safe you're legally allowed to build a building." and it really stuck with me. I'd apply the same idea to the law in saying that laws and regulations tell you the maximum amount of assholes you're legally allowed to be.
posted by VTX at 9:30 AM on September 1 [13 favorites]
...that was preventing them from being heinous assholes. My default assumption is that anyone complaining of government interference (particularly when it's from my fellow white men) is trying to do something shitty and the government is rightly preventing it.
When I finished the basement in my last house one of the inspectors said, "Building code is the least safe you're legally allowed to build a building." and it really stuck with me. I'd apply the same idea to the law in saying that laws and regulations tell you the maximum amount of assholes you're legally allowed to be.
posted by VTX at 9:30 AM on September 1 [13 favorites]
You had me at the opening line:
… nearly twice what the local building code allows…
Part of this is just a bunch of guys who obtained their wealth in tech and therefore think they know everything. I’m dealing with something similar at work these days - just because something is “new” to you, doesn’t mean it’s new to the rest of us dealing with this topic for a decade.
Too much money/power, too much arrogance, not enough constraints. I’m all in favor of taxing everyone so that there’s no one worth more than $50M anywhere, but Joe Sixpack still thinks he’s one step away from joining the ranks of these folks so I’m not expecting anything to be fixed.
Alternatively, part of me is all for this with one caveat - once you move there, you can never leave. Which I think we could do with the right set of extraditon laws. Cue Zoe Keating horror movie soundtrack in 3, 2, 1…
posted by Farce_First at 10:23 AM on September 1 [7 favorites]
… nearly twice what the local building code allows…
Part of this is just a bunch of guys who obtained their wealth in tech and therefore think they know everything. I’m dealing with something similar at work these days - just because something is “new” to you, doesn’t mean it’s new to the rest of us dealing with this topic for a decade.
Too much money/power, too much arrogance, not enough constraints. I’m all in favor of taxing everyone so that there’s no one worth more than $50M anywhere, but Joe Sixpack still thinks he’s one step away from joining the ranks of these folks so I’m not expecting anything to be fixed.
Alternatively, part of me is all for this with one caveat - once you move there, you can never leave. Which I think we could do with the right set of extraditon laws. Cue Zoe Keating horror movie soundtrack in 3, 2, 1…
posted by Farce_First at 10:23 AM on September 1 [7 favorites]
I remember Planet Money being huge cheerleaders for ZEDES. I had NPR one last week and the freakanomics show had a whole show on a time currency thing. Which is literally just social credit with a different name, but they were searching around in the dark trying to find a capitalist use for it instead.
Anyway, I wonder if Planet Money will follow up or if that sort of thing is too bizschool.
posted by zenon at 11:46 AM on September 1 [2 favorites]
Anyway, I wonder if Planet Money will follow up or if that sort of thing is too bizschool.
posted by zenon at 11:46 AM on September 1 [2 favorites]
Was there ever a libertarian paradise project that didn't fail?
posted by farlukar at 12:58 PM on September 1 [5 favorites]
posted by farlukar at 12:58 PM on September 1 [5 favorites]
Was there ever a libertarian paradise project that didn't fail?
Well, it depends on whether you look at it from the perspective of the libertarians or the bears.
It seems like this is becoming a journalism trope, like interviewing Trump supporters in a rural diner. A bunch of rich assholes try to form a community free from pesky regulations because they are too smart to need them, and it turns out that people who don’t believe in a social contract aren’t very good at forming societies.
posted by TedW at 2:25 PM on September 1 [10 favorites]
Well, it depends on whether you look at it from the perspective of the libertarians or the bears.
It seems like this is becoming a journalism trope, like interviewing Trump supporters in a rural diner. A bunch of rich assholes try to form a community free from pesky regulations because they are too smart to need them, and it turns out that people who don’t believe in a social contract aren’t very good at forming societies.
posted by TedW at 2:25 PM on September 1 [10 favorites]
“The Network State” was inspired, he said, by the state of Israel. “That country was started by a book,” he tweeted in 2022, referring to Theodor Herzl’s 1896 manifesto, “The Jewish State.” “You can found a tribe,” Srinivasan said on a podcast. “What I’m really calling for is something like tech Zionism — when a community forms online and then gathers in physical space to form a ‘reverse diaspora.’”
Dark. Very dark. These statements are not recent, are they?
posted by eustatic at 5:10 PM on September 1 [6 favorites]
Dark. Very dark. These statements are not recent, are they?
posted by eustatic at 5:10 PM on September 1 [6 favorites]
Its not just that these folks have an incomplete and unworkable ideology divorced from the reality of how they actually got ahead in the game and how much they are subsidized by the rest of us; they have an entirely naive view of agency and forgien relations. Why would you think that freeing yourself from your home country and your host country wouldn't just make you low hanging fruit for another country or corporation or pirate gang to consume. All thae sea-steadeds and homesteaders and colonizers require the empire's cavallry to make and maintain their safe space.
I doubt any of these idiot proto Roanokes would withstand artillary for long. Loot and the stew pot, that's all these are good for.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:33 AM on September 2 [9 favorites]
I doubt any of these idiot proto Roanokes would withstand artillary for long. Loot and the stew pot, that's all these are good for.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 1:33 AM on September 2 [9 favorites]
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There's this pulp novel by Tanith Lee, Death's Master, in which [for complicated fantasy reasons] the prince of demons decides that he will engineer events so that there is a magnificent and isolated city populated by the most talented and/or the best-looking of humanity, all of whom have been made immortal. Both he and the immortals believe that they're going to use their talents to conquer the world, make great scientific discoveries, etc, but actually it turns out that being an immortal living in a magical luxury resort robs you of your ability to act and create. That's what all these purpose-built rich-people settlements seem like to me, except in the novel there isn't any human suffering involved in constructing the city.
posted by Frowner at 7:15 PM on August 31 [25 favorites]