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this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
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SneerClub
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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.]
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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.
Italy's current government is probably to their liking, but even they would be unlikely to give them what they claim to want. As for Morocco, it's just their colonial arrogance to think they can take over a country with a bit of cash and their superior white intelligence. A quick glance at wikipedia gives you a list of all the territorial disputes Morocco is involved with.
It's a pity Cathal Coughlan died a few years ago. He could get a whole album out of this.
You're right. I don't know if the EU could actually stop Italy from creating an independent city-state within its borders - probably not. But TechTopia would have to either join the EU and submit to all the legal, financial and tax obligations.... or negotiate a trade deal with the EU from scratch.
Negotiations between the EU and Britain, which is an actual country that only has 1 EU land border, ended pretty badly for Britain. I can't imagine them even being considered for a tiny city-state with no resources that's entirely surrounded by another EU country. There are states in Europe that aren't in the EU, but they're either states that are trying to get into the EU or independently wealthy states like Norway and Switzerland that pre-date the existence of the EU and have negotiated agreements with them over the decades. Plus Italy would probably get punished by the European commission. I don't think they would have even considered it.
You get the impression they've done absolutely no groundwork on the places they want to set up their cities. I assume it's a scam and they don't actually have any intention of setting one up - but maybe that's being too generous.
Maybe they’re counting on it being like San Marino only more Galty
San Marino pre-date the EU and most of the nations in it - they claim to be the oldest republic in the world. The techbros don't have history on their side. Actually, moving en masse to a micronation like San Marino then taking control of the government and the media wouldn't be a bad way to get their libertarian/fascist paradise - it's what the Scientologists tried to do in Clearwater, Florida. The downside to creating your libertarian/fascist state is that you then have to live in it, though, and it sucks.
The other possible exemplar could be Vatican City. Which, granted, is more ambitious, though what history shows is that having sympathetic fascists in power in the host country can go a long way.
I think the impetus for Mussolini to sign the Lateran accords was more to show he could solve the question of how the legacy of the Papal states should be handled, and maybe to appease the more conservative parts of Italian society, rather than cede a part of Italy to another state. After all, the Papal States had been around for longer than most of the constituent parts of the Kingdom of Italy and had real claims on territory.
Plus, the main attraction of a place like this to prospective inhabitants is free access to drugs and sex workers. It's hard to see either the government of Morocco or its inhabitants be in favor of ceding a part of their country to a bunch of literal infidels.
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"....