4 ms·

Honduran Islanders Push Back Libertarian Startup City

45 points by imhoguy 5y ago

Planktonne 5y ago
Powerful people exploiting poor communities while talking about freedom is not at all unprecedented.
GaryTang 5y ago
Not even Prospera can escape the Chinese propaganda machine
bovermyer 5y ago
From the article: > They’ll be able to vote, too, but their franchise is limited. Residents elect only five of the council’s nine members. Landowners vote for two of the five, with voting power pegged to acreage. Buy more land, buy more votes. Próspera’s founders choose the four remaining council members, and a six-member supermajority is needed to alter policy. So... feudalism.
senkora 5y ago
Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten post for more context: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Factorium 5y ago
Reading the article, the locals are complaining about: 1. They wanted free stuff (water), and didn't get it. 2. They wanted more free stuff (from robberies), and couldn't get it - security was tightened. In many of these countries, the reason for lack of development is the local people. Foreign libertarian communities will need complete political autonomy, perhaps even to form their own federation of micronations, otherwise the local population will essentially hold them to ransom in exchange for an increasing share of productive output. This is why it might be easier to develop advanced human communities on Mars - no locals to worry about!
- rightbyte 5y ago
  A gated in town doesn't spell out liberty, to me atleast. Maybe the idea is flawed on ideological grounds and it is just a pretense to make a rich-guy gated community on a paradise island?
  - hakfoo 5y ago
    The word's basically lost at this point. If someone says "freedom" and it's not actually RMS, it's a 90% shot they're using it as a school-bathroom-toilet-paper-thin veil over "I don't really want to pay taxes for anything other than preserving my private property rights, and can we at least privatize that too?" We almost need a new term for the old "Freedoms From (want/fear/persecution)" we used to talk about as a feature of a high-functioning civilization.
- bovermyer 5y ago
  I'm wondering if we somehow read different articles. "1. They wanted free stuff (water), and didn't get it." Um... their water system failed, and Prospera hooked them up to their own water system, without informing them that they would be charged for this. Further, the entity doing the charging was calling itself a philanthropic foundation. "This is why it might be easier to develop advanced human communities on Mars - no locals to worry about!" I'm not going to make sweeping assumptions about you based on a single comment. However, this kind of phrasing makes it sound as if you believe peoples' wellbeing and autonomy are secondary to - or perhaps at odds with - profit.
  - unanswered 5y ago
    Then Prospera stopped charging for the water, and the only condition they placed on completely free use of all the infrastructure that went into it was for the village to acknowledge that they were receiving the water.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      The article says that they temporarily stopped charging for the water due to the COVID pandemic. Subsequently, they asked that the community enter into a formal contract as a condition for supplying water. This does not seem like they acted very transparently at all, and it's unsurprising that they would now be facing heavy pushback.

45 points by imhoguy 5y ago

Planktonne 5y ago

Powerful people exploiting poor communities while talking about freedom is not at all unprecedented.

GaryTang 5y ago

Not even Prospera can escape the Chinese propaganda machine

bovermyer 5y ago

From the article: > They’ll be able to vote, too, but their franchise is limited. Residents elect only five of the council’s nine members. Landowners vote for two of the five, with voting power pegged to acreage. Buy more land, buy more votes. Próspera’s founders choose the four remaining council members, and a six-member supermajority is needed to alter policy. So... feudalism.

senkora 5y ago

Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten post for more context: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/prospectus-on-prospera

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Factorium 5y ago

Reading the article, the locals are complaining about: 1. They wanted free stuff (water), and didn't get it. 2. They wanted more free stuff (from robberies), and couldn't get it - security was tightened. In many of these countries, the reason for lack of development is the local people. Foreign libertarian communities will need complete political autonomy, perhaps even to form their own federation of micronations, otherwise the local population will essentially hold them to ransom in exchange for an increasing share of productive output. This is why it might be easier to develop advanced human communities on Mars - no locals to worry about!

rightbyte 5y ago
A gated in town doesn't spell out liberty, to me atleast. Maybe the idea is flawed on ideological grounds and it is just a pretense to make a rich-guy gated community on a paradise island?
- hakfoo 5y ago
  The word's basically lost at this point. If someone says "freedom" and it's not actually RMS, it's a 90% shot they're using it as a school-bathroom-toilet-paper-thin veil over "I don't really want to pay taxes for anything other than preserving my private property rights, and can we at least privatize that too?" We almost need a new term for the old "Freedoms From (want/fear/persecution)" we used to talk about as a feature of a high-functioning civilization.
bovermyer 5y ago
I'm wondering if we somehow read different articles. "1. They wanted free stuff (water), and didn't get it." Um... their water system failed, and Prospera hooked them up to their own water system, without informing them that they would be charged for this. Further, the entity doing the charging was calling itself a philanthropic foundation. "This is why it might be easier to develop advanced human communities on Mars - no locals to worry about!" I'm not going to make sweeping assumptions about you based on a single comment. However, this kind of phrasing makes it sound as if you believe peoples' wellbeing and autonomy are secondary to - or perhaps at odds with - profit.
- unanswered 5y ago
  Then Prospera stopped charging for the water, and the only condition they placed on completely free use of all the infrastructure that went into it was for the village to acknowledge that they were receiving the water.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    The article says that they temporarily stopped charging for the water due to the COVID pandemic. Subsequently, they asked that the community enter into a formal contract as a condition for supplying water. This does not seem like they acted very transparently at all, and it's unsurprising that they would now be facing heavy pushback.