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They bought a Caribbean island to start their own country
- mrcwinn 5y agoOne of my earliest memories of... the internet! http://www.new-utopia.com http://www.new-utopia.com
- rexreed 5y agoNo economy. No infrastructure. No housing. Little of value except a concept, a minimum viable product, and something to sell to investors. This is something that can part people with their "investment" dollars. In many ways analogous to so many venture "investments" without any of the potential exit strategies, except by boat. This particular investment has a literal chance of being under water for the investors. Very telling that at the end of the piece, the folks who sold the investment said they don't know where to take things next because they hadn't thought farther than buying the island and getting investors. This is quite the analogy for tech startup investing in many ways.
- zozbot234 5y agoWith enough cooperation from the Government of Belize, this could turn into great marketing for an independently-run "Special Economic Zone", or "charter city". It's a very risky endeavor as you point out, but not without potential.
- tuccinator 5y agoThe island is only 1.5 acres though. The size is too small to build any significant infrastructure. The island could maybe fit 100 people on it comfortably. I cannot find any reason that someone would want to visit this place for longer than a few hours.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoHow about to set up a bank account and mailing address?
- atlasunshrugged 5y agoI'm a big fan of charter cities/SEZs and new city/country projects but I'm more skeptical this is a practical avenue for making money. There are plenty of established jurisdictions to do this (e.g. basically all the former British colonies, a few American states) and the 'infrastructure' of lawyers, accountants, etc. who know how to deal with it are already established. This is the same reason I don't get why people are bullish on e-Residency for Honduras, Liberland, etc. What's the real value prop of incorporating an entity in these places?
- csomar 5y agoWith CRS/FATCA infecting almost every country, then that might be the reason?
- Carioca 5y ago100 people is about 5m² per person. That's already a crowd. The island is smaller than Times Square. It's 100 times smaller than Vatican City, it's in fact a fifth the size of St Peter's square.
- postingawayonhn 5y agoIsn't it 60m2 per person?
- kragen 5y ago49 m² per person, enough for a small house, not 5. If you build a skyscraper (or, more ambitiously, underground) you could have luxury space for hundreds of people. Energy would be a problem, but not as much of a problem as the Belizean government. $ units Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD base) on 2019-05-31 3460 units, 109 prefixes, 109 nonlinear units You have: 1.2 acres You want: Definition: 4856.2277 m^2 You have: 1.2 acres/100 people You want: Definition: 48.562277 m^2
- Apocryphon 5y agoComing soon: Caribbean Walled City
- kragen 5y agoLess useful in the era of high explosive artillery shells, much less high-altitude bombers, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and precision-guided munitions.
- Fatnino 5y agoI think this has nothing to do with defence and everything to do with Kowloon Walled City that was sort of a no law enclave where everything was built very high and shoulder to shoulder to maximize floor space. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City
- dillondoyle 5y agoBelize has already let Carnival dredge and basically create their own. Including their own port now too I think?
- melony 5y agoMore importantly they need connections to the US government. If you want true sovereignty in the Monroe doctrine sphere of influence, then you better have friends in Washington.
- axiolite 5y ago> No economy. No infrastructure. No housing. Little of value except a concept Coastline could be the answer to all of those. Ships are housing and have their own self-contained infrastructure. Fishing and transport are a few major economic activities of significant value. With motivation, time, and a bit of capital, this could turn into something. I just wouldn't bet on it.
- ethbr0 5y agohttps://www.google.com/maps/@17.5746578,-88.1629002,16z https://www.google.com/maps/@17.5746578,-88.1629002,16z From a quick glance, it appears to be inside the outermost barrier islands of Belize. Consequently, I believe UNCLOS would typically mark their EEZ equidistant from the nearest Belize coastlines (either mainland or island). Which is to say: small. And that's even assuming they overcame the insurmountable challenge of becoming a recognized party to the convention. Everyone wants to be a sovereign island nation, but no one wants to sit through 20+ years of UN proceedings to make it happen.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoYou don't need UN recognition, you just need a host state to cede legal jurisdiction.
- ethbr0 5y agoDoes that automatically cascade to maritime claims? I was trying to figure out what right is actually used for deciding whose coast a given coast is, for international treaty purposes.
- s1artibartfast 5y agoI'm not sure, but not sure why it matters either. Any country can cede or sell territory to someone else. The UN or maritime law doesn't play into it. Maybe I'm missing the context where the island would need be recognized as independent by anyone besides Belize
- yardie 5y agoThey bought an island to start a country in the same way Key West is the Conch Republic[0] with passports, currency, and a flag. They won't be recognized by the UN, no diplomatic outpost, and your zarpe won't be recognized by any other border agent. Still seems like fun! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic
- riku_iki 5y agoWhat is the value of being recognized by UN?
- SapporoChris 5y agoGiven the low profile of the island in the few photos in the article, it looks like the island will be submerged in a number of decades. Anything built on the island will need to deal with hurricane forces at the beach level. The island is only 7.5km from a major port. So that is an incredible bonus. For that alone, it's not the worst investment.
- hanniabu 5y agoI wouldn't even give it a decade. All it'll take is a few good storms to erode it away.
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoEven if it's swamped it's still cheaper than building an island from scratch, like China's been doing in the South China Sea - but Belize is a little less strategically important... Still, I could imagine some kind of storm-hardened resort on stilts or something. Otherwise they'd need to try and capitalize on extralegal things that having a pseudo-nation could provide: tax haven, smuggling, etc., hard to get traditional investors excited for that, though I am sure there would be takers somewhere.
- laurent123456 5y agoAmazing they wrote such a long article about pretty much nothing. TLDR: A bunch of people bought some land together and call it a country (but it's not, as they admit themselves).
- nxm 5y agoA form of fake news
- odonnellryan 5y agoHow?
- kasey_junk 5y agoIt’s a human interest story in the travel section…
- umeshunni 5y agoPerhaps such fluff shouldn't be on the front page of HN, then.
- mrfusion 5y agoDo hurricanes typically hit there? That seems extremely south and west. Hurricanes seem to turn north well before Belize.
- zamadatix 5y agohttps://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/#map=8.04/17.205/-88.247&search=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 https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/#map=8.04/17.205/-88.247&s...
- shkkmo 5y agoJust because hurricanes don't typically hit an area doesn't mean they won't (especially as climate change shifts global weather patterns). I was in northern Costa Rica when hurricane Otto hit the Nicaragua / Costa Rica border. This was the first hurricane we have a record of hitting Costa Rica.
- mrfusion 5y agoSea level rise could probably be addressed with sand spraying every 5 or 10 years. Our local beach gets raised by a couple feet every few years by beach replenishment projects. Just pumping sand from offshore.
- briHass 5y ago1.2 acres seems too small to be practical. My suburban plot is larger than that, and I'm guessing the 1.2 is 'optimistic'; it's probably less than 1 acre that can actually support much of anything (i.e. not wet.) It's certainly not large enough for agriculture or much of anything besides what Google Maps calls it: a campground.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago1.2 acres at what tide?
- fragmede 5y agoAnd how much longer before rising sea levels swallows the whole island.
- aaaaaaaaata 5y agoIs this a metaphor for the death of the sort of freedom these people (logically or otherwise) seek?
- _jplc 5y agoSomeone keep an eye so when they run out of money we can use the island and its decaying buildings for paintball matches
- hutzlibu 5y agoTheir "buildings" are some tents and it is not likely, that they will start build anything more solid.
- Aspos 5y agoIf they will manage to get recognized and get a UN membership they will instantly have a ton of ways of making money. Flag of convenience for ships and airplanes -- millions and millions annually. Mongolia has a huge merchant fleet. Thousands of commercial airplanes are registered in Bermudas. Own top-level domain name -- if they will get creative naming their country they may land a popular domain. Driving licenses -- Would love to pass all the rigorous tests to get an extra drivers license which I could use when traveling abroad. Passports -- assuming they will implement all the necessary measures to filter out crooks, they can start offering 2nd citizenship. Second passport is super valuable to those who travel a lot. Orbits and space in general -- valuable resource! WTO quotas and re-export -- uh, oh! Etc., etc., etc. Becoming a recognized country opens a lot of opportunities. They just need to crowdsource a few more billions and persuade neighboring countries to recognize them.
- otoburb 5y ago>>They just need to crowdsource a few more billions and persuade neighboring countries to recognize them. The billions will be needed to bootstrap their infrastructure.
- Aspos 5y agoWhat infrastructure? They don't need too many people living there to manage all these. A landing strip, a pier, couple houses for the maintenance team. A bungalow and a bar for their parliament.
- SheepSlapper 5y ago"By December 2019, the group's aspirations became reality, raising over $250,000 to complete the purchase of Coffee Caye, a 1.2-acre, uninhabited island off the coast of Belize" Good luck putting any of that on a single acre
- Aspos 5y agoThey have a 1.2-acre anchoring point to build an elevated platform with a pier and a landing strip. BTW, USS Harry S. Truman may get retired soon. That would give them plenty of space for anything.
- aww_dang 5y agoHere's a more fleshed out project: https://prospera.hn/ https://prospera.hn/
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hansjorg 5y agoNot saying this is an outright scam, but given the history of ventures like this, I wouldn't give it a good chance to succeed on any level. The Behind the Bastards podcast had an interesting history of seasteading and similar schemes recently: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-not-at-all-sad-history-of-89890804/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
- iamleppert 5y ago$250,000 to buy a tiny campground for some cringe instagram photos?
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y agoTheoretically, should be able to sell it to someone else for $250k later. So it really only costs the carrying, transaction, and time value. Seems like a small price for someone giving this a serious effort.
- iamleppert 5y agoIs the market for other people wanting to spend $250,000 on a tiny island campground really that big? Kudo's to whoever sold the island, but honestly I'm not seeing how this will end well for anyone involved.
- mitchdoogle 5y agoIt's already ended well for most of them because they've had fun. A $3000 investment, plus whatever it takes to get there. A quick look shows a $500 round trip ticket from NYC to Belize City, then whatever it costs for the relatively short boat ride to the island. It's really not that much money for an interesting vacation to visit your own island.
- iamleppert 5y agoExcept it’s in no way your own island. I’m not sure I’d pay $3,000 to have the privilege of visiting a tiny island to make believe it’s “my own”.
- geniium 5y ago> Investors will have to weigh up risks from hurricanes and rising sea levels. Yeah I would not invest in this
- kelvin0 5y agoIs this a sequel to the Fyre Festival? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festival https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_Festival
- humanistbot 5y agoEveryone seems to be forgetting the most obvious problem: this island is still territory of the nation of Belize. It is less than 5 miles from the coast of the capital city. There are inhabited islands further away from this one that are solidly part of Belize. I can't buy an island a few miles off the coast of Seattle and then call it an independent country.
- walrus01 5y agoIf I had a dollar for every "libertarian" including McAfee who thinks that Belize is some sort of lawless free-for-all zone... Or a dollar for every weird shady "entrepreneur" that thinks relocating their legal residence to Belize or Cyprus will solve all of their tax problems... There is a whole gross venn diagram overlap of libertarians, cryptocurrency bros, penny stock pump and dump, internet porn and casino hosting operations, NFT promoters, "hustle culture", amateur tax avoidance offshoring self proclaimed "experts", people selling naturopathic dick pills online, people selling shares in bare land real estate ventures on economically-uninhabitable sandbar islands, etc.
- BLKNSLVR 5y agoAnd then there's Mossack Fonseca who did it the "right" way for all the people rich enough to require and afford their services. Where "right" means "properly structured to create the necessary opacity". I find it hard to blame the small guys with big dreams since they're only trying to emulate their tax evading, asset-hiding heroes.
- walrus01 5y agototally agreed. it's not just things like caymanian corporations, plenty goes on within the square mile: https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/12/uks-kleptocracy-problem/03-global-money-laundering-capital https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/12/uks-kleptocracy-problem... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/04/murky-deals-with-corruptistan-fast-becoming-quintessentially-british https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/04/murky-... https://apnews.com/article/business-london-europe-media-f91432c785e4e06a8fb2c7370d4ca63d https://apnews.com/article/business-london-europe-media-f914... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/opinion/pandora-papers-britain-london.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/opinion/pandora-papers-br...
- fma 5y agoAs much as a gimmick as buying a plot of land on the moon or having a star named after you....Great story to tell but otherwise worthless.
- skissane 5y agoWhat a country really needs is people (lots of them) with some kind of shared cultural identity and commitment to glue them together. A people is more important than a territory. These folks are focusing on the wrong problem. Speculative future: there are a number of Hasidic/Haredi enclaves close to New York City, such as Kiryas Joel, Monsey, Kaser, New Square, Lakewood. These communities have very high birth rates, and low attrition rates (upwards of 90% of the community's children are retained in their faith community as adults) – Kiryas Joel's population is only around 30,000 now, but is growing by about 50% a decade. By sometime next century, there could be many millions of ultra-Orthodox Jews living in that area. It seems plausible this could lead to ethnic conflict – we are already seeing some signs of that, if you look at situations such as the East Ramapo Central School District – which might produce some kind of secessionist movement. There has already been a secession at the level of local government – Kiryas Joel seceding from the town of Monroe to form the new town of Palm Tree, which was supported by the non-Hasidic/Haredi residents too (both non-Jews and mainstream Jews), who were pleased to regain control of their political institutions through the removal of the ultra-Orthodox voting blocs – so, secessions at higher levels of government might one day also be supported by both sides. Possibly, we'll see further secessions/incorporations at the village/town level, followed by secession of one or more Hasidic/Haredi-majority counties, followed by an attempt by those counties to form their own state, followed at last by the secession of that state from the US. While the idea of a successful secessionist movement from the US may seem implausible now, a century of American decline may make it much more plausible. Maybe, come next century, Israel will no longer be the world's only Jewish state.
- daniel-cussen 5y ago> but is growing by about 50% a decade. First off, human population can't grow exponentially, cubically at absolute most if there are three spatial dimensions and a finite speed of light, in reality less. It's relativity, biology can't move at superluminal speeds, everything macro is limited in speed to a fraction or a fraction of a fraction (depending on how macro it is) of the speed of light. Second, I'm not sure Orthodox Jews are that culturally homogenous. I bet there's subtleties outsiders don't pick up on. I've read different Hasidic Jews have different rabbi lineages (Lavrov and Bobov are two?), if they were identical they wouldn't. It's a question of zooming in. It is probably further obscured by solidarity and voting as a bloc, meaning agreeing ahead of time privately to present a united front to outsiders. And, if Israel is not the only Jewish state, it would be similar to the past. There were two in the past, Kingdom of Judea and Kingdom of Israel.
- thematrixturtle 5y agoA micronation in Belize, the Central American nation too sketchy for John McAfee, although he may have gotten away with murder there just the same. What could possibly go wrong?
- Justin_K 5y agoWhat prevents pirates from capturing the island?
- kragen 5y agoThat's what Marshall Mayer is. Probably the government of Belize will prevent him from capturing the island.
- ada1981 5y agoWe have an island project on a 100 acre Panamanian island. For fun, it will be run by a DAO.
- bell-cot 5y agoAn expensive game of pretend, while it lasts. TBD whether the end will be some real nation running out of patience with their antics, or a hurricane sweeping over the tiny (1.2 acre) island, or some drug lord sending a few of his toughs to take over, or ...
- leros 5y agoYep it's all fun and games until someone invades.
- logicalmonster 5y agoI can totally understand not being optimistic about such a small island succeeding in creating a lasting paradise on Earth, but I think it's pretty incorrect and demeaning to view this as a game of pretend when they're actually attempting what they set out to do. Whatever else you want to say about these people, unlike some "real nation", none of them are using coercion and force to get people to organize as they see fit. That in and of itself should be lauded.
- hanniabu 5y ago> when they're actually attempting what they set out to do. Buying the land is the easiest step in this process. It's like dreaming of being a star athlete and going to the store to pick up some athletic shoes. But then buying them and not being sure what the next step is.
- cma 5y agoBuying land is still using state coercion (in a mild and accepted way) to deprive everyone else of it, it's a natural resource.
- simulate-me 5y agoThey have the option of using state coercion should someone contest their ownership, but they're not using it right now. Even with that pedantry aside, saying that property rights leverage "state coercion" is not a good take.