9 ms·

This man just claimed a new European nation. 160,000 people want to live there

287 points by webdisrupt 11y ago

expertentipp 11y ago
Isn't it some Czech style prank? Similar to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402906/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402906/
- czechdeveloper 11y ago
  Vit Jedlicka is actually all out conspiracy theory blog author (reformy.cz), so not really prank.
- vacri 11y ago
  Not really. It actually is unclaimed land - the border between Croatia and Serbia was drawn along the middle of a river. The river moved. One country (can't recall which) claims the border is still mid-river, the other claims it follows the original river line, not the new position. This has created areas of overlap and areas of terra nullius - there are a few tiny ones, much smaller than Liberland. And if no-one claims the area, you can wander in and stake your own claim. Of course, if no-one recognises you, there's not much you can do, and if you don't ally with someone meaty, no-one will stop an 'annexation'. Ultimately it's a jape, but unlike most micronations, it's not stretching the rules - the land really is currently, officially, unclaimed.
ColinWright 11y ago
There have been several submissions about this recently. Here are a few: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9383560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9383560 Liberland (liberland.org) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9384107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9384107 Liberland (wikipedia.org) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9385492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9385492 A New State Has Been Declared - Liberland (between border of Croatia and Serbia) (liberland.org) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9388699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9388699 New state established on unclaimed territory between Croatia and Serbia (wikipedia.org) [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443 About Liberland (liberland.org) [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443 Liberland - Europe's Brand New Country (liberland.org) [5] Yes, I know this is a repeat - the submission title got changed. It's also a repeat submission of [0], and the submission with the most discussion - over 80 comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9401128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9401128 Liberland. New country in Europe with no taxes and Bitcoin as official currency (independent.co.uk) [6] [0] http://liberland.org/en/about/ http://liberland.org/en/about/ [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland [2] http://liberland.org/en/news/press-release-a-new-state-has-been-declared-liberland-21.htm http://liberland.org/en/news/press-release-a-new-state-has-b... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland [4] http://liberland.org/en/about/ http://liberland.org/en/about/ [5] http://liberland.org/en/about/ http://liberland.org/en/about/ [6] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/welcome-to-liberland-europes-tiny-new-country-where-taxes-are-optional-and-youre-allowed-to-move-in-as-long-as-youre-not-a-nazi-10185477.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/welcome-to-li...
- gambiter 11y ago
  Why on every aggregator does there have to be 'that guy' who thinks it's somehow his job to dig up duplicate posts? Do you comment on various news sites whenever they post an article that the NYTimes covered? It's just... silly. This is the first time I've seen news about this particular 'country', and I'm glad I saw it this time because it is interesting. Duplicates FTW!
  - ColinWright 11y ago
    Duplicates will always happen, and as you have pointed out, sometimes there is positive value to that. The idea isn't to avoid duplicates, per se, but to try to ensure that the same discussion doesn't get hashed out again and again in different different, parallel and unconnected threads. There have even been cases[0] where the mods explicitly dipped in and moved comments from one submission to another to avoid the "split discussion" problem. So the idea is to ensure that anyone interested in an item can, should they choose, easily find and read the comments made by other HN contributors. Feel free to disagree, although the 17 upvotes (at the time of writing - votes may go down as well as up) indicate that there are people who do find it valuable/useful. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8499286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8499286 Edit: Just checking your profile I see that you've been here less than a year, so you may not be aware that because it's me to whom you're replying, I can't down-vote you. In fact I've up-voted you, because while I disagree with you (obviously) I don't think your comment is especially negative.
    - touristtam 11y ago
      Maybe HN needs to catch those and trade the "new submission" for additional points and a bump towards the main page.
    - gambiter 11y ago
      Thank you for your reply. While you said my comment wasn't especially negative, I understand that the first sentence could have been taken that way, and that's probably the reason for the downvotes. It's just that I've seen people yelling 'DUPE' since the first year of Slashdot, and it seems like every site has some who make it their personal mission to rain on OP's parade. I love the idea of stopping the 'split discussion' issue, but I feel like it's at odds with a site like HN where stories fall off of the front page so quickly. I'm not able to read it all day long, and I rarely look at it in the evenings. Especially when we have articles about potential gaming of the article positions, it seems unrealistic to expect that you would have a chance to actually get the real 'news' at any given point without duplicate posts. What I mean is, there are certainly more than 30 in-progress topics appealing to HN readers. If I look at the front page in the morning and again in the afternoon, I'm only going to get a small subset of the topics that are out there. That's why I appreciate duplicates so much... it's really the only thing that makes a site like HN relevant to the occasional reader. Anyway, thanks for supporting me even though I wasn't the most ambassadorial. :)
stefantalpalaru 11y ago
Nice stunt, but without an army and/or international recognition it will never be a country.
- eyko 11y ago
  I don't think an army is a prerequisite.
  - jiri 11y ago
    But full control of the land is a prerequisite for new sovereign state and an army is really great at such task.
- whichfawkes 11y ago
  Suppose he gets some wealthy folks (especially from Serbia/Croatia) to keep their assets there. I doubt it would happen (chicken/egg problem, right?), but I could see a territory like that persisting without international recognition or an army. Of course, I'm no expert in geopolitics...
  - asdfaoeu 11y ago
    Short of trucking money in there's no way to move money to a country that has no international recognition.
    - kristofferR 11y ago
      Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin comes to mind.
      - dagw 11y ago
        How would you keep Bitcoins 'in' a country in any meaningful way?
        kristofferR 11y ago
huuu 11y ago
I'm sorry to be that guy, but a small note to all webdevs on Hackernews: please make sure to skip all bloated and hip Javascripts. Because not all visitors have the latest and fastest devices. This great article is unfortunately unreadable for me because I can't scroll down.
- AndrewOMartin 11y ago
  Looks fine in W3M, so they're doing something right.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- franzpeterstein 11y ago
  Dito. Unreadable.
- Aoyagi 11y ago
  It is my understanding that some designers think "the more code and the more difficult it is, the better it is".
- rplnt 11y ago
  And to all sysadmins on HN... I receive 403 for this article, so do whatever is necessary to keep it from happening on your websites that reach wider audiences :)
- todd3834 11y ago
  Works fine on my iPhone 6plus
  - toxican 11y ago
    > Because not all visitors have the latest and fastest devices.
    - leppr 11y ago
sam_goody 11y ago
Micro nations are not new, and they are almost never successful [1]. They are ripe for fraud: selling passports, fraudulent government bank, etc. In the event that they pick up any traction, they are swallowed by their neighbors with real armies (eg. Minerva), and the rest of the world sighs with relief. An interesting example of one that is still officially around, also claims land in Croatia, and exists just for fraud is the Dominion of Melchizedek [2]. Even Lichtenstein, which thrives on laws that allow outside companies to evade their local taxes, skirts on the definitions of "legal", "nation", et al. (though I have a few friends from there who are all great guys) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation [2] http://www.quatloos.com/groups/melchiz.htm http://www.quatloos.com/groups/melchiz.htm
- kauffj 11y ago
  Agreed, but why should the "rest of the world sighs with relief"? Existing government is sub-optimal and competition tends to increase quality. Is there a special property of government service that makes this principle fail here?
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Government is not a service. It nearly always provides services, but it also provides stability and a means of dealing with "negative externalities". Running a government with a particularly lax policy on fraud, pollution, etc. can easily export problems around the world.
    - deong 11y ago
      Also, governments don't compete with each other in the same market. Australia and Denmark aren't trying to outdo each other in recruiting the same "customers". We do sometimes see multiple governments competing in the same "markets". We usually call them "warlords" though, and it hasn't really worked out all that well for the people and lands being competed for.
    - gosub 11y ago
      Aren't stability and "dealing with negative externalities" also services? Without goverments people would seek them elsewhere (other forms of ruling, insurance companies, etc.)
izolate 11y ago
Why must every inch of this land have to be incorporated somehow? I'd much rather have no man's land, than have a land owned by a particular man's ideology (regardless of how much I may be inclined to agree with it).
- lake99 11y ago
  I welcome all kinds of socio-economic experiments. If people were free to try out various scenarios, we'd have a much better understanding of socio-economics. > I'd much rather have no man's land, than have a land owned by a particular man's ideology (regardless of how much I may be inclined to agree with it). I think that's an equally valid scenario to try out. If only my country did not have anti-sedition laws...
- Retric 11y ago
  In nobody owns most of Antarctica which is not exactly tiny. There is also a lot of effectively lawless land around the world.
  - Mikeb85 11y ago
    > In nobody owns most of Antarctica which is not exactly tiny. But many countries, including most of the 'powers', have also signed treaties ensuring that no one can lay claim to Antarctica...
    - Retric 11y ago
      Nobody is going to stop you setting up a tent there. Creating a factory or even a city would be another issue, but as long as you think like a hobo an unenforced rule is meaningless. The same thing applies large stretches of the US let alone much of Afghanistan or other failed states. PS: What most intellectual Anarchists want is high quality fertile land free for the taking. But, so does everyone else which is why it's not free in the first place. With some effort you could live in the middle of the ocean and never see another person. When you get down to it most of them really want to live with the benefits of government without paying for it.
- 11y ago
playing_colours 11y ago
I am trying to speculate what kind of people this new country can attract and give its citizenship? I tend to think (sorry for sounding biased) that it would be adventurers, hippies, suspicious characters, illegal migrants, fraudsters. The topic about legalisation of marijuana is quite popular on their forum so it may attract drug dealers and drug addicts. Can this microstate be interesting for entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, doctors, economists - those who can contribute a lot to build some prosper experimental state, say micro-Singapore? How can this country attract them, maybe, introduce sort of point based system for giving residence / citizenship?
- GFischer 11y ago
  What does legalizing marijuana have to do with drug dealers? Isn't the reverse more likely? I live in a country with legal marijuana(1) and I don't see the correlation (it does attract marijuana-related tourism though). (1) Uruguay. It's legal for now, the current president is not happy at all about legal marijuana and wants to revoke the law.
  - playing_colours 11y ago
    I agree with you about legalizing marijuana in an established state with working institutions. I see Netherlands as a successful example of it. But here we have the state in the very beginning of its existence, without the recognised law enforcing institutions. Thus it may be more difficult to control drug traffic. The current president is more like a king at the moment with a lot of influence to shape the country, but can also be heavily influenced by external forces (by money, armed force). A lot of things depend on personalities and hidden agendas of people who will rule there, and it may be difficult to control them. Money from illegal activities like drug traffic may be very attractive. I am just speculating about this potentially interesting experiment.
    - jp555 11y ago
      Cannabis is not legal in NL and there are many problems with their current setup involving organized crime. You say you "see" NL as a successful example, but I think it's more of a belief based on assumptions. In reality it's a bit of a mess. The U.S. ironically (they're the ones who got the world to sign treaties promising to never legalize) has the some of the best decriminalizatoin/legalization laws on the planet
pipboy3 11y ago
a small problem could be fact that this area is regularly floded every year.
tinco 11y ago
This country is also on the verge of having its first war. The Liberland flag has already been removed by another micro-nation that claims to have laid claim on the land just over a month earlier: http://www.paraduin.nl/?p=173 http://www.paraduin.nl/?p=173 Unfortunately, the Paraduin people seem a bit nutty to me. An excerpt from their constitution, which is in Dutch: "Paraduin is een monarchie. De titel van de monarch is prins(es), voluit Prins(es) van Paraduin. Monarch zijn Prins Ogidius en diens wettige opvolgers. De opvolging wordt bij wet geregeld." Translates to: "Paraduin is a monarchy. The monarch holds the title of Prince(ss), in full the Prince(ss) of Paraduin. Monarchs are Prince Ogidius and his lawful successors. Succession is determined by law." Paraduin itself is something like a religion, they (if there's more than one person, I'm not sure) believe there's a magical parallel universe from which some people are fleeing unto the earth we live on.
- k__ 11y ago
  Something like this happend to this oilrig land "sealand". People think it's easy to found your own country. Just find unclaimed space and be done with it. But there are many rich people out in the world who would hire armies to kill for such a spot.
  - tinco 11y ago
    That's a very good point. Obviously the only way any country can be bootstrapped is with military power. If Liberland is serious they should immediately engage Paraduin with a show of force. Secondly, I think the best course of action would be to secure funding for buying a protectorate like situation with either Croatia or Serbia. Though I don't know what the political consequences of such a situation would be. Imagine if from those 160.000 signups they could get 5.000 people to pay $1000 in taxes per year, that could fund a Serbian police/military officer and a small office. Just his presence and his commitment to engage in violent conflict with aggressors could deter any other party. (Killing him would be an act-of-war or at least a criminal act against his country)
    - mikeyouse 11y ago
fractalsea 11y ago
For those interested in why this land is unclaimed, this video provides a nice visualisation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZdkqqjosCM&t=6m49s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZdkqqjosCM&t=6m49s Essentially the river has changed, but the two countries claimed land at different times.
sparaker 11y ago
Well i just applied to be a citizen, lets see if i get a citizenship before my children our born. Edit: Got the activation link in SPAM, perhaps google didn't recognize the new country sending emails :P
funkyy 11y ago
This gets much more attention than it should in my opinion. Its another micro nation that within few weeks no one will remember about. Besides stamps collectors and non-recognized passport holders.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  Au contraire, I've been casually following "micro nations" for decades, and attempts are often long remembered. This one is notable as it involves actual viable land (in contrast with artificial or new/fluke natural dry surfaces), which the surrounding countries just plain don't want. It's not just a rock or platform with a flag on it.
  - marssaxman 11y ago
    Indeed, with a little persistence and some capital this could turn into an interesting project. Like Bir Tawil, it's a piece of land which is not just unclaimed, but in fact definitively disclaimed by the adjacent nations - but instead of being a barren patch of North African desert miles from nowhere, it's a pretty little patch of forestland on a major river in central Europe. Nor does it seem likely that Serbia and Croatia will be settling their differences over the border any time soon.
  - gedrap 11y ago
    >>> I've been casually following "micro nations" for decades, and attempts are often long remembered Could you share more? Are there any decent write ups about the more interesting attempts?
    - ctdonath 11y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations (Liberland is already listed) Some are just notable crackpots, some take advantage of geographic changes or artificial structures (Sealand the most famous), some are whims tolerated by controlling sovereignties, some are violently overthrown, some are long-respected special cases (Vatican), some are genuine attempts that failed (Oceania).
tim333 11y ago
> 160,000 people want to live there I just put my name down. It's a laugh. I'd probably be willing to fork over $30 for a passport. I don't actually want to live there. I suspect many of the 160,000 are similar. On a more serious note I could see an argument for setting up a new country that was open to all comers a bit like the US used to be when the "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.." thing was happening. The US and EU could maybe buy the land off some hard up African country. You could govern it a bit like Singapore.
- wcummings 11y ago
  Despotically?
  - forgingahead 11y ago
    *successfully
    - celticninja 11y ago
      why not both?
      - wcummings 11y ago
        Run by economically literate despots
- nashashmi 11y ago
  You laugh at the concept of a passport but there are lots of people who don't have a passport at all and no citizenship to any country. They would like to be a citizen of one country or another. This might be a great way to do it.
  - emodendroket 11y ago
    A country that is recognized by no one? Probably not a "great way" to get a passport that's worth anything.
arihant 11y ago
Sidenote: This page has unbearable amounts of JS. It is unscrollable on latest generation Chromebook, a device explicitly built to browse the Web. There is a limit to how much JS one should use; if your website requires a pro gaming machine to be readable, you probably crossed that limit.
- lstamour 11y ago
  Worked fine on my iPhone? But I agree...
- blacknwhite 11y ago
  terrible site...google/disqus polluted
- leppr 11y ago
  Still a bit laggy on my overclocked i7, this site was probably designed with GPU acceleration and double GTX 980 machines in mind.
desireco42 11y ago
As a Serbian I welcome our Liberland neighbours. It really opens a lot of possibility. It citizenship doesn't require you to live there for Liberland to thrive. If he/they would just start a top level domain name for example, I can see how being citizen would be beneficial to enterpreneurs.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  You can't just start a top level domain. Calling yourself a country doesn't make ICANN hand you a ccTLD, and there's not currently an open period for gTLDs, even if the people behind Liberland could get one if there were.
  - desireco42 11y ago
    I understand that, still this is just opening of possibilities. EU wants to manage our thoughts, this guy is busting that trend, of course he is welcome.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      > EU wants to manage our thoughts What do you mean with that?
- jtbigwoo 11y ago
  If the domain name is a common abbreviation, they might be able to generate royalties from domain name sales like Tuvalu (.tv) does. (Though, if I remember correctly, it hasn't been the windfall that Tuvalu hoped for.)
kazinator 11y ago
"Live there?" Where is that? You can't live in a nation; it's not a place, but rather a set of people, of which you can be a member. You can live in a country. A nation doesn't imply a country; nations can be displaced. Furthermore, having a certain nationality which is tied to a country doesn't mean being a resident of that country. Perhaps not all 160,000 people want to actually live in that country; maybe some only want the nationality. If this new nation has very relaxed rules about residency for maintaining nationality, they might not even have to visit there very much, if at all.
- workingandtired 11y ago
  From the wikipedia page for nation [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation]: The word "nation" is sometimes used as synonym for: State (polity) or sovereign state: a government which controls a specific territory, which may or may not be associated with any particular ethnic group Country: a geographic territory, which may or may not have an affiliation with a government or ethnic group Thus the phrase "nations of the world" could be referring to the top-level governments (as in the name for the United Nations), various large geographical territories, or various large ethnic groups of the planet. In general, whenever I come across the word "nation" I assume it's being used colloquially to refer to "nation-state", unless the context is specifically related to ethnic nationalistic identities.
reitoei 11y ago
3.7MB of JavaScript. Christ.
mladenkovacevic 11y ago
Emir Kusturica needs to make a movie out of this. Perhaps a sequel to Underground?
elmar 11y ago
The defining conception of the state is a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force, also known as the monopoly on violence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
- collyw 11y ago
  What about anarchist states? Does that make them an oxymoron?
  - elmar 11y ago
    The Anarchist model is based on communities, the concept of state doesn't exist.
  - anonbanker 11y ago
    Yes. But only if you think anarchist == anarchy. In reality, anarchist == anarchism, which is a collectivist/socialist philosophy masquerading as anarchy. A state based on anarchy is an oxymoron.
    - elmar 11y ago
      there are several very different models of a anarchist society, some are based on collectivist/socialist others on capitalism/individualism.
      - anonbanker 11y ago
        Yeah, the Individualist Anarchists prefix Anarchist with "individualist". The Anarcho-capitalists add a suffix to it. Both groups understand that Anarchy ("No Authority") is being altered by their beliefs, and is therefore not a pure Anarchy. Only the Collectivist/Socialist Anarchists have the audacity to call themselves "Anarchists" without any qualifying suffix or prefix. The fact that they've coined "Anarchism" (of which they are "Anarchists") to mean something that isn't a pure Anarchy is extraordinarily disingenuous.
  - 11y ago
hellbanner 11y ago
This would be the first country where registration comes with a password.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nivertech 11y ago
They should do something similar to Andorra. Every odd year they should send an ambassador with 1000 BTC tribute to Belgrade. And every even year they should send an ambassador with 1000 BTC tribute to Zagreb. As you already guessed, I propose them to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency ;)
- zo1 11y ago
  >"As you already guessed, I propose them to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency ;)" It already is, from what I can tell. As "official" as you can get at this point.
axus 11y ago
It's funny, I play on some Minecraft servers where this kind of thing happens all the time. The comments about competing claims and military power are true for the virtual world as well as the physical world. http://www.reddit.com/r/CivilizatonExperiment/ http://www.reddit.com/r/CivilizatonExperiment/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/
steamy 11y ago
Is this micro-nations fever a by-product of the proliferation and popularity of Clash of Clans and other related mobile strategy video games recently? I can't help but to make the connection here, what do you think guys?
doctorwho 11y ago
Give us all your personal information so we can consider you for citizenship, and steal your identity. Best phishing scam ever!
- leke 11y ago
  Yeah, I noticed that sign up form had just the right amount of information to do that.

287 points by webdisrupt 11y ago

expertentipp 11y ago

Isn't it some Czech style prank? Similar to http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402906/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0402906/

czechdeveloper 11y ago
Vit Jedlicka is actually all out conspiracy theory blog author (reformy.cz), so not really prank.
vacri 11y ago
Not really. It actually is unclaimed land - the border between Croatia and Serbia was drawn along the middle of a river. The river moved. One country (can't recall which) claims the border is still mid-river, the other claims it follows the original river line, not the new position. This has created areas of overlap and areas of terra nullius - there are a few tiny ones, much smaller than Liberland. And if no-one claims the area, you can wander in and stake your own claim. Of course, if no-one recognises you, there's not much you can do, and if you don't ally with someone meaty, no-one will stop an 'annexation'. Ultimately it's a jape, but unlike most micronations, it's not stretching the rules - the land really is currently, officially, unclaimed.

ColinWright 11y ago

There have been several submissions about this recently. Here are a few: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9383560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9383560 Liberland (liberland.org) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9384107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9384107 Liberland (wikipedia.org) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9385492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9385492 A New State Has Been Declared - Liberland (between border of Croatia and Serbia) (liberland.org) [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9388699 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9388699 New state established on unclaimed territory between Croatia and Serbia (wikipedia.org) [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443 About Liberland (liberland.org) [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400443 Liberland - Europe's Brand New Country (liberland.org) [5] Yes, I know this is a repeat - the submission title got changed. It's also a repeat submission of [0], and the submission with the most discussion - over 80 comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9401128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9401128 Liberland. New country in Europe with no taxes and Bitcoin as official currency (independent.co.uk) [6] [0] http://liberland.org/en/about/ http://liberland.org/en/about/ [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland [2] http://liberland.org/en/news/press-release-a-new-state-has-been-declared-liberland-21.htm http://liberland.org/en/news/press-release-a-new-state-has-b... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland [4] http://liberland.org/en/about/ http://liberland.org/en/about/ [5] http://liberland.org/en/about/ http://liberland.org/en/about/ [6] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/welcome-to-liberland-europes-tiny-new-country-where-taxes-are-optional-and-youre-allowed-to-move-in-as-long-as-youre-not-a-nazi-10185477.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/welcome-to-li...

gambiter 11y ago
Why on every aggregator does there have to be 'that guy' who thinks it's somehow his job to dig up duplicate posts? Do you comment on various news sites whenever they post an article that the NYTimes covered? It's just... silly. This is the first time I've seen news about this particular 'country', and I'm glad I saw it this time because it is interesting. Duplicates FTW!
- ColinWright 11y ago
  Duplicates will always happen, and as you have pointed out, sometimes there is positive value to that. The idea isn't to avoid duplicates, per se, but to try to ensure that the same discussion doesn't get hashed out again and again in different different, parallel and unconnected threads. There have even been cases[0] where the mods explicitly dipped in and moved comments from one submission to another to avoid the "split discussion" problem. So the idea is to ensure that anyone interested in an item can, should they choose, easily find and read the comments made by other HN contributors. Feel free to disagree, although the 17 upvotes (at the time of writing - votes may go down as well as up) indicate that there are people who do find it valuable/useful. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8499286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8499286 Edit: Just checking your profile I see that you've been here less than a year, so you may not be aware that because it's me to whom you're replying, I can't down-vote you. In fact I've up-voted you, because while I disagree with you (obviously) I don't think your comment is especially negative.
  - touristtam 11y ago
    Maybe HN needs to catch those and trade the "new submission" for additional points and a bump towards the main page.
  - gambiter 11y ago
    Thank you for your reply. While you said my comment wasn't especially negative, I understand that the first sentence could have been taken that way, and that's probably the reason for the downvotes. It's just that I've seen people yelling 'DUPE' since the first year of Slashdot, and it seems like every site has some who make it their personal mission to rain on OP's parade. I love the idea of stopping the 'split discussion' issue, but I feel like it's at odds with a site like HN where stories fall off of the front page so quickly. I'm not able to read it all day long, and I rarely look at it in the evenings. Especially when we have articles about potential gaming of the article positions, it seems unrealistic to expect that you would have a chance to actually get the real 'news' at any given point without duplicate posts. What I mean is, there are certainly more than 30 in-progress topics appealing to HN readers. If I look at the front page in the morning and again in the afternoon, I'm only going to get a small subset of the topics that are out there. That's why I appreciate duplicates so much... it's really the only thing that makes a site like HN relevant to the occasional reader. Anyway, thanks for supporting me even though I wasn't the most ambassadorial. :)

stefantalpalaru 11y ago

Nice stunt, but without an army and/or international recognition it will never be a country.

eyko 11y ago
I don't think an army is a prerequisite.
- jiri 11y ago
  But full control of the land is a prerequisite for new sovereign state and an army is really great at such task.
whichfawkes 11y ago
Suppose he gets some wealthy folks (especially from Serbia/Croatia) to keep their assets there. I doubt it would happen (chicken/egg problem, right?), but I could see a territory like that persisting without international recognition or an army. Of course, I'm no expert in geopolitics...
- asdfaoeu 11y ago
  Short of trucking money in there's no way to move money to a country that has no international recognition.
  - kristofferR 11y ago
    Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin comes to mind.
    - dagw 11y ago
      How would you keep Bitcoins 'in' a country in any meaningful way?
      - kristofferR 11y ago

huuu 11y ago

I'm sorry to be that guy, but a small note to all webdevs on Hackernews: please make sure to skip all bloated and hip Javascripts. Because not all visitors have the latest and fastest devices. This great article is unfortunately unreadable for me because I can't scroll down.

AndrewOMartin 11y ago
Looks fine in W3M, so they're doing something right.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
franzpeterstein 11y ago
Dito. Unreadable.
Aoyagi 11y ago
It is my understanding that some designers think "the more code and the more difficult it is, the better it is".
rplnt 11y ago
And to all sysadmins on HN... I receive 403 for this article, so do whatever is necessary to keep it from happening on your websites that reach wider audiences :)
todd3834 11y ago
Works fine on my iPhone 6plus
- toxican 11y ago
  > Because not all visitors have the latest and fastest devices.
  - leppr 11y ago

sam_goody 11y ago

Micro nations are not new, and they are almost never successful [1]. They are ripe for fraud: selling passports, fraudulent government bank, etc. In the event that they pick up any traction, they are swallowed by their neighbors with real armies (eg. Minerva), and the rest of the world sighs with relief. An interesting example of one that is still officially around, also claims land in Croatia, and exists just for fraud is the Dominion of Melchizedek [2]. Even Lichtenstein, which thrives on laws that allow outside companies to evade their local taxes, skirts on the definitions of "legal", "nation", et al. (though I have a few friends from there who are all great guys) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation [2] http://www.quatloos.com/groups/melchiz.htm http://www.quatloos.com/groups/melchiz.htm

kauffj 11y ago
Agreed, but why should the "rest of the world sighs with relief"? Existing government is sub-optimal and competition tends to increase quality. Is there a special property of government service that makes this principle fail here?
- pjc50 11y ago
  Government is not a service. It nearly always provides services, but it also provides stability and a means of dealing with "negative externalities". Running a government with a particularly lax policy on fraud, pollution, etc. can easily export problems around the world.
  - deong 11y ago
    Also, governments don't compete with each other in the same market. Australia and Denmark aren't trying to outdo each other in recruiting the same "customers". We do sometimes see multiple governments competing in the same "markets". We usually call them "warlords" though, and it hasn't really worked out all that well for the people and lands being competed for.
  - gosub 11y ago
    Aren't stability and "dealing with negative externalities" also services? Without goverments people would seek them elsewhere (other forms of ruling, insurance companies, etc.)

izolate 11y ago

Why must every inch of this land have to be incorporated somehow? I'd much rather have no man's land, than have a land owned by a particular man's ideology (regardless of how much I may be inclined to agree with it).

lake99 11y ago
I welcome all kinds of socio-economic experiments. If people were free to try out various scenarios, we'd have a much better understanding of socio-economics. > I'd much rather have no man's land, than have a land owned by a particular man's ideology (regardless of how much I may be inclined to agree with it). I think that's an equally valid scenario to try out. If only my country did not have anti-sedition laws...
Retric 11y ago
In nobody owns most of Antarctica which is not exactly tiny. There is also a lot of effectively lawless land around the world.
- Mikeb85 11y ago
  > In nobody owns most of Antarctica which is not exactly tiny. But many countries, including most of the 'powers', have also signed treaties ensuring that no one can lay claim to Antarctica...
  - Retric 11y ago
    Nobody is going to stop you setting up a tent there. Creating a factory or even a city would be another issue, but as long as you think like a hobo an unenforced rule is meaningless. The same thing applies large stretches of the US let alone much of Afghanistan or other failed states. PS: What most intellectual Anarchists want is high quality fertile land free for the taking. But, so does everyone else which is why it's not free in the first place. With some effort you could live in the middle of the ocean and never see another person. When you get down to it most of them really want to live with the benefits of government without paying for it.
11y ago

playing_colours 11y ago

I am trying to speculate what kind of people this new country can attract and give its citizenship? I tend to think (sorry for sounding biased) that it would be adventurers, hippies, suspicious characters, illegal migrants, fraudsters. The topic about legalisation of marijuana is quite popular on their forum so it may attract drug dealers and drug addicts. Can this microstate be interesting for entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, doctors, economists - those who can contribute a lot to build some prosper experimental state, say micro-Singapore? How can this country attract them, maybe, introduce sort of point based system for giving residence / citizenship?

GFischer 11y ago
What does legalizing marijuana have to do with drug dealers? Isn't the reverse more likely? I live in a country with legal marijuana(1) and I don't see the correlation (it does attract marijuana-related tourism though). (1) Uruguay. It's legal for now, the current president is not happy at all about legal marijuana and wants to revoke the law.
- playing_colours 11y ago
  I agree with you about legalizing marijuana in an established state with working institutions. I see Netherlands as a successful example of it. But here we have the state in the very beginning of its existence, without the recognised law enforcing institutions. Thus it may be more difficult to control drug traffic. The current president is more like a king at the moment with a lot of influence to shape the country, but can also be heavily influenced by external forces (by money, armed force). A lot of things depend on personalities and hidden agendas of people who will rule there, and it may be difficult to control them. Money from illegal activities like drug traffic may be very attractive. I am just speculating about this potentially interesting experiment.
  - jp555 11y ago
    Cannabis is not legal in NL and there are many problems with their current setup involving organized crime. You say you "see" NL as a successful example, but I think it's more of a belief based on assumptions. In reality it's a bit of a mess. The U.S. ironically (they're the ones who got the world to sign treaties promising to never legalize) has the some of the best decriminalizatoin/legalization laws on the planet

pipboy3 11y ago

a small problem could be fact that this area is regularly floded every year.

tinco 11y ago

This country is also on the verge of having its first war. The Liberland flag has already been removed by another micro-nation that claims to have laid claim on the land just over a month earlier: http://www.paraduin.nl/?p=173 http://www.paraduin.nl/?p=173 Unfortunately, the Paraduin people seem a bit nutty to me. An excerpt from their constitution, which is in Dutch: "Paraduin is een monarchie. De titel van de monarch is prins(es), voluit Prins(es) van Paraduin. Monarch zijn Prins Ogidius en diens wettige opvolgers. De opvolging wordt bij wet geregeld." Translates to: "Paraduin is a monarchy. The monarch holds the title of Prince(ss), in full the Prince(ss) of Paraduin. Monarchs are Prince Ogidius and his lawful successors. Succession is determined by law." Paraduin itself is something like a religion, they (if there's more than one person, I'm not sure) believe there's a magical parallel universe from which some people are fleeing unto the earth we live on.

k__ 11y ago
Something like this happend to this oilrig land "sealand". People think it's easy to found your own country. Just find unclaimed space and be done with it. But there are many rich people out in the world who would hire armies to kill for such a spot.
- tinco 11y ago
  That's a very good point. Obviously the only way any country can be bootstrapped is with military power. If Liberland is serious they should immediately engage Paraduin with a show of force. Secondly, I think the best course of action would be to secure funding for buying a protectorate like situation with either Croatia or Serbia. Though I don't know what the political consequences of such a situation would be. Imagine if from those 160.000 signups they could get 5.000 people to pay $1000 in taxes per year, that could fund a Serbian police/military officer and a small office. Just his presence and his commitment to engage in violent conflict with aggressors could deter any other party. (Killing him would be an act-of-war or at least a criminal act against his country)
  - mikeyouse 11y ago

fractalsea 11y ago

For those interested in why this land is unclaimed, this video provides a nice visualisation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZdkqqjosCM&t=6m49s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZdkqqjosCM&t=6m49s Essentially the river has changed, but the two countries claimed land at different times.

sparaker 11y ago

Well i just applied to be a citizen, lets see if i get a citizenship before my children our born. Edit: Got the activation link in SPAM, perhaps google didn't recognize the new country sending emails :P

funkyy 11y ago

This gets much more attention than it should in my opinion. Its another micro nation that within few weeks no one will remember about. Besides stamps collectors and non-recognized passport holders.

ctdonath 11y ago
Au contraire, I've been casually following "micro nations" for decades, and attempts are often long remembered. This one is notable as it involves actual viable land (in contrast with artificial or new/fluke natural dry surfaces), which the surrounding countries just plain don't want. It's not just a rock or platform with a flag on it.
- marssaxman 11y ago
  Indeed, with a little persistence and some capital this could turn into an interesting project. Like Bir Tawil, it's a piece of land which is not just unclaimed, but in fact definitively disclaimed by the adjacent nations - but instead of being a barren patch of North African desert miles from nowhere, it's a pretty little patch of forestland on a major river in central Europe. Nor does it seem likely that Serbia and Croatia will be settling their differences over the border any time soon.
- gedrap 11y ago
  >>> I've been casually following "micro nations" for decades, and attempts are often long remembered Could you share more? Are there any decent write ups about the more interesting attempts?
  - ctdonath 11y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations (Liberland is already listed) Some are just notable crackpots, some take advantage of geographic changes or artificial structures (Sealand the most famous), some are whims tolerated by controlling sovereignties, some are violently overthrown, some are long-respected special cases (Vatican), some are genuine attempts that failed (Oceania).

tim333 11y ago

> 160,000 people want to live there I just put my name down. It's a laugh. I'd probably be willing to fork over $30 for a passport. I don't actually want to live there. I suspect many of the 160,000 are similar. On a more serious note I could see an argument for setting up a new country that was open to all comers a bit like the US used to be when the "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.." thing was happening. The US and EU could maybe buy the land off some hard up African country. You could govern it a bit like Singapore.

wcummings 11y ago
Despotically?
- forgingahead 11y ago
  *successfully
  - celticninja 11y ago
    why not both?
    - wcummings 11y ago
      Run by economically literate despots
nashashmi 11y ago
You laugh at the concept of a passport but there are lots of people who don't have a passport at all and no citizenship to any country. They would like to be a citizen of one country or another. This might be a great way to do it.
- emodendroket 11y ago
  A country that is recognized by no one? Probably not a "great way" to get a passport that's worth anything.

arihant 11y ago

Sidenote: This page has unbearable amounts of JS. It is unscrollable on latest generation Chromebook, a device explicitly built to browse the Web. There is a limit to how much JS one should use; if your website requires a pro gaming machine to be readable, you probably crossed that limit.

lstamour 11y ago
Worked fine on my iPhone? But I agree...
blacknwhite 11y ago
terrible site...google/disqus polluted
leppr 11y ago
Still a bit laggy on my overclocked i7, this site was probably designed with GPU acceleration and double GTX 980 machines in mind.

desireco42 11y ago

As a Serbian I welcome our Liberland neighbours. It really opens a lot of possibility. It citizenship doesn't require you to live there for Liberland to thrive. If he/they would just start a top level domain name for example, I can see how being citizen would be beneficial to enterpreneurs.

dragonwriter 11y ago
You can't just start a top level domain. Calling yourself a country doesn't make ICANN hand you a ccTLD, and there's not currently an open period for gTLDs, even if the people behind Liberland could get one if there were.
- desireco42 11y ago
  I understand that, still this is just opening of possibilities. EU wants to manage our thoughts, this guy is busting that trend, of course he is welcome.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > EU wants to manage our thoughts What do you mean with that?
jtbigwoo 11y ago
If the domain name is a common abbreviation, they might be able to generate royalties from domain name sales like Tuvalu (.tv) does. (Though, if I remember correctly, it hasn't been the windfall that Tuvalu hoped for.)

kazinator 11y ago

"Live there?" Where is that? You can't live in a nation; it's not a place, but rather a set of people, of which you can be a member. You can live in a country. A nation doesn't imply a country; nations can be displaced. Furthermore, having a certain nationality which is tied to a country doesn't mean being a resident of that country. Perhaps not all 160,000 people want to actually live in that country; maybe some only want the nationality. If this new nation has very relaxed rules about residency for maintaining nationality, they might not even have to visit there very much, if at all.

workingandtired 11y ago
From the wikipedia page for nation [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation]: The word "nation" is sometimes used as synonym for: State (polity) or sovereign state: a government which controls a specific territory, which may or may not be associated with any particular ethnic group Country: a geographic territory, which may or may not have an affiliation with a government or ethnic group Thus the phrase "nations of the world" could be referring to the top-level governments (as in the name for the United Nations), various large geographical territories, or various large ethnic groups of the planet. In general, whenever I come across the word "nation" I assume it's being used colloquially to refer to "nation-state", unless the context is specifically related to ethnic nationalistic identities.

reitoei 11y ago

3.7MB of JavaScript. Christ.

mladenkovacevic 11y ago

Emir Kusturica needs to make a movie out of this. Perhaps a sequel to Underground?

elmar 11y ago

The defining conception of the state is a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force, also known as the monopoly on violence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

collyw 11y ago
What about anarchist states? Does that make them an oxymoron?
- elmar 11y ago
  The Anarchist model is based on communities, the concept of state doesn't exist.
- anonbanker 11y ago
  Yes. But only if you think anarchist == anarchy. In reality, anarchist == anarchism, which is a collectivist/socialist philosophy masquerading as anarchy. A state based on anarchy is an oxymoron.
  - elmar 11y ago
    there are several very different models of a anarchist society, some are based on collectivist/socialist others on capitalism/individualism.
    - anonbanker 11y ago
      Yeah, the Individualist Anarchists prefix Anarchist with "individualist". The Anarcho-capitalists add a suffix to it. Both groups understand that Anarchy ("No Authority") is being altered by their beliefs, and is therefore not a pure Anarchy. Only the Collectivist/Socialist Anarchists have the audacity to call themselves "Anarchists" without any qualifying suffix or prefix. The fact that they've coined "Anarchism" (of which they are "Anarchists") to mean something that isn't a pure Anarchy is extraordinarily disingenuous.
- 11y ago

hellbanner 11y ago

This would be the first country where registration comes with a password.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

nivertech 11y ago

They should do something similar to Andorra. Every odd year they should send an ambassador with 1000 BTC tribute to Belgrade. And every even year they should send an ambassador with 1000 BTC tribute to Zagreb. As you already guessed, I propose them to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency ;)

zo1 11y ago
>"As you already guessed, I propose them to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency ;)" It already is, from what I can tell. As "official" as you can get at this point.

axus 11y ago

It's funny, I play on some Minecraft servers where this kind of thing happens all the time. The comments about competing claims and military power are true for the virtual world as well as the physical world. http://www.reddit.com/r/CivilizatonExperiment/ http://www.reddit.com/r/CivilizatonExperiment/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Civcraft/

steamy 11y ago

Is this micro-nations fever a by-product of the proliferation and popularity of Clash of Clans and other related mobile strategy video games recently? I can't help but to make the connection here, what do you think guys?

doctorwho 11y ago

Give us all your personal information so we can consider you for citizenship, and steal your identity. Best phishing scam ever!

leke 11y ago
Yeah, I noticed that sign up form had just the right amount of information to do that.