The Really Creepy People Behind Billionaire Sea Castles

[semper occultus]

Former “Seasteaders” Come Ashore To Start Libertarian Utopias In Honduran Jungle

Forgoing the plan to build independent floating cities away from chafing laws, some libertarians—led by Milton Friedman’s grandson, no less—have found something better: desperate countries willing to allow the founding of autonomous libertarian cities within their borders.

www.fastcoexist.com

The seasteader-in-chief is headed ashore. Patri Friedman (that’s Milton Friedman's grandson to you), who stepped down as the chief executive of the Peter Thiel-backed Seasteading Institute in August, has resurfaced as the CEO of a new for-profit enterprise named Future Cities Development Inc., which aims to create new cities from scratch (on land this time) governed by "cutting-edge legal systems." The startup may have found its first taker in Honduras, whose government amended its constitution in January to permit the creation of special autonomous zones exempt from local and federal laws. Future Cities has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding to build a city in one such zone starting next year.

Seasteading, i.e. the creation of sovereign nations floating offshore, is enshrined in libertarian thought as an end-run around the constraints of stodgy nation-states. The idea has received plenty of (mocking) mainstream coverage, most recently in a Details profile of Thiel, in which Friedman outlined the new startup he had in mind:

One potential model is something Friedman calls Appletopia: A corporation, such as Apple, “starts a country as a business. The more desirable the country, the more valuable the real estate,” Friedman says.

Future Cities follows this approach, describing its mission as bringing “Silicon Valley’s spirit of innovation to the implementation of cutting-edge legal systems in new cities," most likely in the role of the cities’ master developer. Citing laissez-faire entrepots such as Hong Kong and Singapore as examples, the company’s founders believe that strong property rights and business-friendly regulation are key to creating jobs, stimulating investment, and lifting millions out of poverty, a la China’s special economic zones. "The evidence is much stronger," Friedman replies when asked if he’s building another libertarian utopia, "that rule of law, fairness, and a lack of corruption leads to more economic growth than low taxes." (Not that they’re mutually exclusive, as Singapore demonstrates.)

Instead of seasteading, Future Cities is modeling itself on “charter cities.” The brainchild of New York University economist Paul Romer (read his thoughts on FCI here), a charter city combines a host nation’s vacant land (in this case, Honduras) with the legal system and institutions of another (e.g. Canada) and residents drawn from anywhere. Romer’s central insight is that good governance is transplantable—rather than wait for a basket case nation to come around begging, a charter city could help show it the way, as Hong Kong did for Deng Xiaoping.

Romer spent two years jetting across Africa fruitlessly searching for takers before aides to Honduran president Porfirio Lobo stumbled across his idea last fall. In February, the Honduran Congress voted to amend the constitution to create Special Development Regions (called REDs) in order to implement his ideas. But it wasn’t an exclusive deal. Romer says he first heard of FCD a month ago when its proposal was brought before the committee which oversees the REDs (of which Romer is a member).

Future Cities’ marketing materials quote Romer repeatedly and explicitly cites charter cities as “our model.” For his part, Romer emphasizes that he has no involvement with FCD and cites his nonprofit think tank’s strict conflict-of-interest policy. While Romer shares the belief that neoliberal globalization can be harnessed toward humanitarian ends by creating work, skills, and a path out of poverty where there currently is none, he has no intentions of making money while doing it. (Friedman says his company is "inspired" by Romer’s model and didn’t mean to imply there was any relationship between the two.)

It remains to be seen whether FCD’s non-binding agreement with Honduras will proceed, or whether its leaders will elect to stick with Romer’s charter city for now. One thing that seems certain is that the FCD’s interest in Honduras—the recent site of a coup, human rights abuses, and land seizures—will bring a fresh round of criticism to the charter city model. While Romer has been battling unflattering comparisons to colonialism since he first presented the idea, FCD’s sudden interest in Honduras reads like an epilogue to The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein’s 2007 book tracing the checkered history of free market reforms in the wake of political crises (think 1970s Chile, 1990s Russia or 2000s Iraq). The Doctrine’s godfathers, in Klein’s telling, are Milton Friedman and his disciples in the University of Chicago’s economics department. Now it appears his grandson is offering to experiment with the legal system of one of Latin America’s poorest countries.

Friedman’s board members include Giancarlo Ibárgüen, president of University Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala City, Guatemala, a hotbed of libertarian thought where the library is named after Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and busts of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman decorate the campus. Ibárgüen is also a cofounder of the recently announced Free Cities Institute with Michael Strong, an associate (and arch-defender) of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey.

"The real audience that matters most is not the Naomi Kleins of the old," Patri Friedman says defiantly, "but the people of Honduras. If we can create jobs" and build a better city than the ones they have, "they’ll be happy."

[Elvis]

In the year 2154, the very wealthy live on Elysium, a stanford torus[6][7] high-tech utopian metropolis located in orbit around Earth that is free of crime, war, poverty, hunger, and diseases, while everyone else lives on an overpopulated, ruined Earth below. The citizens of Elysium live a life of luxury which includes access to private medical machines that offer instant cures, while the citizens of the Earth struggle to survive on a daily basis and are desperate to escape the planet. Those who maintain Elysium will stop at nothing to enforce anti-immigration laws and preserve their citizens' lifestyle, even destroying ships that attempt to get there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)

[KeenInsight]

Don't worry the Giant Squids and sea creatures will rise up to destroy their castles.

[Iamwhomiam]

I'd call him a jackass for choosing one of the most unstable volcanic fault zones on earth as a location to build his libertarian utopia, but the real jackasses are those who will invest in his project and will make him rich, er, richer.

[nashvillebrook]

So, I read the entire 2010 Mark Ames piece thinking this reminds me of the Elysium movie coming out this month. Then flip to page 4 and realize, duh, that's why the thread got bumped.

Goes to show that the best nova fictums are actual real life dystopias.

[Luther Blissett]

I saw Elysium last night. There will be some spoilers in the following post. I wouldn't normally go easy on a Hollywood blockbuster, but I think there's a pretty high degree of truthtelling in the film.

My main complaint is that it is extremely violent, but never in a pro-military, pro-macho way. The protagonists are mostly weakened people, and the jockier, beefier types are all antagonists. It is worth noting here that the main villain, essentially a CIA sleeper asset in a stay-behind Gladio-style mission on earth who is "activated" when his handler calls on him, is played by South African actor Sharlto Copley, the unlikely hero of District 9.

The basic premise of this film, 140 years in the future, is a serious, sober take in the vein of the comedy Idiocracy or the children's film Wall-E. I presumed that Earth's problems have arisen from climate change; Earth in shots from space appears to have undergone mass desertification in sub-Saharan Africa, throughout the Caucasus, and South Asia. There is no greenery in terrestrial scenes. The filmmakers pull no punches that the citizens of Elysium are overwhelmingly white aside from puppet figureheads, interpreted as feel-good, self-congratulatory post-racialism. Curiously enough, French is spoken widely on Elysium. Back in the Mexico City-, favela-like Los Angeles, the vast majority of the population is Latino and Spanish is broadly spoken, often by the orphan protagonist.

If it wasn't obvious from the trailer, Elysium is a billionaires' libertarian space yacht. Children are murdered to avoid despoiling it. Medical science can cure anything for them and none of them seem to work. There is one military-industrial complex figurehead who has to ferret back and forth, winning no-bid contracts from the military, and he is a typical know-nothing, oblivious yet evil corporate CEO. Work in the factories producing service/security droids is grimy and dangerous, and any interface between humans and the completed, humorless droids was nerve-wracking.

The clear heroes were the hackers / non-whites, the white oppressors preyed upon not only blacks, Latinos, and poor whites but also their own assets, and the women characters were given the dignity of not being subjected to romantic plot devices (though it only barely passes the Bechdel test). I really liked the message and aesthetics of District 9, and I really liked this one. I went in assuming there would be some Avengers or Batman-like pro-war or pro-security state theme.

[elfismiles]

Nice treatment / review LB. I saw it last weekend and very much enjoyed it. There was plenty about it towards the end that I didn't like as much as the earlier part of the film but I thought it had a pretty good message.

I saw Elysium last night. There will be some spoilers in the following post. I wouldn't normally go easy on a Hollywood blockbuster, but I think there's a pretty high degree of truthtelling in the film. .

[Luther Blissett]

As inequality soars, the nervous super rich are already planning their escapes
Hedge fund managers are preparing getaways by buying airstrips and farms in remote areas, former hedge fund partner tells Davos during session on inequality

Alec Hogg in Davos
Friday 23 January 2015 10.10 EST

With growing inequality and the civil unrest from Ferguson and the Occupy protests fresh in people’s mind, the world’s super rich are already preparing for the consequences. At a packed session in Davos, former hedge fund director Robert Johnson revealed that worried hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said.

Johnson, who heads the Institute of New Economic Thinking and was previously managing director at Soros, said societies can tolerate income inequality if the income floor is high enough. But with an existing system encouraging chief executives to take decisions solely on their profitability, even in the richest countries inequality is increasing.

Johnson added: “People need to know there are possibilities for their children – that they will have the same opportunity as anyone else. There is a wicked feedback loop. Politicians who get more money tend to use it to get more even money.”

Global warming and social media are among the trends the 600 super-smart World Economic Forum staffers told its members to watch out for long before they became ubiquitous. This year, income inequality is fast moving up the Davos agenda – a sure sign of it is poised to burst into the public consciousness.

Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and a Davos star attraction after giving the closing address in 2014, said he had spent a lot of time learning from the leaders behind recent social unrest in Ferguson. He believes that will prove “a catalytic event” which has already changed the conversation in the US, bringing a message from those who previously “didn’t matter”.

But as former New Zealand prime minister and now UN development head Helen Clark explained, rather than being a game changer, recent examples suggest the Ferguson movement may soon be forgotten. “We saw Occupy flare up and then fade like many others like it,” Clark said. “The problem movements like these have is stickability. The challenge is for them to build structures that are ongoing; to sustain these new voices.”

So what is the solution to having the new voices being sufficiently recognised to actually change the status quo into one where those with power realise they do matter?

Clark said: “Solutions are there. What’s been lacking is political will. Politicians do not respond to those who don’t have a voice In the end this is all about redistributing income and power.”

She added: “Seventy five percent of people in developing countries live in places that are less equal than they were in 1990.”

The panellists were scathing about politicians, Wallis describing them as people who held up wet fingers “to see which way the money is blowing in from.”

Author, philosopher and former academic Rebecca Newberger-Goldstein saw the glass half full, drawing on history to prove society does eventually change for the better. She said Martin Luther King was correct in his view that the arch of history might be long, but it bends towards justice.

In ancient Greece, she noted, even the greatest moralists like Plato and Aristotle never criticised slavery. Newberger-Goldstein said: “We’ve come a long way as a species. The truth is now dawning that everybody matters because the concept of mattering is at the core of every human being.” Knowing you matter, she added, is often as simple as having others “acknowledge the pathos and reality of your stories. To listen.”

Mexican micro-lending entrepreneur Carlos Danel expanded on the theme. His business, Gentera, has thrived by working out that “those excluded are not the problem but realising there’s an opportunity to serve them.”

He added: “Technology provides advantages that can lower costs and enable us to provide products and services that matter to the people who don’t seem to matter to society. And that’s beyond financial services – into education and elsewhere.”

Which, Danel believes, is why business was created in the first place – to serve. A message that seemed to get lost somewhere in the worship of profit.

[coffin_dodger]

Hedge fund managers are preparing getaways by buying airstrips and farms in remote areas

They're deluded. No amount of private jets or arable land is going to alter what's happening (and continuing to gain traction) inside these peoples' minds. Their lives are already full of fear - due to their own insatiable ego - and there certainly won't be any less fear should they ever need to retreat to their fortresses. They're headed for extinction, one way or the other - and by their own hand. Delicious.

[Luther Blissett]

Luxury Panic Rooms and VIP Evacuation Services Are in High Demand

Celebrities and the super-wealthy are turning to stealth safe rooms and SWAT-like security teams

Protecting the rich and famous is a serious business. That's why many prominent celebrities, athletes, and business tycoons are taking control of their safety and installing safe rooms, often referred to as "panic rooms," in their homes. "It's not a luxury; it's a necessity," say Darren Sukenik, luxury sales broker with Douglas Elliman in New York, "for anyone with significant means or significant staff, or a coterie of people coming in and out of the house."

A panic room is most successful based on its ability to camouflage itself: An extra bedroom, unused maid's quarters, or a few closets that are strategically eliminated from the floor plan provide the most clandestine locations, hidden behind fake bookshelves or doors. Entry requires a passcode or combination, and, in some situations, thumbprints. Common requests include everything from generators and infrared surveillance systems to sleeping quarters and an escape tunnel. Many come equipped with Kevlar lining and autonomous air-filtration systems.

Sukenik says that in the luxury home sales market, a property with a safe room is even more desirable to prominent buyers, particularly if it's able to serve double duty.

"A lot of women use it as a dressing room. It truly is your own bank vault in your house. People could also use it as a wine cellar, because they're climate controlled. They could use it for cigars, jewelry, papers," Sukenik says. "It could be a room that's actually used, but completely fire rated or flood protected—and locked off."

"Mostly what we do is more of a useful space than a secluded room," says Chris Cosban, owner of Covert Interiors in New York and the Hamptons. "It could be a home office, or a pantry in a kitchen that we make look like a bookcase, that also acts as a vault room in case of an intruder or an attacker."

The Hamptons are a specifically popular venue for safe rooms, especially since people don't have doormen as a protective barrier as they would in the city. But of course it also provides prime bragging rights.

"People in the Hamptons, a lot of it is for people to say, 'I have a panic room.' They have indoor pools, a bowling alley, a bar, and they need something else," says Cosban. "It's a conversation piece."

Of course, if you're looking to install a safe room into your existing property, it'll cost you: Sukenik estimates that for a hidden space that requires cordoning off a room, it can cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Many prominent actors, politicians, and financial bigwigs have gone a step further in their mission to protect themselves and their families. Advanced Personal Protective Security Specialists, or APPSS, are an extreme level of experts equipped to protect you from everything from burglaries and terrorist attacks to kidnappings for ransom. But these highly trained professionals are hardly your average security workers. According to Courtney Sojka, president of Ballistic Security Enterprises, the training process is comparable to a mix of the U.S. Marine Corps and the Secret Service.
"It's extensive and exhaustive, and they're training you to provide service in the most hostile climates overseas," says Sojka. "We're highly trained tacticians."

The rich and famous might not be as safe as they think, says Sojka, who adds that high-net-worth individuals may have fifty people watching out for their financial portfolio but lackluster security protecting them personally. "Taylor Swift's place was infiltrated by a guy in a wetsuit," says Sojka.

"If you were my VIP, and let's say you were the inventor of some sort of new military technology that can erase a population at the stroke of a wand, and you go out to dinner with your family and people catch wind of that, and they don't like you for what you do, they start protesting out in front of the restaurant," says Sojka. "If they can reach out and touch you, they can kill you."

Though having the opportunity to call 911 is important, having the ability to protect oneself proactively will save your life.

"Police are a reactionary element," says Sojka. "That's why you employ people especially to protect you—so you can relax and enjoy life."

[semper occultus]

I can't run to the cost of a panic room so I've just got a lamp shade I'm going to put on my head whilst I stand in the corner

[Iamwhomiam]

That was pretty funny, semper!

Someone in another thread the other day mentioned Mercer's yacht or maybe it was an older post I just then noticed, but it made me curious and searched for it and found it, the 62 meter Sea Owl featured in a boating superyacht magazine.

http://www.boatinternational.com/yachts ... dship--325

Many of this class will be headed for the high seas, protected by their private armadas.

I was once hired as a ship's carpenter for Seafarer Yachts, but the union pay was low and inadequate, so I passed it by. I figured I already was paying for their enrichment; I'll be damned if I'll work to make their leisure time more enjoyable.

[Elvis]

Mercer's yacht or maybe it was an older post I just then noticed, but it made me curious and searched for it and found it, the 62 meter Sea Owl featured in a boating superyacht magazine.

http://www.boatinternational.com/yachts ... dship--325

Nice boat. I don't like the dining room, I would do something completely different with it.