Monday, January 2, 2017

The Rich Want Their Own Countries

Seasteading is the latest attempt by the rich to form their own sovereign nations to avoid paying taxes:

A futuristic plan to build a floating techno-libertarian city in a French Polynesian lagoon has left some local residents worried they could be the next unsuspecting inhabitants of a peaceful planet in a science-fiction movie.

“It reminds me of the innocent Ewoks of the moon of Endor who saw in the Galactic Empire a providential manna,” said Tahitian TV host Alexandre Taliercio. “They let them build what they wanted on earth and in orbit, but that’s not to say that the Empire shared the blueprints of the Death Star with them.”

The proposal for a seastead - an autonomous oceanic colony; think homesteading, but wetter - took a significant step on Christmas Day, when a Silicon Valley group announced it had reached an agreement with the French Polynesian government, with officials poised to explore serving as the group’s host.

Seasteaders said it was a breakthrough that could change the world, but Taliercio worried that rich Americans simply wanted to use his home to dodge taxes.

“These millionaires,” he said, “lulled by an illusory desire to free themselves from the existing states, seem to have much more to gain than we do.”

You can read the rest @
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/02/seasteading-peter-thiel-french-polynesia

How many of you have read Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged? At the end of that story, all the rich (allegedly the victimized "producers" of the world) moved to a private enclave called "Galt's Gulch" where they hid themselves from We The People, whom they regarded as nonproductive parasites.

I guess we should call this seasteading project "Thiel's Gulch", or something along those lines.

The Polynesian critics of this plan are right - it's mainly a tax dodge. Note well how the rich (oligarchs, bankgangsters, and corporate CEOs) are trying mightily to destroy the sovereign nation states of We The People, yet at the same time are striving to establish sovereign states of their own.

If we let them do this, the tax bases of the world will flee to the seasteads, leaving the remaining nation states bankrupt. At that point, those of us not living in a seastead will have no way to support ourselves (by then robots will have taken all our jobs) and there will be no social safety net.

Yes, this is a "breakthrough that could change the world". It will create a hell on earth.

DO NOT LET THEM DO THIS TO US !!!

2 comments:

  1. By the way, Peter Thiel is a big Trump supporter. If he persuades Trump to help him create the seastead, most of Trump's promises will become impossible to fulfill. I wonder if he knows that?

    ReplyDelete