Tech Billionaires Launch Fund to Create New Libertarian Societies
Tech Billionaires Launch Fund to Create New Libertarian Societies
The Balaji Fund, backed by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and other wealthy tech players, aims to fund “Network States” free of overbearing regulations.
More efforts from tech bros to build Rapture.
Interesting quotes:
it had backing from tech heavyweights such as billionaire Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant, and venture capitalist** Fred Wilson**, a Coinbase board member who sold his shares in the company for $1.8 billion after it went public in 2021.
“Bitcoin, if it wins, completely changes the world, because it changes the ability of centralized states to do what they’ve been doing,” Srinivisan said in a presentation delivered to a Bitcoin conference in Amsterdam in October.
The Bitcoin-based Network State will be based on “internet values” such as “open source” and “peer-to-peer,” Srinivasan has written.
An utopia run on Bitcoin? What could possibly go wrong?
'Tech Billionaires give all wealth away to end world hunger.' 'Tech Billionaires lobby for wealth tax with national governments.' 'Tech Billionaires realize they are normal people like anyone else, not super smart world-saving geniuses, and finally shut the fuck up.'
Now these would be news.
That last one reads like an Onion headline lol
Quick! Call the press!
this comment made me feel the draw of dillusional thought, it felt good to read those fake headlines and I didn't want it to stop
Libertarianism requires its members to engage in due diligence in order to execute their libertarian ideals properly and make the choices that are correct for them.
This, unfortunately, excludes the lower-60% of all Americans, who are so ground down, economically terrorized, and mentally overwhelmed with their daily struggles to survive that they have little to no opportunity to approach any major choice with anything even vaguely in the realm of due diligence. They just don’t have the headspace to do so, and are forced to spend all their available mental efforts on just putting one financial foot in front of the other.
This is why having social support frameworks enforced/provided/funded by the government is so important for so many working-class people - it allows them to put those issues on autopilot, significantly reducing their own cognitive load and allowing them to better process the most important issues in their lives.
Ergo, libertarianism is a wealthy person’s toy. It is something that they can champion, because only they have the economic options and financial freedom to fully and properly engage with it.
Until everyone has vanishingly few catastrophic-level issues on the horizon (like one missed paycheque leading to homelessness, or a sudden illness leading to medical bankruptcy), any attempt to implement libertarianism will only bring mass amounts of misery and destroyed lives to anyone beneath the Parasite Class.
And when you have those kinds of widespread government-provided supports that lift all boats - and not just the megayachts - why bother with libertarianism? We should continue to use what got everyone into that safe state in the first place -- socialism.
Remember, the Parasite Class already uses socialism for themselves. It’s called grants and bailouts and subsidies, and allows the Parasite Class to privatize the profits and socialize the losses.
It’s just at a scale that makes it impossible for working-class people to leverage.
any attempt to implement libertarianism will only bring mass amounts of misery and destroyed lives to anyone beneath the Parasite Class.
This is a feature, not a bug
This is the far right libertarianism, which has essentially become an extremist, authoritarian form of capitalism. In essence, those with immense power tell us that nobody has any right to oversight and regulation over others. Their power becomes insurmountable, and their control over the economy becomes absolute. We live according to the standards they provide, because we have no alternative.
Every system of government becomes corrupted like this when thieves and liars take control. This is not libertarianism, it is simply the flavor of authoritarianism this go 'round.
Real liberterianism comes in many forms, along the left to right spectrum. On the left, there is a belief in redistribution of natural resources to the community. Personally, I believe we should be embracing local cooperatives for food, energy, medical care, and beyond. On the right, there is more allowance for imbalance by embracing business to drive innovation. Those who innovate succeed, and accrue wealth. But a true libertarian should support a near 100% estate tax, which would limit the imbalance, because you should have what you've earned for yourself.
The thing that we lost that leads libertarianism to fail, is our sense of community, a sense of humanity. A responsibility when you see your neighbors suffering, to help them. Once the rich went off to live in their ivory towers, they lost sight of the rest of us.
I don't see how any system could succeed, considering the circumstances.
[Edit] And honestly, we need to stop vilifying entire philosophies because they were previously corrupted. Just because communism was implemented in a manner that oppressed millions, doesn't mean there is no good to the philosophies behind it and socialism.
We should be borrowing the good from everything, and remembering the bad. A blanket condemnation of failed experiments makes both impossible. No singular philosophy will be effective in this imperfect world, only in theory is that level of refinement possible.
I'm a libertarian in Brazil, so my takes may be different from yours (I'm not even sure if the word means the same thing for me and for native English speakers).
This is the far right libertarianism, which has essentially become an extremist, authoritarian form of capitalism. In essence, those with immense power tell us that nobody has any right to oversight and regulation over others. Their power becomes insurmountable, and their control over the economy becomes absolute. We live according to the standards they provide, because we have no alternative.
Big corporations (which, I agree, are a cancer to society) lobby regulatory powers to weaken local and mid business and to evade taxes in ways small business simply can't, that's the source of their power. A lack of government regulation would not be good for them, because it would empower their competition, and that's the last thing they want.
I don't see how any system could succeed, considering the circumstances.
To me, the big problem with libertarianism is that it requires a big level of maturity from the population. It requires private regulatory and certification companies, union of workers to seek working rights in a non-violent way, and people to support charity initiatives that help the poor and endangered. All of that is not impossible, but people are very used to that being a government responsibility, it won't happen over night
The basic idea is that the West has declined irrevocably, beginning with what Srinivisan calls the birth of the centralized state that disempowered wealthy industrialists with antitrust laws, securities regulation, central banking, and adversarial journalism. Now, the thinking goes, we’re on the backswing with wealthy individuals reclaiming their power over supposedly corrupt public institutions, and we have the internet and its currency—Bitcoin—to lead us out of the darkness.
So the billionaire techbros feel powerless (wtf) and are offended by criticism (oof) so they want their own techbro dictatorship with no free press. Also please no peasant to support, only exploit. Got it.
Libertarians are mostly just neoliberals who are upset they're not allowed to be more psycopathic.
Their new utopia will tear itself apart with greed, drugs and sex abuse just like all the old ones.
It's been said that libertarians are republicans that want to take acid.
I pull the same quotes you bolded to rip into that. They’re about to rediscover things like pricing cartels, company script, and child labor. Either they all pool all of their money together and collaborate to take advantage of everything together or they fall apart as they get fucked by each other and start reinventing the same rules we’ve made over the last several centuries. I kinda feel like the latter is more likely given how much ego all these coffin dodgers have and how close pooling resources + working together for the common good is to nasty things like socialism.
Lets just call them what they are, oligarchs
I feel like they are more dangerous than oligarchs.
Look at Russian oligarchs. They don't try to change the world. They know they are not welcomed so just buy properties at London, buy yachts, etc. and then enjoy what they have.
Tech libertarians seem to view themselves as savior of the world and attempts to change it (for the worse).
Wait, they want to put all the assholes in one place? We should let them, it'll make it easier later.
But part of it is decentralized! Can't we just slap a blockchain on anything and declare the whole thing immune to coercion? /s
Cancer on society decides to form a tumour.
I give them three months before the new society collapses due to arguments over age of consent.
We can only hope that, like the citizens of Rapture, the rich tech-bros go insane from their own fumes and start eating each other.
While also doing body horror.
No society should accept billionaires. There are so many other people who are in dire need. It makes zero difference if they have a billion or a 100 million.
didn't they try this in el salvador and it flopped?
I feel like I already watched this Documentary. It did not end well.
I wish them luck. It's good for people to try new things. I won't be moving there though.
I hope they get eaten by bears.
https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
I bet Wish Version Lex Luthor in the thumbnail photo is extra crunchy. Bears like that because it helps clean their teeth.
This is the classic example.
Below one is also super fun: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/30/colorado-springs-libertarian-experiment-america-215313/
Take the streetlights. Turning them off had saved the city about $1.25 million. What had not made the national news stories was what had happened while those lights were off. Copper thieves, emboldened by the opportunity to work without fear of electrocution, had worked overtime scavenging wire. Some, the City Council learned, had even dressed up as utility workers and pried open the boxes at the base of streetlights in broad daylight. Keeping the lights off might have saved some money in the short term, but the cost to fix what had been stolen ran to some $5 million.
FREEDOM TO STEAL!!!
Of course "libertarian" here is code for "oligarchy", because they know modern libertarians in the US are aggressively apathetic, will let them get away with anything, and thus form a perfect base to appeal to and dominate.
Srinivasan has floated the car-free Culdesac private community in Tempe and the Peter Thiel-backed Próspera in Honduras as examples of currently-existing proto-Network States.
“Suppose you found a new startup society like Culdesac on the basis of car-free living…which is an innovation in parallel transportation.
Is "fuck cars" libertarian?
Maybe in a twisted thought process: privatized public transport for the masses, and because the rich have no actual restrictions in reality, I’m sure they can drive a car if they want to.
Good question. Since "libertarian" in practice always becomes some form of authoritarian state. They just jumped a few steps ahead.
On the other hand though, car-free city sounds so nice.
"libertarian" in practice always becomes some form of authoritarian state.
What has been libertarian in practice?
Until a Libertarian decides he wants to drive a car. You can't expect discipline from these assholes.
Nearly all pollution violates the NAP
And yet...
Libertarians are just conservatives who are ok with weed and gay people
The only libertarian I personally know is anti-LGBT+, just not as rabidly outspoken about it as a "regular" conservative. He's the sort who'd be happy with gay people being murdered on the streets as long as he doesn't have to do it himself
That is my observation as well. When it really comes to personal liberty they don't really care. Remember that libertarian tech bro like Peter Thiel (who is gay btw) somehow thought the world is "too woke" and continues to fund conservative politicians taking away gay rights.
Hey now that's not all they are. A concerning number of them also don't like statutory rape laws
Now that's a true marketplace! (Feels weird to even joke about it)
@sculd freaking Ayn Rand cult strikes again. These 1%ers think they are THE new world order. Regulations are needed to protect our basic human rights from these folks. To piss them off, just say "you didn't build that" .
Yea, Atlas Shrugged really presented a very naive and simplistic world view that cannot work in real life. The capitalists all fuck off to build a city? Who is going to build them? Right. The workers. The workers that they despise.
Hey! Behind the Bastards is really a great podcast! I listened to this episode and its hilarious!
Libertarians (n., plural) - Sooo…. Conservatives.
Perhaps they can take all the asshole Republicans (leaving the reasonable ones…I know, not many left) with them and we can be left with a society that doesn’t suck and is instead filled with leadership that may have opposing viewpoints, but are willing to compromise — like, you know, mature, scientific, educated adults would.
@sculd 'Libertarian society' is the political equivalent of 'jumbo shrimp.'
@sculd We have corrupt states and corrupt billionaires. Neither is good
Neither are good but if I have to choose one....Corrupt state usually need to pretend they are doing good. Billionaires just say fuck you
@sculd
Human societies have periodically tried Plutocracy. It never ends well, usually ended in warlord periods, famines, servility for the masses, and mass slavery.
As a libertarian, I don't trust these billionaires a single bit to do it.
They are not libertarians, they don't care about the free market, small local business, regulatory and certification companies, or what else. They are very happy to lobby the government to enforce any anticompetitive practices that will benefit them in the long run. They probably just want a new way to evade taxes, they don't give two fucks about libertarianism.
Sadly, tech bros won't see through it and will hype anything these clowns do.
My favorite Libertarian society experiment. I mean, it's the only one that I'm aware of, but that it ended about as well as you'd expect is just fantastic.
The bear one. Yes the classic!
