Telegram Archive - week 25, 2025
- 11 minutes read - 2328 words
So, I just got off the horn with one of the investors in Tipolis.com, which seeks to set up so-called free cities or free private cities in different parts of the world. He made the gentle critique that going public with being in the country creation business could potentially backfire in the form of scaring people and partnering countries.
Quite frankly, I have to admit this is something that I have also thought of, and there’s a lot of veracity to this gentleman’s critique. The thing is, I’m not certain that incrementalism is the right answer and is so ethical. I’m more into transparency, honesty, and openness, to the extent that one can be without giving away the secret sauce, so to speak.
Anyway, I like getting some pushback, and I think it’s good. No rush to reply, but what do you think? Because I’m not so interested in stealth mode at this point, but I do understand there’s a case to be made for it.
Okay, I will pause here for now.
My answer is in two parts. First, it’s too early to look for investors, since we cannot promise them return on investment without having at least a charter in a particlar territory. We need donations, not investments, which will be used for propaganda and travel expenses.
Second, investors should also realize that their investment will be precarious if the host country can change the carpet under their feet. Do they want to invest in another Freeport, Bahamas? Some will say yes, but some will say no. We need those investors who say no.
So get this — I spoke with an extraordinarily wealthy VC, and he also made the same point that it’s still incredibly too early.
And the irony is, I told him — along with this minor investor that I spoke with before him — that I’m not looking for money, I’m just looking for friends at this stage anyway.
The thing is, the wealthy VC I spoke with late last night was telling me that he has everything he needs, so this doesn’t exactly appeal to him. And so I told him, right, that’s great — the thing is, some of the stuff that you’re supporting can be rugged a lot easier, and while you’re enjoying the great lifestyle, why not scale that to others?
And I think my rebuttals had him thinking.
But yeah, two of the guys that I spoke with recently that offered pushback were expressing concerns geopolitically about what we’re doing.
But to answer you more fully — that’s exactly why I do think it makes sense to continue building out this think tank and policy institute: to give this entire industry some more credibility and legitimacy, so that it can become an investment-grade asset class, which it needs to become.
Rather than having guys telling me, “Oh, just go into stealth mode and act like Satoshi Nakamoto,” and all this other stuff — which I’ve already thought of, and I’m just not so interested in doing.
I’ve been in communication with all sorts of people lately who have extraordinarily deep pockets, and I think they’ve been a lot more receptive because the think tank and policy institute that I’ve been mounting is not soliciting donations.
So I think that has been really helpful, but not entirely the reason guys are picking up the phone.
I think a lot of it also has to do with there being an arrogance that this is an interesting subject — that we’re presenting something that perks the ears up, so to speak, because it’s not every day that someone is presenting the ideas that you and I talk about.
But yeah, I totally hear what you’re saying.
Andrew, I see in Article 26 – Language and Translation of the Statute (https://www.startupstates.ch/SSSStatutes.pdf) that the official working language of the Association is English. ‘The official working language of the Association shall be English, and all internal and external communications shall adhere to British English spelling.’
However, for some reason, the website’s menu on my site is in French. Is this because I am from France, or is the menu really in French for now?
That’s a good observation. You’re right, there’s a contradiction there, and that’s because I was getting a little creative.
Anyway, I’m going to be revising the statutes to allow for some French language usage to dress it up on occasion. I’m also going to be revising the statutes slightly because I might be changing the mailing address and one of the founders.
Otherwise, just about everything will stay the same in the statutes. I think they are exceptionally well written and far better than the standard boilerplate stuff that exists. It took me a lot of editing to get it right, and it’s still not perfect, but it’s still pretty darn good.
I think after tonight I will have two good, strong advisors for the society, and then I’ll probably slowly be making more public disseminations before expanding.
But I do appreciate you pointing these things out — it’s really helpful, so thank you.
So if I’m understanding Harry correctly, he’s making the assertion that because the Islamic Republic doesn’t have legitimacy and systematically denies its people its rights, therefore it does not have sovereignty and is fair game?
From a moral and philosophical perspective, I suspect there’s something to what he’s writing. But doesn’t that also open the door to denying the sovereignty of many other different countries too?
Whether we like it or not, to the extent that there is international law, Iran is still an actor and still has statehood.
So even a France or an Italy that have high marginal tax rates, with lots of regulation in their economy, would still be legitimate because they have mostly free elections and they, for the most part, protect the individual liberty and property of their citizens?
Yeah, I buy that, and ideally that is the way it should be, so that incentivises countries to want to do this and further reinforces the message to those that already do.
So South Korea, using this rubric, is legitimate and sovereign, whereas the North, not so much.
There’s a structure/shape of an idea, and then there’s “filling”. The shape of the two following ideas is the same:
“Country/regime which doesn’t have free speech, an objective political process, and doesn’t try to protect individual rights is not legitimate”
“Country/regime which rejects Allah and Islam is not legitimate”
The idea with such shape seems to condone forceful destruction - if X is not legitimate, it is (1) legitimate to dismantle it, and (2) it should be done, regardless what X thinks or says about it.
There are ideas which have different shape.
The goal of war is to defeat the enemy’s will to fight. But how this can be accomplished is a thorny issue. Nothing Less than Victory provocatively shows that aggressive, strategic military offenses can win wars and establish lasting peace, while defensive maneuvers have often led to prolonged carnage, indecision, and stalemate. Taking an ambitious and sweeping look at six major wars, from antiquity to World War II, John David Lewis shows how victorious military commanders have achieved long-term peace by identifying the core of the enemy’s ideological, political, and social support for a war, fiercely striking at this objective, and demanding that the enemy acknowledges its defeat.
Lewis examines the Greco-Persian and Theban wars, the Second Punic War, Aurelian’s wars to reunify Rome, the American Civil War, and the Second World War. He considers successful examples of overwhelming force, such as the Greek mutilation of Xerxes’ army and navy, the Theban-led invasion of the Spartan homeland, and Hannibal’s attack against Italy―as well as failed tactics of defense, including Fabius’s policy of delay, McClellan’s retreat from Richmond, and Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. Lewis shows that a war’s endurance rests in each side’s reasoning, moral purpose, and commitment to fight, and why an effectively aimed, well-planned, and quickly executed offense can end a conflict and create the conditions needed for long-term peace.
Recognizing the human motivations behind military conflicts, Nothing Less than Victory makes a powerful case for offensive actions in pursuit of peace.
I was parallel parking a car yesterday, and a few cars behind me pateintly waited. I too wait, when someone parallel parks in front of me. Why we all wait politely, and don’t honk? Because we recognize the principle that just as others wait for me, I have to wait for them – we are in the same boat, in the same situation, when parallel parking. Same goes for cheating in the HOV lane. The HOV lane, in which you can drive if you have at least 2 people in the car, is a great time saver when you have a child and rushing to bring him to school. I am sure that recognition of this fact makes a lot of drivers not try to drive in the HOV lane illegaly – I can say that that’s what stops me when I am alone in the car.
How is this related? It’s a demonstration of the concept principle. The form you talk about is a principle. In particular, if you think that a country X has no right to exist, you have the moral right to attack it. I consider this principle valid.
Do not confuse this with the situation in which if you have that if your neighbour has a wrong philosophy. In that case you cannot attack him. The differenece is that a country is a system of involving many people. A country like USSR, Iran, Saudi Arabia – it forced people, it denied individual rights. But a neighbour hurts no one except himself.
Countries can contain any number of different nations within them, and sometimes a nation can be split among different states.
Let’s suppose a state came into existence without coercion, corruption, colonialism, or other such means, and without the displacement of any peoples.
How would you feel about the existence of a state that was formed with those origins, that has no debt, and does not tax its citizens?
