Telegram Archive - week 27, 2025
- 5 minutes read - 1056 wordsLee Kuan Yew says that air conditioning was an important factor to Singapore’s success.
Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics.
Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency.
To create a new country in today’s world, you generally need to:
Identify a real or perceived conflict of interest — and then offer a compelling solution through independence or new governance.
It doesn’t have to be violent or hostile, but without some form of conflict (usually political, economic, or identity-based), there’s no reason for a new country to exist.
Well, that settles it, and I suppose we just got to pack it in and not try it, boys. No, in all seriousness, there is certainly a case to be made that attempting to essentially buy sovereignty runs contrary to so-called jus cogens or peremptory norms.
But I’ll see that and raise it Pacta sunt servanda—that is to say, that if concluded by a treaty, we’ll just have to see where the chips fall!
Plenty of countries have emerged via treaty, like in Pressburg 1805.
Anyway, we’re having a beautiful erev Shabbes on this American Independence Day, so I’ll have more later.
I’ll run through a hypothetical example now that I’ve had some food and I’m sitting in my air-conditioned bedroom.
So let’s suppose the Republic of XYZ has, I don’t know, let’s call it a patch of 10 square kilometres somewhere that the government of the Republic of XYZ owns and nobody lives there, and nobody is disputing that the government has completely clear title to this 10 square kilometres.
Now let’s suppose you’re heading up a consortium but want to set up a new independent country and you’re in negotiations with the government of the Republic of XYZ. After a few glasses of single malt and a cigar or two, you figured that maybe it would be worth following the doctrine of Uti possidetis juris.
So what you do is, in discussion with the government of XYZ, you work through whatever constitutional and legal channels exist to designate this 10 square kilometre patch a new administrative region. Let’s call it the province of ABC.
And what happens is, you and a team of pioneers or settlers or whatever you want to call them lawfully immigrate to this new province of ABC, and you do so with the full support of the government of XYZ in contemplation of a plebiscite via referendum.
Okay, I’ll pause here, but anyway, yeah, there are different lawful methods using existing international law conventions, treaties, and frameworks to get the job done, but subject to lots of interpretation.
But to answer the original point, it is true that on this July 4th the United States doesn’t celebrate its independence on September 3rd, when the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783 ending the War of Independence, nor does the United States celebrate its birthday on February 6th, when the Kingdom of France recognised the United States.
So do I stand corrected? No, and the reason why is because if you win a revolution or a war of independence, then as the winner you get to set your birthday to when you first declared yourself free.
Okay, I’ll stop filibustering for now, and a very smart person has suggested that I write a book on this subject. I think what I’m going to do is lay out some possible avenues and then get some seasoned international law professors to rip it to shreds or to steelman it, so that what will emerge will be something more tenable.
But the bigger question beyond that is: whatever emerges, will it be sellable and palatable enough for an existing country to make a deal?
Haven’t heard of this one before, but it’s unlikely to succeed, though they are using some good thinking.
I wonder, if they do succeed, if other areas will follow suit.
I do wish them the best, and it may make sense to see how amenable to free market capitalism they are.
I’m thinking maybe along the lines of what Indian reservations in North America are like.
I don’t know, just thinking off the top of my head.
“A difference is a difference only if it makes a difference.”
Nothing of significance is happening in the direction of freedom.