Welcome to the Free Cities podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast
of the Free Cities Foundation.
Hello and welcome to this episode number 160 of the Free Cities podcast,
brought to you by the wonderful Veritas Villages. They're building off-grid freedom-oriented
communities in Latin America. And these communities will more certainly appeal to you
if you're a freedom lover looking to live amongst like-minded individuals. They've got places in
nicaragua in panama and a new one in costa rica and if you're a bitcoiner well you can buy your
property with bitcoin and spend bitcoin at all communities www.veritasvillages.com forward slash
free cities everything in the show notes and i'm just looking at an email i got from them
the other day it says that two prime beachfront residences have just become available for sale
they've just been built and they have something called preferred pricing on them this means that
the price is held until the end of 2025 so you've got about a month left because construction and
material reviews take place regularly in these inflationary times as you can imagine and the
price is frozen until the 31st of december i'm just looking at the two available here
wow that beachfront one is absolutely prime how much is it three that's what three hundred and
forty thousand pounds for a beachfront three bedroom two and a half bath house overlooking
the sea wow why do i live here i know why i live here but the plan is evolving one day
that will be me right today's show and it's a very popular returning guest always a pleasure
to speak with mr mark edge mark's an award-winning radio show host widely credited with introducing
quite a few people to the world of free cities at least a lot of the people i know heard about
this stuff through Mark. I think most famously, though, he is one half of the Free Talk Live
duo. That was the Libertarian radio show he hosted out of New Hampshire with Ian Freeman,
until, of course, Ian Freeman was incarcerated, currently serving time in prison for,
in quotes, operating a Bitcoin money laundering scheme. Obviously, there's much more to that story
than the attorney's office statement would imply you can give episode 132 of this podcast a listen
if you want to go deeper that's an interview i did with his wife bonnie also visit www.freeiannow.org
to go even deeper that's f-r-e-e-i-a-n-n-o-w free ian now quick ai summary of this episode
for the curious the podcast discusses libertarian projects like new hampshire's free state project
liberland and seasteading as ways to build freer societies with mark noting the benefits and limits
of concentrating like-minded individuals in one place we explore privatized city-states billionaire
influences and the flaws of democracy advocating proprietarianism where owners prioritize citizens
well-being examples like bill gates's farmland illustrates state and elite impact while libertarian
strategy emphasizes autonomy adult freedom and creating spaces where adults can act freely
without harming others well yes that's kind of true it's just a great conversation with a great
libertarian right that's my take anyway thanks to my awesome value for value subscribers i'm going
to mention you all by name today because i really do appreciate your monthly donations we've got
origin drums many thanks we've got nicholas many thanks we've got shadrack set in stone a n t we've
got an in pub we've got another in pub we've got bullish mike many thanks mike we've got matthias
we've got justin bianchi you are all my ogs and i really do genuinely appreciate i know it doesn't
seem like much but it makes a difference and i'm stacking that bitcoin for the podcast strategic
reserve and we will use it when we are in desperate times so many many thanks indeed
for those of you that aren't subscribers six dollars a month you get early access to every
show i don't know whether you've noticed that guys you now get the show on a thursday instead
and everyone else gets it on a Friday.
You also get access to bonus episodes.
There's been four of them so far.
They're all previously unheard conversations
that should appeal to the Value for Value crowd.
According to the feedback I've got, they definitely do,
especially the one with Gigi.
You know what, as well, I think I'm going to bring back
reading out Noster comments here.
I did make that a stipulation of being a subscriber but what I've noticed is all my subscribers you're
really quite quiet and so I'm going to actually go back to reading all the boosts and comments each
week on the value for value platforms mainly because it's so easy now I can just click on
my fountain dashboard and see everything so here you go quick one for last the last seven days
guard us many thanks for just the random boost justin bianchi favorite pod of the year that's
153 daniel prince the grand conspiracy as dan talking about all the latest conspiracies
are rife in the world justin again thank you about trey goff love the project best of luck to prosper
me too and oh another one justin's really boosting a lot many thanks for all those sats talking about
massimo last week another great pod sorry for not boosting last month i got locked out of my fountain
the future will not have good ux don't worry about it justin i appreciate all that uh whatever we got
hypno great pod you can just do things that's episode 150 knut democracy leads to totalitarianism
that was a very popular episode a couple more here we've got uh mr rabbit thank you awesome
discussion jeff g talking about privacy on the internet that's episode 147 and the last one is
piers yoni appleberg the medicine of meaning and his comment is just four mushrooms and four
strong arms and they're not just any mushroom of course they are fly agaric mushrooms which is very
relevant to that episode because there was a lot of talk about hallucinogenic substances that was
episode 154 right don forget just before we get on to the show pre conference is going to prosper in 2026 and tickets are really selling fast we never actually sold this many tickets so far in advance
and there's obviously a reason for that prague is quite a large venue we've been hosting it at the
same place for the last few years and space will be limited a little bit in prosper so i would
expect this event to sell out at some point it hasn't sold out now but you never know so if
you're thinking of coming i'd probably start planning as soon as you can especially the
americans amongst you you know what finally you don't have to travel halfway around the world to
see all your free cities mates it's just a short hop over to the wonderful island of roatan in
honduras talking of honduras still no official result on the election believe it or not however
polymarket still has our guy our main guy is the winner so i'm still going with that for the time
being uh most importantly though the socialists are completely out of the picture so happy days
there hopefully next week i'll have an actual result for you but in the meantime it's still
looking pretty good right time for some unadulterated freedom talk from the man like
mark sit back and revel in his unashamed ideals at least try and relax as you enjoy my conversation
with mark edge
Right, Mr. Mark. It's been a while.
Indeed. Well, it wasn't that long, was it?
I don't know. Maybe about a year? A little less than a year?
No, it's definitely not been a year, but I was in America. It was in America, wasn't it?
I came to your former studio.
The Free Talk Live Studios.
And actually, you're well-received in the fair state of New Hampshire.
According to the comments, at least, you're a liked individual up in those parts.
Yeah, that sounds right.
Probably you've just been there for a very long time, haven't you?
Yeah, I mean, I don't give.
So one thing about free staters, if we want to use that term, porcupines, people who have signed up to be members of, member isn't the right term, a signer of the Free State Project statement of intent is the terminology that we use.
Those folks are probably the most patriotic people you're ever going to meet.
American patriotic.
No, New Hampshire patriotic.
Right.
So they specifically that state.
The next following that I've met are folks from Texas.
So if that gives you some idea of what we're talking about.
I mean, people really like the place that they live and they want you to move there.
They want you to believe that it is the best at everything for everything.
And 20 years of living in New Hampshire says to me that that is not true, right?
Like New Hampshire is really, really, really good at several things.
It's a great place to raise a family.
It's the freest state in the union by a good stretch.
And now it's getting freer.
It's moving in the right direction.
You know, lots of things.
But when somebody says, well, I don't want to move because of the weather.
Well, I think that's a valid concern.
I mean, your life is short and you've got to make it what you want it to be.
And if you don't want to slip on the ice once a year, deal with the cold, heat costs more than air conditioning, just whatever it is.
that you don't want to, I mean, some people want to live in New York city. They want to live in big
cities and they can't appreciate what New Hampshire has to offer. I mean, Manchester just
doesn't stack up to a major city vibe. And you know, if that's what you want, then that's what
you want. And I think that's okay. In many cases, free staters are just like, no, New Hampshire's
the right place for everybody who's a libertarian at all. And I just don't think that's true. Now,
If you're a libertarian living in Maine or Vermont or Massachusetts, upstate New York, maybe Connecticut, Rhode Island, what are you waiting for?
I really don't understand.
I mean, especially if you're in Massachusetts, you can't be 40 miles from New Hampshire.
So, you know, I mean, is it you're not going to be that far from the relatives.
Just drive in from a period of time, whatever it is.
So I'm on the fence in many ways, and I feel like I add a voice of reason to this particular conversation.
Funnily enough, I did a speech in Serbia recently to a group of people that didn't really know much about the free state – sorry, the kind of free city's ecosystem, but including the free state.
and so I wrote a brief speech which covered everything on the spectrum from
Liberland at one end which is full sovereignty to sort of like I put the free state at this end
which is kind of like you're not necessarily looking for sovereignty but but you're still
looking for a freer society and and I actually came to the conclusion that it's it's literally
one of the best ways to actually do it when you look at all the different ways people are trying
to create freedom in the world.
And even the Liberland end of the spectrum,
which is a group of people going for full-blown sovereignty
on a piece of land, right?
Even they are now kind of implementing a version
of the free state as well.
Because it came out in a conversation I had with Vitt
and a few other people from their government,
is that, you know, they have the place they call the Ark,
which is on the other side of the river in Serbia.
right which is there they bought a bit of land there it's an old kind of it's a bit like an old
camp ground type place with a clubhouse and stuff and they've turned it into the place that
no one kicks them out of basically and it's only a sort of short boat ride to the actual
Liberland on the other side of the river but they're in Serbia and I was sitting in there
thinking this is Liberland yeah this is Liberland right like and because no one's coming in you're
all libelanders you all believe in libeland you're flying the libeland flag and no one's coming in
here and kicking you off because you just bought a bit of land in serbia and and said this is this
is where we're going to hang out and and the conversation then evolved into yeah like but
we've got a kind of we've got a libeland in panama now and we've got a group of libelanders over here
and over here and over here and you think yeah this is the the new the free state way which is
implement yourself and sort of like, and this is going to sound evil, but it's not, infiltrate.
Infiltrate, yep.
But it's not the dark version of infiltrate.
I mean, there's probably another term.
Integrate.
Inculcate yourself.
You know, like there's a few things you can do, but I became a fireman in Westmoreland,
New Hampshire, and served as a fireman for 10 years.
I did that to serve my community and ingratiate myself to some extent and to some extent protect myself from the slings and arrows of my fellows in the area because the free staters coming in, you all wear this mantle of we're from the outside and we're here to help.
Nobody wants that, right? So if you infiltrate, if you inculcate yourself, if you become part of the
community then at the very least you take away a bit of that argument And by the way at least half of the people in New Hampshire maybe it 60 percent are from somewhere besides New Hampshire So they really can say much either
You know, if you're talking about politics, then they're talking about politics, too.
Right. And if you're from outside the state and they're from outside the state, what can they actually say?
Oh, but you came here as part of a project and I didn't.
So you're worse.
I mean, it's a it's a flimsy argument.
It's an interesting one though, isn't it? It's the immigration argument.
Yes, it is. It's precisely that.
I know, but that, because New Hampshire is quite a liberal place normally, isn't it?
I don't think that's true. I think that it is perceived that way.
Oh, okay. Well, some of the cities I went to were.
Yeah. Keene definitely is.
Right. And also, is it Portsmouth?
Portsmouth definitely is.
Yeah, right. And so that's another beautiful irony that if you complain about interstaters,
Yeah, people coming in, stealing our jobs.
No, but that is the – yeah, it's very interesting actually.
Yeah, it turns the argument on its head in many ways.
And we'll say it as free staters is, yeah, yeah, immigration is the problem.
It's those mass holes moving up from Massachusetts that just vote the same way they did.
I don't think that's a valid argument.
But many free staters will say it is that people from Massachusetts are coming into the state.
And they're voting the same way they did. But Massachusetts has, what, 35, 40 percent of its voters are Republicans. And there isn't a single Republican congressional district in the entire state of Massachusetts or New England, for that matter.
And when they come up and they continue to vote Republican, just like they did in Massachusetts, then they're actually making things better, to my mind.
Now, Republicans aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the freestaters have been able to work with them in order to achieve many of the things they want to achieve.
And, you know, freestaters aren't homogenous.
So the freestater representatives disagree on some issues some of the time.
And, but by and large, New Hampshire is moving freer and freer every single year. And it's because people said they're going to move, they're going to get involved. Now, there was a debate. I moved to New Hampshire in 2006. So we're going on, what, 19 years as a free stater. Well, I guess I was a free stater before that. But anyway, I've been involved for quite some time.
There used to be a debate about, well, what are you going to do when you get to New Hampshire? Are you going to be an outside the system activist? Are you going to do this thing or that thing to forward liberty? And ultimately, there isn't much that you can do that is more effective than being a representative in the state legislature.
Maybe running, of course, or a senator or something like that.
We have a couple of people who've been elected as state senators.
And this is just far and away the most effective thing that somebody can do is to participate within the legislature.
And it really works.
It does.
And, yeah, that's been my big conclusion, I think, from speaking now for three years.
I've had the two biggest revelations I've had about this whole movement is one, seasteading is super important, more important than people realize, I think, as even a meme, as an idea, because it's actually the most sovereign free thing you can do on this planet as far as I can work out.
You're certainly more free.
I don't know if you're more sovereign.
Go ahead.
Right.
Okay.
Well, I put it this way.
I think that if you believe in free private cities, then it's the most perfect embodiment of one.
A floating private city would be that.
Anyway, that's number one.
Number two is that the best way to create a libertarian society is to go where all the libertarians are.
It's as simple as that.
But not even any sort of esoteric things.
Just do what the free state did.
Because there's not many of us.
So just get them all in one place.
And then at least you have a mirror pointed towards you and you can't complain anymore because these are all your people.
See, I disagree with your premise.
Let me, if I will, tell you a little story.
So you've talked to Massimo Mazzoni.
Do I have his right name?
Mazzoni.
Yes, of course.
I say it right too.
Massimo Mazzoni set up Morazon.
Yes.
And he did it about three years ago, maybe four years ago.
It's a ZA, by the way.
People should know that, but in case they don't.
Yep.
It's an economic and educational development zone in Honduras.
It was built for workers, people who don't make much to live in near the factories in Honduras.
And there's not – I mean what?
Two, three libertarians that have – I guess there's probably been a total of half a dozen libertarians that have lived there in its entirety.
It's got –
Card-carrying issues like Alex and Joyce and people like that.
200 rooms at this point or something to that effect.
And those people have an effect or whatever,
but most of the vast majority of people are just workers living their lives.
And because Massimo set this up to be a libertarian place,
it functions as a libertarian place.
There's no opportunity.
You don't get to vote on what you want.
Massimo visits about once a quarter and has a little town hall and hears the complaints and the praise from the local citizenry, mostly complaints, which, by the way, is hilarious.
When a $2 an hour worker is berating a billionaire, you don't get the opportunity to do that in a regular government.
But Massimo cares because he wants to set this up in a way that people can understand.
Now, obviously, he doesn't bend to every wish that comes his way, but he tries to make this something that people really want to live in.
And it turns out that our ideas work, which we always thought they would, but we'd never get the opportunity because that juicy plum, that delicious fruit of the state is just too much for the authoritarians.
They've got to have it.
They have to just bite into your freedom and let the drool down their face.
They cannot let you be free.
They cannot let you not think about their, you know, their vain ass.
You know, these people just can't let you be free.
But in Morazon, you're free.
And no libertarians, other than Massimo, made it that way.
So I would say, in fact, that the Free State Project is a really great idea because it gives libertarians something to do while we, who are actually building a free societies, go about doing them.
Because the libertarians, in many cases, you know, they just want to argue with each other about this thing or that thing or whatever minutia.
And that's good. And again, the libertarians that moved to New Hampshire are being effective.
They are taking, pulling, popping the rivets of the state is what I like to say.
One by one, pink, every legislative year, pink, pink, pink.
Right. They pop a few of those rivets and every year it gets to be more and more of those rivets.
And I think that at this point it a foregone conclusion that they going to be successful in so much as they will make New Hampshire as free as a state can be And that a bold strong statement And I hope that it accepted in that way
But it will not be Ancapistan, right? It will not be a truly free place. There will be a
libertarian who moves there and says, gosh darn it, this stinks because I can't do this crazy
thing, whatever that crazy thing might be. I don't know what that crazy thing is. There's a lot of
crazy libertarians out there. And so, I mean, I think New Hampshire is good for that. It gives
them something to do, but at the same time, what works, what truly works is working with a
government, creating a special economic zone, arguing for what you can get as far as freedoms
within that special economic zone, and then go about building, fundraising and building that
special economics and you know whatever a place residence within it because once if you can live
in there then you truly possess the freedom talking of billionaires i had an interesting
well if i didn't actually interact but i'm trying to interact with a person
who um do you know do you know that if you had a whitney webb she has a she has an amazing podcast
called the unlimited hangout it's like she's she's one of those people that really joins the dots
thinking person's proper conspiracy theorist you know real real real data real yeah this is there
are conspiracies yeah exactly right anyway she shared on their site an article um by a gentleman
is a british journalist i you know called journalist i don't know whatever that means
called ian davis it was called city states without limits now this is an obviously a meme which is
now going to start arising if it not already has let me give you a quick i'm going to read out what
what a summary is that there is a powerful group of silicon valley oligarchs who are pushing for
the construction of privatized city states aligned with a global network who want to move away from
nation states to create an international network of city-states and it's a conspiracy it's not a
and i mean massimo's presumably i know the funny thing is they they talked about prosper in this
article they didn't talk about um morizan which would have been an interesting one because i
massimo doesn't strike me as the kind of oligarch looking for a tax dodge in morizan or whatever you
know but what do you think of that because like they they cite they cite things like the fact that
you know palantir not palantir what's his name the guy who runs palantir was involved in funding
prospera and this that and the other and they talk about something called the dark enlightenment
which is um do you know who curtis yarvin is have you heard of that guy apparently i'm just
sitting on the wrong end of the internet oh right okay right um anyway the point is that they are
that there is a meme and it was shared on a an outlet which i respect albeit conspiracies and
and when i looked when i read through it i thought wow this guy sees conspiracies everywhere
literally but what do you think about that because there's there there must be an element of truth
in there i mean someone is funding these i mean rod roger ver's former business partner what's
his name olivia yeah olivia he's now talking about destiny destiny doing one in st kitts he's a
tech billionaire, I suppose you'd call him, isn't he?
I think it's an accurate assessment.
Right.
So what do you think?
When you define somebody as a billionaire, I think that anything above like $400 million
qualifies as a billionaire.
Like, who knows?
When you get to that level of money, what's it mean?
Exactly.
But what do you think about this notion that there is a kind of oligarchic echelon of society
who is doing this on purpose, basically to isolate them.
I mean, to isolate themselves, but to create a city-state which they run.
Yes. I think that's what they're doing.
I think that's what I would do.
I mean, absolutely.
If I had the money to do that, yes.
Here's why.
Because the city bureaucrats, right?
These people who managed to get elected.
I've been elected.
I was the town moderator for Hudson, New Hampshire.
You know why?
because when i went to town hall i asked hey um on the last day of the election so i mean you know
i went with 45 minutes left tick tock tick tock as the election um the registration was was wrapping
up and i said are there any positions that haven't been um signed up for and they said yes
there's town moderator and register a voter registration person right and i said
hmm i think i'll just sign up for town moderator and i did now at that point i'm the only person
on the ballot and to beat somebody who's not on the ballot is a darn difficult thing to do
so basically ta-da you know just because i walked in now the only qualification i had was
the ability to look at the town website and no other qualification. Now, I've tried to do a good
job and all those sorts of things, but there's no guarantee that somebody's good, virtuous,
intelligent, timely. There's nothing that guarantees that your elected officials are good
people. And if you presume that half of the people in the world are bad and half of the people are
good. I don't know what you presume, what anybody presumes as far as how many people are good or
bad. I tend to think that everybody just sort of follows incentives and some people have a moral
compass, but most people aren't really bad. There's some people that seem bad to me, but it's a very
small percentage of the population. But what keeps them from signing up to be anything? And this is
the flaw in the system is, is those people want to control you. They want to control what you do.
They think that they do it best. The guy who, um, you know, runs as city manager just went to
college. Like that's the only thing that qualifies him to be the city manager. They know nothing.
They are the dullards that control us, the power hungry creeps. And yes, absolutely. I would like
to work with some government in order to get a special economic zone or even more, some sovereign
territory where no longer can these people tell me what to do. And here's why. Here's your quote.
Democracy sucks. It's really terrible. It's probably worse than monarchy, but only a bit.
And somehow now, since we had all these democratic revolutions, these republics that
replaced monarchies. We have this idea that is so deep in our psyche that somehow this is the only
choice. You may have a dictatorship or you may have a democracy and those are your choices.
Pick. Pick. Obviously there's the choice, but there's not. It's not that. We can truly have
a system that works for everybody, that doesn't require vigilance and protection or anything like
that. And here's what it is. It's simple propertarianism. It's you go someplace and live
someplace that somebody runs for the purpose of making the citizens happy. This is essentially
what Massimo does at his, uh, in Morazon. And this is essentially what they do at Club Med
and Princess Cruise Lines. They create a place, they run that place and you want to go there to
that place. Now, I understand that the, uh, the specifics I'm talking about are, you know,
people waiting on you and things like that. But what if you could create a city without all the,
the butlers, you know, would have a house cleaning
and that sort of thing, that
worked for you the way those places work for you. And if you can do that, that's great.
I don't go to a hotel and wonder whether or not the hotel manager is a Republican or a Democrat.
That would be insane. That would be a psychopath that says, I'm not going to go there. That's a
Republican that runs that. If I like a hotel, I like a hotel. And it doesn't matter the politics
of the guy who runs it. That guy is going to make sure that people are quiet in the hallway so that
I can sleep because that's what I want from him. I don't want to be, think about how much time and
energy goes into grasping that juicy fruit of power that is the state. Think about the amount
of time that we all waste in the horse race of politics. And I like the horse race of politics.
I don't know what sport I'd take up watching if it wasn't for politics, but that's what I'm doing
because I have no effect on who's getting elected and who's not. So I truly say that the solution to
liberty is. Properitarianism, just these little states that are owned by billionaires. Fine.
They're the ones who can build them. They're the ones who have the money. If somebody said to you
or I, hey, go ahead. Here's a piece of land you can build on it, but it has to be your money.
It's going to be huts, right? We're not going to have electricity because we just can't
generate all of that. Maybe we can buy some solar panels and work it out, but a billionaire can say,
all right, let's bring in the construction crews and we're going to get things going.
So if you don't like the billionaire's city, you leave. So long as you can leave,
that's the only freedom there is. Tim, there's one freedom, the freedom to leave. And here's why.
People will often use, they just throw, within libertarianism, they throw around the term slave.
And they're wrong.
A slave is a person who must work and mayn't leave.
That's the definition.
They must work and they mayn't leave.
And ladies and gentlemen, you might have to work to maintain your lifestyle.
But if you are listening to this, the chances are very good you live in a Western country.
and that Western country will truly pay you not to work.
If you just decide tomorrow, I'm not working anymore.
They'll start giving you money because that's what they do.
Messed up as it is, it's truly a messed up system.
And that's why it's going to fail because somebody went out and said,
oh, but I feel so bad for the people who can't work.
Then everybody who doesn't want to work becomes a person who can't work.
And that's the end of it.
Now, I suspect one of these billionaire places,
they're not going to have much sympathy for the notion of, well, I can't work. What are you going
to do to support me? But maybe that's so. If so, it's probably going to deteriorate and I'm not
going to want anything to do with it. But I get to choose. I get to decide which one of these.
So yes, that's absolutely the conspiracy. The conspiracy is that wealthy people are sick and
tired of stupid, poor morons telling them how to live, affecting productivity,
and regulating them out of existence,
in the case of Roger Ver,
chasing them around the globe
over regulations that didn't exist
when they gave up their citizenship,
it's absolutely insane.
And that's why they want it.
Because government sucks so bad.
These guys who got rich within those places
want to leave it
because they can see just how bad it is.
They got enriched in spite of it.
Thanks.
You're supposed to say, no, it's not a conspiracy.
I make my living telling the truth and saying things that others won't.
I mean, basically what you're saying, which was one of my first thoughts.
I didn't hammer it home as hard as you, but my first thought was, why is it so weird that people want to live outside the state?
it's it's basically a statist argument right from the core right and i've got a feeling and which is
but that's what made that was what was surprising about it because it's it comes from the sector of
society that's distrustful of things sure but it's almost like yeah but it's almost like
the default setting of the state is it just exists without them even noticing it there
i think that's what it is because and i've reached out to this guy i'm trying to talk to him because i
I want to tap his mind.
I want to see why.
It was a ginormous article, two-part.
It took me about half an hour to read it.
It was huge, you know.
And it's, yeah, it's, I don't know.
I'm in two minds because I think the way they describe,
when they were describing Prospera, it was all,
a lot of it was crappy talking points from about five years ago.
you know this the crawfish bay stuff and all this kind of like that wasn't really true that
they're going to come and they're going to take land and they it was all stuff from left-wing
publications and funny thing i heard one that prospero had murdered people in crawfish rock
and got away with it okay so i mean that's how crazy this stuff is but it was all the left-wing
talking points without really researching them and then a bunch of research into who were part
the original funding of Prospera, Peter Thiel, and they class Peter Thiel as one of, I don't know
whether Peter Thiel's, I don't know, a lot of conspiracy theories around Peter Thiel.
If you're rich, there's conspiracy theories that say you're a bad person.
Right. But, but so I was just surprised because it's like, yeah, I'm on, I'm on your side. I'm
thinking to this guy. Yeah, I'm on your side. I'm on the side of, of what you're talking about here.
um but um i think if i if i approached my own life and i was thinking at the time you know
i was i was some i was on a group a work group chat a free cities foundation group chat and
someone asked a question about wanting to change something about the way we all work right and i
imagined i was suspicious and suddenly i looked at that and went why is he trying to change that
You know, and because I would just I was trying to put myself in this bloke's shoes that he's suspicious of what's going on here, because I'm not suspicious of the free cities movement at all.
I know a lot of the people. I know some of the billionaires, you know, and I kind of know a bit about what's going on.
But I'm not really suspicious. But as soon as I turned into suspicious mode, I could even turn that to my colleagues and go, hmm, why are you asking to change that about the way we work?
Is that is this an ulterior motive here? Do we need to do that? You know?
And it was just like, come on. And that's kind of how I got the impression because everything was
conspiracy about about the way that city states are arising. Whereas I can
I cannot advocate for city states from a completely opposite. I can go the complete opposite way.
And like what we mostly do on this podcast
is talk about the the benefits of them and I or I could talk about the benefits of them for
billionaires as well which there are as well I'm almost I mean even Massimo I well last time I
spoke to Massimo on camera this is he he said yeah it's a business it's not I'm not it's not
all some kind of like I'm not doing it purely out of the you know out of my the glove of my heart
although there's a lot of love that goes into that place from him.
Absolutely.
And by the way, it is the least profitable thing he does.
Of course it is.
It is a business.
Yeah, yeah.
And it is making money.
Yeah.
But it's, you know, it lost money long enough that it has not broken even.
And it's certainly not the most, by any stretch,
it's the least profitable thing that he participates in.
So, you know, I mean, to call...
You wouldn't decide to do it, basically, from a business perspective.
He's done it from an ideological perspective.
I agree with that.
but,
but I,
I don't know.
I got a feeling that because because that that idea this meme about the kind of oligarchs popped up in a quite respectable and well and well place I suspect it going to rear its head a little bit more
I suspect it is too, but I mean, I really would turn it back on the user here is this, well,
why don't you want these people to live the way they want to live? What is it about what you want
It would stop them from living the way they want.
Because it doesn't, the fact that a billionaire exists doesn't bother any one of the listeners.
Nobody out there, well, it bothers them, but it doesn't affect their lives in any way.
They might argue that it does, though.
I think they might argue that billionaires are affecting them.
For example, well, for example, say the Microsoft guy.
God.
Bill Gates.
Bill Gates, yes.
Bill Gates is buying up farmland.
We all know.
Okay.
Right. Finite resource that they couldn't buy. Right. Exactly. But but you could easily say, OK, if Bill Gates wasn't buying it, I know Bill Gates buying up farmland is a symptom of the system that we that we're in.
It shouldn't it would be better if it wasn't happening, because it would I think it would be better if individuals owned farms.
If only other people would do what I wish they would do. OK, this is what the petty tyrant says or the great tyrant.
All tyrants say, if only other people would do what I want them to do.
Now, that person who says it, by the way, couldn't run a farm to save their damn lives.
If you gave them a farm, it would take them three years to be able to make it profitable.
But instead, they say, why don't all the little farmers who were farmers be farmers?
Well, because the work isn't that great.
And you, Mr. or Mrs. Consumer, don't want to pay extra.
You don't go out and buy the CSA.
You don't go out and buy the organic stuff.
You want the cheapest price for your Cheerios and your milk and whatever it is you get.
And this is the result you get.
If you want small local farmers, go to a small local farmer and start buying his products.
Because that's the only solution to this.
getting online and tick tick tick ticking away about how billionaires are doing this and
oligarchs are doing that i mean it frustrates me because this is
this is so close to a mental illness
this has to be vanishingly we're not i think we're more mentally ill well i i say that the
difference between libertarians and the rest of the people is the difference between wild animals
and domesticated ones.
I take it we're wild.
We're the wild animals.
Okay.
You can call that good or call it bad.
No, I don't mind that.
I'll take that.
But the wild animal lives by tooth and claw, right?
He lives by the work that he puts in.
The domesticated ones like,
meow, fill my bowl, meow.
I want my treat, you know?
Must say though,
what you've just said makes me think
that the free state idea is right.
I mean, what you're saying there is,
look, if you want to live in a particular society,
don't complain about billionaires doing X, Y, Z.
Go to your farmer's market.
Go to your this.
Go to your that.
But I think there aren't enough people who care enough.
So the way to solve that is to all amass together in one place.
Yep, concentration.
So it does work.
Well, again, I don't say the free state project doesn't work.
I just think it's the right thing to do with libertarians while the libertarians with money, the billionaires, right, go and build the thing.
So Bitcoin made a lot of wealthy libertarians.
And they're going to be able to create two, three, four, five sort of free places where we try freedom.
Now, it's not going to be – it's not free as in the end of freedom.
It's free as in it's private, right?
So, for instance, in Morazon, there isn't a pot dispensary.
There isn't a brothel.
You know, these places exist in more statist places, but they don't exist in one of the freest places in the world.
There isn't one in Prospera.
But are you saying because it's not allowed or because it's their rules or because it's just not?
It is not.
It's not that it's not allowed.
it is not allowed to be sort of prominent.
If you went to Prospera and you said,
hey, I'd like to open up a brothel,
I suspect they would tell you,
we appreciate where you're coming from, but no.
Okay, so convince me that's a libertarian perspective then.
Which is, the freedom or the private?
No, they're saying we don't want a brothel here.
Okay. So libertarianism means two things, and they're not always the same thing. Libertarianism means you can do what you want on your property, right? So we're going to call Prospera – it's the property of Prospera Inc., right?
They've got together investors and they come up with their rules and those rules don't include brothels and pot shops to my knowledge.
And that's their property, not yours.
So you're not free on my property.
You're free on your property.
But you're not because your property is owned by the state.
That's a fundamental idea that you have to get a hold of is that you don't own your property, ladies and gentlemen.
It's not yours.
It belongs to the government that claims it in that area, and you are a tenant on their property.
Allodial title. Do you know about that?
Well, it's not even an allodial title.
It's a –
No, but an allodial title would be actually owning it.
Yeah.
But you don't.
Right.
There's also a fee simple title where you don't have to pay property tax on it necessarily, but they still make rules on what you can do and can't do with it.
Zoning and stuff.
Indeed.
And so the other end of libertarianism is that an adult can do whatever they want so long as they don't harm someone else.
And then the debate gets into what is an adult, right?
And I don't know, and I'm not going to get into that debate with you.
But, well, actually, I'm happy to get the debate.
I think over 18.
It's a fine number.
I can live with it.
Some people would argue that 16 is a better number.
fine i don't care 16s and i've got a 17 year old i agree with you but i wasn't but at 18 i wasn't
very mature either i in fact something happens at 18 though psychologically i think it does in
england anyway in the great great britain at 18s a big age you have a party you you kind of something
changes in you you do feel like sort of legitimized and you just get out of school as well which is
obviously amazing couldn't you used to drink at 16 in pubs no okay uh you could drink at 14 as long
you were with your family okay but obviously you know that's 14 years don't go drinking with the
family i think that's true or is that france god knows um don't quote me on it but no it's 18 it
always was 18 but everyone no one used to then there was no such thing as asking for id you went
to the pubs that would serve you and and the pubs that served you decided that based on whether or
not they thought they were going to get caught and you know but if the police ever came around
Everyone was gone way before that.
There was a good system.
There was a good workaround.
Because people wanted to drink when I was a kid.
Indeed.
I saw young ones.
Yeah, we lived exactly like that.
I was Neil.
I don't remember what the guy with the spiky hair and the cricket bat was,
but I really thought he was amusing.
Vivian.
Vivian, yes.
Yeah, no, I was the hippie Neil.
I had long hair.
So really the difference is that when it comes to this sort of super free place, we have no clue whether this will work.
But we do know that people should be able to choose how things go on their own property.
And I think that that why free cities can claim to be free cities is because they make their own rules whatever those rules might be You can get into Prospera without their permission
There's a gate and a guy with a gun standing at that gate.
And you get in based on whether or not they want to let you in.
You are making it sound like it's worse than it is.
It's not like there's a guy standing there pointing a gun at you saying, who are you?
I've been there.
But there is a bloke in one of those who's sitting in a little off, and he can make the barrier go up and down.
But that's…
And he carries a…
You made it sound like it was…
45 ACP.
I probably never used it.
Probably never used it.
No, I would think not.
I don't imagine there's any firing.
I don't have a problem.
You know, I'm from New Hampshire.
I have no problem with armed people.
I believe armed people keep me free.
More guns per capita than any state.
Is that right?
Oh, I don't know.
No, someone told me when I was in New Hampshire.
Average four per person.
Wow.
That's impressive.
I thought you were going to say that's not very much.
No, I think I just totally made that up.
But I'm pretty sure it's one of the most armed states in the U.S.
And it has the least gun crime as well.
It's supposedly the place that proves the rule.
I don't think that it proves the rule, but it is very interesting.
And Vermont and Maine also, not nearly as free,
but very little gun crime there too.
It probably has more to do with a homogenous culture that hasn't wanted to leave
because those places aren't the places that most people want to move to.
They are the places that people are moving from.
And therefore it leaves the old guard and the old guard takes care of itself.
Okay.
So I've forgotten what we were talking about.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm glad you framed it like that because when I read that article, I was on the back foot.
And you've basically come out and said, yeah, great idea.
Like, why wouldn't you?
And it's true.
It's true.
Any plan is a conspiracy, right?
So if you make a plan to do a thing, it's a conspiracy if you work with someone else to do it.
No, but the thing that struck me listening to you is that, yeah, why it makes total sense.
And you should be unashamed about wanting to create a place according to the way you want to do it yourself.
Right.
It's not like you want to conquer the world.
You just want to create a little area or even smaller.
It could be even just your own property, you know, a few acres or something.
Just a place where I can do whatever I want.
It's none of your business what I'm doing here.
and that that is it makes a lot of sense it's just that when billionaires do it
they start people start talking about digital id in 15 minute cities and
there's going to be like prosper prosper is a good example what a 15 minute city is i've heard
the term but i haven't looked okay it's just it's a it's a centrally planned place where
they're basically the conspiracy is that a city you will be kind of like geo-fenced
So that means you can't go very far.
It's all about controlling people's movement through money, but also through geofencing, which is just ways of stopping people from going far.
And I think things like that are – that is true.
There's a truth to that.
And I think once we get CBDC currencies, programmable government money, that's going to be a massive step further in that direction.
But, for example, when you look at Prospera, you know, people talk about Prospera.
yeah, it's a kind of libertarian place.
But yeah, you need to, if I want to go to Prospera,
I got an ID card to get in there.
They got to know who I am.
That's the reality of a place that has a kind of fence around it.
Right.
It's libertarian.
It's not lawless, you know, and there's.
Yeah, but I think, you know, and I'll include myself in this.
I think I'm confused by that.
It's confusing me because libertarian seems free.
it should be there's no rules in that but actually if you want to kind of create a private place
you're literally by by definition creating rules and one of the place one of the things that you
probably need to do is kind of identify everyone i think i mean i do what do you think about well
let me let me tell you a story about the keen activist center now the keen activist center
called the cack um do you know the cack's a slang word for shit in in the uk i wouldn't doubt it
i've i've also heard it used as a slang word in the u.s for a penis um so anyway we just thought
it was clever uh the keen activist center was this house where the activists would go and you know
drink, a lot of drinking went on, karaoke and hangouts. And of course they made signs to protest
and it was intended to be the hangout zone. And I mean, think of Antifa as always talked about,
they've got a headquarters in town, right? Well, this is the opposite of that in the political
firm, but exactly the same thing in the reality situation. And what happened is lots of people
would come and they'd go and they'd hang out and this sort of thing. And then over time,
it got to be fewer and fewer people. And, but those few, fewer people were there more.
And the, we started sort of asking, well, it's not as fun as it was. What happened?
And one of the things that happened, I couldn't tell you everything that happened, but one of the
things that happened is, is that a couple of creepy guys kept bothering the girls.
so when the girls don't come anymore then nobody comes anymore and so we're like well how do we
solve this i say we i really didn't have anything to do with this because it just seemed gross to me
like who's gonna vacuum the floor here this place is a mess you know like you know but forget that
i did go over and have some wine and cheese one night um and what we decided to do was hold an
Inquisition.
Well, I mean, I couldn't describe it any other way.
I got to see this as an onlooker, as a reporter in the situation.
So it's like, well, you know, this guy's a creep.
And like right there out in the open with him in front of you.
And then the girls, you know, tell us about your experience.
Oh, Jesus.
And then, you know, so he's a creep, right?
And I'm pretty sure that guy's a creep.
Yeah.
But what do you do when you, you know, when it comes to the, what do you do with the creep?
Well, they decided to vote him out.
Well, then what happened?
Then people got in their head, huh, I can get rid of anybody I want so long as I can get enough members to vote with me.
And it began to be the sort of inquisition.
And then this was the end of the Keen Activist Center because they voted out the people and then it was done.
But you've just described the arc of civilization right there.
Indeed.
Yes.
And this is the thing that we have to get beyond.
And that's why I say Massimo Mazzoni's morison works because you can't vote somebody off the island.
But if somebody acts like a creep, Massimo's going to say, what, is he a creep?
What is he doing?
And he's going to go in.
there's going to be a little investigation. Massimo's not going to do it. He's going to send
people to do it, but there'll be a little investigation. If in fact, the guy's a creep,
his lease won't be renewed and off he goes. And it's done by one central authority. Having a
decision maker in many cases is a better thing. And remember, I'm going to repeat it again. It's
really important. There is only one freedom, the freedom to leave. If you can leave, you're free
And everybody leaves more as almost everybody leaves more as on every day.
Right.
And then they come back, they choose to come back and that's what makes it a free place.
Now what is going on say in New Hampshire is much more a libertarian power grab right I Trying to take the you know and I think it a good idea The authoritarians created an authoritarian position
a place with authoritarian rules with the intention of ruling over you.
So the libertarians concentrate enough and they grab some of those reins of power
and finally tell people, you know what?
You're not going to tell me whether or not I can grow vegetables in my front yard.
You're not going to tell me where I can park my car.
You're not going to tell me these little rules that my roof has to be a particular color.
I'm sick of this.
And you're not going to tell me how much square footage I can build on a given lot or that sort of thing.
And that is what I hope they're managed to do in New Hampshire.
But again, they're only going to be as free as a state can be because they're under the federal government.
Well, also, what has actually happened, which is fascinating to observe, is that within the influx of libertarians, the people that signed the pledge or whatever, they're now in small groups.
Yes.
They're cultural groups.
Yep.
And some of them are kind of hard hedge.
Yep.
No smoking, no drinking, no drugs.
And then there are groups.
Wife swappers.
Yeah, yeah.
And they don't mix by the sounds of it, which is really fascinating.
So this is kind of like happening.
In many cases, they can appreciate the other's position so long as they vote their way.
But every once in a while, they have an inquisition.
One of them must be nailed to a cross.
Yes.
But I mean, any group, people, once you get up to a certain size, those groups are going to begin to split.
And I think libertarians, their size is smaller because they're individualists by their sort of nature and definition.
and you know they can handle groups of eight 16 and it starts getting real shaky after that
and you know my my wife will often reference one time when some people came out to do some work on
our house while we were building it this had been 2007 and 2008 that this was being done and 2008
this guy said well you know you can call me a libertarian but i consider myself more of an
anarcho peacenik or something like that he came up with some term and she's just like man these
people are boring you know like you know the the slicing of the pie and these tiny thin slivers in
order to you know define yourself to her um you know to me it's just yeah you know i i hear this
all the time people you know like i like the yellow and black flag because that more represents
my feelings i like the yellow and white flag i'm a mutualist i'm a you know agorist fine whatever
a tyranny of small differences it's a it's a funny not phenomenal concept funny enough i was just
thinking about it when i was younger i remember coming to this conclusion when i was sort of in my
sort of 20s i lived in a lot of shared houses you know back then you could rent large country houses
and stuff quite cheaply and we used to live in a lot of them and i by the end of it i remember
because i've still got friends that still live like that in communes pretty much
um i remember realizing that the way that really worked was not to have everyone involved in the
running of the place, but to have someone who owned the property who gave you the rules.
And that was it.
Yeah.
That was what actually worked really well.
Not in a nasty way or anything.
It just functioned well.
It's tough because, you know, on one hand, you don't always want to wash your dish immediately
after using it.
However, when you don't wash your dish immediately after using it, the next guy lets his sit
for three days.
And it just, and then they pile up.
Everybody's got dishes. Whose dish is this? And that's just the dishes, you know, using the sink and it gets dirty.
And, you know, like it's it's tough.
And then I don't want to be the one who cleans the sink all the time because Fred comes in and he shaves his face in and he leaves beard stuff all over the place.
And it just it's really difficult.
There's an interesting social experiment that was done along those lines where somebody left a very expensive bicycle out in the open in one part of town, the dodgy part of town, it got stolen instantly.
Or was it a car or something?
It immediately got stolen in the dodgy part of town.
In the posh part of town, it didn't get stolen.
A couple of days later, someone smashed a window.
and then almost within the space of a couple of days,
everything started getting stolen and nicked and, you know,
just it was that first thing that triggered it.
And then everyone is looking at it, even in the posh part of town,
they're like, oh, well, if he did it, I can do it.
Whereas in the, you know, and I think that's what you're talking about there.
You know, one person leaves their dishes out and then it just becomes,
oh, that's what we're doing now then, is it?
We're just leaving the dishes out.
And then the whole thing falls apart and you have,
inquisitions the dish gate and and you know yeah there's it's you know basically there's only a few
systems that work and communes definitely aren't one that does um you know you can start a workers
co-op if you want people always say kibbutzis work they are for sure i've never been at one
i can't really say um what worked about kibbutzes and what didn't um i can say they work they were
definitely armed and that might be the reason i don't know i presume they did work but i don't
know much else um you're right it could be a myth i kind of leave kibbutzes and the whole
israel argument off the table most of the time because it's this weird place where people are
basically arguing about their favorite type of race and socialism like what socialism do they
want to apply to which people and i don't want much to do with it frankly it's uh very difficult
is our socialist right the social setup yeah yeah it's commune pretty much to some extent
and if if you can make a commune finally work i support you i really do i mean i don't have
this is the thing you know people say about capital capitalism will allow you to run any
system you want to run if you want to call it capitalism i call it a free market
free market says yeah run whatever system you want i don't think your system's going to work
you will not find me as an investor for your commune but if you want to open a organic farm
i'll be the first it's your place to order my vegetables on a regular basis this is a great
system these csa's in the u.s or wherever they are whatever they're called wherever you are
um this you know go to these local farms and support them because they give you an abundance
Co-ops, you mean?
Okay.
I don't know.
Is that what you mean?
Like a bunch of farms get together and all sell their stuff via one place?
Not for me.
What I've generally done is found a farm, a big one, that's, you know, they're working all the time farming.
And then they give you on a weekly basis whatever the –
A box.
Yeah, the box full of stuff.
Yeah.
And you've got to be a dedicated produce consumer to do that whole box.
Otherwise, you're just gifting it to other people.
We give it to the, we've got chickens, fortunately, but my wife started getting a box recently.
Yes.
And it's, yeah, the chickens are much happier.
Fennel, what am I going to do with this?
The chickens will love it.
This week, chickpea, veal and scallops.
Just chuck them in the pan.
So what's your, so what is your, what is the way that it works then?
Do you think the free private city model is the best one?
Yeah, I do. And I don't even, well, the free private city, the way Titus Gable, however you want to pronounce it, the way he envisioned it was essentially a competition of anything that anybody wanted to do.
you wanted to have a Muslim city, state, then by all means, run yourself a caliphate. If you want
to, I don't know what exactly a caliphate is, so if I got my terms wrong, sorry. If you want to do
one that's complete democracy, where everybody votes on everything, we're going to have mac and
cheese. Everybody's eating mac and cheese tonight. Put it to a vote, all in favor, right? And we just
do this. And with apps, you could do this now. You can truly vote on everything with these little
So you could just have everybody lives in this democratic thing is a place.
Right.
If you like BDSM, you know, you can have a place where the men have to walk around on leashes and the ladies carry bull whips.
Whatever it is you want, you could have it.
He didn't mention that, but I thought of it.
That's your city.
That's where you're going.
This is stuck in my mind.
Yeah, right. I can't really go any further.
Does everyone have to dress like that?
I haven't put a lot of thought into it, but I mean, I think we could probably sell this to some.
Mark, it sounds like you put a lot of thought into it, mate. I'm not being funny.
Every night at about nine o'clock. Go on. Yeah.
So, you know, all these things compete and then people want to live where they want to live.
And I think this is the best system because currently you can see it all over the place.
You go to Twitter, these people can't live together.
They hate each other.
And they all want to be involved in other people's lives.
You've seen the world's smallest political quiz, the Nolan chart, the one that says freedom versus authoritarianism, left versus right.
And you look at this and why shouldn't people collect in a particular area?
And I'll tell you because the American dream is a nightmare.
Homeownership is terrible.
It's because it adds to the cost of moving from one location to the next.
It's bad enough when it comes to leases.
But when it comes to homeownership, it's probably $20,000 all told to sell your house and move to another place.
That's why they say don't buy unless you're going to be in a place for 10 years.
Who knows whether they're going to be in a place for 10 years?
If you take my adult life, I lived for 10 years in one place.
I'm 55 years old. You're counting from the time that I'm, you know, 20 to the time that I'm 55.
And in that 35 years, I lived in one place for 10 years and I've probably lived in 10 places,
maybe more, um, in that timeframe. And well, I mean, I guess if you're, I don't know,
I don't want to go into the, how many it was, but I mean, I lived in a lot of places
and I owned a lot of houses.
I probably shouldn't have bought many of them.
Some of them I made money on
because I caught the real estate boom in the right angle.
And I must say I've made money on real estate generally
as opposed to not having made it.
And if you're doing it for an investment, that's good.
But remember, investment commercial real estate
is probably the place to make money,
which is to say renting it to someone else.
That's probably the way to make money.
I say live in a place you rent
because currently if something breaks at my place,
ring ring I call the maintenance guy oh the hot water heater's not working I don't have to get out
my tool I got rid of my tools I sold them at a garage sale you know I had a room full of tools
and just sold them at pennies on the dollar and I am so much freer because now when something breaks
you can't call mark to fix it it I've got to call the maintenance guy I don't have a tool I got an
adjustable wrench. I've got a hammer. I've got a power, you know, drill, the, you know, the
electric screwdriver kind of thing. And that's about all I got. I can hang pictures on the wall
for my mom, but you know, doing that, all that housework, you're just the slave to that piece
of property and then you die. And then somebody else comes and they're the new slave to that piece
of property. I think if you like your property though, like I would, I would say I'm necessarily
a slave to my property but i get immense enjoyment out of it not in strange ways like i've got
just recently really i've we had a one an old disused barn stone barn and i i was storing wood
in it and over the last few weeks i've really got it into shape and turned it into a basically a
wood processing factory for for the fire and now it's got a kettle and a little you know like
bring a hob in there and a table and a chair and it's like yeah i like it down here this is your
spot yeah it's it's the one place where it's a man cave basically yeah but not in the everyone
does a man cave in a different way don't sure and but you do need a place like that because in the
house this is it although it's art my property it's her say no it's everyone's you don't you
can't go in a room and get any peace and quiet someone can just walk in at any moment sure but
somehow when you create a space like that you kind of it's not that anyone even wants to go there as
well you know because it's it's a room a room full of beautifully stacked wood and all the tools you
could ever need to to sort of turn wood into heat and that gives me immense enjoyment but doesn't
give my everyone else immense no they just enjoy the heat yeah but that's part of what the enjoyment
is it's like you actually get to do something in there that keeps you fit keeps you healthy you can
listen to podcasts while you're doing it and it's service to everyone else it's a beautiful thing you
know like that's how families work this is how communes would work if they worked right but i
yeah but i only do the wood there it's like i'm not i'm not about to i i like i love gardening but
a certain type of gardening i don't like doing vegetables i like planting trees you know i hate
weeding i just bores the crap out of me and so i wouldn't be good on a commune but in my own
communistic society where I'm the dictator and I'll do the wood. I'll choose that for myself,
you know, but I had something very similar, that piece of property that I told you about,
um, that it was on for 10 years. We had pigs, we had a garden, we had, um, I, I heated with wood
and, you know, we cleared pasture for the pigs and did all kinds of things over the course of
that 10 years. And it was a wonderful place to raise my son. Um, you know, I mean, farm work is
a great tool for the kids to, you know, to have them learn the value of where their food
comes from and, you know, what it takes to produce these things.
I think it's important.
However, you know, my wife wasn't quite as house proud when it came to that thing.
I'd said, I want to be buried here.
You know, I cared so much about that piece of land, but, you know, she didn't like it
as much.
She's like, well, you know, why don't we get a lake house?
you know now the bitcoin's gone up and we get a little bit of money why why wouldn't we enjoy it
i'm like all right well you know if you want and i sold it to some friends and with a clause that i
could buy it back if they you know and i decided that i didn't want to have it because it was a lot
of work you know and laws that you could buy it back yeah do they even own it then they well i
mean what was that what was their did they get it cheaply for that if they decided that they could
that they would, um, were to sell as a right of first refusal.
So if somebody says I'll buy this property for $200,000,
then they must bring that offer to me.
And then I can say, I'll take that $200,000. Um, and you know,
I sold it to them, the concept of them as look, this is protection for you.
If somebody comes and offers you a low ball price and you don't know that it's
a low ball price, then I'll buy it at that low ball price.
and then you'll know.
Well,
you might not offer to buy it at the low ball price.
And then you'll know you shouldn't accept this low ball price.
Like you said,
though,
you won't.
I've gone through,
I think I've gone through a similar process that I'm far less sentimental
about property now because for the first time in my life,
I realized it said liability And that that been a long journey I in my fifties too And I only just realized that I always thought the opposite Yeah well that where we raised
you know, we Americans,
which were, you know,
propagated by you, the English,
I think that this is the Shire, right?
That's the whole concept
that Tolkien was going with
with his books,
just talking about these peaceful
countrysides and things like that
and it's, you know,
who doesn't want that idea
And that it's just inculcated everything. But, you know, I mean, think about all the retirees that are moving to Florida or Arizona or wherever they're going. They've given up on the idea, too. They're like, this is this is work. You know, I spent 20 years, 30 years in this house raising one, two, three, four kids and I'm done.
The kid can have it and, you know, if they want to buy it or I'll sell it and, you know, do what I want with the money or whatever it is that they want to do, it's theirs.
And I think they should do that.
But I, you know.
But I always, that my sentimental brain would always fantasize about another generation appearing in that house and stuff.
And that's changed.
And I wouldn't say I'm happy about that thought.
I've all you know like one of the things that I you know five years ago I was so
adamant about was that generational living was a really good idea and actually I should try and
start it now because it's not going to happen with my mother and father you know we we broke
that tie but with with my kids I could offer them and that's why we bought what we bought
is because it has the option for uh it's a farm so the option for the kids to live on in the same
place is definitely definitely there but now since all this kind of you know political stuff's been
happening since covid i'm like you know i just want to be free and and i'll rent a i'll rent my
dream house for six months i don't care i won't even care what's on the walls i don't put anything
out. I have no sentimental connection. But part of me thinks that's probably quite a sad thing to
have happened. Well, unfortunately, we're just not going to get that free place. You know, I mean,
the way that what happens with democracies, what happens with republics is that they get more,
they grow by their nature and no one can stop them. I haven't seen them be able to stop them yet.
and therefore you need, again, the only freedom is the ability to leave.
So, and another thing that I believe the same way you did when my son was young,
wouldn't it be great? I can turn over Free Talk Live, this successful podcast to this young man.
He can do this. You know, do you want to do this? He's like, yeah, I want to do that.
And, you know, it seemed like a great idea, but he doesn't have the passion today for libertarianism that I did when I started at 30. And obviously he has much more passion for video games and those kind of, he started a YouTube channel and it was very successful.
successful. And, um, you know, he wanted to do something different and he doesn't necessarily
want to live where I wanted to live. And it's the same. So my mom offered her China in a big giant
break front, uh, China cabinet thing to my wife. My wife said, no, thank you.
It's a common story. There's been a number of things like that.
And that's what's going to happen with the house in all likelihood.
You know, why would my son Jack want to live in rural New Hampshire?
Yeah, but I lament the loss of that.
I really do.
I think that, and I hope that there's a future where things like that happen more.
I mean, don't happen that way.
I mean, because I think what's disappearing with that idea that we're both espousing now is the sense of community that is forged over like 40 or 50 years.
Because where I like, for example, just when I was coming here from home, I was driving to the airport and to drive out of our farm, you go up a hill, down a lane and then pass the local church, which is an old sort of like, you know, God knows that 1600 church or whatever.
but there was cars everywhere everywhere and there was a field next to the church that was
full of cars parked and the reason is is because someone locals just died and when i look at that
i think yeah where i live that you know we're newcomers we've only been there a couple of years
really in that particular area but there's people that have lived there their whole lives and and
you can't this that's important those kind of things are important those 50 year friendships
and relationships and the people in the community who everyone knows
and who hundreds of people go to their funeral.
If I died, I wouldn't get hardly anyone from where we live.
It would be quite a small funeral probably.
If there was a Zoom meeting on the funeral,
you might get a bunch of people to come.
But I mean, nobody's going to come back to Her-Hepfurtshire
or wherever it is you live.
but but but but i think that's sad for me in in a sense that but not that i even feel like i could
live like that i'm not sure i could stay in that place otherwise why am i here in prague talking to
all these people with crazy ideas it's not me and my kids are kind of the same they're probably going
to live much more of a mobile existence providing you know mobility is is easy well you know and
And when we, you know, when this idea was conceptualized, there were how many careers?
You know, everybody was a farmer.
And then in the off season, they would, one of them would make candles.
Another one would be a blacksmith and, you know, make the hooks that you hang on the wall.
And, you know, got to have the axe heads and all these sorts of things.
Another one was a farrier.
Another one was this, that, or the other.
Right.
And they began to specialize because people needed farriers all year round.
And so the guy's like, well, maybe I won't run a farm.
I'll just do ferrying work.
And it began to get more and more specialized.
And now there's not just a computer programmer, but there's specific types of computer programming so specific that you don't know that the guy that does the crypto safety analysis doesn't have any clue what the guy who builds.
builds word processing software does.
And it's just so specialized that I don't think we can live like that anymore.
I mean, it's a loss.
There's no doubt.
But I just don't think it's a modern way to live.
I just don't think it is.
So what are we creating in free cities then?
You know, like we're trying to create communities, right?
Sure.
Well, maybe.
Communities need certain – well, in the traditional sense,
communities sense communities need that longevity i think i don't think transient communities i mean
all right it's a way of living but um i don't think they last i don't by their nature i think
the whole if you look at if you look at if you created a free city for example you would expect
well it depends what kind of place i mean i think actually like mass mode's got it right
free cities are for local people you know people that create free cities for the kind of mobile
westerner yeah uh it's a good it's a great idea but really there's not that many people that do
that really what you want is just local people moving for a better standard of living that's
kind of that's kind of what it is but um but i i yeah i i hope that there's a i i don't know
i don't know how we go back from this it's like once if you've traveled and you've zipped around
the world and you've done this and you've done that very hard to go back the
curious spend 40 years in the same place yeah how could you do it I don't I mean
you know you got a handful of friends you see the handful of friends you find a mate you want to be with my friends are all around like have more friends at this conference than I do where I live by far you know
and that's reality.
Sure.
And there's not a lot of people that even,
most people don't really even know what I do.
Well,
what I found when I lived like that was that I wouldn't call the people who
lived around me necessarily friends.
I would have called them neighbors and I could always call on them to do this
thing or that.
And they could do the same with me.
And we were, you know, I, what I did was make myself available to these people to get done
what they wanted to get done.
And, um, in the same way they would do the same for me.
And they really were, I mean, salt of the earth in this particular area, but you're
right.
All those people were those other kinds.
They're just like, Oh, here's somebody who's going to be a long-termer.
I'll help them to be a long-termer.
had they known if I was only going to stay there 10 years, had I known I was only going to stay
there 10 years, they probably would have treated me differently. But they said, you know, here's
somebody who's carving an existence out of the woods, and I will help them to do that.
But that's a common idea amongst incomers. Certainly amongst the people that live in
places like that, they're always suspicious of incumbents, because they don't think they're
going to stay very long and inevitably they often don't either because you're the desire to be an
incomer yeah it does it stays with you you want to be an incomer somewhere else after that yeah
whereas if you lived in the same place for 40 years and yeah it's great i mean when i go to local
um village events where we are i feel amazing i just think this is incredible this is absolutely
amazing but you know i volunteered at the school for example to you know to to do things for the
school but i can't be a governor at the school because i'm not around enough you need to be there
all the time so i just do the odd thing so i can't embed myself in the same way at all it's a weird
it's a weird um paradox actually because i really do idolize that kind of way of life but actually
i'm not really embodying it myself i'm trying and i do you know like but i'm not at the moment am i
I'm like here and next and then we've been going to go to Central America and then we're going to go here.
And then you're like even worse.
You're all over the place, you know.
Well, now I am.
But I mean, at the time when I was living there like that, I mean, I, you know, I'd go away to a convention and obviously I couldn't make it if they made a fire call.
Right.
I'm not going to be there to, you know, pull a cow out of a ditch or whatever it is we had to do.
And, you know, if they, for instance, I'd have to work, of course.
You know, lots of people didn't make calls when I had to work.
So, you know, they, yeah.
I mean, there's always somebody who's doing a little more.
And those people do kind of make a community work in many ways.
It's no doubt.
So are we saying then that the best model for a place is a privately run, centrally governed place?
Yes.
but but limited by size presumably or not i don't know that it has to be limited by size because what
isn't that well what happens when you get one the size of the uk right i think that at this point
that is not uh possible um you know there's just not enough you know there nobody has enough wealth
to be able to run a uk sized free private city but but it is the contract's important the contract
aspect of it important. So you need to have a contract that tells you what you can and can't
do before you come in and then you sign it and there's the rules. Well, with Massimo, for instance,
his system doesn't like, so there's an important distinction to make. There are,
the free private city is just an idea. It can, it's a very blank slate. You can do whatever you
want. So Titus Gable came up with this idea. He said that, you know, you can do what you want.
So they can have property ownership within the free private city.
Massimo Mazzoni is more of an ascriber to Spencer McCallus, Spencer Heath, and this sort of Georgist idea where everybody rents, what he calls entrepreneurial communities.
And everybody rents.
And the rent's low where he is.
It's $150 a month.
I mean you can't really argue with that.
But more importantly as well, it's lower than it is in the neighboring places.
Correct.
It's not lower, it's a higher standard of living and about the same rent.
And people come in and they just scoop them up.
Whenever there's a new unit available, it is gone.
And what he says is that it's easier, rather than trying to guess everything that any kook might do to mess things up within his community,
he just says, we only do short-term leases.
And when I want to get rid of them, I get rid of them.
And if for whatever they do, you know, maybe maybe somebody, you know, wears a T-shirt every day that says I hate Hondurans.
Right. And, you know, you should be our American, our Western ideas.
We say you should be free to do that. But they probably aren't going to like that in that community.
And then at some point, you know, there's going to be a conversation that's had that say, hey, you got to stop wearing the T-shirt.
You're going to go.
The argument is then if you don't like the rules, either leave or become a billionaire and make your own one.
Is that it?
Ultimately, I get it.
Most people can't be billionaires.
I can't.
Well, you don't have to be a billionaire.
Maybe a 400 millionaire or whatever.
No, you can put together something.
I mean, like, you know, you can buy property with 100 acres or 50 acres.
Sure.
And for all intents and purposes, you can live like that.
Well, I can't negotiate with the government, though, to get a free city now.
Yes.
But no one's going to come and knock on your door necessarily if you live in the middle of nowhere.
And it's a good start.
I'll tell you what, there's a lot of people who live in the middle of nowhere where the government comes knocking on the door and says this thing or that thing.
Hey, you can't build with your log cabin.
You've got to use this or that.
And they just, I mean, more and more in America, you just can't do what you want to do.
Maybe that's why the – well, then that's why – it is why people don't like the idea.
The people that don't like the idea don't like the idea because they can't do it themselves.
They have to be someone who follows the rules, and maybe they don't want to follow the rules.
Or maybe they just don't want to – they just don't want somebody else doing a thing that they don't want them to do.
There's some bad ideas in building out there.
By the way, the real crux when it comes to tyranny is building.
If you want to build on your property, you will find the tyranny of wherever it is you live.
Because that's, I mean, you know, that's where it is.
I'm sorry, your shed's a, you know, it's a half meter too big.
Yeah, but the point is as well that the state is already, you know, the state is a billionaire basically running.
I mean, it's not.
It's completely illiquid.
It's completely out of business.
But for all intents and purposes, it's a billionaire running a place with a social contract, which is terrible compared to a real contract.
But I don't know.
I have sympathy for the people that look at the private city.
Like Destiny would be a good example, right?
Which is Olivia's project.
Olivia Jensen's project.
Destiny.
Yeah.
In Nevis, St. Kitts, right?
when you i can i can look at that and i can be i can empathize with people that look at that and
go oh my god a billionaire is going to create this thing and it's going to be um it's not going
to be good the work you know it's not going to be good for the small person really and blah you know
and you know quite viscerally i can go yeah i kind of see where you're talking from but then
when i think about it it's like that's total nonsense it's like i can't even understand it
I mean really I truly can't to me when a billionaire is not meddling in your own local government right because that billionaire
Olivia Jensen it good come to where you live and her fifth for sure and say well now we going to It herefordshire It the Shire It just like the Shire You literally don live in a place called Herefordshire
Really?
Yeah.
I didn't know where you lived, and I'm sorry.
I didn't want to come close to...
I was just making up some silly English word.
No, I live in a place called Herefordshire.
We have Hereford cattle.
They're a very famous cattle.
They are.
Big horns.
They are.
Good meat.
Yeah.
I truly was just trying to make up some just made up English town.
But it does look like the Hobbit where we live.
It's all small farms.
Except for round doors.
500 year old.
No, there's people even with round doors.
Like they've done it for fun.
But it's all very old farms spaced apart and mountains and stuff.
So you can't even understand that.
No, I can't.
But say, use this as an example then.
say that Olivia did come to Herefordshire and buy up a massive bit of land and I'm right next to it.
Well, Bill Gates isn't buying up governments.
Bill Gates is just using his money to make sure the politicians he wants to get in, get in.
And he then incentivizes them with dollars.
If we're to be believed, I don't know what Bill Gates is doing.
But, you know, Olivia doesn't have to come buy a single plot of land.
He can just say, you know, I'd like to mess with this system and money and that system truly do make a difference.
Whereas if he wants to go build a place where he and a bunch of billionaire friends go hang out, well, they're already doing that.
Monaco exists and it doesn't bother my existence.
I think it's just meddling ultimately.
And the people that say that the poor will be driven out don't understand how rich people are.
Rich people need somebody to clean the house.
Yeah, but even that sounds really derogatory, doesn't it?
Why?
Yeah, why?
You don't think it's noble to clean houses?
No, because of the way that you can frame it that way, or you can frame it, this person is just paying a pittance for someone to clean up their mess.
It's the same thing.
They're paying the market rate.
Right.
I live in Sarasota, Florida currently.
That's where mom lives, and I spend a reasonable amount of time there.
If you try to pay somebody minimum wage in Florida, which I think is $7.50 an hour, to clean your house, you will find zero, exactly zero.
Not a number near zero, a number that is exactly zero of people that will be willing to do that because they won't do it.
You cannot exploit somebody who cleans houses because they will either choose to do the job for the amount of money or they will not.
So maybe they say they'll come in and do it for $15 an hour and then they get to take a look at my place and how I live and they're like no way
I need $25 an hour to do this or whatever it is. I have no clue
You know, I don't take care of this particular job mom does have somebody who comes in. I don't know what she gets paid
but
You know nonetheless and by the way that lady tells me
This needs to be cleaned up or that like she literally has a little chore list for me to do when I come in because she's you know
she's clean for mom for 20 years and she has no problem telling me what to do. She remembers me
when I was quite young. So no problem. Yeah. I applaud your resoluteness. I suppose I probably
care more than you about what people think about my actions then because you're like,
like I say, I'm definitely going to talk to Massimo about this same thing because I've
reached out to the guy that wrote the article and he's not responding i said come on talk to me i
you know i'm really like i'm not going to set you up i actually just want to know what's going on
here and and then i'm actually going to talk to a billionaire who's who runs one of these places
and and say what do you think about this because massimo's pretty candid about the way he's yes he
is he's about as candid as it gets and but but really you your your attitude is probably correct
but it's almost like it's correct on paper.
But in real life, it's harder to actually exhibit.
There are people who do not like me
and they don't like me
because I've had conversations like this
within my community on how it is
that they shouldn't be able to have control
over their neighbor's property.
For instance, there was a guy
who was across the street from me,
across the highway from me,
and my neighbors wanted to put up
a cell phone tower on their property.
They had plenty of property.
They wanted to put a cell phone tower up there
and they were going to make a lot of money on it.
That guy didn't want to get up in the morning and see a cell phone tower in his view.
And so he, a man that had been, you know, drank beer at their place week after week after week on thirsty Thursdays and drank their beer for as long as you could possibly remember, says, nope.
And he goes to the town meeting and they, you know, he stands against it and they never got their cell tower.
And I'm like, you know, and I'm going and I'm telling, you know, these people that this is just awful, you know, and whatever.
And that one I can understand, though, because I think there's a negative externality to a cell tower, not least in the sense that, see, where I am, that would be an impolite thing to do.
If it was close to another house, it would be impolite, right?
You use cell phones where you live, right?
Right, we do. But, you know, there's a kind of polite place to cite that. But also there's the fact that I think a lot of people genuinely think that being too close to those towers is actually bad for their health.
Oh, I believe they think that too.
So that would definitely be an externality that would bother me. But more to the point, it would be, you know, it would be impolite.
If you want to put a cell tower on your land, just put it miles away from everyone. It is an imposition.
Here was the reason. And it's partially the opinion. So a better place to have put it was the property next door. That property was tens of thousands of acres. It was gigantic. And it had the top of the hill where you would want the cell tower. But the problem was is that only the abutters to the property get an opinion.
What does that mean?
Somebody who has a piece of property that abuts directly against.
In this case, it was the, we'll call it the Smith's property, right?
The Smith's had three abutters.
And I was an abutter.
And then these other two abutters.
One didn't care.
And the other guy across the street manages to get the other abutter to care.
The other abutter.
And this is how it was done.
You would have never been able to build it in the right place because that property, tens of thousands of acres, probably has 300 abutters, maybe even more.
And each one of them would get an opinion as to what happens.
So you couldn't put the cell tower at the top of the hill, way far away from people.
You had to do it this way.
And that's why this happened.
See, this is the thing is just trying to give everybody an opinion on other people's property causes this extra problem.
But I do understand it because there is, it's not, I would say I'm not an absolutist in the sense that if I bought this apartment, this is mine right now.
Okay, so I can do whatever I want here.
You know, there is a limit to what I can do.
And I think, you know, have you got somewhere to go, by the way?
Yeah, I have to go to the TPList meeting.
I just want to make sure that I'm not later something I don't know precisely.
But I have another few minutes.
How long have you got? Because I'm just looking here.
Call it 15.
Okay. I've got someone coming, I think, at 4.30, the next interview.
Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's no, it's a bit gray area.
There's no black and white way, I think, of deciding what is unfair between two properties.
Well, I think that, I think this. So everybody who, if you give the neighbors the ability to decide what goes on your property and what doesn't, then, and this is the stuff that doesn't affect them. Now, you're claiming the cell phone towers might negatively affect people's health. And that may be true.
I don't know.
To prove that, like in the same way that if I'm pumping depleted uranium into the soil, I can test soil on my property and say, look, it's coming down the creek or whatever.
The underground water is pushing it in, and I've got depleted uranium in my property, and this is bad.
I don't like it, and I'm going to sue.
And that would be a tort, and then you would owe me.
Plus, we'd have to clean it up.
And that would be the same thing with the cell towers, is my brain's being fried and I don't want to wear a tinfoil hat all the time.
It would probably more be to do with how much it affects the value of the property and just the general sense of being.
Yes, it does that too.
Because I think I know a number of occurrences of this happening with wind turbines.
And so people decide to have a wind turbine on their land, a big one, and the neighbors don't want it because they say it affects the price of their property.
Right, well, yeah, and that.
But here's my anecdote, right?
I would never buy a property near a wind farm.
So obviously the market in some shape or form is going to reflect that.
So it would mean the price was slightly higher.
But more to the point, I would say, they used to say, well, look, we have a –
and as far as the sound goes, well, there's an amount of decibels
that you're allowed to create in sound.
And below that, we've deemed that okay.
And it's true.
The number of decibels is quite quiet.
But, you know, a dripping tap is quiet.
Oh, I hear you.
Right?
But when you hear that dip, when you hear that drip,
that can drive you literally insane.
And they don't account for things like that.
So I think it, you know, it's really gray area.
It's like, what does affect people?
Sound strikes your ear.
It is aggression.
Okay?
And so within a libertarian paradigm, sound is something that one would take into account in trying to figure things out.
Not because you should be able to determine what goes on in your neighbor's property, but you determine what goes on in your property.
And the sound travels across the border.
So I get where you're coming from.
I also would say if you don't want a cell phone tower on my property, you need to give up your cell phone.
right because cell phones don't work without towers and there are definitely towns in new
hampshire that barely have cell phone coverage because every nimby uh you know busy body
stops putting up uh cell towers everywhere i don't like it the aesthetics can you make it look like a
tree or a church steeple yeah i don't mind that it's a bit yeah i don't think you even need to do
that i think there's a right and a wrong it's like you know if if someone was creating a lot
of noise from their property and you were annoyed by it that doesn't mean you've got to stop going
to discotheques you know what i mean like no i think that you know when it comes to noise i think
that there's so there's the people that move in right next to a racetrack and they're like you
know on friday night it's really loud here that's ridiculous they're assholes yeah right now there's
the people that will move next to a farm and be like,
the horse poop stinks what did you think was gonna happen On the other hand if I move in and I like to play music at 11 you know at the middle of the night and you know my neighbors are like this wasn happening before this person moved in
I think there's something to the sort of continuity of a place.
And that's probably doable.
But the good part of local government, which is what we're talking about here, right?
The local government can do good things.
It's about 5% of what they do.
And the 95% is bad.
You know, like they're involved in everything and they're always wanting to, you know, do this thing or that thing.
And I feel like I'd rather deal with my neighbor.
and I've had neighbors come and say,
hey, do you mind if I put up a little satellite dish on my property?
I'm like, thanks for coming and checking with me,
but I think it's shocking that you would have to.
Yes, put up a little foot and a half wide cell tower on the top
or a satellite dish on the top of your house.
Please do.
Enjoy cable TV.
I did that with my neighbor, actually.
I wanted to build a property to the side of our property.
And before I ever applied for any planning permission from the council, I went down to my neighbors, who's the only person that would affect, said, look, I'm thinking of doing this.
You've got a problem with that because I just didn't want to create a bad vibe between me and my neighbor.
It's as simple as that.
And I would have stopped myself or I would have adapted it because I believe in neighborliness and things like that.
I'm glad you have a reasonable neighbor.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, they didn't mind at all.
My neighbor, who was a selectman, minded the idea that I might add a master bedroom on the top of my property, not increase the footprint of the property, but add a master bedroom on the second floor.
And so much so that he used his power as a selectman to prevent me from building, even though I got permission from the state.
Was he going to cast a shadow on his property?
He was looking to sell and he figured a construction site would probably diminish the value of his property.
time right so he just stopped me from building for 18 months and I got so demoralized in the
amount of money that I because he didn't say this he just said hey you know if you wait um you know
this x amount of time um you know or whatever then I'll let you do it but you know he didn't do that
that's not how authoritarian little uh tyrants work I live amongst the fair people of Hereford
shire uh there there's an asshole in herefordshire too there are but country folk tend to be quite
chilled around this was a country guy uh this the states is because you're all armed look
i'm i'm cognizant that i think someone's coming in 10 minutes my next my next one so let's wrap
it up absolutely i gotta say it's a real pleasure tim i really love doing interviews with you because
because I think you're just a consummate broadcaster.
A consummate broadcaster.
Yeah, that's great.
All right, you can give me that, Monica.
I'm happy with that.
Why don't we wrap up with this?
You're not doing,
it not like you doing a talk at this conference but you are heavily involved in lots of aspects of it and you run the auction and stuff But I do see that on Sunday
you're doing a kind of one of those little meeting type things.
And the title of it was
Why Support the Free Cities Movement?
Yeah, I think that's on Saturday.
Is it Saturday?
Yeah.
Oh, it's not.
Is it on the main stage then?
It's on the main stage.
Oh, sorry.
I thought it was one of those Sunday things
where everyone gets together
and has a bit more of a town hall type thing.
No.
Oh, okay.
It's a proper speech.
So why should we support the Free Cities movement?
Right.
So the first thing I'll start with is I've got to create value.
I think the Free Cities Foundation is the most important liberty organization in the world.
We've got a lot of organizations out there that will help you define what liberty means.
They will tell you why it's a good idea.
They'll make an argument for you.
They'll get academic papers written as to why this would work and why it's a good idea and all those sorts of things.
Those things exist, and I think they're wonderful.
That foundation, I believe, is largely built.
If you want to find out why it's a good idea to be free in this area or that area, that article is already written.
The question is, is how do we do it?
And I've argued at this entire interview that free cities, specifically entrepreneurial communities like Massimo's creating, I believe are the single best, most functional, most facile way to create liberty that we've come up with.
And I'm a convert to this.
I was just a libertarian to start with, and I just saw something that worked.
and in order to get more of that you're going to have to support the free cities foundation
because they're the ones that are collecting this information there really isn't an organization
that's doing what they're doing and thus if we want this little tiny movement within libertarianism
to grow and get the notoriety that it deserves we've got to support this organization so i'm
going to start a monthly contribution to the Free Cities Foundation. And I'm asking everybody who's
listening to me to look into the Free Cities Foundation and consider what it is you can give
without, you know, harming yourself, right? Like I'm just, I'm just saying, you know, if you're
just buying us a cup of coffee, you know, $5, $10, whatever it is that you're wanting to do,
you know, my case, it's going to be a bit more than that because I really believe, but, you know,
take a look into what we're doing and consider what would the world be like if these ideas got
out and because they're really not and even within libertarianism these eyes are ideas aren't out
and we need we need them spread it's okay that's nice i like it i i need one of those for the
podcast as well though that's the annoying thing do a little i'll do i'll do a little donation page
at the end. But that, I mean, you know, I don't think it's as small as you make out actually.
Maybe it just me being saturated with conversations about this stuff all the time But I know many more people who for example know what Prospera is now than they never did before Yeah Five years ago it was a much smaller idea Yeah And I think that connected with the kind of crypto sphere and the Bitcoin world and the sort of longevity world because they basically using places like Prospera to operate out of
They can't do what they do medically.
Yeah, exactly. And I think that it's not as small as you think.
And, you know, it's I don't know how I don't I really don't know how small it is, obviously, but I have a sense that it's actually growing in popularity because I think what's crumbling is the idea.
idea i think that more and more people are starting to think that that idea that the state
exists is being challenged in very small ways for the very first time i've noticed because it
happened to me and now it's now i'm full-blown like i've just done absolute retrograde with it
you know i'm just like it's all terrible but it's all crap but um you know the the i can see it
being discussed and being thought about like and that's a big that's that's the final boss i think
isn't it that's the big boss that everyone needs to address in order for them to say well what's
the alternative then well maybe this competing places that actually are fair and opt-in and that
allow you to choose and then we also get to see a free market of places arising and actually oh look
we see which ones do well maybe that's a signal to us about what would be a good idea to do it not
this mass-enforced rule-based system where you don't even sign a deal with them you just they
just say no you're my bitch you do what i say because you happen to pop up in herefordshire
in a little hobbit house in 1976 or something you know right well even worse if you pop up in
Yerevan, Armenia, try leaving there. If you pop up in North Korea, good luck in being free there.
And this is what these Marxists out there want. They want you to stay in one place and be ruled
by those people, to be exploited by the state. It's terrible if you get exploited by the capitalist,
but it is your role. It is your purpose of being to be exploited by the state.
It is. It is. Right. Mark, many thanks. You've got a shareholder meeting to go to, I believe.
Thank you so much.
You billionaire capitalist, you.
Not I.
When you're sitting around that table with all the other billionaires, you can ask them, are we planning something dastardly? Is this a conspiracy?
Well, I'm sure you're allowed to attend.
Yeah, I've got to work. I'm going to the plebs meeting, I think. Anyway.
This evening, right?
Yes. Lovely to see you again, mate. And good luck with your talk and everything. And I'll see you around.
Thank you so much.