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Welcome to the Free Cities podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast

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of the Free Cities Foundation.

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Hello and welcome to this episode number 157 of the Free Cities podcast.

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This episode is, as always, brought to you by the wonderful Veritas Villages.

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They're building off-grid, freedom-oriented communities in Latin America.

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And these communities, well, they should appeal to you if you're a freedom lover,

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looking for a great Plan B option, or in fact, as many have chosen already, a Plan A home.

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and for the Bitcoiners amongst you.

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You can buy your property with Bitcoin

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and spend Bitcoin at all communities.

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They can even help you mine Bitcoin

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with the excess energy

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that your home will inevitably produce.

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www.veritasvillages.com

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forward slash free cities.

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For more info,

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please mention that the Free Cities podcast sent you

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and check the show notes

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for all the details you could need,

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including two previous interviews

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I've conducted with Patrick, who runs the company. I advise you to listen to him talking about what

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they're up to, and that should give you an idea of whether or not you like what they're doing,

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and whether you'd like to do business with them right. This week, I have a well-loved and returning

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guest. It's urban economist, policy analyst, and writer Vera Kichenova, also the senior economist

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at the Free Cities Foundation. I saw her at the Free Cities Conference in Prague a couple of weeks

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ago, of course. For those of you that don't know her, she's a former elected councillor in Russia,

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editor-in-chief of a think tank in Kiev, president of the Oxford Hayek Society,

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and a former researcher at Zaha Hadid Architects. This is the third time for Vera on the show,

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and this time we're talking about all the latest news, research and criticisms of the Free Cities ecosystem.

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Check out the show notes for her other episodes. Here's the AI's take on our discussion.

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In this podcast, we discuss the rising interest in free cities since COVID-19

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and address recent critiques, framing them as projects for the wealthy and or well-connected.

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We explore the role of private initiatives versus state control, historical and modern examples of privately developed cities and the nuances of freedom, choice and consent in all these projects.

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The conversation touches on topics ranging from free ports in the UK to seasteading, environmental benefits of free cities and the potential for new models in places like Dubai, Europe and Honduras.

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It's always a pleasure to talk with Vera. She's one of the trailblazers in our movement.

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She really does walk the talk, as they say. I've always considered her a great source of info and opinion over the years.

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don't forget if you're planning on walking the talk yourself and coming to prosper with us

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for our 2026 conference get on over to www.freecitiesconference.com

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that's the place to secure your discounted tickets and accommodation offers don't sit on this one

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people there's limited space for visitors compared to empire hall in prague and it's going to be well

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attended as we saw this year at the conference right thanks to my value for value supporters

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for your continued support i'm planning a new bonus episode in the next few weeks so look out

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for that one very busy with podcast stuff right now your monthly donations are really helping us

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to expand and hopefully to go full time on this in 2026 more news of that coming soon right signing

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off now i appreciate you all uh by the way see you in manchester if you're going to bit fest

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this weekend and make sure if you're not or even if you are you take some time to chill out

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away from it all why don't you just sit back right now relax and enjoy my conversation with

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vera kitchenova

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Always great being back to Prague, one of my favorite cities.

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It is. And do you know what? I don't know whether you agree with me here, but I feel like this year there's a bit of a buzz around free cities.

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was i mean am i making this up or for example um the last um newsletter that went out was had loads

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of new projects on it um and normally you know without putting our sort of industry down it's

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quite slow moving so when you see a new project it's like oh but i feel like this year i think

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it's slow moving depends of what you compare it to if you compare it to i don't know the the

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crypto world that uh doesn't have to like trying to in many ways ignore the existing regulations

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and doesn't uh try to go against the wind and fight this all this political uh go like through

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this political labyrinth and stuff, then yes, then it's going slow.

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But if you think about the, I shouldn't say free citizen industry back 20 years ago, because

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there was no industry, there were a few pioneers like Patrick Friedman and Tom Bell who had

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to do everything all at once, and Michael Strong people, and the people in Honduras

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Honduras when they were just

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you know just starting all of this

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then yes then it's going very fast

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because now it's not one team

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it's not the same people doing everything

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this is quite diversified

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there is the sort of a division of labor

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there are people who are dealing with investment

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people who are dealing with the PR side

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the explaining why this is good for the host countries and for the humanity as a whole.

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There are people who are dealing with urban planning side.

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And so, yes, I think the biggest breakthrough in my, like, the way I sensed it was after

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COVID, when so many people globally have discovered that something's wrong with the countries

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where they live, even if they live in relatively, you know, okay countries, economically, politically,

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they still understood that even the government that is kind of democratic still had the power of abusing their,

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had the capacity to abuse their powers in extra circumstances.

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So that's when I think the movement has suddenly grown, started growing exponentially.

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and but yeah I think the fact that so many it's also a very good thing about our conference that

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so many projects are so many teams are holding up the big announcements until we all get together in

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Prague I feel myself I I agree with you about the about what happened since COVID I think what I alluding to is maybe even more to do with the fact that I think the idea

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the concept of even democracy being not necessarily a good working model of governance, for example.

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These kind of ideas which were, I mean, completely radical not that long ago.

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And now I hear on relatively mainstream podcasts the idea that, you know, we don't really have many choices of the way we can structure our society.

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We kind of got two major ones, which is democracy and complete lack of democracy.

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And that's the way people tend to see it.

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But here's an interesting thing that happened recently.

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Do you know who, you know, Whitney Webb?

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Do you know who Whitney Webb is?

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She's a really, I'm a big fan of hers.

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She basically is a kind of thinking person's conspiracy theorist, but she's not a conspiracy theorist, but she's one of those people that brings together all the information.

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She talks a lot about digital ID and about all these kind of things.

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And recently, she had somebody, she's got a massive audience.

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She's got millions and millions of followers.

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Somebody released an article on their website, Unlimited Hangout.

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And it was about kind of free cities.

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But in it, and this is the first time I've heard it from this angle, but it was quite negative, obviously.

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It basically was that the idea that a powerful group of oligarchs are trying to create an alternative non-state city-state network.

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Did they talk about a specific project or just the idea?

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I mean, they did actually talk about Prospera, but the way they sort of dissected it was Prospera was funded by partly Peter Thiel, for example.

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Or, you know, there was no research done on the ground.

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It was all stuff, for example, a lot of what they said about Prospera also came from very kind of left wing publications who'd mentioned next door being disenfranchised and a lot of the talking points that we no longer even really discuss because they've all been disproven.

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but it wasn't it was interesting for me to see that in a in what I would have considered a part

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of the ecosystem that I actually value I think that the people doing work against these kind of

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like high level conspiracies is the wrong word but but there is some truth in a lot of there's a lot

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of truth in a lot of what they say and I just when I saw it directed at free cities I was it made me

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realized that um it's a murky world of it can look like a very murky world and you know like

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private cities um you know non-governmental whatever and i mean despite the fact obviously

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that i'm surprised they even think that something being non-state is a bad idea

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but we're not without even speaking about that what's your what do you think about that because

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I think personally that over the next few years, I'm going to have to more and more address ideas

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like this, that private cities are definitely places where very wealthy people are going to

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use to be outside of the law or whatever. So come on, give me, you're one of the,

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you're someone who knows a lot about private cities. So tell me, tell me where they're going

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wrong. I think that the main argument is that the wealthy and the powerful already have plenty of

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existing tools to lead to minimize their taxes and minimize their interactions with governments

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and with the bureaucracies. The free cities are going to give more choice to people who don't have

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this privilege, who don't have that access. And I think that if those journalists who are,

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who've been spreading this coverage about, say, Prospera and generally ZS in Honduras.

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I wonder how many of them have actually gone there on the island, on Roatan or in Morazan,

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and spoke to people living there, spoke to people who voluntarily, the regular Hondurans,

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not the wealthy crypto-billionaires people who moved there, because that was their once-in-a-lifetime choice,

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once-in-a-lifetime chance to get out of poverty,

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to get out of this precarious life that they had

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surrounded by organized crime and, yeah,

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and, yeah, get the chance in life for them

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and for their families to thrive.

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And I wonder how many of those journalists went there

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and talk to them instead of just amplifying the messages

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of professional activists who, as you very aptly said,

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that the idea is not just the point of people criticizing free cities,

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private cities, and other innovative forms of governance

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is not that it's, yeah, exactly it boils down to the idea that everything private is bad,

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and more or less any private alternative to what we perceive as the prerogative of the state

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is inherently wrong. Because if you look at the historical scale, the nation state and the

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the nation states and the has been an it's an aberration on a historical scale.

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Like we've been living in cities, we've been living in empires, we've been living in other

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arrangements and communities, self-governing communities, but the nation state is quite a

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new thing. And the welfare state is also quite an aberration. It used to, and it doesn't mean

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that they haven't been historically self-organized,

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like the tools of self-organizations of people

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to help those in need, to help the poor,

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to help the other members of the society who needed help.

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So, yeah, there's always been safety nets provided by non-state actors.

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there's always been urban projects that were developed.

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Like in the 19th century, at some point,

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about 3% of the US lived in the US population,

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lived in private towns, company towns.

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And a lot of cities that are scattered all over the US now

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were built privately.

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Some of them quite large.

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Like my presentation this year will be about

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why private cities are good for the planet,

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why they're good for the environment.

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And one of my favorite case studies is the city of Irvine in California.

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It's a very successful case.

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It's the largest privately built city in the US.

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Is that Orion?

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Irvine.

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Oh, Irvine.

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Irvine.

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You're right, Irvine.

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Yeah, Irvine.

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Okay.

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Yes.

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So it was built privately.

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and it is one of the top 10 greenest, safest, happiest, healthiest cities in the whole country.

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And a lot of people living there have no idea that it's built privately and it's not governed

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privately anymore. It has a municipality, but the land is still largely owned by the

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same Irvine company and the business centers the commercial spaces are also owned by them that they rent out So they still have pretty solid control over the city affairs but it works very well

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And I interviewed, that was one of my case studies for my PhD.

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I interviewed people who work there, who live there, including even the local politicians from the Democrats

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who would say that, yes, it's not ideal that we have a private company with such an influence,

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but we must admit that the Irvine company is very collaborative,

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and we can always find common ground, and it's been like this for 50 years.

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And this is a unique thing because I don't think in today's,

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if somebody wants to build another, that was my kind of biggest question,

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can you build another Irvine today in America?

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And I came to a conclusion that if somebody is doing it, they would be doing it very discreetly.

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Because as you know, any announcement of someone with means to build a city that, oh, there is a group of, like there is a billionaire or a group of billionaires like California Forever, for example, trying to, like intending to build a private city.

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it creates a massive backlash.

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The thing, the problem I think is,

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and I'm going to go back

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and I'm going to address three things you've just said there.

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Firstly, it's true that people,

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I think this is a new,

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and this is definitely a new paradigm we're in now

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where people, just general people,

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not just people that really think these things through,

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but a lot of just normal folk

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starting to wonder if state-run things are the be-all and the end-all.

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Like you say, it's a relatively new invention, the state.

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But I think most people, and even, like I say, people who are on our side,

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well, I would say our side, who say, oh, no, private cities are bad

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because they're basically circumnavigating the state

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as if that's some kind of a bad thing.

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Okay, right. That's number one.

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The problem is, I think, because, and this bleeds into the next two, people associate the state with democracy, and people think democracy empowers the underdog.

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That's kind of like the reason why your average person who's fighting for what's right would say, we need the state, because the state in the countries that we live, anyway, allows me to be a part of the system by my vote, maybe making a difference, which is another thing I contest.

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wholeheartedly. Coming from Eastern Europe, you don't fall for this.

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Okay, right. Well, I think, I mean, we talked a lot about whether democracy is a good idea or not.

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But let's just say that I'm trying to understand where this kind of idea comes from.

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And the third thing is, take Irvin, for example, a private thing, which was working really well,

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which people are inherently suspicious of, again. But I think the same people,

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The same people who think the state is good, that democracy is good, that think Irvine would be bad if it was run by a private institution or a private company would be that it's for rich people.

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Because who can now afford to go there?

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Because people who are more mobile, people who are more empowered, people who are, you know, the people that build these things are people who have more empowerment.

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That's exactly why we need more free cities, because we need these opportunities to be spread more evenly. We need them to be available. Like, yes, Irvine, yeah, California is, yeah, Irvine is a very, you know, it's an upmarket place to live.

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But if you look at our free cities map, the free communities map, free-communities.com, for those who don't know, it's like a map of projects that are in the loop in the movement.

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And then you see that more than half of them are aimed at people, at the blue collar workers, at the former villagers, like, for example, the small farm cities, which is a project in Africa.

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I think their flagship project is in Malawi.

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And it is aimed at the rural residents.

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the idea is to give them new tools to integrate them into the, you know, the agricultural economy

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of the 21st century to teach them how to more efficiently, I don't know what's, to be honest,

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where is it now? Because I, last time I interviewed them about a year ago for the

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Free Communities Directory, but the idea, yeah, or there is one more project that I'll be talking

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on my lecture is Lavasa in India. It's a city which, it's basically India's greenest city,

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entirely private. Everything's provided privately, roads, parks, garbage collection,

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drinking water, primary education and health care. And most residents there are not the

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upper caste Indians, you know, who live in gated communities in Delhi and Mumbai. Most of them

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are the former villagers who sold their land to the developer. And in exchange for that, there was

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a deal. Like you sell us your land relatively cheap, the agricultural land. You get homes and

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jobs in this new city and you get all of these things for free, like an English-speaking primary

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school, English-speaking nursery for their kids. Imagine growing up in rural India and getting all

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of this for your family. And so because, as I think you talked a few times with Massimo

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Mazzone, who is building Morazan in Honduras, it's a similar idea. He told me once that

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the market for the middle class and lower middle class and working class people, the market for

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for free cities aimed at them is much larger in the world.

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So building these not fancy gated enclaves

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with amazing architecture, with world-class architecture,

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with the crypto hubs and all these things.

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This is a cool thing to have because it can kind of,

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you can attract the early comers,

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you can advertise the idea with that.

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And yeah, there is a market for that, but there is a much bigger market for cities, for the regular people who do not have necessarily access to California gated communities. Irvine is not a gated community, but there are a lot in California.

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And by the way, in America, if you look at the media, I once Googled, just looked at the media headlines about private city, like this and this building private city, like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, who else? Jeff Bezos.

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And the headlines, if you look through them, they read like as if we're not talking about someone building a city, as if we're talking about someone bombing a city, like destroying cities on a massive scale because the level of panic and, you know, there is always this mix of fear of somebody destroying our democracy, our institutions when something goes right.

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and this schadenfreude when something goes wrong.

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Like, oh yeah, they will fail.

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Yes, and the same people who are looking like,

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who look like this at the idea of free cities,

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if you look, they still, when they have a choice,

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they buy flats and apartments in privately run communities About 10 today of newly built American homes are in these privately run communities

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That's what people really prefer.

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Well, I think Morazan is a good example of that as well.

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Morazan is, well, not that they're buying properties there, but that they're choosing to live there rather than Chaloma, which is a hugely dangerous part of Honduras.

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One of the most dangerous places in the world outside war zones.

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Is that right? I didn't know it was that bad. I've not been to Morizan myself.

248
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But yeah, and interestingly, in going back to the article I was telling you about this sort of oligarchs building a network of cities, they didn't mention Morizan.

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And no one ever mentions Morizan. And I've reached out to the guy that wrote the article because I want to get him on the podcast.

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I want to hear, he's one of these people that they've done so much research.

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But I think sometimes when you apply a paranoid eye to any research, you can actually doubt most things about the intentions of people.

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And I mean, because the truth is, I mean, when you mention even sort of Musk and Gates and these kind of people,

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and then you mentioned the word private city after that yeah i do get suspicious i i i'm not

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necessarily someone who thinks that those people have the best interests of the world at heart i

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have no idea at all um so so what do you i mean what do you think about that what what is what is

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it about the this kind of barrier i think there is to um people letting go of the idea like

257
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And another, sorry to go off on a tangent, but another idea is Trump's freedom cities, which seem, do you know much about the proposal?

258
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I know about the proposal, but as far as I know, it hasn't moved anywhere since.

259
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So I don't think if we can, I don't think we can discuss it in substance.

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Okay.

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But even the idea, the idea is bad, apparently.

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It's very much a part of this thing.

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people that want to live outside the system.

264
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I mean, but the truth is like...

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I remember how our friend Joyce wrote a blog post for the Free Cities website.

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Freedom cities are not necessarily free cities.

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Yes.

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I think that's a good way to put it.

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Well, I mean, the truth is, you know, without putting too fine a point on it,

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we kind of do want to live outside the system.

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Yeah.

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So you're never going to win that argument if someone believes that the state is the best way to run a system.

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But I think there's less and less people who believe that.

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I hope so.

275
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Of course you hope so.

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I think, yes.

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As I said, the COVID was a big eye-opener for many.

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I must admit, because I'm a relatively new convert to the concept that democracy is not such a good idea.

279
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And that's not because I thought it through.

280
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I just didn't think it through.

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And this is the point.

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It's an idea that is really bulletproof because most people don't even challenge it for one second.

283
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It's not something they think about.

284
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You wrote a paper, didn't you, about freeports in the UK?

285
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So this is something, I mean, I live in the UK.

286
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I talk about this a lot.

287
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the state of the UK, basically.

288
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And it's gone from something that was whispered about

289
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to quite mainstream, what's the word?

290
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Anger about what's happening in the UK across many fronts,

291
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economically, policy-wise, immigration, all these things.

292
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It really seems to be getting quite gnarly there, quite riled up.

293
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um so since that when did you write that paper that was that was it was published in january

294
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this year oh is this year yeah so come on then juxtapose those two ideas because your your your

295
00:29:16,434 --> 00:29:22,774
belief obviously is that the you know the uk could be using free ports to to to start turning itself

296
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around for for the lack of a better alternative okay right okay so you're you're in agreement then

297
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Have you been back? You lived in the UK for quite a while.

298
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Yes, for seven years. And I still consider London my kind of home.

299
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And do you know much about the general sense of what's going on there at the moment?

300
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Yeah, vaguely.

301
00:29:49,234 --> 00:29:51,754
Right. Well, because, you know, I do live there.

302
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And it's obviously hard to know whether I'm not just a bit too immersed in that side of things.

303
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but I do know that when I go to the pub now and I speak to the guy that runs the power our local

304
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pub's just been taken over by a new land landlord and landlady and they're all discussing the same

305
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things a lot of them are talking about how difficult it is to run a business number one

306
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and the other thing they're talking about is how much um they want a different way of they want a

307
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different party in power and they don't want the conservatives and they don't want don't want labor

308
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So those two things seems to have gone mainstream, which is hopefully that's where the free cities movement just steps in and goes, well, here's an interesting solution for you then.

309
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I think you'd argue that, right?

310
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Yeah.

311
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Yeah, but the free ports agenda that was proposed by the previous conservative government has very little to do with actual freedom.

312
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It was a very technocratic solution. And if you look at it, the Labour Party, who is now in power, they proposed this new generation of new towns. You know, they were the new towns in the 50s, which was a very top-down, like a massive top-down project of initiative of building new towns all over the UK.

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very few of them succeeded

314
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and now they want to repeat it

315
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and if you look at these two proposals

316
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they don't have very much difference to be honest

317
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they're just framed differently

318
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in accordance to each party's

319
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the voters values

320
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each party's ideology

321
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but at its core

322
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it's a very technocratic solution

323
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we create a commission to oversee a committee

324
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to control a task force.

325
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And this task force is going to

326
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cherry-pick the locations

327
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based not on market demand

328
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and population trends,

329
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but on some political will,

330
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political considerations.

331
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And we're going to cherry-pick the industries

332
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that will be prioritized there.

333
00:32:15,974 --> 00:32:33,274
So it can be in the conservative case, it was the, the idea was to revive the industrial heritage of the UK in the labor. It's more toward, it's more in the direction of supporting green industries.

334
00:32:33,274 --> 00:32:40,214
But institutionally, it's a very similar thing.

335
00:32:41,534 --> 00:32:47,174
It's just the government picking places, picking industries,

336
00:32:47,934 --> 00:32:55,554
and it's just adding new layers of bureaucracy instead of circling out a place

337
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and removing bureaucracy from there as much as possible.

338
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Do you think that's something that could ever happen in the UK?

339
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or at least in the in the medium short to medium term like 25 30 years do you think that could happen I mean I I'm very skeptical about the idea I feel like the bureaucratic blob is so big in the UK it's so well established

340
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that it's almost impossible to deconstruct it.

341
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And the thought of creating something which is outside of this

342
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is even less likely because it's an absolute threat at that point.

343
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Because there's such a stark contrast.

344
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If you created a free place in the UK,

345
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it would be so obvious how different it was.

346
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Because the current state of the UK is literally a quagmire

347
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of rules, regulations, like you say,

348
00:33:49,992 --> 00:33:59,092
committees, everything takes 30 years to do, you know, I mean, you know, do you think it could change? And if so, how?

349
00:34:01,432 --> 00:34:07,312
Well, if you ask about the 25 year timescale, a lot can change.

350
00:34:07,312 --> 00:34:13,612
Because if you look 25 years back, a lot of things have happened that we could never predict.

351
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from COVID to the rise of crypto.

352
00:34:22,292 --> 00:34:26,312
And do it now, AI, I don't know.

353
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You can only think what can happen in the next 25 years.

354
00:34:30,512 --> 00:34:33,152
Many of this thing may become irrelevant.

355
00:34:34,292 --> 00:34:37,432
And generally, again, if you look at historical timescale,

356
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I think I still believe, historical and geographical,

357
00:34:41,872 --> 00:34:48,132
that the UK deep inside has this respect for institutions.

358
00:34:49,192 --> 00:34:52,112
So I hope in the long run it is like,

359
00:34:52,112 --> 00:34:57,072
the thing is, I think it's a task of persuading the population,

360
00:34:57,412 --> 00:35:02,892
persuading the decision makers and the media content creators

361
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that this is going to be a good thing for the country,

362
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a good thing for the people to finding the right words.

363
00:35:11,872 --> 00:35:20,432
uh to frame it the right way to frame it uh so well the uk had margaret thatcher and her reforms

364
00:35:20,432 --> 00:35:28,112
uh they had free like she introduced the free ports she created uh places like the canary wharf

365
00:35:28,112 --> 00:35:36,512
uh which was basically the city of london 2.0 their self uh to some extent a self-governing

366
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territory within London with a special economic zone status and with urban development corporation

367
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status that allowed the developers to circumvent the usual planning rules.

368
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And that was a stunning success, as you know.

369
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And still it made London one of the main financial centers in the world.

370
00:36:09,612 --> 00:36:18,732
And it's funny that if you listen, well, remember the last time we were choosing the leader of the Conservative Party.

371
00:36:19,552 --> 00:36:25,992
Everyone had the sense, the need to praise Margaret Thatcher, like every single candidate.

372
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None of them, well, they didn't end following, like trying to implement her style of reforms policies.

373
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But some way, yeah, her legacy is respected.

374
00:36:42,192 --> 00:36:51,352
So the idea that you could revitalize Britain with the current Freeport framework that's happening in East,

375
00:36:51,592 --> 00:36:54,752
is it all East London down the Thames there, isn't it?

376
00:36:54,752 --> 00:36:55,932
There is one, yes.

377
00:36:55,992 --> 00:37:06,612
Yeah. Is that, what do you know about that going forward now, for example? Is that, is it just turned into another dead end, do you think?

378
00:37:07,672 --> 00:37:17,792
I don't know, to be honest, haven't been following. But three days ago, I was approached by another large scale urban development project.

379
00:37:17,792 --> 00:37:28,972
uh so who's in the uk yes i uh yeah i won't won't won't name any names but i was just uh

380
00:37:28,972 --> 00:37:36,932
it felt good that they they wrote to me we read your paper and we think that we would benefit from

381
00:37:36,932 --> 00:37:46,572
some understanding of the the policy side of this so yeah there was some reaction to the paper a few

382
00:37:46,572 --> 00:37:55,592
people. Yeah, I know that the Thames, the Thames Report team also discussed it. And they also felt

383
00:37:55,592 --> 00:38:00,852
empowered when they say that that IEA, the Institute of Economic Affairs, who published it,

384
00:38:00,852 --> 00:38:07,512
it was exactly the think tank that brought that it was the the think tank behind Thatcher's

385
00:38:07,512 --> 00:38:13,412
reforms. So they are one of the most influential think tanks in the UK. So yeah, I hope that this

386
00:38:13,412 --> 00:38:22,232
paper was ended up on the right tables of the people who are on one hand can politically enable

387
00:38:22,232 --> 00:38:27,852
something like that on the other hand who have means to like developers who have means to build

388
00:38:27,852 --> 00:38:35,732
it like you say though there's a big difference between a freeport idea and a free city idea and

389
00:38:35,732 --> 00:38:42,052
i think what drives a free city idea is freedom in some shape or form i know that with a freeport

390
00:38:42,052 --> 00:38:49,932
you get a degree of economic freedom possibly but i don't really think that any of us are driven

391
00:38:49,932 --> 00:38:59,212
by just that idea now i'm i'll be interested to hear your opinion because i think going forward

392
00:38:59,212 --> 00:39:06,492
as well over the next sort of 10 or 15 years as more projects come online i think people are going

393
00:39:06,492 --> 00:39:12,252
to be asking questions about the validity of these projects because they're all going to be

394
00:39:12,252 --> 00:39:17,672
happening to there's going to be different degrees of freedom happening in all these projects

395
00:39:17,672 --> 00:39:26,992
and so it's going to be very easy to take the standard liberty free city idea and then juxtapose

396
00:39:26,992 --> 00:39:31,652
it against what's actually happening in reality and people go well this is crazy this isn't a free

397
00:39:31,652 --> 00:39:39,512
city. And I'm already starting to have those conversations. And my instinctive response

398
00:39:39,512 --> 00:39:47,792
has been, and I want to hear what yours would be, is that if there's more freedom inside of

399
00:39:47,792 --> 00:39:54,292
this place than there is outside of this place, then it's all good. I'm not going to judge the

400
00:39:54,292 --> 00:40:00,652
degree of it. Yeah, I want as much freedom as possible. But more freedom is better than no

401
00:40:00,652 --> 00:40:07,152
freedom. What would your idea be? Well, first of all, I think it was Milton Friedman who

402
00:40:07,152 --> 00:40:15,792
stressed this idea that you cannot separate 100% economic freedom and personal or political

403
00:40:15,792 --> 00:40:20,632
freedom. These things are intertwined. I think it was his example. If you cannot

404
00:40:20,632 --> 00:40:28,712
have means to publish a newspaper, if economically you're not allowed to publish your own newspaper,

405
00:40:28,712 --> 00:40:34,612
is this political or economic freedom infringement in some states.

406
00:40:34,952 --> 00:40:39,852
So there is always one thing is always interconnected with the other.

407
00:40:39,852 --> 00:40:46,272
But yeah, exactly, there is the idea of pockets of economic freedom

408
00:40:46,272 --> 00:40:48,812
is much more easily sold, I guess,

409
00:40:49,852 --> 00:40:52,832
than the idea of allowing people more,

410
00:40:53,312 --> 00:40:55,832
creating these pockets of more political freedom.

411
00:40:55,832 --> 00:40:57,912
but again

412
00:40:57,912 --> 00:40:59,632
so I live in Dubai now

413
00:40:59,632 --> 00:41:01,732
it's a very well known

414
00:41:01,732 --> 00:41:03,512
place

415
00:41:03,512 --> 00:41:06,232
where that champions economic freedom

416
00:41:06,232 --> 00:41:08,092
but it inevitably

417
00:41:08,092 --> 00:41:10,192
translates into more personal freedom

418
00:41:10,192 --> 00:41:12,272
if you go to Dubai it's a much

419
00:41:12,272 --> 00:41:14,372
more socially liberal place

420
00:41:14,372 --> 00:41:16,172
than basically any other

421
00:41:16,172 --> 00:41:17,012
city in the Gulf

422
00:41:17,012 --> 00:41:20,332
so these things

423
00:41:20,332 --> 00:41:22,492
and I know

424
00:41:22,492 --> 00:41:24,452
that you know there are

425
00:41:24,452 --> 00:41:30,092
other places in the region that are trying to copy paste Dubai, like Doha in Qatar and

426
00:41:30,092 --> 00:41:31,552
Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.

427
00:41:31,552 --> 00:41:45,050
And there is an inevitable move in that direction Like you trying you creating free economic zones and then you have and then you allow women to drive

428
00:41:45,050 --> 00:41:48,510
and then you hold electronic music parties in the desert

429
00:41:48,510 --> 00:41:52,050
and then you have exhibition, like modern art exhibitions

430
00:41:52,050 --> 00:41:56,890
where you allow much more, where you can clearly see things

431
00:41:56,890 --> 00:42:02,890
that were impossible to see anywhere in the region 10 years ago.

432
00:42:02,890 --> 00:42:05,170
So that's another example.

433
00:42:07,870 --> 00:42:14,570
Actually, that's one of the reasons why the governments of non-democratic countries

434
00:42:14,570 --> 00:42:18,370
might be wary of the idea of three cities,

435
00:42:18,370 --> 00:42:26,190
because they can realize that if you create a hub of economic freedom,

436
00:42:26,310 --> 00:42:29,370
you should be ready for some...

437
00:42:29,370 --> 00:42:37,150
And the people coming there would also probably be expecting more personal freedoms there.

438
00:42:37,550 --> 00:42:39,270
So not everyone's ready for that.

439
00:42:40,650 --> 00:42:48,670
But I mean, in Dubai, Dubai is a good example, because do you think Dubai's trajectory is kind of topping out then?

440
00:42:48,770 --> 00:42:52,890
Or do you think you'd say it's the most socially liberal place in the Middle East?

441
00:42:53,730 --> 00:42:54,710
The Gulf.

442
00:42:54,710 --> 00:43:09,690
In the Gulf, let's say. Do you think they've decided, OK, now we've reached this good point? Or do you think, you know, liberal ideas in the social sense go on a lot further than this?

443
00:43:09,690 --> 00:43:15,470
Because it is interesting because everyone, like people treat Dubai like it's black and white.

444
00:43:15,970 --> 00:43:17,470
They either love it or hate it.

445
00:43:17,710 --> 00:43:18,990
And I understand both sides.

446
00:43:19,410 --> 00:43:25,950
We love it because it's a really interesting model that sort of is very economically free.

447
00:43:26,730 --> 00:43:35,470
But socially, if you compare it to somewhere else in the West, it seems to be, you know, quite authoritarian.

448
00:43:35,470 --> 00:43:40,130
So people either jump on that side of it or on the economic freedom side.

449
00:43:40,250 --> 00:43:42,210
They don't seem to hardly anyone goes halfway.

450
00:43:42,350 --> 00:43:44,750
People in the West have seen nothing but the West.

451
00:43:44,970 --> 00:43:48,470
So they only compare it with what they see at home.

452
00:43:49,550 --> 00:44:01,410
But for the millions of people coming there from from other developing third world countries, it's a big improvement on all kinds of freedoms.

453
00:44:01,410 --> 00:44:20,450
And I also wanted to add to this, you know, I think false dichotomy between political and economic freedom. And you ask what's more important. I think that's exactly why we need a market for free cities, the market for good governance, as Titus calls it, that different people have different priorities.

454
00:44:20,450 --> 00:44:25,490
For some people, the streamlined rules of running business are more important.

455
00:44:25,710 --> 00:44:33,330
For other people, their sense of agency is more important.

456
00:44:33,710 --> 00:44:36,410
Even my favorite example is in Honduras.

457
00:44:36,650 --> 00:44:41,990
You have two Zedis, which one of them, Prospera, has some elements of democracy.

458
00:44:43,390 --> 00:44:49,170
The other, Morasan, is an entrecom, as they call it, entrepreneurial communities,

459
00:44:49,170 --> 00:44:58,450
where the developer makes all the decisions. And both are absolutely, both are good, both are fine.

460
00:44:59,170 --> 00:45:05,410
So I also don't like the idea that democracy is bad per se. I think it's about consent. It's not

461
00:45:05,410 --> 00:45:11,650
about the way you make decisions. So if you sign this agreement of coexistence when you move to

462
00:45:11,650 --> 00:45:18,930
Prospera, then you sign up to these procedures. Within a condominium, you can have democracy,

463
00:45:18,930 --> 00:45:23,930
you can have more democracy or less democracy, but it will be a privately run community and

464
00:45:23,930 --> 00:45:32,110
everyone moving there would explicitly sign up to these rules of decision making. Some people

465
00:45:32,110 --> 00:45:39,750
value this. So for example, Irvine, it's also a very peculiar case because it was built,

466
00:45:40,610 --> 00:45:46,190
Orange County, where it was built in California, was one of the major strongholds of the

467
00:45:46,190 --> 00:45:54,210
conservative party in the US back then, in the 50s, in the 60s. But the city itself was,

468
00:45:55,130 --> 00:46:00,270
because it was growing around the university campus, the University of California Irvine

469
00:46:00,270 --> 00:46:06,830
campus, it was attracting very liberal minded population, people who wanted, who were inherently

470
00:46:06,830 --> 00:46:12,190
suspicious of big business, who wanted a say, who wanted democracy. And that created this very

471
00:46:12,190 --> 00:46:18,610
interesting, like very balanced way of decision making. And the Irvine company,

472
00:46:19,070 --> 00:46:26,910
the developer, they decided to introduce, you know, more, to give, voluntarily gave their power,

473
00:46:27,030 --> 00:46:31,510
like some powers, they decided to create a municipality because they thought, oh, that is

474
00:46:31,510 --> 00:46:36,390
from a market perspective, that's going to be good for us, because that will raise the value

475
00:46:36,390 --> 00:46:41,470
of these homes, because people moving here want to work with the university, they want to work in

476
00:46:41,470 --> 00:46:49,250
the creative industries, it's California, so they want some democracy. And if we allow them to vote,

477
00:46:49,750 --> 00:46:58,590
if we create this municipality, then the rates, the prices of houses that we build will go up

478
00:46:58,590 --> 00:47:04,390
even further. So it is all, that's why we need the market, because different people have different

479
00:47:04,390 --> 00:47:11,870
priorities you're absolutely right consent is at the is it is at the base layer of all this

480
00:47:11,870 --> 00:47:21,630
it's true um but but how does it work then say consent is paramount okay so you have a place

481
00:47:21,630 --> 00:47:29,870
that is a marginal improvement so in a way to join that place you it takes your consent but it might

482
00:47:29,870 --> 00:47:35,850
not be, you know, you may have no choice, if you see what I mean. You say you live in a very

483
00:47:35,850 --> 00:47:41,650
authoritarian place and suddenly this little pocket of freedom springs up. But really it's not that

484
00:47:41,650 --> 00:47:47,630
much freedom if you compared it to many other places, but it's marginally better. The consent

485
00:47:47,630 --> 00:47:55,450
is still there, but you're still not living in a free place. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm,

486
00:47:55,450 --> 00:48:03,770
The reason I'm asking you is because I know over the next 10 years, I'm going to have to talk about this more and more and more, because I think this is the truth.

487
00:48:03,870 --> 00:48:11,930
I think the Free Cities movement's gone through a kind of a few stages and it's been quite theoretical until the ZAs.

488
00:48:11,930 --> 00:48:25,590
And now I think over the next five to 10 years, we're going to suddenly be sort of like thrown into this arena of lots of real life examples.

489
00:48:26,250 --> 00:48:26,370
Yes.

490
00:48:26,490 --> 00:48:32,410
And the real life examples of free cities are not what we necessarily spent years talking about.

491
00:48:32,910 --> 00:48:33,550
They are.

492
00:48:33,690 --> 00:48:38,670
Here's what we can achieve within the parameters of where we are.

493
00:48:38,670 --> 00:49:06,030
And by their nature, a lot of these places are going to like Dubai. They're going to arise in places where there isn't huge amounts of freedom, even economic or social. So consent is super important. But I suppose in a way, there are some people who would say, well, yeah, I'm giving you my consent to be here because it's better than where I've come from. But it would be much better somewhere else.

494
00:49:06,030 --> 00:49:14,090
So I suppose that relies on the ability to vote with your feet, which is not actually, which is quite a privilege.

495
00:49:14,090 --> 00:49:32,670
Yes, it's quite limited for the majority of the world population. That's exactly the reason why Dubai is so special, because it's very easy to come there. If you're from a poor country with minimal qualification, it's easy to come there and find a job.

496
00:49:32,670 --> 00:49:37,830
If you find a job, then, yeah, it's very streamlined.

497
00:49:38,670 --> 00:49:46,250
And they know that if they mess up something, all these people have somewhere to go back to.

498
00:49:46,570 --> 00:49:50,770
And the next morning, the city will be empty.

499
00:49:51,270 --> 00:49:54,170
So they have very, very strong incentives.

500
00:49:54,450 --> 00:50:05,928
Do you think that true Do you think the people would move that quickly I know maybe someone like yourself because you a very mobile person you you consciously decided to live there and if if you got if it

501
00:50:05,928 --> 00:50:11,608
changed and you didn't enjoy it you'd be you'd move to the next place but but your average person

502
00:50:11,608 --> 00:50:19,048
that came in at a very low level job say yeah i can i can tell you yeah like uh we have a nanny

503
00:50:19,048 --> 00:50:24,688
and if you talk uh to nannies they say oh i worked for three years in saudi arabia then for four

504
00:50:24,688 --> 00:50:28,948
years in Amman, then two years in Abu Dhabi, and now I'm here.

505
00:50:30,328 --> 00:50:32,228
But why do they move around?

506
00:50:33,508 --> 00:50:38,508
Because they find a specific contract, a specific opportunity,

507
00:50:38,668 --> 00:50:39,528
a specific family.

508
00:50:40,548 --> 00:50:42,348
So, yeah.

509
00:50:42,668 --> 00:50:44,568
And do they have their families with them?

510
00:50:45,088 --> 00:50:45,288
No.

511
00:50:45,468 --> 00:50:45,728
No.

512
00:50:46,088 --> 00:50:49,108
Do they plan to go back to where they're from?

513
00:50:49,108 --> 00:50:49,368
Yes.

514
00:50:49,368 --> 00:50:53,468
So it's like an interim period of earning as much money as they can,

515
00:50:53,928 --> 00:50:54,308
sending it home.

516
00:50:54,308 --> 00:50:55,948
Because you can't do it back at home.

517
00:50:56,148 --> 00:50:56,388
Right.

518
00:50:57,648 --> 00:51:00,408
But what about people that come to live in these places?

519
00:51:00,568 --> 00:51:03,728
Because this is a super important thing to discuss.

520
00:51:04,688 --> 00:51:05,748
You know, Prospero has this.

521
00:51:06,228 --> 00:51:10,808
Every new startup or free city has this problem.

522
00:51:11,348 --> 00:51:15,308
Is getting people to come could be pretty easy, actually.

523
00:51:15,488 --> 00:51:17,268
Especially if you offer a good tax regime.

524
00:51:17,268 --> 00:51:20,448
But getting people to stay is a whole different thing.

525
00:51:21,048 --> 00:51:22,988
And I would say it's important.

526
00:51:22,988 --> 00:51:34,868
You know, certainly if you're a super competitive government, you probably don't care because you think, well, as long as we keep, as long as this place is great, people are going to want to come here.

527
00:51:35,488 --> 00:51:43,948
But I think governments ossify over time slowly and states ossify and even royal families who run countries.

528
00:51:43,948 --> 00:51:52,588
that you know that that's why you need competition because they must always be anxious that oh if i

529
00:51:52,588 --> 00:51:59,388
do a misstep then this guy next door uh will benefit then all these people will come to

530
00:51:59,388 --> 00:52:06,588
i don't know then they will leave dubai and come to doha for example or i don't know any other part

531
00:52:06,588 --> 00:52:13,148
of the world do you feel that that's true there do you feel as someone as a resident there are you

532
00:52:13,148 --> 00:52:19,308
are you consciously thinking, well, are you looking for something better,

533
00:52:19,408 --> 00:52:21,528
even though you're in Dubai? That's what I'm asking.

534
00:52:22,148 --> 00:52:26,208
Well, as you mentioned, I'm part of this very special crowd

535
00:52:26,208 --> 00:52:31,048
that is always looking for something better, that's always thinking,

536
00:52:31,048 --> 00:52:36,188
oh, is there, you know, you want to be on the front line of,

537
00:52:36,328 --> 00:52:39,468
you want to be the change that you're dreaming about.

538
00:52:39,468 --> 00:52:47,748
So, yeah, we're not ruling out the possibility of moving somewhere else.

539
00:52:47,828 --> 00:52:49,868
But for now, yeah, we like it there.

540
00:52:50,168 --> 00:52:59,908
And I think we discussed it last year here that I mentioned that when I came there, I still had an impression of Dubai as a very transient place.

541
00:52:59,908 --> 00:53:04,048
When people come, earn money and go somewhere else.

542
00:53:04,048 --> 00:53:07,448
And then I started meeting people who were saying, oh, we came here.

543
00:53:07,528 --> 00:53:09,068
We thought we were here for three, four years.

544
00:53:09,068 --> 00:53:16,508
and it's been 17 years and my children grew up here and they're now students and i see

545
00:53:16,508 --> 00:53:24,028
i already see the third generation people uh growing up in dubai but what's your grandparents

546
00:53:24,028 --> 00:53:29,068
moved but the thing the interesting about dubai is you can't become a local can you you can't

547
00:53:29,068 --> 00:53:35,208
become an emirati so that's an interesting dichotomy really again it's it's it's all about

548
00:53:35,208 --> 00:53:41,788
choice. For some people it's important. For me it would be important because I was born in the

549
00:53:41,788 --> 00:53:52,008
Soviet Union. I wanted a citizenship of a stable country. So I got my British passport. And after

550
00:53:52,008 --> 00:53:59,788
that I started thinking of living somewhere else, which was Dubai. But I think for people who already

551
00:53:59,788 --> 00:54:07,548
have a relatively strong passports that's that's not a problem and yeah for people who come there

552
00:54:07,548 --> 00:54:13,908
like having weak passports uh yeah they are thinking for them that's a big problem and they

553
00:54:13,908 --> 00:54:18,428
are thinking but they are thinking like okay i'm thinking should i buy a syndicats and kits

554
00:54:18,428 --> 00:54:25,688
citizenship uh should i buy some other citizenship because more and more people this was i think this

555
00:54:25,688 --> 00:54:32,988
was only the idea of the flag. The flag theory was a very marginal idea a few years ago. And now,

556
00:54:33,628 --> 00:54:39,968
or maybe that's the Dubai factor. I hear people casually talking about it. Oh, which passport

557
00:54:39,968 --> 00:54:47,568
should I invest in? Well, it's still a niche, I think. Bitcoiners are the same. It became,

558
00:54:47,568 --> 00:54:52,008
you know, five or six years ago, it suddenly started getting talked about a lot. There's

559
00:54:52,008 --> 00:54:56,248
quite a few people I know who I know from the Bitcoin world who now do that for a living,

560
00:54:56,988 --> 00:55:02,968
who, you know, basically tell you which passports to get and how much it costs and fast track them

561
00:55:02,968 --> 00:55:09,208
and all this kind of stuff. I will be chairing a panel about that. I saw that. Is it the why I

562
00:55:09,208 --> 00:55:15,728
moved in search of freedom? No, that's another one. It's how to thrive as a borderless entrepreneur.

563
00:55:15,728 --> 00:55:20,788
Okay. All right. Going back to the fact that you never get citizenship in Dubai,

564
00:55:20,788 --> 00:55:28,088
right do you think that's a good model going forwards do you think that um if you run a

565
00:55:28,088 --> 00:55:31,988
private city obviously it would kind of work the same because there'd be no such thing as

566
00:55:31,988 --> 00:55:38,568
i think that ideally people want to you know grow roots where they to get rooted where they live

567
00:55:38,568 --> 00:55:46,428
i think it gives you much more uh you know sense of stability especially if you so ideally i i think

568
00:55:46,428 --> 00:55:47,808
there should be a route like this.

569
00:55:48,148 --> 00:55:53,428
But again, for the lack of a better alternative, if you ask people,

570
00:55:53,428 --> 00:55:57,288
do you want economic opportunities without, with zero chances of becoming

571
00:55:57,288 --> 00:56:00,188
local, or do you just want none of this?

572
00:56:00,788 --> 00:56:06,648
As you can see, like four or five millions are choosing this option,

573
00:56:06,648 --> 00:56:09,508
that the non-ideal option.

574
00:56:09,508 --> 00:56:12,648
But yeah, it would be very good if the free city is good.

575
00:56:12,648 --> 00:56:20,348
So, for example, if we're building a free city, we depend very much on a host country.

576
00:56:20,768 --> 00:56:25,188
And usually you can't circumvent the immigration rules.

577
00:56:25,748 --> 00:56:33,968
So if America builds the free cities, it doesn't mean that you can move there circumventing the immigration rules of the U.S.

578
00:56:35,088 --> 00:56:42,128
No matter if you have a good deal, if you have a contract for work or whatever.

579
00:56:42,648 --> 00:56:52,708
And it's the same goes for any other host country that usually you, like as a developer of a free city, you don't have this power.

580
00:56:52,928 --> 00:57:00,188
So you have to deal with what you have and you have to sacrifice this.

581
00:57:01,048 --> 00:57:06,568
You know, you can't grant your residents and businesses this opportunity, but it's still better than nothing.

582
00:57:06,568 --> 00:57:26,628
Do you think that's a long-term idea though? Because I've heard, I'm sure I've heard people connecting with Prospera saying that they want to, for want of a better word, a Prospera passport that allows you to, you know, is that, how does that work under a contract-based system then? How do you get like nationhood?

583
00:57:26,628 --> 00:57:49,128
For now, it doesn't work this way, I guess. But maybe we can get a reasonable host country that can. No, I think it's very common. You'd better talk about this with Tom Bell, who knows all the legal nitty gritties of dealing with host countries, building a free city.

584
00:57:49,128 --> 00:57:51,788
so honestly I don't know

585
00:57:51,788 --> 00:57:54,048
I think this because even on a country

586
00:57:54,048 --> 00:57:55,968
level you cannot do this you have the UN

587
00:57:55,968 --> 00:57:58,028
imposed passport

588
00:57:58,028 --> 00:57:59,328
system you have the

589
00:57:59,328 --> 00:58:02,128
land all the land you have

590
00:58:02,128 --> 00:58:03,328
all the earth basically

591
00:58:03,328 --> 00:58:06,288
divided by between nation states

592
00:58:06,288 --> 00:58:08,248
so even if

593
00:58:08,248 --> 00:58:10,268
you have a country imagine

594
00:58:10,268 --> 00:58:11,088
this it's

595
00:58:11,088 --> 00:58:12,708
it's not

596
00:58:12,708 --> 00:58:25,086
it not realistic now but imagine we have a host country that says yeah we will sell you the we are to sell you a piece of our land completely and you can build your own country there

597
00:58:26,586 --> 00:58:31,406
The global rules do not allow that.

598
00:58:32,666 --> 00:58:36,446
I think Joe Quirk might have issue with what you've just said.

599
00:58:36,446 --> 00:58:38,126
Yeah, so I should have said all Earth.

600
00:58:38,186 --> 00:58:44,626
That's why at first I said all Earth is divided between Latin states, because exactly, yes, you have the neutral waters.

601
00:58:44,986 --> 00:58:48,326
And that's why seasteading, I think it's such a cool idea.

602
00:58:48,766 --> 00:58:49,286
It is.

603
00:58:49,906 --> 00:58:55,246
Honestly, I probably bang on about it a bit too much, but it's grown on me hugely.

604
00:58:55,246 --> 00:59:05,086
Mainly because I talk a lot about free cities with people that don't necessarily even, hadn't even contemplated the thought.

605
00:59:05,926 --> 00:59:14,226
When I talk to them about seasteading via cruise ships, they understand private cities suddenly.

606
00:59:14,226 --> 00:59:16,766
in land-based ones as well.

607
00:59:16,786 --> 00:59:18,446
Yeah, you don't have democracy on the ship.

608
00:59:18,586 --> 00:59:19,066
Exactly.

609
00:59:19,226 --> 00:59:20,866
Like the captain is the dictator,

610
00:59:21,546 --> 00:59:24,066
but a lot of people pay a lot of money

611
00:59:24,066 --> 00:59:27,306
to spend months and years on the ship.

612
00:59:29,566 --> 00:59:34,926
Basically a movable private mini city.

613
00:59:35,186 --> 00:59:35,646
It is.

614
00:59:36,006 --> 00:59:38,586
Do you know the latest ship that's just been built?

615
00:59:38,586 --> 00:59:39,826
I forget what it's called.

616
00:59:41,126 --> 00:59:42,526
Something number two.

617
00:59:42,646 --> 00:59:44,086
It costs two billion.

618
00:59:45,046 --> 00:59:47,186
It's unbelievable when you look at this thing.

619
00:59:47,606 --> 00:59:49,166
If you ever doubt it.

620
00:59:49,166 --> 00:59:50,626
Yeah, that's a budget enough to build a city.

621
00:59:50,846 --> 00:59:51,086
Yeah.

622
00:59:51,266 --> 00:59:52,366
Well, it is a city.

623
00:59:52,766 --> 00:59:54,626
It's a private floating city.

624
00:59:54,626 --> 00:59:58,426
You know, it's this idea.

625
00:59:58,706 --> 01:00:02,306
I'm kind of making it my life's mission.

626
01:00:02,726 --> 01:00:04,706
Not that I'm necessarily a seasteader at all,

627
01:00:04,786 --> 01:00:10,186
but to just get this out into the general consensus opinion

628
01:00:10,186 --> 01:00:14,946
that cruise liners are free private cities.

629
01:00:14,946 --> 01:00:18,266
Yeah, and Jock Work and Padre Friedman in their Seasteading book

630
01:00:18,266 --> 01:00:21,806
are talking about people who are already living on board.

631
01:00:22,426 --> 01:00:26,646
They talk about there was some retired woman

632
01:00:26,646 --> 01:00:32,926
who decided to just put her savings into living on a big ship

633
01:00:32,926 --> 01:00:34,546
and she just lives there permanently.

634
01:00:35,106 --> 01:00:38,066
And one thing I like about this, you know,

635
01:00:38,066 --> 01:00:50,206
You take any idea that seems wild and if you look deeper, it's in parts or as a whole, it's been already implemented in discreetly or just we don't register it.

636
01:00:50,466 --> 01:00:58,566
Like the idea of living on a big vessel autonomously, but it's there and people are doing it.

637
01:00:58,566 --> 01:01:06,466
It's also, for your average person, probably the highest standard of living they could ever get.

638
01:01:06,666 --> 01:01:19,406
Because the ratio of people that work for you, basically, I think on a lot of ships, it's three or four to one, the number of people working on the ship compared to the number of people that are actually on it.

639
01:01:19,406 --> 01:01:38,366
And again, it's one thing that is now only available to the very wealthy, but through the development of technology and investment and projects like the ones that Jockwork is endorsing and the seasteaders are doing can become gradually more available to the regular people.

640
01:01:38,366 --> 01:01:51,926
There will be, I know, numerous presentations at this conference of new seasteading projects of low cost sea living, ocean living projects.

641
01:01:52,766 --> 01:01:53,926
Like you don't have to.

642
01:01:54,026 --> 01:01:58,126
Yeah, it's nice living on a two billion billion sheep.

643
01:01:58,126 --> 01:02:09,146
But if you use the most advanced architect, like you can use modular construction to build low cost catamarans or floating platforms.

644
01:02:09,766 --> 01:02:11,226
Again, it's better to.

645
01:02:11,446 --> 01:02:12,946
Yeah, let's let's wait for the announcement.

646
01:02:13,186 --> 01:02:17,726
I know there will be quite a few with the technical details.

647
01:02:18,106 --> 01:02:18,946
But yeah.

648
01:02:19,086 --> 01:02:27,286
The thing is, Vera, I don't think I think people are sleeping on how important the seasteading notion is in our community.

649
01:02:27,286 --> 01:02:30,666
I did because I've always thought of it as quite a far out idea.

650
01:02:31,426 --> 01:02:39,386
But philosophically, it's the perfect, it's the most perfect working model of a free private city.

651
01:02:39,666 --> 01:02:39,786
Yes.

652
01:02:40,046 --> 01:02:48,046
And you can show it to someone and they can imagine themselves walking into this place with free food.

653
01:02:48,326 --> 01:02:50,126
Well, free, you're obviously paying for it.

654
01:02:50,526 --> 01:02:53,406
But loads of staff asking you how you're doing.

655
01:02:53,406 --> 01:02:56,646
A beautiful, someone cleaning your room, you know, like.

656
01:02:56,646 --> 01:03:00,406
And you're not caring who's in charge.

657
01:03:00,646 --> 01:03:03,706
You're not trying to vote for the guy that runs the ship.

658
01:03:04,026 --> 01:03:06,326
All you care about is that the ship works well.

659
01:03:06,326 --> 01:03:15,206
The legislation that runs the ship is kind of regulations enforced by self-enforced regulations.

660
01:03:15,746 --> 01:03:17,666
So there's no state necessarily.

661
01:03:17,786 --> 01:03:19,146
And you're flying a weird flag.

662
01:03:19,426 --> 01:03:21,746
It's not necessarily the flag of where you are.

663
01:03:21,786 --> 01:03:24,246
And you can cruise into any country you want.

664
01:03:24,246 --> 01:03:27,226
You don't even need to know where this country is.

665
01:03:27,326 --> 01:03:29,726
Exactly. But they just let you in.

666
01:03:30,266 --> 01:03:37,426
You know, you can fly the St. Kitts flag and you can cruise into any port as long as you, you know, and they don't care.

667
01:03:37,486 --> 01:03:42,746
They don't suspicious of you. They're not wondering, wait a minute, there's this private kind of, you know.

668
01:03:42,746 --> 01:03:57,466
So, I mean, really, short of the fact that it's movable, it's a wonderful way to show the land-based version of that, which isn't as effective, funnily enough, because it can't move.

669
01:03:57,906 --> 01:03:59,246
I mean, for me…

670
01:03:59,246 --> 01:04:03,206
Yeah, because anything movable can be very easily absorbed by the host country.

671
01:04:03,286 --> 01:04:03,566
Yes.

672
01:04:03,726 --> 01:04:04,886
Because, yeah.

673
01:04:04,886 --> 01:04:11,906
But that's why I think people shouldn't sleep on the idea and shouldn't sort of just say, oh, that's fun.

674
01:04:12,126 --> 01:04:16,626
But no one's ever going to want to live on a boat or on a this or on a that.

675
01:04:17,226 --> 01:04:24,946
Because if you don't hold that in your mind, you're basically selling your dream short.

676
01:04:25,386 --> 01:04:27,886
Because voting with your feet is one thing.

677
01:04:27,886 --> 01:04:34,106
But voting with your city is the ultimate future for us.

678
01:04:34,106 --> 01:04:41,206
And I think the ultimate, when you look into the very far future, that's a space thing as well.

679
01:04:41,586 --> 01:04:44,106
There's a frontier out there which is bigger than any frontier.

680
01:04:44,106 --> 01:04:54,226
And you know, when I moved to Dubai, I realized that mentally and in many ways, technologically, humanity is ready to live on extraterrestrial colonies.

681
01:04:54,226 --> 01:04:59,686
Because for four or five months in a year, you basically, you live under a dome.

682
01:04:59,686 --> 01:05:04,586
You barely leave the building.

683
01:05:04,766 --> 01:05:07,006
You have to live in air-conditioned spaces.

684
01:05:07,366 --> 01:05:20,366
You go from and you have all sorts of indoor gardens and an indoor ski resort and all these crazy things.

685
01:05:20,366 --> 01:05:32,566
And you see that a few millions of people have moved there voluntarily and they are ready to deal with such a harsh climate because the business climate is good.

686
01:05:33,266 --> 01:05:39,706
And I thought, yeah, maybe we're ready to live on Mars because you would think, oh, no one wants to live in a dome.

687
01:05:39,806 --> 01:05:46,306
No one wants to breathe artificial air and spend all your time indoors.

688
01:05:46,306 --> 01:05:50,806
but then you go to a Gulf city and like, actually not no one.

689
01:05:50,886 --> 01:05:51,806
It's not ideal.

690
01:05:52,286 --> 01:06:00,206
And a lot of people who can, they leave Dubai for the harshest months.

691
01:06:00,886 --> 01:06:02,046
Tell me something then, Vera.

692
01:06:02,246 --> 01:06:08,006
Given the choice, if a Dubai-like place existed in Southern Europe,

693
01:06:08,146 --> 01:06:08,866
would you move to it?

694
01:06:08,866 --> 01:06:10,686
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

695
01:06:10,686 --> 01:06:19,246
So it's true then that, you know, you wouldn't choose to live out into space under a dome

696
01:06:19,246 --> 01:06:20,926
if you could live somewhere else.

697
01:06:20,926 --> 01:06:28,926
Yes, they have to be other upsides to make you sacrifice for, I, no, I have, that's why

698
01:06:28,926 --> 01:06:39,966
I think again that we as the Free City pioneers have to pursue all different kind of roads from the

699
01:06:39,984 --> 01:06:46,624
extreme idea of seasteading, which is living up like entirely in the neutral waters with

700
01:06:46,624 --> 01:06:56,044
zero, like without asking permission from any government to trying to win an uphill battle

701
01:06:56,044 --> 01:07:04,384
for the free ports and other existing pockets of autonomy in legacy democracies, if we may call

702
01:07:04,384 --> 01:07:12,344
them this way because people want different things because I am I'm the first person to love

703
01:07:12,344 --> 01:07:18,524
old cities and old architecture whenever I come to Prague I just want to run around touching old

704
01:07:18,524 --> 01:07:25,304
stones and walking so yesterday we spent seven hours walking in the parks despite the rain because

705
01:07:25,304 --> 01:07:33,724
you don't have this in Dubai and this is what I miss badly and people want to go to a pub that's

706
01:07:33,724 --> 01:07:40,544
older than your grandparents. I remember when I first came to the UK, to Oxford, and we went on a

707
01:07:40,544 --> 01:07:47,924
tour, the city tour, and the tour guide said, oh, this is the oldest pub, it's 600 years old.

708
01:07:48,544 --> 01:07:54,464
And the Australian classmate of mine said, yeah, older than my country, older than many countries,

709
01:07:54,464 --> 01:08:00,084
the most countries in this world. So I totally understand people who love history, who love

710
01:08:00,084 --> 01:08:12,004
architecture of past eras who love going to the the possibility of going to a forest on a hike

711
01:08:12,004 --> 01:08:20,964
on a weekend or just spend all day in the park like we did yesterday so if we can if we can build

712
01:08:20,964 --> 01:08:28,564
a pocket of more freedom in a in a place like that i think that's what people would choose

713
01:08:28,564 --> 01:08:36,264
do you think that living in dubai is having from that perspective is having a negative effect then

714
01:08:36,264 --> 01:08:40,804
do you would you call that a negative externality of living in dubai is the fact that you have to

715
01:08:40,804 --> 01:08:47,184
deal with this climate yes yeah and and not have old buildings and not my local pub by the way where

716
01:08:47,184 --> 01:08:54,444
i used to live is 900 years old the ritz the ritz bent in um which city is that city oh town

717
01:08:54,444 --> 01:09:12,664
No, not even town. It's near Hay-on-Wye. It's an old black and white building called the Ridspens Inn. And if you look into it, it's been a pub for 900 years. But it was a drover's pub. So it was the drover's route, which were the routes that people used to drive their animals to market.

718
01:09:12,664 --> 01:09:13,384
Yes, yes.

719
01:09:13,964 --> 01:09:17,764
There's a barn, a drover's barn next to the pub, and then there's the inn where they used to stay in.

720
01:09:18,104 --> 01:09:24,024
And it was actually the route to London, even though it's a four hour drive to London from there, even in a car.

721
01:09:24,424 --> 01:09:25,504
That was one of the places.

722
01:09:25,804 --> 01:09:30,864
The drover's roads were built specifically to take cattle to different markets and stuff.

723
01:09:30,864 --> 01:09:44,544
But but do you so as a as a negative externality, then what happens when somewhere like, I don't know, Italy suddenly starts building free places?

724
01:09:44,904 --> 01:09:47,844
Does Dubai, is there a drain? Like, how does Dubai compete with that?

725
01:09:48,664 --> 01:09:58,124
I mean, it's an interesting idea, actually, because if if it did happen, I mean, it's not this is this is the thing that sometimes baffles me a little bit.

726
01:09:58,124 --> 01:10:11,484
Why in the hell is someone powerful enough with access to resources not looking at Dubai and saying, we basically just need to recreate something like this in Southern Europe?

727
01:10:12,344 --> 01:10:15,524
Show me a person that doesn't like the Southern European climate.

728
01:10:15,944 --> 01:10:17,404
So far, I see the opposite.

729
01:10:17,404 --> 01:10:21,124
So far, there was an article in Financial Times a few weeks ago.

730
01:10:21,124 --> 01:10:27,124
Dubai is embracing the Danish lifestyle, and it's about the...

731
01:10:27,124 --> 01:10:31,504
Actually, all of this is obviously driven by private developers.

732
01:10:32,304 --> 01:10:39,524
Dubai, the new popping up communities, which are focused around cycling and walking and...

733
01:10:39,524 --> 01:10:39,984
In Dubai.

734
01:10:40,184 --> 01:10:41,024
In Dubai, yes.

735
01:10:42,404 --> 01:10:50,164
So far, I see the Gulf cities trying to go greener and embrace more European lifestyle.

736
01:10:51,124 --> 01:10:56,764
other than Europe trying to embrace economic freedom, which is very sad.

737
01:10:57,764 --> 01:10:59,764
And I do hope that.

738
01:10:59,924 --> 01:11:04,744
I know, I remember there was one free city initiative.

739
01:11:05,284 --> 01:11:10,884
I don't think I can name it, but they wanted to build a place in the Mediterranean.

740
01:11:12,024 --> 01:11:18,764
I think they realized later that politically that's pretty difficult.

741
01:11:18,764 --> 01:11:25,144
But again, Mediterranean is not just Italy and Spain, very heavily regulated countries.

742
01:11:25,464 --> 01:11:29,644
Mediterranean has a Montenegro, and we know about the Montelibro project.

743
01:11:31,244 --> 01:11:37,584
Montenegro is now heaven for digital nomads.

744
01:11:38,404 --> 01:11:46,324
During COVID, it introduced a new route for people working remotely to easily settle there.

745
01:11:46,324 --> 01:11:51,784
That's one of the reasons that the Montelibero started growing.

746
01:11:54,724 --> 01:11:55,684
No, I've been.

747
01:11:55,784 --> 01:11:56,324
Yeah, I've been.

748
01:11:56,524 --> 01:11:56,904
I've been.

749
01:11:57,164 --> 01:11:57,464
I've been.

750
01:11:57,584 --> 01:12:09,644
The problem, once again, though, is Montenegro is a kind of country which is trying to come into the 21st century, let's put it.

751
01:12:09,764 --> 01:12:11,504
That's not a very good way to describe it.

752
01:12:11,964 --> 01:12:14,724
But unfortunately, that means wanting to join the EU, for example.

753
01:12:14,724 --> 01:12:26,664
And now the moment they join the EU, I would say that projects like that become very difficult because everything in the EU is top down.

754
01:12:26,664 --> 01:12:33,704
And I don't see anyone at the European Parliament really that into the idea of independent places.

755
01:12:34,604 --> 01:12:44,624
And, you know, unfortunately, because we're all Europeans here and have grown up in and around Europe.

756
01:12:44,724 --> 01:12:53,384
and we love the place yes we do we just hate the way that it runs and that's a very good way to put

757
01:12:53,384 --> 01:12:59,704
it yes but it's true i mean my country where i live i love my country and i love the uk when i'm

758
01:12:59,704 --> 01:13:05,664
at home on a farm in the middle of nowhere and i and i'm not thinking about the way the country's

759
01:13:05,664 --> 01:13:11,624
run i'm in heaven and then as soon as i have to deal with something bureaucratic or as soon as i

760
01:13:11,624 --> 01:13:19,064
turn on and put the news on or you know all of a sudden I get that sinking feeling in my stomach

761
01:13:19,064 --> 01:13:25,924
which is like am I am I gonna have to give all this up one day and it's getting quite close

762
01:13:25,924 --> 01:13:34,084
it's getting quite close to that thought mainly due to the economic climate and and the simple

763
01:13:34,084 --> 01:13:39,864
fact that I know if I positioned myself somewhere else I could have like you've done I could have

764
01:13:39,864 --> 01:13:48,204
such a different life i would just miss that core experience of being british living in the

765
01:13:48,204 --> 01:13:57,124
countryside um being part of london very much it's it's a real shame it's a real shame because

766
01:13:57,124 --> 01:14:03,524
it's uh you know i i don't know how it turns around i listen to a lot of people now discussing

767
01:14:03,524 --> 01:14:12,384
the UK quite publicly. I see, yeah, in Dubai, when you meet with friends, I see a lot of people

768
01:14:12,384 --> 01:14:20,464
fall for this confirmation bias who are starting discussing in details how Europe is going downhill.

769
01:14:20,464 --> 01:14:27,764
And I think a lot of them are trying to persuade themselves that they made the right choice.

770
01:14:28,224 --> 01:14:28,604
You think so?

771
01:14:28,604 --> 01:14:36,384
I like to be realistic. I know for the time being Dubai is better for us, for our family.

772
01:14:36,804 --> 01:14:43,744
But as you say, yeah, I love London. I love the UK. I love Europe. I love cities like Prague.

773
01:14:44,464 --> 01:14:48,144
If there was more freedom here.

774
01:14:48,664 --> 01:14:54,664
Do you agree with the trajectory that people say that Europe's on?

775
01:14:54,664 --> 01:15:09,322
And by Europe I mean the UK as well I mean just those kind of centralizing forces bureaucratic expansion you know do you believe in that Do you think that true It not people coping who live out in Dubai

776
01:15:10,182 --> 01:15:19,762
I don't think it's going in the right direction, but I don't think it's, you know, doing it in a catastrophic way.

777
01:15:20,782 --> 01:15:22,462
But you still choose to live in Dubai?

778
01:15:23,162 --> 01:15:23,902
For now.

779
01:15:24,982 --> 01:15:30,882
We should talk about why free cities are good for the environment.

780
01:15:32,962 --> 01:15:37,702
Is it as in when you say free cities are good for the world, do you mean the actual environment?

781
01:15:37,802 --> 01:15:41,862
Are we talking green things here, that kind of thing, or are we just saying good for the world?

782
01:15:43,762 --> 01:15:47,102
Yeah, I think for the actual environment.

783
01:15:47,322 --> 01:15:50,902
I thought that that would be a provocative enough headline.

784
01:15:50,902 --> 01:16:06,042
Yes, because it's one of the most used arguments against private development in general and large-scale city-sized private development specifically, that it is allegedly killing our planet.

785
01:16:06,042 --> 01:16:11,162
It's destroying the nature. It's destroying the animal habitat and all these things.

786
01:16:11,342 --> 01:16:21,042
If you look at the protests all over the world against any sort of construction, there would be people holding placards and save our trees, stop the developers.

787
01:16:22,162 --> 01:16:33,342
And I think that it's very important to understand, to have the arguments in hand when you argue with these people, because this is not true.

788
01:16:33,342 --> 01:16:40,702
because private cities, yes, if you look around the world,

789
01:16:40,862 --> 01:16:43,462
private cities and even smaller scale private development

790
01:16:43,462 --> 01:16:47,402
is because they respond to market incentives.

791
01:16:47,402 --> 01:16:50,822
And if you look, there was this, I'm using it in my presentation,

792
01:16:51,082 --> 01:16:57,242
there was the real estate survey in America asking people

793
01:16:57,242 --> 01:17:01,302
when you choose a place to live, what are the main factors?

794
01:17:01,302 --> 01:17:08,362
And number one is being close to a green place, being close to a park or any other green area.

795
01:17:08,542 --> 01:17:18,682
It's more important for people than the tax bracket, than the amenities, schools, shops, restaurants, even commuting distance to their work or school.

796
01:17:19,222 --> 01:17:20,642
The one most important thing.

797
01:17:20,742 --> 01:17:26,242
So when people have this choice, they vote green and free cities give people this choice.

798
01:17:26,242 --> 01:17:29,582
And Irvine, as I mentioned, is one of the greenest cities.

799
01:17:29,582 --> 01:17:59,182
Yeah, it was already one of the greenest cities in the US in the top 10, like repeatedly ranked top 10. But about 10 or 15 years ago, the Irvine company donated 40,000 acres of their private land to the public as a nature reserve, which became one of the largest nature reserves in the whole United States, which commercially, if you look at it once, it looks like a crazy move.

800
01:17:59,182 --> 01:18:12,282
Why would you give up such prime land? You can't imagine how much money you can make building on it in California, where the land is one of the most expensive commercially.

801
01:18:12,282 --> 01:18:15,042
but if you look at it twice

802
01:18:15,042 --> 01:18:16,582
it makes commercial sense

803
01:18:16,582 --> 01:18:17,722
because it's

804
01:18:17,722 --> 01:18:21,102
risen dramatically

805
01:18:21,102 --> 01:18:22,782
the prices of houses that they

806
01:18:22,782 --> 01:18:24,662
already are selling

807
01:18:24,662 --> 01:18:26,682
in Irvine

808
01:18:26,682 --> 01:18:29,062
and also in the neighboring towns

809
01:18:29,062 --> 01:18:30,302
so

810
01:18:30,302 --> 01:18:32,342
because as I say people

811
01:18:32,342 --> 01:18:34,602
people voting for this and

812
01:18:34,602 --> 01:18:37,082
again Lavasa in India

813
01:18:37,082 --> 01:18:38,242
the one I mentioned

814
01:18:38,242 --> 01:18:40,502
it's not for the rich

815
01:18:40,502 --> 01:18:47,062
It's for the city that's the majority of population of it is the former villagers, the farmers.

816
01:18:47,842 --> 01:18:49,082
And it is the greenest in India.

817
01:18:49,202 --> 01:18:54,902
If you look at India, it's one of the most, like it's an environmental disaster.

818
01:18:55,122 --> 01:18:59,002
Six out of 10 most polluted cities in the world are in India.

819
01:18:59,862 --> 01:19:05,862
And on one hand, you see Mumbai with all the slums and the pollution.

820
01:19:05,862 --> 01:19:10,362
And then you drive for a few hours and you're in Lavasa, which is the greenest city.

821
01:19:10,502 --> 01:19:11,202
It's on the hill.

822
01:19:11,742 --> 01:19:13,602
It has this Mediterranean-style vibe.

823
01:19:13,802 --> 01:19:17,202
So, yes, that's another thing.

824
01:19:17,322 --> 01:19:21,522
If you look at many of this, people love the Mediterranean.

825
01:19:22,242 --> 01:19:26,602
So many of these developers, private developers, are trying to recreate something like this.

826
01:19:27,042 --> 01:19:28,262
It looks like Portofino.

827
01:19:28,262 --> 01:19:33,342
It's colorful terraces on the hills with a lake.

828
01:19:34,582 --> 01:19:37,162
And it is, yeah, they planted six.

829
01:19:37,902 --> 01:19:38,522
I don't remember.

830
01:19:38,522 --> 01:19:42,822
They planted a massive amount, I think 600,000 trees.

831
01:19:44,242 --> 01:19:50,022
And ironically, it was shut down for a while on environmental grounds

832
01:19:50,022 --> 01:19:53,502
by the professional activists, as I call it, as I call them,

833
01:19:53,602 --> 01:19:58,762
people who said that private developers are destroying environment.

834
01:19:58,922 --> 01:20:01,282
That's why we have to shut down this project.

835
01:20:01,282 --> 01:20:05,062
And they had their connections in the government.

836
01:20:05,402 --> 01:20:07,042
So it was shut down for a few years.

837
01:20:07,042 --> 01:20:08,742
And the locals were fighting back.

838
01:20:09,462 --> 01:20:12,822
The locals were coming to the press and to the court and saying,

839
01:20:12,942 --> 01:20:14,122
these people don't represent us.

840
01:20:14,182 --> 01:20:15,462
They don't protect our rights.

841
01:20:16,002 --> 01:20:18,962
We want this city to continue getting built.

842
01:20:19,122 --> 01:20:20,142
We want to live here.

843
01:20:20,602 --> 01:20:22,002
Was it a brand new development?

844
01:20:22,522 --> 01:20:22,762
Yes.

845
01:20:22,962 --> 01:20:24,462
Nothing was there to begin with?

846
01:20:24,542 --> 01:20:27,542
Yeah, 2005, I guess, that's when it was late.

847
01:20:27,762 --> 01:20:28,062
Okay.

848
01:20:28,282 --> 01:20:29,262
This first town was late.

849
01:20:30,262 --> 01:20:32,842
That's where all this stuff arises, though, isn't it?

850
01:20:32,902 --> 01:20:34,522
You could say the same thing about Prospera.

851
01:20:35,102 --> 01:20:36,522
When I first went to Prospera.

852
01:20:36,522 --> 01:20:38,102
It's just nothing there.

853
01:20:39,102 --> 01:20:52,602
Prospero is another one, like another argument why we need free cities to save the planet is because they create this places for experimentation.

854
01:20:52,602 --> 01:20:56,162
because you don't, like, if you want to implement,

855
01:20:56,302 --> 01:20:58,242
you cannot just implement the, like,

856
01:20:58,802 --> 01:21:02,582
take an existing city and tell the people,

857
01:21:02,702 --> 01:21:05,202
like, from tomorrow we're all riding electric cars.

858
01:21:05,462 --> 01:21:08,882
But if you build a new city, like Mazdar in the Emirates,

859
01:21:09,162 --> 01:21:10,662
where I think you've been,

860
01:21:10,662 --> 01:21:15,422
or there is also the Dubai Sustainable City,

861
01:21:15,522 --> 01:21:17,322
which is not a city, but, like, a neighborhood

862
01:21:17,322 --> 01:21:20,822
where it's entirely car-free.

863
01:21:20,822 --> 01:21:50,702
And again, it's a matter of consent. So people who want to drive cars, they just don't rent or buy there. And you can in Prospero, they have the Circular Factory. It's a startup that gives the local rural populations around the world this high tech tools for low cost and environmentally friendly construction, like robotic arms or 3D printing of

864
01:21:50,822 --> 01:21:58,782
construction materials, of construction blocks. And Prospero has it because they didn't need to

865
01:21:58,782 --> 01:22:03,822
go through all the regulations to establish something like that. And these things are,

866
01:22:03,822 --> 01:22:10,102
when they are test-driven in places like Prospero, they can later be implemented anywhere

867
01:22:10,102 --> 01:22:14,962
else in the world. So the Honduran government that's fighting against Zeres, they should

868
01:22:14,962 --> 01:22:18,822
understand they're not just taking away the economic perspectives of their own people,

869
01:22:18,822 --> 01:22:25,142
they're slowing down green technologies progress worldwide.

870
01:22:26,182 --> 01:22:31,022
I don't think the Honduran government can see past the political sphere anyway.

871
01:22:31,302 --> 01:22:32,582
That was a rhetorical.

872
01:22:33,322 --> 01:22:35,002
It's not even worth discussing.

873
01:22:35,382 --> 01:22:38,962
But one thing though, which is true,

874
01:22:39,062 --> 01:22:42,922
and I think this is where a lot of these ideas stem from,

875
01:22:42,922 --> 01:22:47,862
is that the part of Prospero which isn't Pristine Bay

876
01:22:47,862 --> 01:22:50,842
is just a wilderness.

877
01:22:51,542 --> 01:22:56,222
So they are cutting down trees to build a city necessarily.

878
01:22:56,502 --> 01:22:58,822
So there is truth in this.

879
01:22:59,122 --> 01:22:59,882
There is truth.

880
01:22:59,962 --> 01:23:03,102
And I'm sure the same probably would have been said for Lavasa.

881
01:23:03,222 --> 01:23:03,762
Is it Lavasa?

882
01:23:04,122 --> 01:23:04,462
Yes.

883
01:23:05,282 --> 01:23:06,442
If it wasn't...

884
01:23:06,442 --> 01:23:08,602
Lavasa planted more trees than they cut.

885
01:23:08,602 --> 01:23:11,562
That was specifically determined in the court.

886
01:23:11,982 --> 01:23:28,220
But the thing is I think people and I come from this I in this category People like wilderness They don like trees in London Dubai is building 600 trees per day in the past year

887
01:23:29,660 --> 01:23:33,240
Dubai is planting 600 trees per day.

888
01:23:33,400 --> 01:23:34,820
I've looked at the statistics.

889
01:23:35,060 --> 01:23:39,580
Dubai was a desert and most of the Emirates is the desert.

890
01:23:40,240 --> 01:23:43,360
Now you see this oasis, the pockets of greenery.

891
01:23:43,360 --> 01:23:49,320
the neighborhood I live in is called the greens the near one the nearby is called the lakes and

892
01:23:49,320 --> 01:23:55,620
that's the meadows the springs so it tells you what people want people want pockets of wilderness

893
01:23:55,620 --> 01:24:00,780
now they're building the one they call the wilds but the point is they're not wilderness that's the

894
01:24:00,780 --> 01:24:06,440
thing it's like if you went it's still better than the desert I mean if we're talking about the

895
01:24:06,440 --> 01:24:12,140
I don't know, the jungle, then that's one, building in the jungle, that's one thing.

896
01:24:12,220 --> 01:24:19,180
But if we talk about building in the desert, definitely you have to plant the trees and it's definitely getting greener.

897
01:24:19,180 --> 01:24:23,880
But what I mean is this is where the idea comes from.

898
01:24:24,580 --> 01:24:27,080
And Prospera is a living example of this.

899
01:24:27,340 --> 01:24:30,640
They are cutting down the forest to build Prospera.

900
01:24:31,160 --> 01:24:34,440
So people, it doesn't matter whether you plant more trees than you cut down.

901
01:24:34,440 --> 01:24:38,360
people would necessarily look at that and say, don't cut that down.

902
01:24:38,680 --> 01:24:40,360
That's a bit of right hand.

903
01:24:40,560 --> 01:24:42,040
What people? That's the question.

904
01:24:42,340 --> 01:24:44,800
If you would say to people, do you want these trees to grow

905
01:24:44,800 --> 01:24:46,120
or do you want economic opportunities?

906
01:24:46,120 --> 01:24:51,320
Again, these are the people coming from the mainland in case of Honduras

907
01:24:51,320 --> 01:24:55,380
or just, as I call them, professional activists who are saying that

908
01:24:55,380 --> 01:25:01,120
it's like about, how to put it,

909
01:25:01,120 --> 01:25:09,560
different people have different priorities. And if you already have a good job, if you have

910
01:25:09,560 --> 01:25:14,800
everything you want in life, then you start thinking, oh, should I move to a greener part,

911
01:25:14,800 --> 01:25:20,920
to a greener part of town? Should I move to a countryside where like the outskirts of London

912
01:25:20,920 --> 01:25:29,080
from a small cramped flat in the center, because I can now afford it. But if you ask a person who's

913
01:25:29,080 --> 01:25:35,800
just in the beginning of this, like in the lower part of this ladder, like, do you want to live

914
01:25:35,800 --> 01:25:40,100
surrounded by trees or do you want to live surrounded by opportunities to make your life

915
01:25:40,100 --> 01:25:46,860
better, to give your children a good education and a good start in life? They probably would say,

916
01:25:47,040 --> 01:25:52,180
yeah, I'm okay with cutting these few trees. The problem is that people who get to decide are not

917
01:25:52,180 --> 01:25:57,840
people who are faced with choice. And again, if you look at the planetary scale, and if you look

918
01:25:57,840 --> 01:26:04,120
at, there is this thing called the environmental Kuznets curve. It's the curve, the graph showing

919
01:26:04,120 --> 01:26:11,860
the dependence between industrialization and environmental damage. And the beginning of this

920
01:26:11,860 --> 01:26:17,480
curve looks like you would imagine, and most people would imagine, because a country becomes

921
01:26:17,480 --> 01:26:23,340
more economically developed, the environmental damage is growing. But then something unusual

922
01:26:23,340 --> 01:26:29,180
happens something. The second part of this graph, most people don't realize it. When the GDP per

923
01:26:29,180 --> 01:26:36,400
capita hits about $10,000, $15,000 per person, environmental damage per person starts falling

924
01:26:36,400 --> 01:26:45,660
down because people can afford a greener lifestyle because people have reached, they have acquired

925
01:26:45,660 --> 01:26:51,800
the basics and now they can, or they switch from a diesel car to a hybrid car, then electric car.

926
01:26:51,800 --> 01:26:58,560
if we talk about very poor countries first they cook their food using coal then they switch to

927
01:26:58,560 --> 01:27:06,440
gas then they switch to electric uh cooks so and they they have a more they have more choice they

928
01:27:06,440 --> 01:27:14,700
can say oh i can i don't know some people choose to recycle some people choose to walk a cycle to

929
01:27:14,700 --> 01:27:24,660
their work or school. And free cities are doing just that. They're helping economic progress,

930
01:27:24,800 --> 01:27:31,820
economic growth. If you look at China, which has places like Shenzhen, one of the most spectacular

931
01:27:31,820 --> 01:27:39,060
illustrations of how special economic zones can get millions of people out of poverty within a

932
01:27:39,060 --> 01:27:46,560
single generation. And within the special economic zones in China, there are almost 20% more green

933
01:27:46,560 --> 01:27:56,140
patents are registered. So these are places where not just economic growth is generated, but also

934
01:27:56,140 --> 01:28:02,120
the green technologies are generated there. And these things have a spillover effect on the rest

935
01:28:02,120 --> 01:28:08,640
of the country, the rest of the world, because that's how innovation works. So in the Emirates,

936
01:28:08,640 --> 01:28:15,760
you've been to Mazdar, the green city. It's not much of a city, but it is a green lab. And

937
01:28:15,760 --> 01:28:26,040
the Abu Dhabi electric bus was developed there. The offshore winds farm that are now used in the

938
01:28:26,040 --> 01:28:33,060
UK were developed there. The solar towers that's used in Seville was developed there. So it's a

939
01:28:33,060 --> 01:28:40,060
small place in terms of uh community it's a very small community with not many people living there

940
01:28:40,060 --> 01:28:44,920
but it's a hub for green technologies that are being implemented everywhere else and these are

941
01:28:44,920 --> 01:28:55,060
the things that on a global scale make our life greener yeah i i still think that um you you were

942
01:28:55,060 --> 01:29:01,660
saying that that given the choice a local person would say i don't mind cutting those trees down

943
01:29:01,660 --> 01:29:04,640
if my standard of living gets better and I agree with that.

944
01:29:04,640 --> 01:29:10,360
I think where people who want to sort of halt things like that come from

945
01:29:10,360 --> 01:29:13,240
is with the benefit of hindsight,

946
01:29:13,600 --> 01:29:17,680
often they would look at places that have gone through that process

947
01:29:17,680 --> 01:29:20,680
and to the detriment of the environment.

948
01:29:21,800 --> 01:29:25,380
And they would use that for sure as a reason to say,

949
01:29:25,440 --> 01:29:27,840
well, look, just leave that bit of wilderness.

950
01:29:28,120 --> 01:29:29,260
Don't build on it then.

951
01:29:29,260 --> 01:29:37,140
especially on an island like Roatan where you could argue there is limited resources of it's

952
01:29:37,140 --> 01:29:42,400
an island there's only so much you can develop a place before you lose it all and there's a lot

953
01:29:42,400 --> 01:29:47,200
of people that would rather that didn't happen I mean even me I would look at that and go if I

954
01:29:47,200 --> 01:29:53,020
yeah I like I like wilderness I like that's an important part of my life is being able

955
01:29:53,020 --> 01:29:58,660
to be in a wilderness not somewhere in Dubai where it's a man-made wilderness because that's

956
01:29:58,660 --> 01:30:03,620
not really a wilderness for me so i'm not i'm not saying it's right or wrong or whether i even have

957
01:30:03,620 --> 01:30:10,800
an answer because at the end of the day it depends where your focus is if you focus on the betterment

958
01:30:10,800 --> 01:30:18,460
of people you would say well the wilderness will suffer at the hands of people it will if you want

959
01:30:18,460 --> 01:30:24,220
a better standard of living if you want a better accommodation a better protection from the dangers

960
01:30:24,220 --> 01:30:29,560
of the wilderness, which is basically what that is, this kind of trajectory you're on.

961
01:30:30,900 --> 01:30:38,480
So, but I do understand why people get upset about things like that. And the answer probably

962
01:30:38,480 --> 01:30:44,280
is, well, we'll create more wilderness than we destroy. And as you say, over the long term,

963
01:30:44,280 --> 01:30:49,100
it seems that that happens. But that's probably not good enough for a lot of people, because

964
01:30:49,100 --> 01:30:55,040
that they'll see they'll see the destruction that happens in the first five years 10 years

965
01:30:55,040 --> 01:31:01,060
whatever and say you know and and i'm not even saying that that i mean rotan's an interesting

966
01:31:01,060 --> 01:31:07,360
example because there is a finite land mass there but there's a lot of wilderness in a lot of places

967
01:31:07,360 --> 01:31:14,840
you look at russia for example russia you've got so much forested land people uh in in millions

968
01:31:14,840 --> 01:31:19,160
are leaving places, countries like the Philippines

969
01:31:19,160 --> 01:31:25,480
with untouched forests and go to places like Dubai

970
01:31:25,480 --> 01:31:29,280
where you can barely breathe during several months in a year

971
01:31:29,280 --> 01:31:32,460
because they have different priorities.

972
01:31:33,740 --> 01:31:33,920
Yeah.

973
01:31:34,800 --> 01:31:44,818
So what do you think Dubai is going to look like in the future Do you think they going to go do you think they going to create I wouldn be surprised knowing the way they think

974
01:31:45,278 --> 01:31:47,658
They'll probably create biomes, won't they?

975
01:31:48,018 --> 01:31:54,098
They'll build massive, the kind of things you'd expect to be living in in Mars.

976
01:31:54,098 --> 01:31:57,558
They'll create them in the desert and there'll be snowy environments.

977
01:31:57,778 --> 01:32:04,338
They'll be, because they literally can't create the climate they need.

978
01:32:04,338 --> 01:32:14,778
Last year I went to a Christmas market in Dubai and there were artificial snow and kids were creating snowballs from artificial snow and throwing to each other.

979
01:32:14,938 --> 01:32:16,358
That looked very weird.

980
01:32:17,058 --> 01:32:21,958
But I think, yeah, there was nothing like that a decade ago.

981
01:32:22,478 --> 01:32:23,618
I mean, it's better than.

982
01:32:24,018 --> 01:32:26,058
I don't know how I feel about stuff like that.

983
01:32:26,818 --> 01:32:33,118
I mean, this is my overarching kind of my memories.

984
01:32:33,118 --> 01:32:37,098
I've worked in a number of places in the Middle East, including Doha.

985
01:32:37,978 --> 01:32:44,898
And when I lived in Doha, I lived there for a couple of months just on a small job.

986
01:32:45,418 --> 01:32:48,578
And I lived in a sort of Venetian part of Doha.

987
01:32:49,258 --> 01:32:53,098
But I had to say it was a soulless place.

988
01:32:53,198 --> 01:32:57,338
It had canals and I lived in a house that you could walk to.

989
01:32:58,338 --> 01:33:01,338
But no one was on the streets.

990
01:33:01,338 --> 01:33:03,058
No one was doing anything.

991
01:33:03,118 --> 01:33:04,998
I don't know whether

992
01:33:04,998 --> 01:33:06,398
I'm a very weird person

993
01:33:06,398 --> 01:33:09,718
I think I'm the only one who walks for two hours a day in Dubai

994
01:33:09,718 --> 01:33:14,538
I deliberately chose a nursery for our daughter

995
01:33:14,538 --> 01:33:18,158
So that I could walk there and back for half an hour one way

996
01:33:18,158 --> 01:33:20,138
But most people don't do it

997
01:33:20,138 --> 01:33:21,698
And it's hard to create

998
01:33:21,698 --> 01:33:27,878
People, when I told in the nursery to the teacher that I just walked

999
01:33:27,878 --> 01:33:29,558
They looked at me like I was crazy

1000
01:33:29,558 --> 01:33:30,678
But I'm trying in London

1001
01:33:30,678 --> 01:33:33,018
I used to walk for two hours a day at least

1002
01:33:33,018 --> 01:33:38,878
yeah me too i mean i'm a big walker but walking through a city is not enough for me i think i

1003
01:33:38,878 --> 01:33:46,078
need to be walking in in the in the wilderness and i've never thought that i would i've i've

1004
01:33:46,078 --> 01:33:50,798
thought that i could live in dubai for the opportunities it would offer my children

1005
01:33:50,798 --> 01:33:57,218
but it would be a different opportunity so i'll give you an example my eldest daughter has a horse

1006
01:33:57,218 --> 01:33:58,378
and she rides her own horse.

1007
01:33:58,818 --> 01:34:01,458
But she rides it, if she lived in Dubai,

1008
01:34:01,898 --> 01:34:05,658
she would probably, she would be riding a horse,

1009
01:34:05,758 --> 01:34:06,898
but in a different way.

1010
01:34:07,618 --> 01:34:09,138
Not necessarily a better way,

1011
01:34:09,198 --> 01:34:11,778
but in a more kind of refined way,

1012
01:34:11,778 --> 01:34:14,838
in a way that probably people would aspire to.

1013
01:34:15,178 --> 01:34:17,298
It would be at a riding center.

1014
01:34:17,558 --> 01:34:20,918
It would be probably with good teachers.

1015
01:34:21,278 --> 01:34:21,718
It would, you know.

1016
01:34:22,138 --> 01:34:26,358
But I am in two minds as to whether that's necessarily better.

1017
01:34:26,358 --> 01:34:31,678
it appears to be better and people would say oh you know because i've met you know when we made

1018
01:34:31,678 --> 01:34:36,858
that film in dubai i met a number of people there who flow it flew in their horses from argentina

1019
01:34:36,858 --> 01:34:43,418
and they live on you know it's amazing the kind of level of of of that you can live to there

1020
01:34:43,418 --> 01:34:52,678
but whether or not it's it's better than the the the the life that that i have in the uk it's hard

1021
01:34:52,678 --> 01:35:00,618
to say economically 100 it is but everything else and even with all the innovation that's happening

1022
01:35:00,618 --> 01:35:06,258
there maybe i'm just old but there's a limit to how much innovation i actually need in my life

1023
01:35:06,258 --> 01:35:14,598
i think i don't know am i am i too old is that is that an outdated idea i mean you know i think i

1024
01:35:14,598 --> 01:35:20,098
probably am too old anyway um one last thing i want to talk about before before we finish i don't

1025
01:35:20,098 --> 01:35:26,478
know if you know much about this but do you know much about olivier jensen's new project destiny

1026
01:35:26,478 --> 01:35:35,498
oh you don't that's we've just announced it it's instant kits i just wondered if if you had any sort

1027
01:35:35,498 --> 01:35:42,178
of inside info on that because i obviously want to speak to him um about it and i'm sure that'll

1028
01:35:42,178 --> 01:35:51,438
happen at some point but it looks like quite exciting and and it appears to be um another

1029
01:35:51,438 --> 01:36:00,878
example of more projects appearing on the landscape which are using the the ideas we've

1030
01:36:00,878 --> 01:36:07,318
been espousing for many years and and really really happening you know uh have you had a

1031
01:36:07,318 --> 01:36:13,578
wind of any other new projects that you're interested in of late not just that one i was

1032
01:36:13,578 --> 01:36:18,818
looking forward to the conference to hear more details right yeah we're recording this two days

1033
01:36:18,818 --> 01:36:24,558
before the conference starts or one day so but but you're right there's gonna by the i mean we can

1034
01:36:24,558 --> 01:36:28,698
probably talk about one really exciting thing that's basically next year the conference is

1035
01:36:28,698 --> 01:36:34,578
going to be held in prospera i mean it will have come out by now but that is that's super exciting

1036
01:36:34,578 --> 01:36:43,278
I love Prague. I love the city of Prague. And actually, for many of us, Prague will be the definitive place where this kind of stuff happened.

1037
01:36:43,278 --> 01:37:05,578
Yes, I think it's a big sign of optimism. I think Prosper actually, a lot of people, as you said, are complaining that how free cities look on paper is much more grandiose compared to how they end up getting actually, when they actually start getting built.

1038
01:37:05,578 --> 01:37:07,778
and Prosper is one of

1039
01:37:07,778 --> 01:37:09,558
they saying oh you were talking about

1040
01:37:09,558 --> 01:37:11,798
you're actually talking about a place

1041
01:37:11,798 --> 01:37:13,878
where just a few hundred

1042
01:37:13,878 --> 01:37:15,678
of population permanent

1043
01:37:15,678 --> 01:37:17,578
and for now

1044
01:37:17,578 --> 01:37:19,298
it's more of a resort slash

1045
01:37:19,298 --> 01:37:21,698
convention center

1046
01:37:21,698 --> 01:37:24,078
place where people come and go

1047
01:37:24,078 --> 01:37:25,818
than a

1048
01:37:25,818 --> 01:37:27,658
permanently populated

1049
01:37:27,658 --> 01:37:29,038
community

1050
01:37:29,038 --> 01:37:30,518
but

1051
01:37:30,518 --> 01:37:33,698
these all we have to remember that

1052
01:37:33,698 --> 01:37:42,198
this has been all achieved despite a very, very, very hostile attitude from the government,

1053
01:37:42,698 --> 01:37:49,438
that the government that came to power in Honduras in 2022, they made it one of their core promises

1054
01:37:49,438 --> 01:37:57,198
to shut down the ZS as unconstitutional, neocolonial, environmentally dangerous,

1055
01:37:57,338 --> 01:38:01,558
all these things that we keep hearing. And they used every single tool they had,

1056
01:38:01,558 --> 01:38:16,018
including very, very dubious and absolutely nonsense things like declaring it illegal, the regime retrospectively illegal.

1057
01:38:16,018 --> 01:38:43,038
And the fact that all of this, the community has been built and it is now achieved such a level of development that we can bring this 400 people that get to Prague, we can expect to bring them to Prospera is a very huge sign of success, if it happened despite this hostility.

1058
01:38:43,038 --> 01:39:08,578
And it means also that we have to give credit to the legal team behind Prospera and the ZS in general that have managed to, through studying all the past failures, not just in Honduras, but in other places, through studying what went wrong in other cases.

1059
01:39:08,578 --> 01:39:13,058
when if you talk about dealing with a host nation,

1060
01:39:13,218 --> 01:39:15,078
how to safeguard these projects

1061
01:39:15,078 --> 01:39:18,458
from whichever political turmoil may come

1062
01:39:18,458 --> 01:39:20,338
because many of these projects are happening

1063
01:39:20,338 --> 01:39:21,798
in very unstable places.

1064
01:39:22,398 --> 01:39:25,098
And they've introduced four levels of protection

1065
01:39:25,098 --> 01:39:28,438
from the CAFTA agreements to,

1066
01:39:29,618 --> 01:39:32,018
I don't remember the legal details,

1067
01:39:32,178 --> 01:39:34,338
but they have several levels of protection.

1068
01:39:35,338 --> 01:39:38,078
So if this doesn't work, this should work.

1069
01:39:38,078 --> 01:39:46,758
If they cancel this deal, then we can go to these courts.

1070
01:39:46,758 --> 01:39:52,718
And you see, they didn't manage with all their power, they didn't manage to close it down.

1071
01:39:52,718 --> 01:39:55,798
And now, next year, we're heading to Prospera.

1072
01:39:56,038 --> 01:39:59,658
Imagine what they could have achieved and what they will hopefully achieve.

1073
01:39:59,976 --> 01:40:01,536
if the government is more friendly.

1074
01:40:02,096 --> 01:40:05,096
And there will be elections soon, so fingers crossed.

1075
01:40:05,596 --> 01:40:11,016
Yeah, I think actually, Vera, it was you that in our discussion about one year ago,

1076
01:40:11,016 --> 01:40:13,996
we talked about defending a free city.

1077
01:40:15,156 --> 01:40:20,256
And I think I've been, your talking points back then are now,

1078
01:40:20,616 --> 01:40:22,816
they've been fully integrated into what I say.

1079
01:40:22,956 --> 01:40:28,656
I think I'll remind you, you said there are three main ways to safeguard a free city.

1080
01:40:28,656 --> 01:40:39,056
legal, economic and community. And it's true. It's absolutely true. And now Prospera are living

1081
01:40:39,056 --> 01:40:45,356
proof that the legal one works. They're learning huge lessons with the community one because

1082
01:40:45,356 --> 01:40:55,036
they've allowed a PR campaign by their political foes to work, unfortunately. But now it's turning

1083
01:40:55,036 --> 01:41:02,876
around and now we see probably 50 50 mixed you get more and more people are going there now quite

1084
01:41:02,876 --> 01:41:08,816
high profile youtube channels again they're getting millions of views yeah and now you're

1085
01:41:08,816 --> 01:41:15,476
seeing people reporting the truth so that um and the and the economic one well the government are

1086
01:41:15,476 --> 01:41:19,516
never going to get behind that the current government the new government which i think

1087
01:41:19,516 --> 01:41:24,696
most people are imagining that there'll be a change in government uh away from the left more

1088
01:41:24,696 --> 01:41:30,816
towards the right or the centre at least. So they will be more into the notion...

1089
01:41:30,816 --> 01:41:34,836
Because you can't imagine a more hostile government. So it can, from this level,

1090
01:41:34,836 --> 01:41:37,236
it can only, from this low point, it can only get better.

1091
01:41:37,236 --> 01:41:52,404
Well they even I mean they got more investment during this time than they had previously And I know that was in position before But the people the new investments came despite all the problems

1092
01:41:52,764 --> 01:41:54,404
So, I mean, that's why I said it.

1093
01:41:54,404 --> 01:42:00,444
You can imagine how many investors turned away from it because of the, well, because they're rational,

1094
01:42:00,624 --> 01:42:04,404
because you cannot blame people for not wanting to lose their money.

1095
01:42:05,324 --> 01:42:07,184
Now imagine them all coming back.

1096
01:42:08,584 --> 01:42:36,404
Well, one would hope so. But this is why I said at the start of this conversation how I feel really excited at the moment. I saw the last newsletter that the Free Cities Foundation put out. And I just, I was like, wow, new project, new investment. You know, we all secretly knew that we were going to run the conference next year in Prospero. And it's like, this is super exciting. I think it's the most excited I've been.

1097
01:42:36,404 --> 01:42:45,564
And the podcast, which we started in Prospera, funnily enough, has been going now for, well, say 150 episodes.

1098
01:42:46,084 --> 01:42:48,524
So that's nearly three years.

1099
01:42:49,504 --> 01:42:52,844
This is the most excited I've felt in that three years.

1100
01:42:53,304 --> 01:42:55,844
And the conference has not even started yet.

1101
01:42:56,204 --> 01:42:56,484
No.

1102
01:42:56,644 --> 01:42:59,924
Well, unfortunately, as you know, I don't get to spend a huge amount of time.

1103
01:42:59,924 --> 01:43:03,884
We haven't even heard yet from all these announcements.

1104
01:43:04,184 --> 01:43:04,644
You're true.

1105
01:43:04,644 --> 01:43:07,104
I wish I could be there watching it happen.

1106
01:43:07,104 --> 01:43:10,244
I'll be there at the opening ceremony and a couple of the functions.

1107
01:43:11,584 --> 01:43:13,404
And good luck with your talk.

1108
01:43:13,404 --> 01:43:16,504
You're going to be why we didn't really speak about a huge amount,

1109
01:43:17,284 --> 01:43:19,244
why free cities are good for the environment.

1110
01:43:20,244 --> 01:43:35,692
But that doesn matter because I think you always got something interesting to say You one of the preeminent people in the movement I would say You done certainly on the not educational what am I trying to say

1111
01:43:35,872 --> 01:43:40,832
On the side, on the research side, yes.

1112
01:43:41,312 --> 01:43:43,872
You're one of the most knowledgeable people.

1113
01:43:43,992 --> 01:43:45,092
So thanks for bringing that here.

1114
01:43:45,892 --> 01:43:49,032
And yeah, good luck with your talk.

1115
01:43:49,292 --> 01:43:50,412
You're speaking to the…

1116
01:43:50,412 --> 01:43:50,632
Thank you.

1117
01:43:50,632 --> 01:43:54,752
It's always immense pleasure talking to you on your podcast.

1118
01:43:55,072 --> 01:43:56,552
It's been, yeah, the third time.

1119
01:43:56,872 --> 01:43:57,132
Good.

1120
01:43:57,472 --> 01:44:03,552
I'm glad, you know, we're also, you know, I feel like the podcast is,

1121
01:44:04,472 --> 01:44:09,392
my vision right from the start was always to create something

1122
01:44:09,392 --> 01:44:13,792
that we could put at the center of the movement,

1123
01:44:13,792 --> 01:44:18,472
which gives us the opportunity to talk about this stuff

1124
01:44:18,472 --> 01:44:26,632
or to, you know, like when things happen to be able to, you know, like send them out into the world.

1125
01:44:26,632 --> 01:44:28,372
And it seems to have worked.

1126
01:44:28,372 --> 01:44:33,172
I mean, the only competition we'd have for that title would be from completely,

1127
01:44:33,432 --> 01:44:38,972
would be sort of from the kind of network state end of the spectrum, which have their own conference.

1128
01:44:38,972 --> 01:44:51,932
But we, as the Free Cities side, we have basically created a really great arena to be able to discuss these things and also to be able to sort of tell people what's going on.

1129
01:44:52,112 --> 01:44:52,992
Hopefully, honestly.

1130
01:44:53,212 --> 01:44:58,092
That's why, you know, I appreciate your candid responses.

1131
01:44:58,092 --> 01:45:18,800
And I going to keep this going to keep it up basically because I think we I do believe we heading into a five to 10 year period of many new discussions about this stuff because I think lots of new projects I know of a number so do you but we can speak about which are

1132
01:45:18,800 --> 01:45:28,780
about to be built or in the process of testing the viability of. And they will all run into the

1133
01:45:28,780 --> 01:45:34,320
problem of people will look at them and say, well, hey, that's not a libertarian utopia.

1134
01:45:34,320 --> 01:45:40,620
and I'm thankful that the Prospera has kind of, you know, laid the groundwork in many ways.

1135
01:45:41,540 --> 01:45:45,640
But Prospera is just one part of the spectrum.

1136
01:45:45,880 --> 01:45:50,900
And there are going to be projects from very far this way and very far that way.

1137
01:45:51,240 --> 01:45:56,540
And we're going to have to basically advocate for what they're doing

1138
01:45:56,540 --> 01:46:00,280
if they're creating a better place, if they're creating a freer place.

1139
01:46:00,280 --> 01:46:09,200
I think it's just important that people understand that that spectrum of freedom is something that you strive for.

1140
01:46:10,000 --> 01:46:13,660
And there's not a solution that just comes like that.

1141
01:46:13,680 --> 01:46:17,400
Yes, as Tom Bell once told me, we're climbing up a ladder of consent.

1142
01:46:17,980 --> 01:46:21,820
You cannot jump up the top of the ladder.

1143
01:46:22,220 --> 01:46:25,200
You have to go step by step.

1144
01:46:25,600 --> 01:46:26,760
That's a brilliant way.

1145
01:46:26,760 --> 01:46:29,100
We're climbing a ladder of consent.

1146
01:46:29,100 --> 01:46:31,320
Right, I'm committing that one to memory.

1147
01:46:31,500 --> 01:46:32,760
Thanks, Vera.

1148
01:46:33,400 --> 01:46:34,600
Lovely to see you again.

1149
01:46:34,800 --> 01:46:35,080
Likewise.

1150
01:46:35,500 --> 01:46:36,440
Good luck with your talk.

1151
01:46:36,560 --> 01:46:37,060
Thank you.