patrissimo1976

Charter cities are, like startups, heavily supported by the partner nation. The models are Dubai & Shenzhen. Instead of being completely funded and operated by the state, the new generation of cities will be public-private partnerships between developers and nations.

A small, incremental degree of privatization. I have no idea where you get "lawless" or "fiefdom". These zones are requested, authorized, regulated, and monitored by a nation. Do you think the 3,000 SEZs in the world are lawless fiefdoms?

This is strangely hyperbolic language for what's basically a new kind of free trade zone. Would make a good movie plot, though, you've got a grand imagination!

There is no shortage of tax havens. Anyone who wants one will just move to the Bahamas. They already do, as you point out. Charter cities are thus totally orthogonal to this (despite the article's misleading implications).

The point is to improve life for the 99% of the world who can't just move to a tax haven, by building prosperous cities they can move to. This is not just a theory - China lifted 500,000,000 out of poverty using Special Economic Zones to transform their economy over decades. Many countries aspire to the same advance in prosperity for their people.

Just stay in Manchester or whatever, and pay your god damned taxes to the king. Moving to the New World is bleak, bleak stuff.

Just stay on Earth or whatever, and fix your god damned environment. Settling the Solar System - how dare you? Tell me one of those space ships won't get hit by an asteroid.

I mean, heck, the idea of doing a startup of any kind is dangerously transgressive. If you make new things, something bad might happen! And existing companies might lose customers! There will be change! Chaos! Mayhem!

Or - crazy idea here - perhaps we could have the courage to not let the plot of a video game limit our social innovation?

Or, if that's the only metric you have, at least pick the right game - SimCity!

I agree with you, but one point of caution is that the NRX movement that Yarvin helped found has many avowedly anti-semitic members who see "Jews" as part of the forces that oppress them.

None of this came from Yarvin, who is Jewish, and well worth defending, but get much beyond him into the movement and you'll be supporting anti-semitism, not tolerance.

Perhaps so, but I think it is enough in the vicinity of the chilling effect line that it is worth discussing and being concerned about.

I say this specifically because it was a professional conference and such conferences are important for earning a living. If private organizations vital to earning a living voluntarily censor people for their political opinions, that is equivalent to denying careers to those people, and that is a substantial chilling effect. If it's one conference, occasionally, then sure it's a minor effect; but look at the Hollywood Red Scare and you'll see it can become a major one.

Personally I'm even more uncomfortable with forcing private organizations to ignore participant politics than I am with chilling effects, but let's not deny the chilling effect. A culture which denies professional opportunities on the basis of personal politics is lacking tolerance and diversity where it really matters: for ideas, not just skin shades and accents.

Then again, China took the opposite model and seems to be doing fine. So YMMV.