Tech elites are starting their own for-profit cities

https://www.ft.com/content/b127ee7a-5ac4-4730-a395-c9f9619615c7

by mhb • 8 months ago

40 13 8 months ago

dannersy• 8 months ago

Good. Maybe we can end tech sycophancy by sending all the tech elite boot lickers there. They can circularly pat themselves on the back about how amazing they are and pass around crypto.

pixl97• 8 months ago

Ah yes, because that worked out well for rights in the 1800s for the US.

No, kill the cancer now before it spreads further.

zug_zug• 8 months ago

I mean I love the concept. However something makes me suspect none of these will be the completely-walkable, full of art, no-pollution, no plastic, utopia city I'm thinking of.

But no harm in them trying their idea...

moomoo11• 8 months ago

Traditional cities could charge a toll for anyone from those for profit cities to enter. For example to get to SFO there would be a $30 toll.

Any private roads that connect to public infrastructure would have to pay a recurring fee.

dghlsakjg• 8 months ago

But no harm in them trying their idea...

I assure you that there is plenty of potential harm in trying to make extra-legal mass scale social programs.

The most obvious one to me (based on every large social institution's past history), is how these places will handle sex crimes. There will be a poorly managed or entirely preventable sex crime scandal at one of these places. I would be willing to bet on it.

There are plenty of other things that I foresee failing, but this just looks like seasteading 2.0 to me. There is a reason that libertarians on a cruise ship failed, and given the involvement of some of the same characters, I would also be willing to bet that these concepts will fail in the same way.

akomtu• 8 months ago

The return of technocracy from 1930s?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement

"Technocracy advocates contended that price system-based forms of government and economy are structurally incapable of effective action, and promoted a society headed by technical experts, which they argued would be more rational and productive."

dlahoda• 8 months ago

I aggregate day to day news, many things from 193X appear these days again.

mrsubletbot• 8 months ago

Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong?

Biologist123• 8 months ago

There’s an alternative theory that cities need to be bit chaotic:

“The Uses of Disorder analyzes human development at the personal and collective level in wealthy cities, presenting the thesis that such cities are excessively ordered and thereby enable residents to avoid personal growth or change. Instead of relying on prescriptive plans and rigid self-conceptions, Sennett argues, people should remain open to difference and disorder while city life ought to be more disorderly and decentralized.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uses_of_Disorder

AtlasBarfed• 8 months ago

It's all atlas shrugged cult thinking.

djmips• 8 months ago

A staple of many scifi novels.

canistel• 8 months ago

There is a relatively successful corporate backed political party in Kerala, India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty20_Kizhakkambalam

They have done quite well over the years, but have limited themselves to the small area around which the company has influence.

01HNNWZ0MV43FF• 8 months ago

Oh my god just tax the land already

Tech elites are starting their own for-profit cities

Related Stories