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The NYT reports that a loosely knit group of crypto-currency multi-million/billionaires have chosen Puerto Rico to set up shop -- several reasons are given including a tax haven for US citizens and low real estate prices since the hurricane Maria destruction last year. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/technology/cryptocurrency-puerto-rico.html
Dozens of entrepreneurs, made newly wealthy by blockchain and cryptocurrencies, are heading en masse to Puerto Rico this winter. They are selling their homes and cars in California and establishing residency on the Caribbean island in hopes of avoiding what they see as onerous state and federal taxes on their growing fortunes, some of which now reach into the billions of dollars.
And these men — because they are almost exclusively men — have a plan for what to do with the wealth: They want to build a crypto utopia, a new city where the money is virtual and the contracts are all public, to show the rest of the world what a crypto future could look like. Blockchain, a digital ledger that forms the basis of virtual currencies, has the potential to reinvent society — and the Puertopians want to prove it.
For more than a year, the entrepreneurs had been searching for the best location. After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico's infrastructure in September and the price of cryptocurrencies began to soar, they saw an opportunity and felt a sense of urgency.
[...] The movement is alarming an earlier generation of Puerto Rico tax expats like the hedge fund manager Robb Rill, who runs a social group for those taking advantage of the tax incentives.
"They call me up saying they're going to buy 250,000 acres so they can incorporate their own city, literally start a city in Puerto Rico to have their own crypto world," said Mr. Rill, who moved to the island in 2013. "I can't engage in that."
I suggest that the SN posters who write, "everything should be organized by contracts, not government" please buy a one-way ticket to PR now! And then see if you can actually make it work. [With limited electricity and thus limited internet, they may not pester the rest of us so often.]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:27AM (9 children)
Well of course it's a pipe dream. Any form of utopia is always going to be. Even fishing on the lake in your own boat has its down sides.
That said, a pipe dream on a Caribbean island is still generally going to be better than a pipe dream most other places. Plus the island certainly could use the economic infusion building a city would provide.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:29PM (8 children)
> "everything should be organized by contracts, not government"
Isn't that the cyberpunk future?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 06 2018, @12:39PM (3 children)
I dunno. The only form of *punk I recognize as anything but lameass posers is hardcore punk.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @09:50PM (2 children)
Ah yes, TMB weighs in with his cultural judgments. Listen up everybody! Blade Runner is trash! Steam Punk is worse than trash!! Only stuff from TMBs formative years have any value whatsoever.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 06 2018, @10:54PM
QFT
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @10:59PM
You're just jealous that TMB has an opinion, whereas you need to be spoonfed opinions. What a douche!
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:06PM (3 children)
> Isn't that the cyberpunk future?
It's a future where someone will say "Wait a second, you didn't fulfill your side of the contract - you took from me my consideration, but you gave me no consideration of your own. I'll sue you!".
To which everyone else will say "there is no legal system, as in order to be universal and be able to impose what we've agreed it should be imposing over everyone, it would be a branch of what you would call 'government', and we don't have any of that".
To which the whiner will say "but he did wrong according to standards that I'm sure we can all agree on - he should be arrested so he can't do it again!".
And the masses will say "but that would require a police force, and all groups that enforce the will of the masses are agents of government!".
"Fuck that shit, then I'm going to break his goddamn windows" will follow.
And thus Utopia becomes Anarchy and burns itself to the ground the first time there's the slightest disagreement.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday February 07 2018, @05:14AM (2 children)
Well, there is a significant school of thought that the principal purpose of government with regard to business and trade is the enforcement of privately executed contracts. [chron.com] In other words exactly as you postulated.
Call this an appeal to a higher authority, if you must, to keep people honest, so that it doesn't turn to open warfare between armed trading partners or companies simply because there was no one around to enforce delivery or payment.
Only recently have some theories [econlib.org] starting to appear that suggest you could do without government, at least for some forms of financial trading. Of course, government has always been a recourse, so the theory is largely untested.
A real world example appears in things like the drug trade, where neither buyer nor seller can turn to the government to enforce a contract. Ask Mexico how this is working out for them.
However,
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday February 07 2018, @05:15AM
Oh, you thought I promised more?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 07 2018, @08:10AM
In 200 of the countries of the world, "Utopia" is generally envisioned as being unarmed. There are very few countries which have a population that envision Utopia as being armed. Ones that still haven't grown out of the Wild West era, for example, mentioning no names.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves