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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: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:43PM (2 children)
Contracts pre-date government enforcement of contracts.
OTOH, if you don't have government enforcement of contracts, then you're depending on some other form of enforcement. When there were fewer people, and people were less mobile, then reputation made a reasonably good enforcer. That doesn't seem to work well in modern society. One of the purposes of the MAFIAA is to enforce contractual agreements between members. So that's another "proven" approach.
The thing is, you may not need governmental enforcement, but you need *SOME* enforcement. And currently governmental enforcement is the most effective legal approach. Come up with a new enforcement mechanism, and things may need to be reconsidered.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @09:41PM
The Mafia or other organised crime syndicate in certain cases acts essentially as what Hobbes calls that "common Power to keep them all in awe". They essentially have the ability, normally monopolised by the government, to use force. In certain places and times they actually held have the monopoly on the use of force, and as such they were for all intents and purposes the de facto government in those places and times. In Somalia, no one has that monopoly on the use of force that is the essential characteristic of government, and so we have free market violence in the form of warlords and bandits attempting to impose force in the regions where they hold sway, and they don't always succeed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 06 2018, @11:23PM
The MAFIAA is a shakedown organization for big entertainment against individuals or little companies they wish to defraud or swallow. Just ask Bjorne(the 90s chiptunes guy) about that, who had his OWN WORKS taken down on youtube because BMI or somebody had a subsidiary license some of his works and then corporate used the youtube music scanning system to DMCA the *ORIGINAL WORK*.
Just another example of how the system skews for the wealthy, not for the creators.