Tech Execs Are Pushing Trump to Build ‘Freedom Cities’ Run by Corporations
Tech Execs Are Pushing Trump to Build ‘Freedom Cities’ Run by Corporations
A pro-corporate libertarian movement is attempting to take over the U.S., with Trump's help.
It's odd how some people get wealthy and then want to start their own utopian fifedom. Rich guys were attempting this throughout the 19th century too.
Soon they'll start building freedom camps around these cities and will fill them up with the millions of incarcerated Americans so they can work towards freedom. As Germans have put it before, work makes you free.
Slave Plantations?
Are they anything like red states? If so, they are here to suck at the teet of bigger, better states like California that provide for them.
Fuck these welfare queens.
Hey guys, have you heard this new punk band? They got this weird lead singer called Johnny Silverhand...
I just wish they would be honest with their naming schemes. Stop with the "freedom this" and "freedom that" nonsense. They don't give a good goddam about freedom and we all know it. They are just trying to build "company towns" with touchscreens. We've already been down this road. You can slap all the lipstick you want on it, but it's still a fucking pig.
government officials ending every phrase with, "brought to you by carls jr" is getting more real of a likelihood all the time.
elon's already wanting to build musklandia in texas.
Cyberpunk 2025
And no masterbation!
You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
These zones would allow wealthy investors to write their own laws and set up their own governance structures which would be corporately controlled and wouldn’t involve a traditional bureaucracy.
Why do I read this as incel rape cities?
Ironically, “Freedom Cities” not free.
Every time an oppressor wants to enslave people, they use "freedom" as an excuse.
Exhibit A: People's Liberation Army. Its not a conquering, its liberating 🤣
Or Exhibit B: Maga
How do people ever get fooled by this? Its so dumb
They keep trying this shit even though it never works. (Like there's literally no pictures of this actually, totally existent place. But it's a paradise. Trust me.)
His everyone seen this?
"techno-feudalism"
Christ, why did we have to get the Shitty Dystopia versions from Snow Crash, Jennifer Government, and every Gibson novel, but none of the cool and fun shit like flying cars, off-planet living, and advanced medical/cybernetic tech.
Gonna have the corpo company town again. Instead of an online walled garden it’ll be a walled city with it’s own currency that gets traded at a steep loss if you try to go anyplace nicer. Keep you in your place.
I think it’s hilarious that they are so dumb that a satire movie like RoboCop is regarded as blueprint for the future. How cartoonishly evil do they have to be?
They've been trying to do this for years
These tech libertarians never stop trying to make their own company towns.
Here was a recent failed attempt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidewalk_Toronto
Also this piece never gets old. https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/l-p-d-libertarian-police-department
In September of last year, the podcast Behind the Bastards did a two part series on right wing blogger Curtis Yarvin, his connections to Peter Theil, and his influence on JD Vance. I highly recommend these episodes for anyone who wants to know where this is all headed.
Yarvin has, for years, pushed the notion of RAGE (retire all government employees), and his dark enlightenment movement centers on dismantling democracy and installing a neo-feudalistic system of government in which oligarchs rule as kings.
This is not some crazy new proposal that will be ignored by the people in power. This is the endgame. The oligarchs and right wing fascists Trump has surrounded himself with have been pushing this for years, just waiting for their moment.
If you don't think this is a big deal, then you probably won't realize until it's too late.
According to interviews and presentations viewed by WIRED, the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Yes because the first thing I think needs regulations is fucking nuclear power!
Can't wait to pick out which burbclave to join..
This is the dumbest branding exercise ever. There are no additional "freedoms" that you can get in a corporate-run city versus a regular city; except that perhaps the corporation has more freedom to trounce upon the rights of the citizenry.
If the future that Curtis Yarvin and his type envision starts to shape up, we're gonna need to go full, 100% anti-corporation to push back.
I actually like this idea. So long as the CEOs are required to live in the town as well a minimum of 300 days out of the year.
Because working in an office is worth the collaboration.
And I like knowing where the CEOs are so that checks instance name I can play Minecraft with them in person. I get so much more enjoyment playing Minecraft in person and would like to make sure the latency is really low.
Freedom Cities is a branding exercise in the same tradition as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The more you have to advertise how free a society is, the less free it tends to be in practice.
So like a town, owned by a company, like some sort of company town, but now with freedom! The freedom to live in a house owned by your employer, shop at a store owned by your employer, and you have to use special money that your employer pays you in. Yup, nothing says freedom more the having incredibly limited choices.
Well yeah. They've clearly wanted to bring company towns back for a while. Everyone from Disney to Amazon does their best to recreate them already and there's been no change in the profit incentive since the last time they were fully legal.
I do feel like the tech guys have forgotten why we agreed to give workers rights though...
Oh well.
This is exactly what Elon Musk and Peter Thiel want, to own city states as kings using neo-feudalism.
See:
Is Elon so mad that he wasn't in the game Cyberpunk 2077 but Grimes was, and wants to spitefully create his own Night City and Arasaka tower in real life to have his little fantasy?
Yeah, this would be bad for everyone. Even the corps. I don't think any CEO actually wants to become an actual real life general.
Because there would be wars from these 'independent' corps.
Welcome to Freedom City #35, Brought to you by Apple. We have a number of accommodations for our community. A gym where cyclists generate the power for their own homes while they also assemble iPhone 23s, Wage Slavery park where children can play in the "sand" boxes sorting out circuit board capacitors, and a wide variety of restaurants that serve delicious meals for as little as two whole day's wages in Apple Bucks. (Note: all wages paid in Apple Bucks, which are invalid as currency outside of Freedom City #35). Work is from 6AM to 8PM, curfew at 10PM, strictly enforced by the Freedom Troops conveniently located on every block.
🎵Freedom cities! Where nothing is free but the irony!🎵
Dystopian AF.
One of these ghouls that I rarely hear brought up in these discussions is Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs. I believe that she is involved in the effort to build something like this in Solano County, California. She’s supposed to be a big Democratic Party supporter, so I suspect that the effort to create corporate cities is not an exclusively Republican project. I wish there was more reporting on her.
Snow Crash anyone?
Is anybody actually watching Severance? An underlying theme of the last episode was that this kind of crap specifically is a bad idea.
Frickin’ wild that Apple TV+ puts it out at all, honestly…
War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.
(Workin' in a coal mine)
(Goin' down down down)
(Workin' in a coal mine)
(Whoops! About to slip down)
(Workin' in a coal mine)
(Goin' down down down)
(Workin' in a coal mine)
(Whoops! About to slip down)
It's weird how the hardcore wingnuts were constantly jabbering about "Big Tech" and making noises about "Hunter's
hard-drivelaptop" just a few short years ago. They could never define this "Big Tech" other than to make hooting noises about how they were "censoring" the crazy right wing. They didn't really know what they were going on about, but boy, they were mad about it. Because laptop.Now they seem to be all-in with whatever the fuck "Big Tech" wants for them, because, what? They think it will own the libs? Just what the fuck do they think billionaires are going to do for the average redcap but put them out of work and yank any and all government services that will help them or their families?
People unfamiliar with this: See the previous thread about this from a few days ago as well: https://lemmy.world/comment/15538652
Now a Burbclave, that's the place to live. A city-state with its own constitution, a border, laws, cops, everything.
https://chnm.gmu.edu/exploring/20thcentury/consumerism/pop_stephenson1.html
Ooh, they can even have their own currency! But what to call it... something brief and punchy, to underscore all the efficiency... I know, we can call it "scrip!"
Sounds like how the CCP develops and employees its citizens. You live where you work and you can’t escape your bubble. “Hey honey, going to go shop at google to pick up milk and then go to google to get that bookshelf you wanted. I’ll be next to google if you need anything for your new garden.”
So what, Irvine?
Did any other Bioshock fans out there just get a bit weirded out by this. Not the live action we hoped for....