Gil Duran says the tech lords who want "free" cities for themselves wanted that former Honduran president pardoned

[highplainsdem]

WSJ story on pardon of Honduras' drug-trafficker ex-president notes his role in “Próspera, a libertarian ‘startup city’ backed by Silicon Valley investors including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen.”

“A Thiel spokesman said Thiel wasn’t involved in the pardon.”
🎁 link:
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) 2025-12-04T03:52:14.369Z

No mention that Prospera is the flagship project of the Network State cult. This is why I say this stuff isn't being covered by the mainstream media.

The Network State is crucial context, since this cult has seized US government control and is trying to build these cities all over the world.

— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) 2025-12-04T03:54:06.657Z

One mention in a freelance story isn't coverage. An interview with Curtis Yarvin isn't coverage. One-off stories that demonstrate knowledge of the issue while obscuring the full reality from the public isn't coverage.

— Gil Durán (@gilduran.com) 2025-12-04T03:56:08.691Z

From that WSJ story:

-snip-

Hernández also cultivated relationships with American business leaders. He courted Silicon Valley investors by offering semiautonomous “charter city” zones on the country’s Caribbean coast.

-snip-

After Castro took office, projects with links to Trump allies and donors, as well as Silicon Valley investors, were canceled or audited. Those included Warren’s utility on the tourist island of Roatán, which came under scrutiny by Castro’s government, and Próspera, a libertarian “startup city” backed by Silicon Valley investors including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen.

Hernández had made special zones known as ZEDEs—where investors could set their own tax, labor and regulatory rules under long-term legal guarantees—a hallmark of his presidency. Foreign backers embraced the idea, selling Próspera as a “Hong Kong of the Caribbean.” After Castro came into office and rolled back the ZEDE framework, its developers hired Washington lobbyists to pursue an $11 billion arbitration claim against Honduras—amounting to roughly two-thirds of the country’s annual budget.

-snip-

In a blog post on the week of Trump’s inauguration in January, Stone argued that the new president could “crush socialism and save a freedom city in Honduras” by pardoning Hernández, branding Próspera as a utopian project with “major implications for U.S. policy and the future of freedom throughout the world.”

-snip-

The reference to Stone is Roger Stone.

The reference to "Warren’s utility on the tourist island of Roatán" is to energy infrastructure being built on the island Prospera is on, the tourist island of Roatan, by Texas energy billionaire Kelcy Warren, most likely for Prospera.

Sam Altman of OpenAI is also an investor in Prospera.

[AStern]

1. Kick

[ancianita]

2. K & R

Thanks!

[hatrack]

3. Return with us now, to those thrilling days of yesteryear aboard the Satoshi!!!

In the decade following Friedman’s talk, a variety of attempts to realise his seasteading vision were all thwarted. “Seavilization,” to use his phrase, remained a fantasy. Then, in October 2020, it seemed his dream might finally come true, when three seasteading enthusiasts bought a 245-metre-long cruise ship called the Pacific Dawn. Grant Romundt, Rüdiger Koch and Chad Elwartowski planned to sail the ship to Panama, where they were based, and park it permanently off the coastline as the centrepiece of a new society trading only in cryptocurrencies. In homage to Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of bitcoin’s mysterious inventor (or inventors), they renamed the ship the MS Satoshi. They hoped it would become home to people just like them: digital nomads, startup founders and early bitcoin adopters.

Their vision was utopian, if your idea of utopia is a floating crypto-community in the Caribbean Sea. No longer was seasteading a futuristic ideal; it was, said Romundt, “an actual ship”. The Satoshi also offered a chance to marry two movements, of crypto-devotees and seasteaders, united by their desire for freedom – from convention, regulation, tax. Freedom from the state in all its forms. But converting a cruise ship into a new society proved more challenging than envisaged. The high seas, while appearing borderless and free, are, in fact, some of the most tightly regulated places on Earth. The cruise ship industry in particular is bound by intricate rules. As Romundt put it: “We were like, ‘This is just so hard.’”

EDIT

The final entry on the FAQ page, regarding the possibility of having pets on board, gave a bracing insight into the tension between the idea of freedom and the reality of hundreds of people closely cohabiting on a cruise ship. The answer linked to a separate document, containing a 14-point list of conditions including one that declared no animal should exceed 20lbs in weight, and any barking or loud noises could not last for longer than 10 minutes. If a pet repeatedly disturbed the peace – more than three times a month or five times in a year – it would no longer be allowed to live on board. “Any pet related conflict,” instructed point 13, “shall be resolved in accordance with Section V (F) of the Satoshi Purchase Agreement or Section IV (F) of the Satoshi Master Lease, where applicable.” Dogs would only be permitted in balcony cabins, and it was advised that owners buy a specific brand of “porch potty”, a basket of fake grass where your pet could relieve itself. (Pet waste thrown overboard would result in a $200 fine.)

One Reddit respondent – maxcoiner on Reddit, Luke Parker in real life – was as close to the target market of the Satoshi as it was possible to imagine. A longtime follower of the seasteading movement, he was also such an early and successful bitcoin adopter that he and his wife were able to retire early thanks to their investments. The Satoshi was the most plausible idea for a seastead he’d ever heard. “I did not buy a room during the Satoshi’s sale window,” he told me over email, “but it was hard to keep my hand off that button.” A variety of considerations held him back. “The wife,” as he put it, had her doubts. He wasn’t sure about the “ginormous leap down in luxury” from living in deep residential comfort on land in the US midwest to living in a very small cabin on board a 30-year-old cruise ship. He was worried, too, by the limited facilities – “No kitchen of my own? Tiny bathrooms? Tiny everything?” Also, the constant rocking of the ship on the water: “I just can’t stomach that life around the clock.” He preferred the idea of the SeaPods. If Parker was going to live on a boat, he concluded, he’d prefer to buy his own luxury catamaran.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading