Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/24/the-fascinating-story-of-bir-tawil-the-land-no-country-wants.html
…
5 Likes
I’m surprised that the Valley Bros haven’t considered it for their Galt’s Gulch. Or is a land with no governments or people to parasite off of a little too scary for them?
21 Likes
It’s desert. Even libertarians know they need water – something has to keep the crypto rigs cool.
17 Likes
Does it have a Starbucks?
6 Likes
If it’s ~795 square miles, I’d bet it has at least 79.5 Dollar General stores.
5 Likes
They have, many times over the years. Practicalities stop them. As you say, a lack of hosts for the parasites being one of them.
5 Likes
Short but infodump-dense video by Jay Foreman and Mark Cooper-Jones about this:
14 Likes
And here’s the Map Men to explain it all in under three minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iJSXaVvao&list=PLfxy4_sBQdxy3A2lvl-y3qWTeJEbC_QCp
@szielins Ninja’d!
9 Likes
I’ll take it if no one else wants it.
4 Likes
You sure about that? Based on the plans of Musk and his buddies I’m not sure they even realize that they need air.
20 Likes
Flashback to a Sam Kinison bit
“See this! This is sand. NOTHING GROWS IN SAND!!”
1 Like
The servers on Mars should stay cool enough without air or water. I doubt they realize the humans need them.
5 Likes
6 Likes
A lot of them apparently believe they are nearly in reach of building a city on freaking Mars.
8 Likes
Don’t they know about the thermodynamic cooling properties of gumption? /s
2 Likes
I hear it’s lovely at this time of year…
4 Likes
This is fascinating because it seems to be unique - the only other place where something similar is happening appears to be on the Serbia/Croatia border, but the little pockets of land along the river that aren’t part of either country are currently under negotiation between the countries, so it’s very temporary.
I’m honestly surprised - the similar land pockets along the Serbia/Croatia border do have people trying to claim them, for instance. I guess it just requires too much self-sufficiency to interest anyone.
It’s got some coast line in there - it’s got as much going for it as some areas in Saudia Arabia and the UAE. I wonder if it’s too uncertain for anyone to get invested in it, but I don’t think that’s it. I think there are two sorts of libertarian fantasies - impossible visions that can’t be built, and things that can be built to some degree (that end in disaster).
The total pie-in-the-sky visions (e.g. floating island countries) that are too impractical to ever even start building exist as plans because someone is hoping to scam some money off the vague idea, but they stay at that level. This isn’t a sexy enough location for that, I’m guessing (right on the border of Sudan…).
Then there are the projects, on the other hand, where people actually go ahead and build something (e.g. those “sea pods”) to sell a vision that also may be a scam/ill-conceived but they rely on being in/next to a functional country with infrastructure and resources they can use, to get anything built. (Which just undermines the whole point.) And in this case, the location is the middle of nowhere, so anything built there would be enormously expensive, which is keeping anyone from trying.
3 Likes
What? No it doesn’t. Are you looking at the Hala’ib Triangle both countries claim instead of the little quadrilateral they don’t?
Anyway this is now three replies correcting me on my joke about how libertarians care more about resources for their machines than people so, um, apologies I guess. I will try to do better in the future.
10 Likes
Especially when they use the fusion power for their data centers to run desalinators. (And they need fusion power, or those quintillions of future babies will be upset.)
3 Likes
