IQ, Institutions & Why Every Country Is Run Poorly

Crémieux is a pseudonymous statistician and writer with a large following on Substack and X. He likes to take widely cited studies, reopen the data, and argue the conclusions don't always hold up. His readers include Elon Musk and JD Vance, and his work circulates widely in tech and policy circles.

Timothy Allen sits down with Crémieux in Honduras, for a wide-ranging conversation about IQ, institutions, fertility, biotech, agglomeration economies, and why he thinks every country on Earth, even Singapore, is run poorly. The result is part interview, part real-time error-correction service: every casual claim Timothy makes gets gently audited against the data, and the answers are usually "harsher, less equal, and less comforting than people want them to be."

In this conversation:

Enjoy the conversation.

Timestamps (Audio version only, includes Timothy's episode introduction):

Guest: Crémieux - Twitter/X | Substack

The Free Cities Podcast is the official podcast of the Free Cities Foundation hosted by Timothy Allen. New episodes every Friday. Long-form, in-person conversations with the builders, investors, residents, and thinkers shaping the future of free cities, charter cities, special economic zones, network states, private cities, and governance innovation worldwide.

Listen & subscribe: freecities.fm | All platforms | Fountain.fm (bonus episodes & early access)

Community: Telegram | Free Cities Foundation newsletter | Free Cities Conference

Support the show: Donate via Stripe | BTC: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg | V4V podcast apps

Lead show sponsor: Veritas Villages - Off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom-minded people in Latin America. Bitcoin accepted for property purchases.

Offers: Become a resident or business owner in Próspera | ArkPad Próspera Resort

Follow: Timothy Allen on X & Nostr | Free Cities Foundation on X & Nostr

Sealand, Sovereignty & Building Freedom Without Permission

For nearly six decades, the Principality of Sealand has stood as one of the world’s most famous experiments in self-declared sovereignty: a former wartime sea fort occupied in 1967 by Paddy Roy Bates and still run by the Bates family today. What began as a pirate-radio outpost became a long-running test case in jurisdiction, legitimacy, and what it means to build freedom outside existing systems.

Timothy Allen sits down with Prince Liam Bates of the Principality of Sealand, grandson of Paddy Roy Bates and part of the family still carrying the project forward. Liam tells the story of how Sealand emerged from the pirate radio era, survived court battles, repelled a coup attempt, and evolved from a rough offshore platform into a still-living symbol of independence, experimentation, and institutional persistence.

In this conversation:

This episode is a fascinating look at one of the most enduring edge cases in the freedom space - a project that sits somewhere between micronation, myth, legal anomaly, and genuine governance experiment. It is a conversation about sovereignty not as theory, but as something people try to live, defend, and pass on across generations.

Timestamps (Audio version only, include's Timothy's episode introduction):

Guest: Liam Bates - Twitter/X | Website

The Free Cities Podcast is the official podcast of the Free Cities Foundation hosted by Timothy Allen. New episodes every Friday. Long-form, in-person conversations with the builders, investors, residents, and thinkers shaping the future of free cities, charter cities, special economic zones, network states, private cities, and governance innovation worldwide.

Listen & subscribe: freecities.fm | All platforms | Fountain.fm (bonus episodes & early access)

Community: Telegram | Free Cities Foundation newsletter | Free Cities Conference

Support the show: Donate via Stripe | BTC: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg | V4V podcast apps

Lead show sponsor: Veritas Villages - Off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom-minded people in Latin America. Bitcoin accepted for property purchases. (Previous episodes with founder Patrick Hiebert: EP 156 | EP 107)

Offers: Become a resident or business owner in Próspera | ArkPad Próspera Resort

Links: Wealth/Exit Taxes Video | Veritas Villages Webinar | 60 Minutes Documentary

Follow: Timothy Allen on X & Nostr | Free Cities Foundation on X & Nostr

Why Most Free City Projects Fail & What Actually Works

After more than two decades investing in charter cities, seasteading, and governance innovation, Patri Friedman has arrived at a blunt conclusion: most attempts to build new societies fail not because of bad ideas, but because of poor execution.

Timothy Allen sits down with the founder of The Seasteading Institute and General Partner at Pronomos Capital, the first venture capital fund dedicated to charter cities. Patri has spent 25 years exploring and investing in the Free Cities ecosystem and shares eight hard-earned lessons from trying to turn governance experiments into real, functioning jurisdictions.

In this conversation:

This episode is a grounded look at what it actually takes to build free cities - moving beyond theory into the realities of politics, economics, and long-term institutional change.

Timestamps (Audio version only, include's Timothy's episode introduction):

0:00:29 - Introduction to episode

0:07:03 - Start of conversation

0:07:20 - Seasteading today: niche use cases vs reality

0:09:44 - Long-term seasteading, space-steading, and dynamic geography

0:12:56 - Why economics, not romance, determines what gets built

0:17:26 - Governance models in space and why Patri stays agnostic

0:20:04 - Lesson 1: Why Free City founders tend to be in their 40s, not their 20s

0:25:26 - AI, the 21st century, and the future of governance

0:39:23 - Lesson 2: Build for locals, not nomads

0:43:58 - Lesson 3: L1s and L2s are very different

0:49:29 - Lesson 4: You need a pipeline of countries because deals fall through

0:52:43 - Alpha City and the strategy of building multiple Free City projects

0:55:06 - Lesson 5: Near enemies, LARPing, and the cloud

1:00:03 - Network states, internet-first governance, and the limits of digital power

1:03:28 - Every successful Free City needs an economic engine

1:04:45 - Lesson 6: Pop-ups select for the rootless

1:07:09 - Lesson 7: Entrepreneurial lift first, legal arbitrage later at scale

1:14:15 - Lesson 8: Stop wonking: why theory is not the bottleneck

1:16:21 - Patri’s macro view: why Free Cities are finally starting to work

1:18:15 - Why Próspera may be the proof of concept the whole movement needed

Guest: Patri Friedman - Twitter/X | Website

The Free Cities Podcast is the official podcast of the Free Cities Foundation hosted by Timothy Allen. New episodes every Friday. Long-form, in-person conversations with the builders, investors, residents, and thinkers shaping the future of free cities, charter cities, special economic zones, network states, private cities, and governance innovation worldwide.

Listen & subscribe: freecities.fm | All platforms | Fountain.fm (bonus episodes & early access)

Community: Telegram | Free Cities Foundation newsletter | Free Cities Conference

Support the show: Donate via Stripe | BTC: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg | V4V podcast apps

Lead show sponsor: Veritas Villages - Off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom-minded people in Latin America. Bitcoin accepted for property purchases. (Previous episodes with founder Patrick Hiebert: EP 156 | EP 107)

Offers: Become a resident or business owner in Próspera | ArkPad Próspera Resort

Follow: Timothy Allen on X & Nostr | Free Cities Foundation on X & Nostr

Inside Próspera's Survival, Legal Battle, and Vision for Governance as a Service

Próspera is the world's most closely watched startup city - a Free City project on the Honduran island of Roatán operating under the ZEDE framework with its own civil code, tax structure, and regulatory system. After surviving years of political hostility from the previous Honduran government, it now faces a pivotal moment: a friendlier administration, an ongoing CAFTA arbitration, and a development roadmap that could reshape how governance experiments scale globally.

In this episode, Timothy Allen sits down with Gabriel Delgado, co-founder and Chief Development Officer of Próspera. Gabe has worked in special economic zones since 2009 and launched Próspera in 2017. He pulls back the curtain on what the last several years have actually looked like - the political pressure, the decision to fight rather than retreat, and what comes next.

In this conversation:

Timestamps (Audio version only, include's Timothy's episode introduction):

0:00:29 - Introduction to episode

0:09:18 - Start of conversation

0:14:24 - Timothy's life in Próspera

0:19:30 - Building on the frontier

0:24:36 - The masterplan and city design

0:29:42 - Mainland vision and logistics

0:34:48 - Political pressure and survival

0:39:54 - Why Próspera matters globally

0:45:00 - Legal framework and ZEDE status

0:50:06 - Arbitration and legal protections

0:55:12 - Relationship with the new government

1:00:18 - Governance as a service

1:05:24 - Scaling the model internationally

1:10:30 - Why Próspera must succeed

Guest: Gabriel Delgado-Ayau — x.com/gabedelgadoa | prospera.co

The Free Cities Podcast is the official podcast of the Free Cities Foundation, hosted by Timothy Allen. New episodes every Friday. Long-form, in-person conversations with the builders, investors, residents, and thinkers shaping the future of free cities, charter cities, special economic zones, network states, private cities, and governance innovation worldwide.

Listen & subscribe: freecities.fm | All platforms | Fountain.fm (bonus episodes & early access)

Community: Telegram | Free Cities Foundation newsletter | Free Cities Conference

Support the show: Donate via Stripe | BTC: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg | V4V podcast apps

Lead show sponsor: Veritas Villages — Off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom-minded people in Latin America. Bitcoin accepted for property purchases. (Previous episodes with founder Patrick Hiebert: EP 156 | EP 107)

Links mentioned: Próspera | Become a resident or business owner in Prospera | ArkPad Próspera Resort | Free Cities Foundation

Follow: Timothy Allen on X & Nostr | Free Cities Foundation on X & Nostr

“When Starmer came in in 2024, how many people across the entire British state changed jobs?

Two hundred. One hundred ministers… and one hundred special advisors… And that’s it. And everybody else in that deep state stayed exactly the same.”

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Timothy Allen sits down with James Price, former UK government adviser and political commentator, for a wide-ranging conversation on what it’s really like inside the machinery of the modern state.

Drawing on his experience at the heart of government, James offers a candid perspective on why many institutions are increasingly struggling to deliver, how political incentives shape decision-making behind the scenes, and why problems that appear local to the UK may in fact be symptoms of a much broader systemic shift.

The discussion explores the growing gap between what governments promise and what they can realistically achieve, the pressures created by cultural and demographic change, and whether traditional models of governance are equipped to handle the complexity of what’s coming next. Along the way, they touch on the limits of reform, the role of public perception, and what all of this might mean for those looking beyond the nation-state for alternative ways of organising society.

Enjoy the conversation.

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New ArkPad Seasteading Resort in Próspera: https://tinyurl.com/ArkPad

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LEAD SPONSOR: Veritas Villages: https://www.veritasvillages.com/freecities

Veritas Villages are building off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom lovers in Latin America. Bitcoin is accepted at all villages, including for the purchase of property.

-

Previous interviews with Patrick Hiebert, Founder of Veritas Villages:

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DONATE Bitcoin to the Free Cities Podcast: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg

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DONATE fiat currency to the Free Cities Podcast: https://buy.stripe.com/5kQ9AT90zeeY5JX7Jv4ow00

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Listen on Fountain.fm to subscribe for BONUS episodes & EARLY ACCESS:

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Podcasting apps that support Value-4-Value Bitcoin payments: https://podcastindex.org/apps?appTypes=app

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TIMESTAMPS (Audio Version Only)

0:00:29 - Episode introduction

0:07:02 - Start of Conversation

0:08:36 - What is the real problem with modern government?

0:15:20 - Only 200 people change when governments change

0:16:46 - Why nothing works anymore and legitimacy is breaking down

0:19:03 - Bureaucracy as the real power: ministers as “viruses”

0:24:30 - Civil service incentives and resistance to change

0:29:00 - Government vs business: why execution fails

0:33:30 - Centralisation vs decentralisation

0:38:00 - Political cycles and economic reality

0:42:30 - Freedom vs control trade-offs

0:47:00 - Immigration and pressure on the system

0:51:30 - Democracy and loss of public trust

0:56:00 - The administrative state vs elected power

1:01:00 - Why reform keeps failing

1:08:00 - What replaces the current system?

NOSTR:

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LEGACY SOCIAL MEDIA:

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OTHER LINKS:

“I will die at sea for sure. I’m not going back.”

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Timothy Allen sits down with filmmaker Oswald Horowitz, the man behind the upcoming documentary The Legend of Landi, to trace the strange true story of Samuele Landi, an Italian tech entrepreneur who set out to live beyond the reach of the normal system on a rusty barge in international waters between Dubai and Iran.

What begins as Oswald's quixotic quest to track Landi down, involving ignored Telegram messages, a ketchup-themed short film, a Croatian police ban, and a Dubai fisherman willing to sail forty miles offshore, opens out into something far bigger. Landi's life turns out to be nothing like the press had painted it, and the story takes turns that nobody could have scripted.

This is a conversation about myth, obsession, sovereignty, and the kind of rare individuals willing to push past every frontier to find out whether real freedom can actually be built at sea.

Enjoy the conversation.

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New ArkPad Seasteading Resort in Próspera: https://tinyurl.com/ArkPad

-

LEAD SPONSOR: Veritas Villages: https://www.veritasvillages.com/freecities

Veritas Villages are building off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom lovers in Latin America. Bitcoin is accepted at all villages, including for the purchase of property.

-

Previous interviews with Patrick Hiebert, Founder of Veritas Villages:

-

DONATE Bitcoin to the Free Cities Podcast: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg

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DONATE fiat currency to the Free Cities Podcast: https://buy.stripe.com/5kQ9AT90zeeY5JX7Jv4ow00

-

Listen on Fountain.fm to subscribe for BONUS episodes & EARLY ACCESS:

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Podcasting apps that support Value-4-Value Bitcoin payments: https://podcastindex.org/apps?appTypes=app

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TIMESTAMPS (Audio Version Only)

0:00:29 – Introduction

0:08:24 – Start of conversation

0:09:56 – Why seasteading matters and how Oswald found the world

0:11:53 – Ephemeris and the search for a real seasteader

0:19:17 – Meeting Samuel Landi through Vít Jedlička

0:22:04 – Oswald’s strange strategy for getting invited on board

0:26:16 – Chasing Vít to Liberland

0:33:25 – Dubai, the failed yacht mission, and finding a way to the barge

0:39:39 – Arriving at Landi’s platform in the middle of nowhere

0:43:16 – The whisky test and first impressions of Landi

0:46:22 – Family, adventure, and why Landi chose the sea

0:51:57 – Media narratives, freedom, and why seasteading gets misread

0:55:13 – Living on the barge and why Landi chose barges over prototypes

1:02:26 – Landi’s death and the mystery after the storm

1:07:05 – The wreck, the survivors, and what really happened at sea

1:17:18 – Filming the wreck and Landi’s underwater afterlife

1:23:57 – Liberia, diplomacy, and the wider Landi backstory

1:31:28 – Berlusconi, exile, and the making of a fugitive pioneer

1:36:52 – Why Landi helped rescue Liberian girls in Oman

1:46:05 – Liberland, micronations, and whether new states can survive

1:55:17 – Landi’s family history and the idea of blood memory

2:03:56 – The sovereign individual, frontiers, and escaping the system

2:11:25 – Why pioneers are always treated like outlaws

2:22:09 – The ending of the film and the bronze head of Landi

2:31:47 – Why the monument matters and who it is really for

2:41:24 – Making art for the few people who will actually act

2:49:56 – Final thoughts on seasteading and Landi’s legacy

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NOSTR:

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LEGACY SOCIAL MEDIA:

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OTHER LINKS:

"Land use should not be prescribed by any planning regime. People come together into the city by seeking out very particular connections and a multitude of connections. And they have to find each other. There needs to be the degree of freedom to associate and self-organize what I call the co-location synergies."

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Timothy Allen sits down with Patrik Schumacher, principal architect at Zaha Hadid Architects and the theorist behind “parametricism,” to talk about what happens when cities are allowed to evolve like markets: bottom up, adaptive, and shaped by real human purposes rather than planning committees.

Starting with the 2008 crisis and Schumacher’s path into Austrian economics, the conversation moves into why he thinks the built environment is one of the most anti-market domains in the modern West, and how that shows up as paralysis, affordability problems, and “garbage spill” urbanization with no coherent identity.

From there, Patrik makes the case that architecture should not impose a preconceived formal order, but should make an emerging network of relationships legible: tracing flows, affiliations, and co-location synergies the way a living ecosystem organizes itself.

They close by bringing it back to Free Cities: whether a city with more freedom should look different, why frontier governance should pair with frontier design, and how computational tools and AI could accelerate a new era of high-performance, highly readable urbanism.

Enjoy the conversation.

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New ArkPad Seasteading Resort in Próspera: https://tinyurl.com/ArkPad

-

LEAD SPONSOR: Veritas Villages: https://www.veritasvillages.com/freecities

Veritas Villages are building off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom lovers in Latin America. Bitcoin is accepted at all villages, including for the purchase of property.

-

Previous interviews with Patrick Hiebert, Founder of Veritas Villages:

-

DONATE Bitcoin to the Free Cities Podcast: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg

-

DONATE fiat currency to the Free Cities Podcast: https://buy.stripe.com/5kQ9AT90zeeY5JX7Jv4ow00

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Listen on Fountain.fm to subscribe for BONUS episodes & EARLY ACCESS:

https://fountain.fm/show/xudG4tsYH5TimGLfAmqn

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Podcasting apps that support Value-4-Value Bitcoin payments: https://podcastindex.org/apps?appTypes=app

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TIMESTAMPS (Audio Version Only)

0:00:30 – Episode introduction

0:10:22 – Start of Conversation

0:12:17 – Planning kills the market process (housing affordability)

0:15:40 – Parametricism vs “parametric design” and where it came from

0:22:23 – Cities as spontaneous order, and architecture’s real job

0:33:07 – Can you build a city from scratch? Seeding vs rigid masterplans

0:44:33 – “Garbage spill urbanization” and why modern places feel soulless

0:50:12 – Why “copy the historic city” is understandable but limited

0:57:13 – Tectonism: engineering logic, vaults, ribs, and optimal forms

1:02:03 – AI in architecture: why it won’t flatten everything into sameness

1:14:55 – “Perfectly optimized design” and why humans still set the tradeoffs

1:24:08 – Should free cities have a recognizable architectural identity?

1:41:46 – Rule-based design that “tells you more”

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NOSTR:

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LEGACY SOCIAL MEDIA:

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OTHER LINKS:

"You can vote your way into socialism, but you can only shoot your way out. They're never going to leave power."

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Timothy Allen sits down with Mailyn Salabarria, a Cuban refugee and liberty advocate, to talk about what “voting with your feet” looks like when it is not a lifestyle choice but a survival move. Mailyn describes leaving Cuba with two suitcases and $200, then having to learn how freedom actually works once she arrived in the US.

From there, the conversation gets darker: why Cuba is not “quaint,” how the country is actively disintegrating (hospitals, power, crime, morality), and how the regime sustains itself through censorship, embedded informants, and a tourist-facing propaganda veneer. Mailyn also explains how remittances and “private” businesses still loop back into state control, and why she sees Venezuela as a key pressure point for Cuba’s future.

They close on a guarded optimism: Florida as a lower-government bubble, a possible US fracturing scenario, and the surprising momentum for freer-market politics across Latin America, with the hope that the trend eventually reaches Cuba too.

Enjoy the conversation.

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New ArkPad Seasteading Resort in Próspera: https://tinyurl.com/ArkPad

-

LEAD SPONSOR: Veritas Villages: https://www.veritasvillages.com/freecities

Veritas Villages are building off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom lovers in Latin America. Bitcoin is accepted at all villages, including for the purchase of property.

-

Previous interviews with Patrick Hiebert, Founder of Veritas Villages:

-

DONATE Bitcoin to the Free Cities Podcast: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg

-

DONATE fiat currency to the Free Cities Podcast: https://buy.stripe.com/5kQ9AT90zeeY5JX7Jv4ow00

-

Listen on Fountain.fm to subscribe for BONUS episodes & EARLY ACCESS:

https://fountain.fm/show/xudG4tsYH5TimGLfAmqn

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Podcasting apps that support Value-4-Value Bitcoin payments: https://podcastindex.org/apps?appTypes=app

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TIMESTAMPS (Audio Version Only)

0:00:30 – Episode introduction

0:07:07 – Start of Conversation

0:09:00 – From “survival mode” to “purpose”: speaking at Free Cities Conference

0:11:16 – “Two suitcases, $200”: why voting with your feet is easier now

0:14:41 – “Same dog, different leash”: parties, lockdowns, and the regulatory state

0:21:13 – “The country is disintegrating”: hospitals, disease, kids and elderly first

0:25:22 – The “quaint Cuba” tourism myth and the propaganda veneer

0:29:49 – Private property as an illusion: Cuba’s “private” loop and US property taxes

0:30:51 – Why Venezuela matters: Maduro, oil supply lines, and the tipping-point theory

0:34:24 – Remittances as regime revenue: the state skims money sent home

0:38:30 – No internet, no power: why Bitcoin and alternatives struggle to emerge

0:45:02 – Snitch networks and the price of betrayal

0:51:42 – The hard rebuild is mindset: personal responsibility after communism

0:54:39 – “I don’t exist”: erased records and why she cannot return yet

1:07:30 – Hope moves south: Latin America’s pro-market turn

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NOSTR:

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LEGACY SOCIAL MEDIA:

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OTHER LINKS:

"The golden age of voluntarism, anarcho-capitalism has already emerged. It's all over two-thirds of the Earth's surface. It's completely flourishing. It's long since entered its golden age. We've already proved that it works because it emerged naturally on the sea.

It's called the cruise ship industry."

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Timothy Allen sits down with Joe Quirk, president of The Seasteading Institute, to make the strongest practical case for “exit” as a governance strategy, starting with Sealand and pirate-radio absurdity and ending with a serious blueprint for floating communities that can iterate on rules the way markets iterate on products.

They use cruise ships as the key intuition pump: millions of people already live for weeks at sea under private rule-sets with security, dispute resolution, labor hierarchies, and tight logistics, which makes seasteading less sci-fi and more a question of engineering, law, and finance.

From there, the conversation digs into what actually blocks seasteads from becoming mainstream: legal classification (not quite a ship, not quite a building), insurance, standards, and the need for designs that feel like livable cities rather than tiny pods for hobbyists. Joe argues seasteads are a “technology” for creating 100,000 competing governance experiments across most of the planet, while Timothy keeps pressing on the realism: what would make this legible, scalable, and resilient against political pushback.

Enjoy the conversation.

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New ArkPad Seasteading Resort in Próspera: https://tinyurl.com/ArkPad

-

LEAD SPONSOR: Veritas Villages: https://www.veritasvillages.com/freecities

Veritas Villages are building off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom lovers in Latin America. Bitcoin is accepted at all villages, including for the purchase of property.

-

Previous interviews with Patrick Hiebert, Founder of Veritas Villages:

EP 156: https://fountain.fm/episode/66NqAclTBh7FByIX7lCq

EP 107: https://fountain.fm/episode/Fh6uGwZvVtPsYsR53pTI

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DONATE Bitcoin to the Free Cities Podcast: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg

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DONATE fiat currency to the Free Cities Podcast: https://buy.stripe.com/5kQ9AT90zeeY5JX7Jv4ow00

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Listen on Fountain.fm to subscribe for BONUS episodes & EARLY ACCESS:

https://fountain.fm/show/xudG4tsYH5TimGLfAmqn

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Podcasting apps that support Value-4-Value Bitcoin payments: https://podcastindex.org/apps?appTypes=app

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TIMESTAMPS (Audio Version Only)

0:00:30 – Episode introduction

0:09:46 – Start of Conversation

0:11:00 – Sealand origin story, warning shot, “outside our jurisdiction”

0:16:00 – Media narrative shift: “seasteading comeback” and brand rehab

0:23:24 – AI analogical reasoning and “ChatGPT fatigue”

0:34:31 – Cruise ships as anarcho-capitalist governance at scale

0:38:16 – “Will the state just crush it?” and how exit survives

0:43:44 – Islands, vice, and why governments ignore bigger abuses

0:48:06 – Paradigm defense: why people resist solutions they can’t unsee

0:54:49 – The captain as dictator, overlapping jurisdictions, polycentric order

0:59:48 – Salvage law and Lloyd’s as a working market court

1:12:16 – Planet Ocean: why space is propaganda and the ocean is the real frontier

1:47:37 – Flat earth as a stress test for epistemology and belief

2:18:18 – The bottleneck: certification, insurance, flags, and making seasteads family-safe

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NOSTR:

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LEGACY SOCIAL MEDIA:

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OTHER LINKS:

"There were probably a lot of brown envelopes on the table involved — they said, okay, have this zone then."

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Timothy Allen speaks with economist Lotta Moberg.

Lotta, author of the leading academic book on special economic zones, joins the podcast to challenge the conventional wisdom around why zones exist, whether they actually work, and what the popular narrative gets wrong.

The conversation opens with Lotta's framework: political economy and public choice theory, which assumes policymakers are self-interested humans, not benevolent optimizers. This lens reshapes how we understand why governments create zones — and why many underperform yet continue to receive funding.

She pushes back on the "sandbox" narrative around China's early zones, arguing the origin story was messier and more bottom-up than the neat version usually told. Local businessmen near Hong Kong lobbied corrupt local officials to allow trade — and the central government only endorsed the model years later once results were undeniable.

Key takeaways include: privately developed zones consistently outperform government-run ones; failing zones often attract more subsidies rather than being shut down; and the scholarship on 6,000+ zones worldwide remains surprisingly thin.

The second half shifts to free cities, wealth management strategy, Bitcoin as property rights in the digital realm, cannabis investing as a case study in maturing industries, and why governance by contract rather than birth may be the most important shift of our generation. Lotta declares herself "a total convert" to the contractual governance model after watching Próspera survive political opposition.

Enjoy the conversation.

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Links Mentioned in the Show:

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SHOW SPONSOR: Veritas Villages: https://www.veritasvillages.com/freecities

Veritas Villages are building off-grid, energy self-sufficient communities for freedom lovers in Latin America. Bitcoin is accepted at all villages, including for the purchase of property.

-

Previous interviews with Patrick Hiebert, Founder of Veritas Villages:

EP 156: https://fountain.fm/episode/66NqAclTBh7FByIX7lCq

EP 107: https://fountain.fm/episode/Fh6uGwZvVtPsYsR53pTI

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DONATE Bitcoin to the Free Cities Podcast: bc1q5jun0nzxzqepch84rqk0jnv0rd8uvns28df7mg

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DONATE fiat currency to the Free Cities Podcast: https://buy.stripe.com/5kQ9AT90zeeY5JX7Jv4ow00

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Listen on Fountain.fm to subscribe for BONUS episodes & EARLY ACCESS:

https://fountain.fm/show/xudG4tsYH5TimGLfAmqn

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Podcasting apps that support Value-4-Value Bitcoin payments: https://podcastindex.org/apps?appTypes=app

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TIMESTAMPS (Audio Version Only)

0:00:00 – Episode introduction

0:08:09 – Start of Conversation

0:09:30 – Reacting To The “Zones Of Progress” Narrative

0:12:11 – Political Economy And Public Choice Explained

0:15:09 – Have Politicians Ever Been Benevolent?

0:18:52 – Bias, Scholarship, And Why SEZs Are Not Obvious

0:20:35 – Are SEZs Really “Sandboxes” For Reform?

0:26:06 – China’s Zones Were Bottom-Up, Not A Master Plan

0:31:26 – Decentralization: Political Freedom Plus Fiscal Incentives

0:39:36 – Why Failing Zones Get Subsidized Even More

0:41:05 – Can Governments Create Free City Style Projects?

0:45:32 – Privately Developed Zones Beat Government-Run Zones

0:48:49 – Are ZEDEs “Cute” Or Life-Changing? Lotta’s Take

0:52:17 – Free Cities And VC: What Changes When It Gets “Cool”

0:57:55 – Time-Horizon Investing And Wealth Management Strategy

1:09:19 – Investing Personality, Free Cities, And Unusual Bets

1:24:31 – Bitcoin, Property Rights, And Why Free Cities Matter

1:30:13 – Governance By Contract And “I’m A Total Convert”

1:47:24 – What To Call The Movement: Free Cities vs Startup Cities

1:51:35 – Closing: What Comes Next And A Positive Outlook

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