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Comment by dabluecaboose | Hacker News Reader

Sam Bankman-Fried didn't want to buy a bunker in Nauru. He wanted to *buy Nauru*.

> The ultimate strategy, according to the memo, was “to purchase the sovereign nation of Nauru in order to construct a ‘bunker / shelter’ that would be used for some event where 50%-99.99% of people die [to] ensure that most EAs (effective altruists) survive.” The memo also mentioned to plans to develop “sensible regulation around human genetic enhancement, and build a lab there,” noting that perhaps “there are other things it’s useful to do with a sovereign country, too.”

Seriously, this is some Lex Luthor shit.

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Ok, super basic question: What does it mean to "buy" a sovereign nation?

- from whom do you buy it? If you write a big check to the government of Nauru, does that government even have the ability to "sell" the country? And if the government was trying to do things above board, who do the funds actually go to?

- what do you get in exchange for your money? E.g. the government of Nauru doesn't own all the land in Nauru, does it?

- what happens to the existing citizens of Nauru? Do they continue to be citizens of a country which is just "owned" by some guy? Or are they now somehow stateless trespassers?

- what legal structure remain to recognize "ownership" of a country by a private party? Does "owning" a country mean that its prior legal system is no longer in place? If someone (e.g. a group of maybe-formerly citizens of Nauru) tried to sue over this "sale", in what court could that happen? Or does the defunct state just lock the government buildings, stop paying any judges, and SBF flies in a private security army?

Also, I'd think when we're still in the crescendo of the climate disaster, a low-lying small island nation is maybe a bad place to bunker down? Just from the standpoint of vulnerability to rising seas and storm surges etc.

>What does it mean to "buy" a sovereign nation?

It basically means you are an absolute monarch, even if you don't use that title. The whole country and everything in it being the personal property of the sovereign sounds weird now, but that's basically how everything was until the invention of the modern concept of the state and constitutional monarchies.

>from whom do you buy it?

Presumably the current government and you'd sign basically like a treaty I'd assume? No idea who get's the money. The fair thing would be for all citizens to get a share, but the world isn't usually fair.

As for the remaining questions, at that point you'd be the sovereign so they are all kind of irrelevant because the answers are whatever you say. Citizenship, property, rights, courts, government services these are all just concepts defined by the law, and you are the law at the point.

> The whole country and everything in it being the personal property of the sovereign sounds weird now, but that's basically how everything was until the invention of the modern concept of the state and constitutional monarchies.

I think a central tension here is that today we think of governments and legal systems as providing the framework in which the market and transactions can take place. You and I can sign a contract for some transaction, and we can understand the legal system which may be used if we have some kind of dispute. A transaction that seeks to effectively remove that legal framework entirely does seem like it pushes you back to maintaining power though the same means as absolute monarchs (by having a loyal army).

> Presumably the current government and you'd sign basically like a treaty I'd assume?

Even this concept seems broken to me; ordinarily a treaty is an agreement which binds its participants to its terms going forward, but here we're imaging that the government ceases to exist and therefore has no behavior which can comply or fail to comply with those terms?

But fundamentally, it does sound like the government of Nauru would not be empowered to "sell" Nauru; it does not own "the whole country and everything in it" and cannot sell it.

Why do wealthy people get so interested in societal collapse? It almost seems like if you don't have a visceral need for anything you have to invent a problem to solve.

The percentage is probably the same as average people who get sucked into 'doomerism'.

There's no point in having wealth without an economy, or the power to control society without a society.

> Why do wealthy people get so interested in societal collapse

My theory is that they have opted-out of the social contract (or never believed in it), and they figure the rest of us have opted out too - or will do so in time, and we'll fall back to rugged individualism as civil order is undone.

There was never a social contract people signed into in the first place. Every individual is born free, and not as thrall to retroactive "obligations" one had no part in instituting or causing.

> Every individual is born free, and not as thrall to retroactive "obligations"

Moving from the philosophical realm into the practical - do you suppose a world free from law enforcement, a justice system, Delaware courts and enforcement of property right is better than the one with those things?

These rich tech / VC guys see themselves as natural leaders, but I doubt they have what it takes to be warlords in their fantasy dystopia.

Aside from the Deleware Chancery, the world had everything you described long before the notion of the "social contract" was presented as a formal political theory by Hobbes.

Also, the bit about warlords isn't a reasonable comment. The rich tech/ VC guys you speak of are in no more or less of a position to establish a dystopia, than Washington and the Continental Congress (many of whom were merchants and traders) were during and after the Revolutionary War.

> Aside from the Deleware Chancery, the world had everything you described long before the notion of the "social contract" was presented as a formal political theory by Hobbes

Small-s "social contracts" predates Hobbes' formalization. The notion that different levels of the ruling- or socio-economic strata keep within certain unnegotiated norms seems intuitive to me and was well-known since before the feudal age: don't over-tax your citizens or risk rebellion, landlords not over-exploiting their serfs or the serfs would vote with their feet. Noblisse oblige has strains of the same thinking, and it predates Hobbes by quite a bit.

They see the deaths of others as an opportunity to become kings over the survivors.

As Reddit CEO Steve Huffman put it: "I also have this somewhat egotistical view that I’m a pretty good leader. I will probably be in charge, or at least not a slave, when push comes to shove." - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-...

Perhaps notably, that same CEO is currently having to use admin tools to erase an r/place community drawing of his mascot head in a guillotine https://old.reddit.com/r/place/comments/154wiwk/admins_clear...

Because they have reached a position in society where they get whatever they want. Nothing to worry about - just throw some money at a problem and a lackey makes it go away for you.

But if there is a catastrophe/pandemic/war/flood/whatever they'd not be able to simply buy their way out of it like they can with pretty much everything in normal life that they can do today.

Their startegy is buy a place (not just a property!) where they are largely in control of who comes there and what they do. Isolated islands obviously help with this because people won't be climbing over your fence like they wood on the mainland.

Because their steering of society to their own, pernicious ends makes societal collapse far more likely.

I don't understand why the headline was changed from that on the article, which I submitted as written. I wouldn't have found the idea of buying a bunker remarkable, as many rich people get that idea. Buying a whole country is unusual.

You should be able to edit it for another 15 min.

Original headline was "Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to buy a bunker in Nauru to wait out the world's end", in case anyone was wondering.

Both headlines give different points of view on how Altman lost his head by becoming rich, illegally, to boot. By the state of things, I fear we have too many of those sociopaths in position of power, public and private.

Scientology vibes. A lot of the EA and "rationalist" stuff gives me Hubbard vibes, especially around the wackier edges. Maybe a little hint of Lyndon LaRouche vibes too.

I recall as far back as 2012-2015 just not vibing with this whole current of human thought. Something "off" about it, not to mention a lot of it feeling like castles in the sky that self-justify. It reminds me of the new age in one important respect: it's superficially very saccharine but has an ugly underbelly. I'm also very put off by intellectual edgelording, which is when people intentionally adopt "outlier" positions and try to justify them as articulately as possible to show off how smart and unique they are. That seems to be the standard "flex" in the rationalist scene.

But yeah this is full-on Scientology "Sea Org." I wonder what other "useful things" you can do with a sovereign country?

Sounds very... altruistic

It’s some Dr Strangelove shit lol

When they go down into the mine, everyone would still be alive. There would be no shocking memories, and the the prevailing emotion will be one of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead! [involuntary Nazi salute with right arm while the left arm frantically pulls down the right arm]

a lab for genetic enhancement.. what the hell

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