Scientists Unveil Plans For First Space Nation 'Asgardia,' Open Citizenship Applications (theguardian.com) 275
Scientists and legal experts have unveiled plans for the "first nation state in space." The state is called "Asgardia" after one of the mythical worlds inhabited by the Norse gods, and it will eventually become a member of the United Nations -- complete with its own flag and anthem. The Guardian reports: According to the project website, Asgardia "will offer an independent platform free from the constraint of a land-based country's laws. It will become a place it in orbit which is truly 'no man's land.'" Initially, it would seem, this new nation will consist of a single satellite, scheduled to be launched next year, with its citizens residing firmly on terra firma. Speaking to the Guardian through an interpreter, the project lead Igor Ashurbeyli, said: "Physically the citizens of that nation state will be on Earth; they will be living on different countries on Earth, so they will be a citizen of their own country and at the same time they will be citizens of Asgardia." "When the number of those applications goes above 100,000 we can officially apply to the UN for the status of state," he added. According to the project website, "Any human living on Earth can become a citizen of Asgardia," with the site featuring a simple registration form. At the time of writing more than 1000 individuals had already signed up. At present, the Outer Space Treaty that underpins international space law states that responsibility and liability for objects sent into space lies with the nation that launched them. But the project team claims that Asgardia will set a new precedent, shifting responsibility to the new "space nation" itself. "The existing state agencies represent interests of their own countries and there are not so many countries in the world that have those space agencies," said Ashurbeyli. "The ultimate aim is to create a legal platform to ensure protection of planet Earth and to provide access to space technologies for those who do not have that access at the moment."
Uh, the name... (Score:5, Funny)
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I think it's a reference to the Asgard in Stargate SG1. =p
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Was gonna say, someone better make the SG1 reference
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In the same way that having a character named Jesus is a reference to "The Big Lebowski," I suppose it is.
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The name "Asgardia" is so distorted that I hardly even recognized it. It's Ásgarðr. That's pronounced "OWSE GAR-thur". Where did "AS GARD-ee-ah" come from?
Ás = a god (plural "æsir")
Garðr = garden
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Assuming your question was serious: from Asgard and -ia, the state of being in. You know; a watery-eyed, projection of seeing themselves as gods of sorts.
Re:Uh, the name... (Score:5, Informative)
It's not "Asgard", it's "Ásgarðr" (if you want to modernize the spelling, at least do so as "Ásgarður" - or if you want only English letters, at least get the pronunciation right with something like "Ausgarther"). That's an eth, not a d; an á, not an a; and it's not nominative if you drop the ending. And it's already a place name, it doesn't need a suffix to make it one - let alone a suffix taken from an entirely different linguistic branch. That's like naming a place "Beijing-ia" or "Tamil Nadu-ia"
Re:Uh, the name... (Score:5, Funny)
(And yes, I'm fully aware that I've picked a strange little hill to die on here...)
Common D sen C. (Score:5, Funny)
Show some respect to this lonely warrior.
His hill is high, the air is thin, the stars are bright and do not waver, but burn steadily into his unblinking eyes as if they were hard, bright points of righteousness. He cannot sense Yggdrasil from there; yet he soldiers on.
When he shouts Ásgarðr, the surface dwellers... they hear nothing. Muspelheim awaits those who step away from the true path of pronunciation.
You have been warned. You insensitive clod.
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Sometimes, we don't get it right - Tao Te Ching. Bane Sidhe. The entire Welsh language... This "project" has sooo much more wrong with it than the name, no need to resort to picking nits.
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I appreciate the lesson in pronunciation (sincerely, I don't mean that as sarcasm); but TFA didn't pull that particular transliteration out of their asses - The Western world has used "Asgard" as the standard spelling for at least a century.
Well, I'd say at least a few centuries. You can see that spelling pop up in English, Latin, German, and French treatises throughout the 1700s, maybe earlier. I would also note that when Asgard was declined in Latin, it commonly took Latin suffixes, so you see "Asgardia" occurring in text at least 300 years ago.
Sometimes, we don't get it right - Tao Te Ching. Bane Sidhe. The entire Welsh language...
It's really not a matter of "right" vs. "wrong" here. It's that one language doesn't get to "patent" words so that they always must be spelled and pronounced and declined the same way. That's the
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It's an English pronunciation. Just like we call Köln "Cologne", Roma "Rome".
English is not the only language to completely butcher and change the name of a location from a different foreign language. Many do the same thing. Hence your mythological location becomes AssGuard in English.
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I can't help but read that at ass-guardian...as in CYA?
Well, considering it's a country that only comic-book geeks and mythology nerds will sign up to join it's going to be a real sausage party... you may just want to guard your ass.
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Disney is already making a film based on this microstate;
ASS-GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
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Guess he's more interested in the Greek kind.
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That would depend entirely on just how one chooses to guard their ass, now wouldn't it?
You're being pretty cheeky there, AC.
Freedom and libertines for all!
Er, liberty. Yeah.
Priorities (Score:2)
It's named after a mythical place mostly known for staring in a comic book hero movie and they're concerned about having a flag and an anthem.
Seems like they have their priorities straight.
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I'm guessing they don't get out much.
Re:Priorities (Score:5, Funny)
When the summary says 'scientists', I mentally see air-quotes around that word.
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I sometimes wonder what the general public thinks "scientists" are really like. Do they have a mental image of people standing around a lab in white coats, complete with chemistry paraphernalia and a whiteboard with complex equations on it?
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If the objective is to be remembered, play golf or something. Our society values golfers, basketball players, footballers, etc. It does not value scientists, not even those with an exceptional contribution. The population in general know Einstein, Newton, maybe Darwin, and that's it. You'd probably have to replace one of those in the popular consciousness (e.g. not gonna happen).
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And thanks to Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park they are at least vaguely aware that some scientists do field work and rarely enter a lab.
That actual archaeology pretty much never looks like anything Indy gets up to is another matter. Real lost buildings tend to be buried and discovering them is a task mostly done with tiny shovels.
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Real grownups picture them filling out forms that testify that they're using the glassware for non-illicit purposes, in order to get a permit [crscientific.com] so they don't get dragged off to the drug war gulags by the minions of the oligarchy.
But hey, this is the Texas legislature. One of the collections of idiots that thought it was a good idea to make sex toys illegal. And did so.
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When the summary says 'scientists', I mentally see air-quotes around that word.
Exactly.
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I'm guessing they don't get out much.
Well, Mom's Basement is both comfortable and cheap, and the Hot Pockets aren't far away. . . (grin)
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And the only woman you ever have to see is the one who never rejected you.
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Reminds me of a scene in "The Restaurant at the end of the Universe":
"What about this wheel thingy? It sounds a terribly interesting project."
"Ah," said the marketing girl, "Well, we're having a little difficulty there."
"Difficulty?" exclaimed Ford. "Difficulty? What do you mean, difficulty? It's the single simplest machine in the entire Universe!"
The marketing girl soured him with a look.
"Alright, Mr. Wiseguy," she said, "if you're so clever, you tell us what colour it should be."
Hmm.... (Score:3)
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Sounds more like the kind of unrealistic drivel armchair libertarians tend to spout, or an early Neal Stephenson novel.
Re:Hmm.... (Score:5, Funny)
Though it does seem more realistic than their current plan of taking over New Hampshire.
Re:Hmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Tada: it's a micronation [wikipedia.org]... in space [tvtropes.org]!
Of course it's unrealistic armchair-libertarian drivel: the magnetosphere is a harsh mistress, after all.
What's interesting about this development is that it isn't a nearly-entirely American endeavour, which is often the case with such ambitions; Asgardia seems to be Russian and the AIRC supporting it is Viennese. I suspect we'll see a lot more anti-authoritarian behaviour from Europeans in the coming years as a) the EU weakens, b) the Internet transmits political memes that were previously comparatively contained by media limitations like talk radio and poor English literacy, and c) people already exposed to (b) come of age.
The much more feasible version of "let's get off the Earth so we can get away from our countries' laws" is called seasteading, and generally involves a platform in international waters. There's one clear non-Libertarian, non-American example of seasteading (Sealand [wikipedia.org], UK) which is fairly old and unusually successful by micronation standards. These days, however, the idea is generally associated with these guys [seasteading.org], who have been funded by Peter Thiel. They, unquestionably, are primarily concerned with ways to dodge regulation. Without a realistic means of building such a gigantic physical presence, though, they certainly aren't going to be doing much of that; at best they'd end up creating their own passports that no one would accept.
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LOL, right, it's the scary libertarians. After all, what near-anarchist wouldn't want to sign up to belong to of as many governments as they can.
Some of you slashdot idiots and your straw manning of libertarians is amusing.
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And yet, Libertarians have yet to to make any kind of mark on any country's politics.
Telecom and passenger air privatization. US and Europe did that some time ago.
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Here's the fundamental problem(s) with the libertarian "privatize all the things" approach.
Two key things that break the whole thing - things that Hayek overlooked.
1) Competition does not always produce the most efficient outcomes. In fact, it can in the right conditions make the WORST possible outcome the ONLY possible outcome and make it impossible for any innovation to improve that. This is even true in nature with the competition that drives evolution. Richard Dawkins wrote a great article on it. A for
Percussery (Score:2)
That's not a drum. That's a garbage can lid.
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But then how do you define country? And how do you differentiate it from International Association of People That Drink Beer and Use Dynamite?
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country, noun
1. nation.
2. often misattributed as a prefix for a type of music endemic to culturally impoverished areas of the Southern US; properly the prefix for this type of music is “shitty-.”
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It's not a completely new idea: see panarchism [wikipedia.org] and Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions [wikipedia.org].
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Quite pathetic really.
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If we put our minds to the task, I'm sure humanity can build a death star that doesn't have an easily accessed weakspot that when tapped causes the whole thing to explode.
Perhaps if Darth Vader hadn't hired the creators of the Pinto to design his death star the Empire would have won and we could all be happy now.
I for one (Score:2)
I for one will not recognise it. Reinstate Pluto, you right rotten rat-bastards, then we'll talk.
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I for one will not recognise it. Reinstate Pluto, you right rotten rat-bastards, then we'll talk.
Give it up!
It makes no sense to let small dwarf planets like Pluto, which are too small to have sufficient gravity to clear their neighbourhoods, to be called planets without having to add many more other dwarf planets in the solar system.
Eris is 27% more massive than Pluto, should it be a planet as well? And there is likely even more massive undiscovered objects further out in the solar system. And there are many dwarf planets much smaller than Pluto, such as Ceres with similar properties including signs
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It makes no sense to let small dwarf planets like Pluto, which are too small to have sufficient gravity to clear their neighbourhoods...
So what do we do about Neptune then? It certainly hasn't cleared its orbital path of Pluto.
Re:I for one (Score:4, Informative)
So what do we do about Neptune then? It certainly hasn't cleared its orbital path of Pluto.
If you look at the orbits of Neptune and Pluto in 3D, they never really cross.
In fact due to 3:2 resonance between them, the closest they ever get to each other is 18AU, about the distance of Earth with Uranus.
https://www.quora.com/Will-Nep... [quora.com]
So yet, Neptunes orbit is considered cleared.
Note that small bodies in rensonace and in Lagrange points are considered excluded from the planetary "clearing" requirement, since they are not in the way of the planet's orbit.
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Satelites don't count - either natural or constructed, since they don't *share* the orbit of a planet, they orbit AROUND the planet.
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I think it was a joke..
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Don't tell people who disagree with a bad decision that they need to "Give it up!". Reposting my issues with the definition from earlier:
First, the IAU definition:
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Eris is 27% more massive than Pluto, should it be a planet as well?
Why not? It's already a "dwarf planet". There's no real problem with having hundreds or thousands of planets except apparently someone is concerned school children will have to memorize them all.
Celesital bodies of note (Score:2)
IAU reasoning: The earth has its moon; ergo its neighborhood is not clear; ergo the earth is not a planet.
That whole "has cleared its neighborhood" is ridiculous on its face.
Also, you try sitting 100,000 km over the planet Pluto without a nice orbit helping you out and you'll find out just how good it is at clearing its neighborhood, all right.
The nice thing about the IAU is when they shit themselves and fall in it, we are free to ignore them.
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Escape (Score:2)
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I suspect North Korea won't respect the wishes of Assguard any more than they currently respect the wishes of the US, EU, Japan, SK, etc.
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Outer Space Treaty (Score:2)
What about the Outer Space Treaty which prevents ownership of by celestial objects by nation states?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The treaty explicitly forbids any government from claiming a celestial resource such as the Moon or a planet. Art. II of the Treaty states that "outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means". However, the State that launches a space object retai
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The Assgaurdian people have not ratified that terran treaty. They are not bound to it's restrictions.
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Obviously. But the countries that did ratify it (all of them) are legally bound not to recognise a nation that does claim a body in violation of the treaty. So while I could form the "People's Liberation Front of the Moon" tomorrow and start claiming great big chunks of it - nobody would actually care or acknowledge it in any way. The main function that countries have is sovereignty over their citizens, which only comes about when they are recognised by other counties who then stop claiming sovereignty over
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But the countries that did ratify it (all of them) are legally bound not to recognise a nation that does claim a body in violation of the treaty.
That doesn't make sense until this nation signs the treaty. Presumably, such a nation wouldn't do it.
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It says no such thing [unoosa.org]. Furthermore, it says:
So even if they w
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Mod Funny +1.
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As I wrote above, quite pathetic.
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> and still likely not be entirely self-sufficient and independent from Earth
To be fair, neither is any country on earth - and it's doubtful any has been since at least the invention of the concept of 'countries'.
The real ultimate aim: (Score:4, Funny)
The perfect tax haven. Soon, all of Apple's profits will be recorded as happening in Asgardia at a 0% tax rate.
This is science.slashdot.org? Really? (Score:3)
Apropos line from an early season of the Simpsons, spoken by Stephen Hawking:
"You could have had a Utopia; instead you have a Fruitopia."
1..2..3..Profit!!! (Score:2)
So what prevents another $GROUP on earth to sell membership (and passports) [wikipedia.org], even if they do not have satellite in orbit?
Can I run for president? (Score:3)
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Because a mass murderer
Not that we are exaggerating or anything.
that is a psychopathic compulsive liar and traitor
Now you have me really confused. I thought you were talking about Hillary, but the proven compulsive liar is Trump. He lies every 3 minutes or 75% of the time. It is difficult to find a single thing he hasn't spoken in favor of and against it, including Clinton's performance as secretary of state and her stamina.
that has written, by her own hand,
So we are back to Hillary, because of the two the only one who can write by her own hand is her.
that she needs "compliant and uneducated" voters to win,
And now back to Trump "I love the uneducated", "I don't need
Finally a chance to do things right (Score:2, Insightful)
All citizens will use Dvorak keyboards, the metric system, drive on right hand side of the road, nonsmoking, use vi text editor, do not use system d
Gundam Flashbacks (Score:2)
Citizenship is allowed for those who live on Earth? For a 'space nation'? The vast majority of 'citizens' will be those still living on Earth, until that policy is changed (even with space elevators/habitats). Since those on Earth will be the majority, it's unlikely the policy will be changed so that the majority would disenfranchise themselves. This'll lead to a situation where those in space are living under the rule of those on Earth. There'll inevitably be conflict between how those on Earth think the s
I refuse to join any club (Score:4, Funny)
that would have me as a member. - Groucho Marx
Tax? (Score:3)
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It's all fun and games until they institute a tax collection policy, with the recognition of the UN behind them as a sovereign nation with the right to enforce it...
Do you really think they have better chances of getting UN recognition than the Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands?
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I can't see how they could collect any tax. They can add it to your tab, but unless you visit their sovereign territory or they have an extradition treaty that covers unpaid taxes there isn't much they can do to make you pay. I suppose they could try to revoke your citizenship, but that's not easy to do under international law, to prevent countries making people they don't want stateless.
It's similar to how the US claims tax from overseas earnings of its citizens, or the UK expects ex-pats to pay off their
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but unless you visit their sovereign territory
Uh, yeah, that's the point of the project - to build territory in orbit. So, apparently they want people to want to go there and then they'll impose taxes.
The entire point of the modern nation state is to run a farm where people are kept to provide tax money, like cattle for milk.
If there is competition, then there isn't a state - you only have a business running a concession. Like going to a resort.
If they need a state then they automatically want to impose
The next Ireland (Score:2)
"The ultimate aim is to create a legal platform..."
Ah, so another corporate tax haven, out there floating in no tax land.
Got it.
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Funny waste of time (Score:2)
Oh give me a break ... (Score:2)
... Elon Musks Massive Mars Flight Presentation and now this.
Just because we have better and more realistic computer animation today doesn't make these 'ambitions' any less "new agegy".
It would make more sense to first finish Auroville [wikipedia.org] or found a Quasi National Entity as an independant organisation for improving things here on earth.
I'm pretty sure that we need a Skyhook/Space Elevator [wikipedia.org] before we can seriously start settling in space, be it on mars or on some massive space station. No way are we going to get
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No way are we going to get matierials for projects like these into space consistently with regular rockets.
From Earth. A number of other places don't have the delta-v problems that the surface of Earth has.
Next up.. Cyber Nations!!! (Score:2)
The nation of World of Warcraft
The nation of Second-Life
The nation of Darkweb (just an FYI, this one has some CRAZY protective privacy laws)
Though to be fair... Many people all over the world have dual citizenships and reside their whole lives as expatriates. How is this concept any different. All member citizens are simply expatriates, but still carry voting rights for representation of their member virtual nation. This doesn't excuse them from their locally resided countries laws, but it does afford a
Settlement first, THEN nations (Score:2)
Government of any kind arises out of local need, for whatever size of 'local' we're talking about. The idea of defining a 'space nation' before there is any territory for it to represent is redolent of all that Silicon Valley posturing about sovereign floating islands on the high seas.
The UN Space Treaty has only two concerns: that earthly countries take responsibility for objects they launch, such as a failed American launch crashing in Brazil, and that terrestrial sovereignty not extend into space, such a
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"long as it does not represent an extension of power by some part of Earth."
Ah, so 100,000 people from Earth would not 'represent an extension of power by some part of Earth.'
Ok. You go first.
Contest (Score:2)
This Sounds Like... (Score:2)
So nobody's going to live there and everyone stays a citizen of whatever country they're in now?
This sounds like Star Trek fans who claim to serve aboard this or that Federation ship. Or people who declare their house to be a sovereign nation. Petoria, I guess.
An isolated micronation made by scientists and aca (Score:2)
Well, that can't possi -
NO GODS OR KINGS, ONLY MAN ...bly end badly. Yeah.
XD (Score:3)
So this is how elysium got started.
I choose Rapture (Score:2)
Asgardia "will offer an independent platform free from the constraint of a land-based country's laws. It will become a place it in orbit which is truly 'no man's land.'"
This sounds like it's one male stand-in for Ayn Rand away from being Rapture in space. Alternatively, it's one SHODAN away from being System Shock 2.
Sealand (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Reminds me of the whole Sealand thing. Regardless of the novelty of space, the bottom line is unless other nations recognize you as a nation, you're not a nation. Heck there are plenty of contemporary examples of actual physical land areas for various political reasons call themselves independent or a nation, which arn't recognized by anyone. Then there are those that are by some nations but not by others, some for decades! So I don't hold out a lot of hope for the land of Thor...
Tessier-Ashpool (Score:4, Funny)
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Build what?
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>> Build what?
Most people don't read the fine article but it appears you didn't even read the article post.
Here let me help you by quoting from the article summary: "Initially, it would seem, this new nation will consist of a single satellite, scheduled to be launched next year, with its citizens residing firmly on terra firma."
Re:Just one question (Score:5, Funny)
No there isn't. -- @realDonaldTrump
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No, here's another question. [twitter.com]
Re:Just one question (Score:4, Interesting)
Where will the $50 trillion dollars necessary to build it come from?
See, there's actually a difference between saying you're going to do something and actually doing it.
This is nothing new. I've worked with a lot of PhDs.
And you don't read articles either.
Most, if not all, are completely bonkers socially and totally out of touch with reality. They spend so much time in the 'academia' fantasy land hyper-focused on their specialty, that even "stuper-doofus" names like dumb Ass-gardia sounds good to them. What a laugh riot.
Um, interesting. You don't read the article, and fixate on a jeramiad. I've worked mostly with Ph.D's (note spelling) my entire career, and you know what? The pretty much fit a cross section of all people, with the exception of there aren't many stupid ones, and they rend away from activities that stupid people engage in.
And there are a few doofuses, just like regular folk.
The real irony is they indulge in infantilization of those around them, or anyone who disagrees with them, so as not to have to actually deal with their loony tendencies. Assgardia is a (heavily smoked) pipe dream.
Yarbles! A large part of my work with these folk was analysis of their ideas. They were universally grateful when I pointed out fatal flaws.
The only caveat I'd note was that my work tended toward the scientific end of the spectrum, but still worked with a lot of disciiplines. Any assholes got dropped pretty quickly. And asshole distribution isn't any higher among Ph.D's than among the general public.
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"When the number of those applications goes above 100,000 we can officially apply to the UN for the status of state,"
Why bother with the bottle? Just get the petition drive completed and declare a virtual nation. No contiguous land mass, no closed loop border, nothing but intent.
The UN could indeed recognize this, and so fully declare they are as much use as a handbrake on a canoe. In space.