Lieberland-Interview-
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00:00:30.960 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now,
00:00:38.720 | while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:42.600 | Today on Radical Personal Finance, we're going to talk about freedom, specifically freedom of country.
00:00:48.600 | I'm here with the president of the nation of Liberland.
00:00:52.200 | Vite, welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:00:54.000 | Great to be here, Yisho.
00:00:56.000 | So here at Radical Personal Finance, for your background, we talk about freedom in all of its senses,
00:01:00.760 | focusing on financial freedom, because of course, if you have enough financial freedom, you can buy for yourself a significant level of lifestyle freedom.
00:01:09.120 | But from time to time, we do talk about freedom of countries, free places to live, etc.
00:01:14.640 | And you also care a lot about this concept to the point where you started your own country focused on freedom.
00:01:20.520 | Tell us the story.
00:01:21.720 | It was six years ago now when we decided enough was enough.
00:01:26.600 | And maybe actually also because many people told me I should start my own country.
00:01:30.840 | I was very vocal about freedom, about free markets, and I was trying to push the idea of turning Czech Republic into New Switzerland.
00:01:40.040 | And there are not too many fans of that idea.
00:01:42.600 | You know, they really believe there is not enough Swiss people to basically turn Czech Republic into Switzerland.
00:01:49.640 | But on the other hand, I realized there is enough people that share a similar belief, that want to have a new country at some point.
00:01:55.840 | But I was thinking, you know, that we will get like 20,000 people applying for citizenship when we started Liberland,
00:02:01.320 | or shortly before I was there, by the end of the year.
00:02:04.680 | And the reality was completely different.
00:02:06.760 | We had actually 20,000 first hour and 200,000 by the end of the week.
00:02:11.120 | Now we've got 750,000 people that applied for citizenship.
00:02:14.720 | It's a huge nation by now.
00:02:16.440 | By no means Liberland is a micronation.
00:02:18.600 | Wow, that's amazing.
00:02:20.160 | So for the background, you've always been interested in libertarian ideals, freedom-oriented ideals.
00:02:26.520 | In your bio, it says that you read "The Law" when you were a young man by Friedrich Bastiat, and you were inspired by his concepts.
00:02:35.000 | Definitely.
00:02:36.000 | And here at Radical Personal Finance, there's actually an entire episode of the show that consists of my simply reading "The Law" for anybody who's interested.
00:02:42.920 | Awesome, awesome. That's really cool.
00:02:45.840 | So where did the actual, let's talk about the physical territory first.
00:02:49.520 | Where is Liberland?
00:02:51.240 | Liberland is located between Croatia and Serbia, only 10 kilometers away from the Hungarian border.
00:02:56.680 | It's a beautiful spot of land.
00:02:58.080 | It's actually heart-shaped.
00:02:58.960 | It's three times bigger than Monaco.
00:03:01.360 | Unlike many people say, it's too small to build.
00:03:03.760 | No, you know, you could fit three Monacos inside of it.
00:03:07.000 | And it was created through this kind of crazy border dispute between Croatia and Serbia.
00:03:13.360 | That means that none of the countries for the last, now 35 years, have claimed the territory.
00:03:19.280 | So we just came there six years ago.
00:03:21.080 | We stick the flag.
00:03:22.000 | We said this piece of land is Liberland.
00:03:24.280 | And we received enormous recognition by the world media.
00:03:27.800 | And now, luckily, we also receive recognition by other sovereign states.
00:03:31.400 | Right.
00:03:32.160 | At the beginning, though, there was, from my reading about it, there seemed to be more people contesting your claims.
00:03:40.520 | But some of those that has changed recently.
00:03:43.280 | I don't think anybody really contested the claims by Liberland.
00:03:46.880 | Croatia basically, Serbia stated right away, which was very important.
00:03:50.520 | And if you look into any world map, Serbia is part,
00:03:54.360 | Liberland is basically part of Serbia on the regular world maps.
00:03:58.200 | And what Serbia stated is that they don't mind creation of Liberland on this territory.
00:04:02.480 | It was an official Serbian claim by the foreign ministry, only 10 days after Liberland was created.
00:04:07.400 | And that actually raised a lot of eyebrows.
00:04:09.880 | Croatia secretly meet on the Sunday following day.
00:04:14.400 | And imagine that they actually put together a governmental meeting just to question how do we tackle Liberland.
00:04:21.040 | And they said they will call it internet joke, but they never ever claimed that this piece of territory is theirs.
00:04:27.480 | And of course, Liberland is the best solution, potential solution to their whole border dispute.
00:04:34.320 | And I'm quite happy that Croatia is doing what they're doing for us right now.
00:04:39.320 | They're actually protecting our borders.
00:04:41.440 | So you have a piece of land that is a border dispute.
00:04:45.520 | On most maps, it seems to be within the lines of Serbia.
00:04:49.960 | Why doesn't Serbia claim it?
00:04:52.800 | Well, that's simple, because if they did, they would go with the Croatia's version of the border.
00:04:58.840 | That means they would lose a lot of other territory in a different place, in different places.
00:05:03.480 | OK. And so Croatia doesn't claim this land.
00:05:06.880 | Why not? Because they want this other land in other places.
00:05:09.840 | OK, so they have other border disputes.
00:05:12.400 | And this particular piece of land is not claimed for more than 35 years by neither of these sovereign states.
00:05:20.680 | Because of the impact on their other areas.
00:05:23.400 | I see. OK, so you and some friends went to Liberland.
00:05:28.080 | You planted a flag and said, we claim this land for Liberland.
00:05:31.560 | Yes, exactly. That's what we did.
00:05:33.120 | OK, but you didn't just... it wasn't just an Internet joke.
00:05:38.280 | Like you actually intend to build a legit country.
00:05:42.280 | We went there to start a country.
00:05:43.320 | That was the only thing which we didn't expect that there will be such a huge interest in actually doing so.
00:05:49.680 | I was really thinking this will be a really multi-year project in which we will slowly grow our claim.
00:05:55.960 | And I wouldn't believe that there would be Russia today, knocking on my door the next day after we established a country.
00:06:02.240 | And right after Russia today, the CNN comes and wants to report about Liberland.
00:06:06.280 | So there was like a substantial media coverage by basically the state's televisions of the world coming down and acknowledging our claim.
00:06:16.040 | What is a country? What do you need to have a country, in your opinion?
00:06:19.520 | Well, there are these Montevideo criteria that you need to have a population.
00:06:23.840 | I'm fine with 700,000 people, basically, but right now signed up.
00:06:28.840 | You need to have a territory.
00:06:30.240 | I'm really happy about the whole territory of Liberland.
00:06:32.720 | It's a really beautiful, heart-shaped piece of land with very well-defined borders with our neighbors.
00:06:37.840 | You need to have a governance.
00:06:39.560 | We have this, I would say, classical government, very stable.
00:06:44.280 | I would say more stable than what our neighbors have currently.
00:06:49.440 | And you need to have diplomatic relations with other countries.
00:06:52.400 | And that's why I started these representative offices in more than 115 countries around the world.
00:06:58.800 | There is a person responsible for our diplomatic relations with some other countries.
00:07:03.440 | So also, we are, I would say, better covered.
00:07:06.600 | We're covering the world better than traditional European countries in that sense.
00:07:10.760 | But that, of course, is not enough.
00:07:12.200 | You really have to have people that are in direct relations with the government that are able to open the right talks at the right time,
00:07:19.960 | and that are able to get Liberland recognized sooner or later.
00:07:25.160 | Is there anybody living in the territory of Liberland?
00:07:28.320 | Well, right now, we do have houseboats.
00:07:31.000 | Something changed three weeks ago.
00:07:33.080 | We stopped having problems with Croatian police while we were coming from Serbia, which is pretty exciting.
00:07:38.440 | But I don't want to have any to knock on the wood.
00:07:41.920 | And I just hope it continues.
00:07:44.640 | But for the case it doesn't, we are actually building a floating city on Danube next to Liberland, a couple of meters away from the shore.
00:07:53.680 | We're putting together houseboats and people that want to do business and live in Liberland can do so.
00:07:58.480 | But on the other hand, we also started developing a piece of Serbia right across the river.
00:08:02.360 | We're building actually a really nice resort.
00:08:04.160 | I think it's an important part of the story of Liberland that we kind of get ourselves settled on the other side of the river as well.
00:08:12.760 | We're building something really nice and futuristic.
00:08:15.320 | And I've got Zaha Hadid, one of the best architectural studios in the world.
00:08:18.360 | They just finished Beijing airport, for example.
00:08:21.000 | So they stepped up and they really wanted to help us from the beginning.
00:08:23.800 | And now it's a time for them to do something which will be actually built in physical reality.
00:08:28.640 | And it will be a small, little Liberland across the river.
00:08:32.280 | Did you fight Serbia for the land?
00:08:35.160 | How did you get this land across the river?
00:08:37.680 | No, no, no. We actually bought it one week ago.
00:08:40.200 | OK. So it's pretty fresh.
00:08:41.560 | So you used the money from people buying citizenship.
00:08:47.080 | Actually, no. For this particular case, I used the Ethereum, which I bought as a private person when the whole sale started.
00:08:56.640 | So I used that, but I put it into a company and that company bought the property.
00:09:02.840 | OK. And this company is a state asset of Liberland.
00:09:06.800 | It is kind of a state asset.
00:09:08.240 | Yeah. But it's still like it's a private venture.
00:09:11.720 | Unlike, I would say, we really don't want actually state to interfere with the business of the regular business.
00:09:19.680 | I don't think state should be a developing property.
00:09:21.920 | So I'm kind of sitting on two chairs.
00:09:23.880 | Some of these things are private businesses.
00:09:27.000 | And I'm also president of Liberland as well.
00:09:29.600 | I'm trying to do the best so I kind of don't have friction between these two positions.
00:09:36.600 | But I believe that the state shouldn't develop a land, like shouldn't build resorts.
00:09:42.800 | We really have private investors to do so.
00:09:45.200 | And the same thing should apply for Liberland.
00:09:47.360 | State should really take care of security, justice, diplomacy, and that's it.
00:09:52.440 | You know, don't give a state another power to do that.
00:09:57.080 | We will be selling land in Liberland.
00:10:00.880 | We will be selling the land in Liberland.
00:10:02.480 | But that's a, OK, the government will decide how the land will be distributed.
00:10:07.040 | But it shouldn't build something there inside of it.
00:10:11.120 | Like housing for Liberlanders or something like that.
00:10:13.280 | Right. So what I find so interesting about this, I was having a conversation with someone earlier this afternoon.
00:10:20.600 | We were talking about Bitcoin and the concept of cryptocurrency.
00:10:26.280 | And I was talking about how I genuinely believe, one of the things I believe now that I didn't believe some time ago,
00:10:32.440 | but I genuinely believe that the world can change the way that it views things faster than we imagine.
00:10:41.640 | And we're talking about money.
00:10:43.200 | One of the things that in the future I'm going to do, which I've heard a number of people do,
00:10:47.120 | and I realized how powerful it was, is instead of using money, some people have just mentioned in passing,
00:10:54.240 | oh, when you want to turn your Bitcoin into fiat.
00:10:57.760 | Well, of course, being interested in economics for a long time, I'm well familiar with the use of the word fiat.
00:11:04.240 | But I don't use it in normal conversation.
00:11:06.920 | It's not something I just say, OK, how much fiat would you like or how much US dollar fiat would you like?
00:11:12.680 | In the future, I think I'm going to do it because I realize how powerful it is.
00:11:16.000 | It's absolutely true.
00:11:17.960 | It's simply a way of acknowledging the reality of what a currency like the US dollar is.
00:11:23.920 | It's a fiat currency.
00:11:25.280 | Now, I was thinking, though, that I increasingly do believe today that we actually could change.
00:11:34.200 | I was not an early believer in things like Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.
00:11:39.280 | But as I thought about that, I've realized that I was wrong because we really could change
00:11:45.120 | and people really could use these currencies.
00:11:47.360 | And I think that that change could happen faster than ever.
00:11:51.160 | So I was thinking about Liberland and the concept of the state, the concept of the government.
00:11:54.920 | And you mentioned Monaco.
00:11:56.640 | Monaco, you say that Liberland, the physical territory of Liberland that you've claimed
00:12:01.920 | is three times larger than the physical territory of Monaco.
00:12:06.440 | But no one in the world would say that Monaco is illegitimate just because it's a third
00:12:10.680 | of the size of Liberland.
00:12:12.960 | Monaco is legitimate.
00:12:14.960 | You can be a citizen of Monaco.
00:12:16.640 | You can live in Monaco.
00:12:18.120 | Famously, many wealthy, successful people do live in Monaco because famously it's a
00:12:22.280 | tax haven.
00:12:24.720 | You can become Monagask.
00:12:27.080 | No, it doesn't happen actually.
00:12:30.560 | There are three, four generations of Italians living there and they still didn't get the
00:12:36.000 | citizenship.
00:12:37.000 | So the prince has to be the one.
00:12:39.640 | It's actually not happening.
00:12:40.640 | I don't think it's like really difficult.
00:12:44.920 | So the point is that the physical size of a nation doesn't necessarily determine its
00:12:50.920 | legitimacy, I guess is the point.
00:12:54.320 | And so as I think about the Liberland concept that you're building, it really is possible
00:13:01.800 | to build a nation.
00:13:04.240 | It's not like you have to...
00:13:09.000 | Senores, hey, senores, senores, por favor, estamos grabando una entrevista acá.
00:13:17.200 | Ok?
00:13:18.200 | Por favor, gracias.
00:13:21.160 | The physical size of a nation doesn't determine its legitimacy.
00:13:26.200 | So what does determine the legitimacy of a nation, I guess is my question.
00:13:30.200 | I would say it is...
00:13:34.400 | I would say the best countries are actually formed by nations that have a clear vision
00:13:38.920 | of how they want to govern themselves.
00:13:41.760 | And of course, the more free market vision they have, the better the country that they're
00:13:48.640 | forming is.
00:13:50.080 | And again, like country or nation is nothing but a common belief how to run your business.
00:13:55.960 | It's not connected to your language.
00:13:58.600 | It's not connected to your culture, not connected to your color of the skin.
00:14:02.960 | It's literally a way how you think about how things should be run in a society.
00:14:10.600 | Does a country have to be a place where lots of people live?
00:14:15.060 | Because you have hundreds of thousands of citizens of Liberland, and yet nobody is physically
00:14:19.440 | located full time on that physical territory.
00:14:22.120 | I guess my wife is actually having a party in Liberland as we speak.
00:14:25.440 | So they took 25 ladies out for a boat ride, and now they're partying inside of Liberland.
00:14:31.680 | So there are people physically there.
00:14:34.140 | But the fun part is that, yes, you're right.
00:14:37.720 | But to be honest with you, for the recognition by other countries, it's actually important
00:14:42.280 | to have the territory.
00:14:43.720 | And there is so much space on this planet.
00:14:45.560 | Like come on, there could be thousands of countries here.
00:14:48.920 | And of course, it's also just a convention that you need to have a physical space.
00:14:54.000 | They tried to get rid of this rule that actually they kind of kicked out the possibility to
00:15:00.460 | put man-made platforms as a territory when these things like Rose Island, as you probably
00:15:06.720 | saw the movie, started to happen.
00:15:09.420 | But it's also just a convention.
00:15:10.760 | But why not fulfill the convention?
00:15:12.400 | There are still so many places that kind of can be claimed as a country on this planet.
00:15:16.240 | I agree.
00:15:17.240 | I agree.
00:15:18.240 | So that's a good question.
00:15:19.400 | I was thinking about this just because I'm so intrigued by the idea and the philosophical
00:15:23.720 | implications and questioning all of my own assumptions and beliefs.
00:15:29.360 | I guess one thing I think you need for the legitimacy of a nation is simply for other
00:15:36.120 | nations to accept it as legitimate.
00:15:39.360 | There's nothing really more than that.
00:15:41.100 | So if we think about, I don't know, I can't restate any better.
00:15:47.800 | You need other nations to say, "Yes, we accept you as legitimate."
00:15:51.720 | And then basically, if that can happen, then that nation state can flourish more and more.
00:15:57.400 | I don't think that's the case, actually.
00:15:59.240 | And the International Law is also very specific about it.
00:16:03.200 | The existence of state is independent of recognition by other states.
00:16:06.640 | That's actually one of the articles in Montevideo Criterion.
00:16:09.760 | Really?
00:16:10.840 | So you established, tell me the story of Somaliland.
00:16:13.460 | Because you established, Liberland established diplomatic relations with Somaliland.
00:16:18.060 | But I'm not familiar with that story, but I thought it would be interesting to hear.
00:16:21.500 | Tell me about Somaliland and their struggles to attain recognition.
00:16:25.160 | They are fully functional for 30 years, fully functional country with defined borders.
00:16:30.620 | It's as big as United Kingdom.
00:16:32.500 | There is five million people living there.
00:16:35.040 | They have very decent government.
00:16:37.500 | There are no security threats, unlike in Somalia.
00:16:40.540 | But nobody recognizes them.
00:16:42.780 | Or actually, it's starting to happen.
00:16:44.340 | Because it was kind of pathetic that the world decided not to recognize Somaliland for some
00:16:50.280 | strange reason.
00:16:51.280 | Nobody really knows why.
00:16:53.420 | But right now, it's slowly developing relations with other countries.
00:16:57.060 | And I knew that it's going to happen.
00:16:59.660 | I kind of wanted to help them.
00:17:00.820 | I thought we will be kind of working hands in hand on recognition of Liberland and Somaliland.
00:17:06.580 | So it's kind of happening.
00:17:07.580 | I helped them to get to a couple of international conferences on high level.
00:17:12.060 | And I'm helping them to get more good contacts in the Western world, where we are strong.
00:17:17.060 | And I think we actually do have similar size coverage in terms of marketing, like Somaliland
00:17:22.980 | does have.
00:17:24.340 | And funnily enough, we also have similar size budgets, for example, for the foreign efforts.
00:17:29.420 | So from that perspective, I was just thinking, they are actually good partners.
00:17:32.820 | Why don't we recognize them first?
00:17:34.340 | Because we are going to work hand in hand with them to get more recognitions.
00:17:38.260 | And I also believe it's a huge business opportunity.
00:17:41.580 | All Somaliland is full of gold, iron, ore, diamonds.
00:17:45.620 | Just nobody is picking them up from the street.
00:17:48.100 | Wow.
00:17:49.100 | OK.
00:17:50.100 | So how can I be attracted to Liberland?
00:17:53.940 | What can Liberland offer me in order for me to want to immigrate to Liberland?
00:17:57.940 | I think it's a great opportunity to find like-minded people.
00:18:01.540 | And the price of the citizenship is cheap now.
00:18:04.020 | In a way, it's much lower than your golf course yearly fees.
00:18:10.220 | But it's going to change because we are putting merit, which is the currency basically which
00:18:13.980 | you need to stake, we're putting it on a float.
00:18:17.420 | It's going to be basically decided by market what the value of that will be.
00:18:21.060 | So it might just skyrocket as well.
00:18:23.420 | I think it will actually.
00:18:25.580 | So it is a very, I would say, it's a very good social club.
00:18:29.540 | That's for sure.
00:18:31.220 | But then it's also a concentrated effort to build a sovereign country, which I think,
00:18:37.500 | you know, we don't have much competition right now.
00:18:39.580 | Everybody is doing what we're doing in a way.
00:18:42.420 | So the idea is that I could join Liberland by becoming a citizen.
00:18:49.060 | I would pay for that citizenship.
00:18:51.940 | I can pay for it in fiat or in some other form of currency that Liberland accepts.
00:19:00.300 | And I can become a citizen immediately?
00:19:01.620 | Yes.
00:19:02.620 | Yes.
00:19:03.620 | That's the way it is.
00:19:04.620 | And about how much does that cost right now?
00:19:05.620 | It's now 5,000 merits.
00:19:06.620 | And my merit is still tied to US dollar.
00:19:08.780 | So you have a currency called the merit.
00:19:11.660 | The merit is currently pegged to the US dollar.
00:19:14.540 | So I could turn 5,000 US dollars fiat into 5,000 merits.
00:19:20.780 | And then I could purchase my citizenship with that.
00:19:23.380 | And in exchange for that, what would I receive?
00:19:25.420 | You're going to get passport.
00:19:26.820 | You're going to get e-residency card, which you can use to open companies, for example,
00:19:32.020 | in Liberland.
00:19:33.680 | You get access to, I don't know, Chamber of Commerce, our yearly events.
00:19:39.060 | You know, you'll be able to actually vote.
00:19:41.260 | And I think we are like three months away from the blockchain governance.
00:19:45.100 | So we will be able to vote with your merits who will be sitting in the Liberland Congress.
00:19:51.020 | You will be able to take part of public veto.
00:19:54.180 | And you will be able to utilize the system of Liberland courts, for example.
00:19:58.740 | And you're seeking, I understand, to put all of the Liberland government functions onto
00:20:05.080 | the blockchain.
00:20:06.080 | Is that right?
00:20:07.080 | That's exactly our mission.
00:20:08.080 | I think it's also pretty cool to do that when the technology is just ready for it.
00:20:13.120 | We took whatever Polkadot has put together so far, which I think is a nice code, and
00:20:18.120 | we are putting it, we are twisting it a little bit to build the whole country on top of the
00:20:24.360 | technology.
00:20:25.360 | So Polkadot is something like Ethereum, but it's a proof of stake network, which I think
00:20:30.060 | is the right concept for a country as well.
00:20:34.580 | You mentioned that the three basic functions that you see for government, because I think
00:20:40.340 | most of us who are freedom-oriented, the vast majority of us, I think, would concede that
00:20:46.060 | there is a role for something called government.
00:20:49.100 | We argue at the fringes about what that role is.
00:20:52.240 | Should it be in developing national parks?
00:20:53.780 | Should it be in building roads?
00:20:54.780 | Should it be in maintaining militaries?
00:20:56.700 | You mentioned three things earlier.
00:20:59.180 | Security of its citizens, a court system, and diplomacy with other nations.
00:21:06.660 | If you don't have an army, at least you really need to have good relations with your neighbors.
00:21:11.660 | So can those things be expressed in the virtual world?
00:21:17.860 | The system of decentralized course is something which has, I would say, erupted in the blockchain
00:21:23.060 | world already.
00:21:24.060 | You've got companies like Kleros that are trying to build a decentralized court system
00:21:29.220 | or juror.io.
00:21:32.340 | And I think it's a good time for us again to kind of learn from them and put it on a
00:21:36.620 | complex blockchain which represents a nation state.
00:21:41.780 | And diplomacy is a bit difficult.
00:21:43.300 | I don't know how to do it.
00:21:45.420 | The system, of course, can be kind of put on blockchain and also scaled and decentralized,
00:21:49.340 | which is pretty cool.
00:21:50.700 | But with security, I think we can uberize Liberland police fairly easy.
00:21:54.660 | And we had this application called 911, which was kind of a test of it.
00:21:59.540 | And then there is another application like Liberland e-residency application.
00:22:02.940 | We're still testing it.
00:22:03.940 | But I think there is a bright future for a similar concept.
00:22:07.180 | Actually uberizing the service of the police.
00:22:10.700 | So you allow all the citizens that feel like protecting the others to log into the application
00:22:16.260 | and simply provide the service.
00:22:18.460 | Interesting.
00:22:19.460 | Yeah, I mean, there's a tremendous amount of ideological agreement that I have with
00:22:24.060 | some of these concepts.
00:22:25.420 | My opinion, if I were painting my perfect world, I have one function for government,
00:22:30.760 | and that is the courts.
00:22:32.560 | I believe that that's fundamentally at its core what the function of government is.
00:22:36.540 | You need a magistrate and you need a court system where one person can bring a complaint
00:22:41.780 | against another person and an independent third party can pass judgment and have some
00:22:47.460 | kind of sanction brought against that person who is found to be in the wrong.
00:22:51.660 | And so it's fascinating to think of building a nation from the ground up.
00:22:55.300 | It's fascinating to think of what could happen.
00:22:56.980 | Well, I'm also really excited about launching the whole things system.
00:23:00.980 | We're doing very well.
00:23:01.980 | I would say the last month was the most successful month of Liberland in terms of finance and
00:23:06.660 | new people coming and organization and all these things that are literally starting just
00:23:11.580 | now like the village, like free trade zone that we are building in Serbia, like new boats
00:23:16.380 | coming to Liberland, like the fact that we can actually access the land.
00:23:19.700 | But I think there will be a huge boost, another round of huge boost once we actually put things
00:23:23.580 | on blockchain because there will be different people in the blockchain arena that will recognize
00:23:29.140 | the achievement.
00:23:30.540 | And I hope, you know, in combination with the things that we already done, we managed
00:23:33.720 | to get the country recognized by a couple of other countries and the fact that we are
00:23:37.420 | actually putting together decent governance for the whole system.
00:23:40.340 | They will just like to support it.
00:23:41.980 | I don't think we will have a problem with people paying voluntary taxes in Liberland.
00:23:45.760 | So I've got about three questions left.
00:23:47.540 | Number one, you mentioned taxes.
00:23:50.740 | The vision of Liberland is that the tax system would be voluntary.
00:23:54.980 | Tell me about that.
00:23:55.980 | Yeah, we really believe it's time to switch this relation from like if you don't pay taxes,
00:24:00.660 | we put you into jail into like, can you please contribute to this particular effort of the
00:24:05.460 | government and you will actually get the shares of that project or of the government itself
00:24:11.380 | back, which I think is a reasonable way how to run things.
00:24:15.180 | So, that's my belief, you know, and I think once you actually do this, you know, we will
00:24:25.540 | attract so much attention when we get this off the ground and it will be working.
00:24:30.380 | That again, I'm really truly a believer that you don't really need a tax system, a non-voluntary
00:24:36.420 | tax system in the new millennia, that we need to get more civilized as a society and stop
00:24:41.680 | these kind of clans taking over different states and basically extorting the value from
00:24:47.340 | others through the state.
00:24:51.060 | How do you, are you a big thinker?
00:24:54.900 | Well, you know, to be honest with you, I wish I had more time to read recently.
00:25:00.940 | That's my wish.
00:25:01.940 | But it's because we are doing so many projects now and I just wake up and get on my calls
00:25:07.580 | and I'm dead and I cannot, but I do think about things trying to get them through and
00:25:15.740 | I'm trying to encircle myself with people that are really big guys in the arena of constitutional
00:25:23.220 | law and diplomacy and cultural connections with other countries.
00:25:28.500 | So I just wish, you know, I had a little bit more time to read, to be honest with you.
00:25:34.180 | From my perspective, I've been thinking a lot, I first became aware of Lieberland a
00:25:38.020 | couple years ago, but I laughed it off a little bit.
00:25:41.860 | I didn't know, I didn't ever research to know whether to take it seriously or not.
00:25:44.940 | We met a few days ago and so I've been thinking about some of our conversation.
00:25:50.020 | And what is so interesting is it seems like there's actually far fewer things in the world
00:26:00.460 | that have to be the way they are than we usually think, right?
00:26:04.980 | We're accustomed to the world working the way that it works just because that's how
00:26:09.660 | it is.
00:26:10.760 | But it doesn't actually have to be that way in most circumstances.
00:26:15.100 | Realistically, things can change.
00:26:17.380 | I come from the United States of America.
00:26:19.380 | In the United States of America, if you go back 200 and whatever years ago, you had a
00:26:25.100 | group of several dozens of men who came together and they said, "We think these certain things
00:26:31.460 | should change."
00:26:32.720 | And they were able to popularize their ideas, publicize them.
00:26:36.780 | They were able to recruit enough men to go to war with them.
00:26:40.780 | Then the world changed and the history of the world has never been the same.
00:26:44.100 | But at its core, it was a few dozen men who were working together, who believed in a set
00:26:50.620 | of ideas and ideals, and then were successful at convincing those other people.
00:26:57.220 | It started very humbly, right?
00:26:58.540 | There was a relatively small area of territory, but then those men continued to expand.
00:27:03.180 | They eventually took over an entire continent, plus some additional territories and other
00:27:07.700 | places through a variety of means.
00:27:09.860 | And so the interesting thing about it is that there's no fundamental reason why Liberland
00:27:14.900 | the nation couldn't grow in physical geography.
00:27:19.760 | One thing you think about of a country, "Oh, it's a big area."
00:27:21.940 | Well, it's not a big area, as we talked about with Monaco.
00:27:24.600 | It's not a big area.
00:27:26.880 | You also think about a country has to be all in one place.
00:27:29.400 | Well, it doesn't, right?
00:27:31.080 | When you think about it, there are exclaves and enclaves of countries all around the world,
00:27:36.680 | including most, the United States has its own exclaves and enclaves in other places.
00:27:42.260 | And so the nation of Liberland can begin with a small island and some territory near the
00:27:49.320 | Danube River on the border between Croatia and Serbia, but the nation of Liberland can
00:27:53.360 | then go and purchase land from another nation and spread in other ways and in other places.
00:28:00.300 | And so what's fascinating to me is that when I sit down and think about it, there's no
00:28:05.520 | fundamental reason why somebody can't create a new country, why they can't build it on
00:28:11.320 | certain shared principles and values that bring people together.
00:28:14.800 | And even that, right?
00:28:15.800 | One of the things that's been so painful for me, and I'm just telling you a little of my
00:28:18.360 | story and thinking about it, I come from the United States of America, but I really don't
00:28:24.600 | feel very much kinship with US Americans, many of them, anymore.
00:28:30.920 | Because I'm not united by the fact that we both carry a blue passport with a golden eagle
00:28:34.980 | on its front.
00:28:35.980 | I'm not united by the stars and stripes.
00:28:37.840 | I'm united by a set of ideas, a set of ideals.
00:28:41.440 | And when I talk to people who share those ideas and ideals, I feel a sense of kinship
00:28:46.080 | with them.
00:28:47.080 | But when they don't share them, I feel alienated.
00:28:49.840 | So I feel more kinship with you being from the Czech Republic.
00:28:53.200 | - You must be liberal-minded.
00:28:54.200 | - No, I certainly am.
00:28:57.360 | And so I guess that's just a way of saying that I love seeing what you're doing.
00:29:03.620 | I admire your big thinking to be willing to spearhead things.
00:29:09.520 | And I would love to see things change because the world can change faster than we usually
00:29:15.520 | think it can.
00:29:17.120 | And 50 years from now, a totally different world order, right?
00:29:20.920 | We talk a lot about the new world order.
00:29:22.560 | Well, 50 years from now, there's going to be a new world order.
00:29:25.880 | But I don't believe that new world order is determined.
00:29:29.080 | I believe that, meaning it's not set in stone what it's going to be.
00:29:33.320 | Rather that new world order of 50 years hence is going to be determined by what billions
00:29:39.380 | of individuals choose to do.
00:29:41.640 | And today, small groups of men have the ability to influence tens of thousands of people,
00:29:47.840 | have the ability to attract hundreds of thousands of citizens very quickly.
00:29:51.680 | And so I'd love to see the project flourish and succeed.
00:29:55.200 | - Thank you very much.
00:29:56.200 | And I hope to see you in Liberland soon later.
00:29:57.360 | - I would like to be there.
00:29:58.480 | So if my listeners want to get information on Liberland, what's the best way for them
00:30:02.200 | to do that?
00:30:03.200 | - Liberland.org.
00:30:04.200 | That's still, you know.
00:30:05.200 | - Liberland.org.
00:30:06.200 | L-I-E-B-E-R-L-A-N-D.org.
00:30:07.200 | - Yes, it takes, you know, five minutes to register, actually.
00:30:12.280 | And you start your pass for citizenship.
00:30:14.680 | You first get e-residency.
00:30:15.680 | It costs actually $150.
00:30:17.760 | In 14 days, you should receive the card.
00:30:20.200 | Then you can use the whatever facilities we have to start a new company, for example,
00:30:25.320 | in Liberland.
00:30:26.320 | And if you start paying taxes, those taxes go towards your citizenship.
00:30:30.560 | So you can also decide to basically do it gradually when you feel like you are making
00:30:34.760 | value inside of the ecosystems, which also many people do.
00:30:38.280 | Or you can just decide, "Oh, I'm going for it right away.
00:30:40.080 | I want to be a citizen."
00:30:41.080 | Get the passport, and you add another 5,000 merits to your account.
00:30:45.280 | - Awesome.
00:30:46.280 | Vy, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:30:47.560 | I really appreciate it.
00:30:48.560 | - Thank you very much.
00:30:49.560 | It was a great pleasure.
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00:31:19.320 | (rumbling)