Good morning good morning. Slept in this morning. Then I had to go to the Boat and RV Storage Facility to do payday for some contractors. Felt like Papa Smurf or Daddy Warbucks or something. Aside from that work obligation, I have taken the day off. Got McDonald’s. Diet Coke, no ice. It was delicious. ‘Twas my reward for a half-decent blood pressure reading this morning and four pounds loss.

It was also a reward because today is my birthday. I will be fifty-four years old in, eh, an hour and three minutes. Or three minutes. Or two hours and three minutes. The 1983 Time Zone reorganization of Alaska has me a little confused.

I cannot say I am particularly psyched to be turning fifty-four years old. But my life, my life, is pretty awesome. And I am mostly happy with it, and would be very happy with it if I could get my mental shit together. Because it is objectively a very good life. Especially as opposed to the rest of the world, which we will be talking about for most of this entry. Because it is my birthday and I can do what I want. Within reason. Commensurate with my wedding vows and assorted contractual and parental obligations.

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We are listening to my own special birthday mix today, a mix I just made of songs that have been running through my head and just whatever I feel like because there are no rules, today, man. I am tweaking it and moving things as I write this. It is infinitely satisfying.

In addition, I temporarily put on hold my record-buying moratorium and treated myself to two pieces of vinyl in the $50-100 each. So, you know. Posh but not extravagent. I bought first editions of Goldfrapp’s Seventh Tree, and And Also The Tree’s Green is the Sea. Green is the Sea seems to be the one AATT album not on Apple Music, so they do not make today’s playlist, alas. They make me think of Annie. She got to see them at the Rat. I never got to see them. They are still around, though. They’re on the list.

One last music-related indulgence today: I am not dealing with the Olivia Rodrigo on-sale today for more than ten minutes. If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work. This whole thing is making me annoyed with Olivia and we do not want that. We love our little Phillipino American who is living the American dream and inspiring a country.

Here is what I want to write about today. And it’s my birthday. So I am going to. For more than the usual 30-40 minutes I get to write. Indulgences, indulgences. Remember when I mentioned the other day that I had insomnia because I had one of my utopian great ideas and I couldn’t fall asleep? Well, here it is for you, in all it’s glory:

Refugia.

Immigrants and refugees? The same thing. Our ancestors who came to America were not extra-special, better-than-others “immigrants.” They were refugees. They were refugees from economics, from religious opression, from totalitarianism, from war.

And I was thinking the other night: as this country completes its descent into fascism, the thing that I miss most about the American experiment is the death of multiculturalism. Because immigrants are refugees, and refugees made this country multicultural, and multiculturalism made this country great.

And no other country is doing this anymore. I mean. Germany and England and Canada are still trying. Sort of. But in that modern, half-assed way where we will let 100,000 refugees in. Not like the way that made America great, back when we had no immigration laws and literally anyone could come here (almost, sort of, for whites).

And it was perhaps, along with Democracy, one of the most potent, fundamental forces of good in the history of humanity.

And someone needs to take up the mantle.

There are over 100 million people on the planet who have been forced to leave their homes. Over 40 million of them have been forced to leave their country. There are more than 8 million asylum seekers in the world, and 6 million people are currently stateless or in need of international protection. Nearly 50 million children are displaced.

They are hosted primarily in Columbia, Germany, Turkey, Iran and Uganda.

Iran is currently hosting 3 million-ish refugees.

America is hosting 100,000 ish.

It is a disgrace.

These people need their own country. There needs to be a country on this planet holding up the mantle of refuge, of multiculturalism, of immigration.

Refugia.

There is more than enough room on this planet. It is a disgrace we cannot find space for these people. The where isn’t the most important thing.

Though I think we have learned through Israel history that we cannot place this country where there are other people, or at least where all the other people are not willing to take them in.

I leave the “where” aside for now, other than to say it should probably be in Canada. It should maybe be Devon Island — the largest uninhabited island in the world, roughly the size of Croatia. Or even better a good chunk of Labrador — an area the size of Poland with less than 30,000 people in it.

Canada is, of course, known for their tolerance of refugees and their hospitality. But, of course, they’re also known for their assorted agreements with the indigenous population and these lands, while unpopulated, or sparsely populated, belong rightfully to these indigenous. Could these people give up 1/20th of their land, an area they have not lived in since the 1930’s? Eh. Humans are weird. Maybe. Maybe not.

This will always be the hardest part of Refugia.

And, of course, Devon Island is in the Arctic, BFE. Horrible place to live.

Antarctica is another option, but the economic opportunities in the Arctic look to be potentially vastly superior to those in Antarctic.

BUT, also… it’s no further north than where I grew up. And it sucks to say, but the world is getting warmer, the Northwest passage will be opening up, the Arctic is becoming a hot spot of economic activity and, over time, it’s conceivable that Devon Island will be quite near the crossroads of the world.

Which means that maybe Canada wouldn’t want to give it up but it’s not like it’s gonna make it so Canada isn’t a (the?) dominant player in Arctic commerce.

So put that aside. Let’s move on.

Raise $5-10 billion. Get Canada to give up the island. Set up an Airport. Deals with, like, the Toronto and Anchorage airport for a gate. Get a couple planes. Get the internet up and running (a company called Quintillion is already working on an Arctic Fiber route that will go fairly close). Get the first power up and running. Start working on a port. Set up the first temporary settlements, and start letting people come.

Immigrants are not a burden, they are not unskilled. They have skills — they have almost every skill imaginable. They can build this country for themselves.

The first batch moves into the temporary settlements, builds the next batch of temporary settlements, and builds the first batch of homes.

Build build build.

Everyone is interviewed when they arrive, they are given jobs according to their skills.

This is the deal:

You come to Refugia for the cost of 10% of your global net worth, per person, up to 60% of your net worth. Anyone can come.

You then give three years of service to the nation of Refugia: paid and housed the whole time. The goal is that after a year of service, you have a house that you move into. After three years of service, the house is yours.

The housing would be nice, too. Basically the “developer modernism” that you see going up everywhere these days. Why do you see it going up everywhere? Because it is cheap, nice, customizable, safe, easy and fast to build, and quick. We have gotten very very good at this in the last few decades. This stuff grows like weeds even in NIMBY regions. You can hate it now but a) I believe it will come to be appreciated, b) it is fucking comcfortable and safe, c) It lends itself to fitting in nicely in a wide variety of environments and landscaping, d) can be built densely, and e) over time, as the country improves it’s wealth, styles can vary more.

Come on come all. You are interviewed, you provide what documentation you can, you pay your fee — which, of course, for the world’s most needy is near zero. You are given a job that the country needs commensurate with your skills. You have a couple years to “prove” your accreditation. There are multiple ways to do this. We trust you at the getgo.

Are you an architect? Great. Help us plan our streets, our homes, or first institutional buildings post offices, universities.

Are you a lawyer? great. Help us start our courts and laws.

Doctor, nurse, any health care provider? Well you know we could use you.

Construction, or any trade? Ditto.

Absolutely skill-less? No problem. Here is a list of trades we need. Pick one. We will train you. See, for example, this list of trades for which Austria will provide free education to women (thank you, Stephanie for this).

If you have enough money you can choose to buy your house right when you get there (in addition to your 10% citizenship fee) and avoid a year in the temporary housing.

There is a government, a constitution, that is a v2 of America’s, with the biggest problems fixed. Certain things are non-negotiable. There is freedom of speech and religion. Religion and politics are strictly separated, but every religion is welcome. You agree to abide by Refugia’s principles of multiculturalism. This is non-negotiable. There are no guns. Corporations are not people. There is no anonymous giving to political causes. Corporations can’t give money to political causes.

There is a representative government that grows over time. It has two houses — one is based on neighborhood, maybe “county”-sized regions. There are no states. Refugia follows Iowa’s amazing non-partisan districting rules.

The other house is a house based on at-large representatives. Top X vote-getters join the house. They can be religion-based, political-based, joke-based, whatever. They give citizens a means of being represented by something other than geography.

Refugia has amazing home-built IT infrastructure. Built on the Estonian model. When you arrive you get the Refugia app, it will translate for you (English is the official language but all languages are welcome and in reality with tech this is mostly a non-issue), it will help you pay your taxes, get access to services, find jobs, find people. If you do not have an actual device, Refugia will provide one.

Lotta displaced coders in the world. Especially given the situations in Ukraine and Iran.

Once you’ve lived in Refugia for three years, provided your three years of national service, and paid your 10%, you are a citizen. You get a passport. You get documented. You can come and go as you please.

The country is not a socialist paradise, but it is a modern version of multicultural Democratic Socialism. The good parts of Iceland, Denmark, Sweden. Still capitalist. You can still start a business. You can still get rich.

It has a strongly progressive tax rate, and an wealth tax, on global wealth, after some threshold in the $10MM range. Could it be a refuge for the wealthy? Well, yes. If Elon Musk wants to spend three years in national service, give the country $100 billion (assuming he abandons all his kids, or $480 billion if he wants to bring them along, with all the adult ones doing three years of service), and then pay $40 billion a year ish, then yeah, the country would give him a passport and make him subject to the laws of Refugia.

So, you know, not without some wealth potential, Refugia.

In addition, there would be contracts to bid out, franchises to offer: companies could bid for the rights to certain things. Not just sad extractive things like mineral and seafood rights (though no idea if those are even worth anything), but things like the airport, the power grid, tourism franchises, airwaves licensing, port concessions and more.

That’s about all I got so far. It is obviously a massive undertaking but also I think it could be done with… yeah maybe $10 billion, in addition to all the NGOs and governmental organizations that are currently spending money on the world’s refugee crisis: give us 80% of what you’re spending now. We will do it better, and we will build something amazing for it.

And if you want. You can come.

When I get this way, I get so manic. I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about the idea. It’s been three nights now that I can’t fall asleep. I see so clearly how this — or, like, my idea for compulsory compensation for AI, or my anti-AI religion, or my presidential platform or my ideas for justice against the current administration. I get so obsessed with the nitty gritty and all the obstacles. I could, right now, write another 20 pages about this. I wish so much for these things to exist.

Then, usually, I get sad that it never will.

I sometimes think about how I should do more to make it happen, dedicate my life to these things.

And then eventually the spell wears off, I convince myself it’s not possible, that I don’t want to give up my life for it, and I write something like this instead, and then just forget about it.

But I never forget the feeling of how much better the world could be.

I miss multicultural America. I mean, it is still here, it is still fighting. It is in our bones, even the bones of racists, who don’t even think about their fellow racist friend being Irish and themselves German.

But also the non-stop fight against it, the relentless attacks, the malice.

I would vastly, vastly prefer America was Refugia.

But if it can’t be America I wish it could be somewhere.

Jane had gymnastics last night so only slightly manic in the evening. She has been watching these short
Kurzgesagt videos about the heat death of the universe and the end of earth and I keep thinking she’s gonna make herself depressed but she seems to find it all infinitely fascinating. There is one the true limits of humanity that she watches every evening. Well, two actually. Kurzgesagt made the video, it had a small error, their fact checkers (fact checkers!) caught it and eventually they made a new one. Really are amazing, Kurzgesagt.

Here is my birthday playlist. Hot jamz, great bands. Basically all of these songs are in my head, all the time. WHY DO MEN SING.

We will return to our normal multi-topic programming tomorrow. Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.