There was an article yesterday about New Utopia:
<http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19981229_xex_who_says_you.shtml>
I'm somewhat excited about the prospect of another new country, but also skeptical. I've still never received my Oceania passport, and doubt that I ever will. (I don't really care if I do, anyway, unless it becomes useful in other countries) I don't consider Oceania to have been a scam, just something that has yet to work out.
I can only speak for myself, but it seems to me there's a negative side to the libertarian/extropian beliefs that we can escape from death and governments: We can sometimes want something to happen so much that we become temporarily blinded to the possibility that we're being scammed by someone who knows exactly what buttons to push to take advantage of us.
New Utopia could just be a simple scam perpetrated by an "evil capitalist" who wants to take advantage of libertarian dreams of such a wonderful "new utopia."
On the other hand, maybe this one's for real this time. How can one really tell? Even if it's not a scam, can it succeed? The person in chage of this operation calls himself Lazarus Long, and wants to be known as Prince Lazarus in New Utopia. I certainly have no problem with someone calling himself Prince Lazarus, if he really believes in the ideals of freedom that Robert Heinlein and Ayn Rand wrote about. Or it could just be a way to manipulate Heinlein fans into giving their money away just to make him rich without giving back anything valuable in return. The way I see it, I'll probably be the victim of a few scams throughout my lifetime, but as the real Lazarus Long says, "If you don't bet, you can't win." We have to spin the wheel and take our chances sometimes, even though the odds are in favor of the house. Whether I will invest in this new utopia I have not yet decided, but I certainly want it to succeed if it is for real!
Joe Moorman
<mindwalker@innerspace.net>
---Terry Donaghe <tdonaghe@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> <http://www.new-utopia.com/>
>
> Anyone familiar with this effort? It looks a bit further along than
> Oceania (which I know very little about - their web site hasn't been
> updated in ages - defunct?). New Utopia sounds like a cool idea...
>
> Is this for real or a confirmed scam?
>
> Comments? Input?