April 23, 2021 • 44 mins
Nevada is currently considering new legislation that will allow businesses to create their own increasingly autonomous communities. Fans of the idea paint it as an innovative, new way to get jobs and tax dollars to Nevada. Opponents worry it creates a corporate government, giving private businesses control of things a local government would usually do -- like run the fire department, conduct elections and more. So what exactly is an "innovation zone"? Tune in to learn more.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Noel. Our compatriot Matt is
a way but will return soon. Nig called me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Michig
controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
This episode will be of particular interest to our fellow
(00:48):
conspiracy realists out west in Nevada or Nevada. It's pronounced
a couple of different ways. No, you're a Nevada. You're
a Nevada guy, right, You know. I don't have occasion
to say it's super up and I guess, But now
that I'm thinking about it, I think I am yeah,
Nevada Nevada. Nevada feels like a Midwestern thing for some reason.
To me. The first person I met from Nevada was
(01:12):
adamant that it was pronounced Nevada. So we're just gonna
get that out of the way. That's the subject of
today's episode. Uh, this is something This is something different.
It takes place in the great state of Nevada, but
it raises a question that we've talked about off air
(01:35):
when the news hit earlier this year, and our our
big question while we touch on several important things here
um regarding some of the state's plans, and we're asking
whether this is a step into a bold new era
of human governance, or if it's a step toward a
(01:55):
bold new era of sci fi dystopia, or if it's
in fact a return to conspiracies we have seen in
the past. We're talking about something you may have heard of.
They have a relatively innocuous theme. They're called innovation zones.
Does sound great, don't what's wrong with that? Innovation sounds
(02:16):
good as a zone, you know, I want to I
want to live there. That sounds cool. Yeah, it reminds
me of Discovery Zone. That's exactly right. Are there trampolines?
That's what I want to know. If there's trampolines I'm
in there may be there may be if you can
count a new type of trampoline as innovative technology, We'll
find out. Like the thing is for a lot of people,
(02:37):
outside of Nevada. When you think of the state, you
properly think of one city immediately, Las Vegas. Vegas, baby
city of sin We've we've all been there. You've been
to Vegas, right, you know I've not been to Vegas. Bet.
I feel like I'm I'm missing out, or at least uh,
I'm you know, out of the loop in terms of
(02:58):
the conversation. But I have seen fear and loathing in
Las Vegas and other Vegas centric movies, so I kind
of I kind of get what it's about. You know,
Casino pretty much like that, right, Yeah, yeah, you've got it.
It's a Vegas is an incredibly fascinating town on a
number of levels because it's one of those cities that
(03:19):
only exist at the size it does due to human ingenuity.
You know, if we didn't have the Hoover Dam, we
didn't have all the infrastructure that people have created, then
a city of Vegas is size located where it is
located would simply not be possible. And it's also it's unique.
(03:41):
Nevada itself is unique in a in a number of
different ways. You know, parts of the state have legalized
sex work, right, that's a big business Uh, gambling laws,
of course, they're different in Vegas. Uh. And one thing
that we can assure you, and anyone who's been to
(04:02):
Vegas can assure you, is the city never really sleeps. Downtown.
Those casinos are always running. You want to find a
blackjack game, it doesn't matter if it's four in the morning,
there's somebody there. There's somebody there. Yeah, And it's really
it's that's I think this is a really good parallel,
uh for the what we're talking about today, the idea
of creating an entire city around a particular industry, and
(04:26):
even like you know, gaming for example, and like the
Gaming Commission and all of that. It's so important, you know,
like for a new casino. You all this again, this
is everything I know. I know here I've learned from
like the movie Casino and stuff, but and and and
things like it. But it's really important to be able
to get that license, you know, to get that gaming
license so that you can start your casino. And um,
(04:48):
it's like you said, been the city would not exist
if we're not for you know, man made infrastructure and
also this very singular industry. So what we're talking about today,
and this is like you know, been historically the bread
and butter of the entire state of Nevada. Um, Nevada.
Now I'm flipping it too, I'm confused. UM. But what
(05:09):
we we're talking about today is something new. It's not
new in concept, but it's something new for Nevada, and
it's something, like you said, been called innovation zones. Yeah.
To get our minds around this concept, first, we need
to talk about some background, because, like Nevada, the US
is itself somewhat unique. Especially during the time of its formation.
(05:33):
It did some things that other countries at the time
we're not doing. Here are the facts. So back in
the seventeen seventies when the United States were formed, UM,
the founders instituted this concept that remains very important today,
with varying degrees of actual enforcement. I would argue, UM,
(05:53):
the idea of separation of church and state, meaning that
the US, unlike many other countries, would not have enough
fish state religion and not be able to like, you know,
force any kind of religious views or practices on individuals,
specifically in government UM and you know, state sponsored institutions.
(06:15):
There would there would be no allowance for mandatory and
kind of enforcement of any kind of religious faith, any
kind of faith based anything, though we know in practice
isn't always the case, you know, in terms of like
school prayer and even some religious language and things like
the Pledge of religionce, you know, and this has always
been a bit of a gray area. But uh, the
(06:36):
tax part of it is probably the most interesting and important,
right then, Yeah, that is one of the most interesting
parts of the separation, because if you are a religious
institution in the US, then you're not You're not paying taxes,
and that's why so many organizations fight so ardently to
(06:58):
be recognized as religious institutions. Shout out scientology. But a
lot of been has been made of the so called
religious foundation of the US, and in many ways that's
a myth. Like I love that you mentioned the Pledge
of Allegiance, the idea of the phrase under God being
in the Pledge of Allegiance. Uh, this wasn't part of
(07:22):
the Pledge until relatively recently, until June of ninety four
they went back and added the phrase under God in there.
And then you can also see that the founders and
the leaders of the early US were pretty adamant about
the secular position of the country as a concept. This
(07:42):
was kind of seen as heretical by a lot of
other places, but it's a cool idea. It means that
in theory, if you live in the US, you can
practice whatever religion you please. You can make a religion
up or discover it however you want to say, and
then and you can practice that. As long as your
religious practices don't result in harming others or breaking laws,
(08:06):
then you should be all gravy. And of course you
know that wasn't the same in practice. There was a
lot of prejudice against people of the Catholic faith, for instance,
or against people practicing Judaism, and that anti semitism continues today.
But like the big thing is they essentially said, look,
(08:26):
unless you have a religion that requires you to like
murder someone once a month or burn down someone's house
twice a year, you'll be fine, but we will prosecute
you for murder or arsin step like sure, and that really, honestly,
you're not being hyperbolic there, because it honestly does take
something that extreme for any kind of intervention to come down.
(08:49):
I mean, it depends varying degrees of that. But like,
for example, not to get too into it. But like
you know, the Church of Scientology has pretty much been
proved to have injured people psychologically, uh and possibly you know,
physically in terms of what happened to David Mimscabbage's wife.
You know, we don't know, but it doesn't seem good. Uh.
(09:10):
And yet they have maintained that tax exempt status which
has allows them to like buy up all this real
estate and have this like absolute stronghold in you know, California,
in that part of the country. And there's another interesting
turn here because nowadays, when you hear people talk about
the separation of church and state, you'll hear people of
(09:31):
phrasing this as a way of protecting the government from
undo uh influence that would turn it into a theocracy.
But back in the day, the rationalization was flipped. Roger Williams,
the guy who founded Rhode Island, argued that you needed
to have a separation between state and religion because if
(09:53):
you didn't, the government would get involved in the church
and corrupt it and make it world And so it's
an interesting flip, but I think we can all agree
in the modern day this is a very good distinction
to have. It benefits more people that it hurts. But
there was another question hanging in the air, and it
(10:13):
was one that was not addressed in nearly as clear
cut of manner. How do we handle the relationship between
business and the state. Should there be a separation between
business and state the same way there's a separation between
church and state, And if so, what form would it take.
It's a sticky question. It doesn't always have a clear answer. No,
(10:35):
it doesn't. And it's one of these things where it
all comes down to, like how bad do you want
to attract industry, you know as a state, Like here
in Georgia, we had some pretty controversial, you know, very
lucrative tax credit for the film industry that ultimately resulted
in Georgia becoming like, you know, location number one for
a film because you know, obviously like Atlanta and different
(10:57):
parts of the of the state. You know, you've got
a really wider ieta of like shooting location types and
all that. So it made sense already. But you know,
the tax credits that we laid out were massive, So
you could argue, like we're taking a bath on that
in terms of like lost tax revenue, but it's an
exchange between losing out there and gaining jobs and you know,
(11:18):
pumping that industry's money into the economy. Um, so you
can make an argument in both directions. But again, this
is one example of American governments trying different approaches to
this relationship, trying to minimize corruption on the part of
you know, CEOs and politicians at the same time trying
to maintain a relationship with industry, a cozy relationship but
(11:42):
also one with like boundaries, right, yeah, I mean, think
about it. It's it's strange the government depends on partnerships
with private businesses for so many things, for countless things,
and it's a relationship that has accelerated as time goes on,
Like if you think about it now, the practice of
subcontracting projects to various corporations occurs at virtually every level
(12:07):
of government and tons of different ways. Most famous, infamous
example is the world of the military. Private military contractors
vibe for contracts to build new hardware, to conduct research,
to supply infrastructure and even soldiers right shout out, academic
and so on. If you name the task, there's probably
(12:28):
some sort of private company involved somewhere in the supply chain.
And it's so normalized and the practice is so common
that it can be difficult for a lot of people
to imagine any other sort of situation. What does a
separation of business and state mean? Does it mean the
government should interfere less than the day to day activities
(12:49):
of businesses of any size if interaction continues, like there
are things that are very important to the government taxing businesses,
and there are things that are very important to the people,
like our mental regulations. When do they stop? And what
about lobbying? Lobbying is weird? Lobbying is a legalized system
of bribery. Basically is that a hot take? I feel
(13:11):
like that's accurate. I think it's completely accurate. I think
we've both shared that opinion in the past on the show.
Lobbying is absolutely that it's essentially like a direct line
to lawmakers where you essentially give them incentives, whether it's
you know, an industry that you represent that will donate
(13:33):
to their campaigns or what have you, or a constituency
you know that representive of the workers. Perhaps so the
industry you represented that will keep this person in power. Uh,
and it allows you to shape policy that benefits you. Yeah,
I think that's accurate. Then it's it's definitely legalized bribery,
and if we're being extreme about it, we could even
(13:54):
say that lobbying itself is a conspiracy taking place on
a daily based is in Washington, d C. And other
state capitals. So what if there was some alternative model?
That's what we're talking about today. For years on this
show kind of sketched out this somewhat dystopian model of
(14:15):
human evolution. But I always saw it like this, if
you look at how people interacting groups, So what the
primary model of a group interaction is? Humans started way
back in the day with the family, and then that
grew into the tribe, the larger family and community, and
that grew into the religion, which would unite people regardless
of whether or not they were biologically related. And then
(14:37):
that grew into the state, which united people regardless of
whether or not they shared the same religion or family.
And what's next For many people, it appears to be
the corporation. And folks have been concerned about this for
a long long time, that the nation state would enter
decay as a concept, more people would find themselves governed
by private industry, and for a lot of folks, understandably,
(15:01):
this felt like science fiction. You don't have to look
far in science fiction to see a world where the
corporation fulfills the function of the state, like the alien
franchise Blade Runner, the RPG game Shadow Run. I mean,
it's corporation as government is an idea a lot of
people have been thinking about, and it's not as crazy
(15:23):
as it might sound. In fact, it may be closer
than we think. When we get to the rise of
something that is called the innovation zone, what are we
talking about? Is this the next step toward a world
of science fiction? I'll tell you afterward from our sponsor.
(15:48):
Here's where it gets crazy. So the Nevada Independent broke
this story in February, but it's based on statements made
by Nevada Governor Steve Sizzlac in his January State of
the State address, which is a hilarious name, but then
also in some later press conferences and nol I think
we we both watched some of these, right, Yeah, there
(16:10):
was one that I saw. You may have seen the
same one. It was about forty five minutes long and
it was broadcast by the Independent on YouTube. It was
a live stream of a zoom um and you know,
it was kind of dry at times, but it was
Sizzlac and a few experts kind of from his cabinet
(16:31):
talking about what this innovation zone situation is and what
it would mean for Nevada and UM. He in the
original public address he kind of dropped that term and
didn't really go into much detail. And then some of
these press conferences that we're talking about, the detail stuff
does come out. We're gonna get to that, but he
(16:53):
kind of initially gave this overview of like, here are
some of these things that we're considering. Uh, this move
could potentially create two new jobs. It's a really great
thing for Nevadans, Nevada's UM. But the proposal itself held
a little something more. I don't know, I think you
(17:15):
and I might argue sinister um and and a little
less blue sky kind of rosy outlook. One particular proposal
by a company called Blockchains LLC. But you can figure
out what they do UM was being passed around on
the state legislature. It talks about, uh, the innovation zone
being this a place where a private company becomes the
(17:38):
local government. Yeah, and they don't say it that in
such a nutshell that encapsulated phrases is a little bit
of me editorializing, but that is what it is, and
that's not a hot take. This also, as you say,
came out not as an official announcement but as a leak.
At the very same time, Sizzla's administration was talked about
(18:00):
how great this would be for the financial and economic
future of Nevada. The Nevada Independent said, this is quote
a plan to create a semi autonomous county that slowly
assumes powers of the county it's based in. Then furthermore,
in blockchain's case, it would be supported by its own currency,
(18:21):
a cryptocurrency they're calling stable coin, which I feel like
is optimistic. And shout out to everybody. We're recording this
on April sixt Shout out to everybody who had a
little doge coin right here reached the dollars. So yeah,
now I took a bath on some crypto yesterday. So
(18:42):
nothing insane. There's this like, there's this coin called x
RP that was kind of like booming, and I got
in and then I kind of didn't look at it
for a day and then went back and looked at
it and gone down, like but thus, you know, that's
that's that's how it goes Vegas. It is, I guess
it really is. And that's that's that's that's why it's
ironic or not ironic at all, that it's crypto. That's
(19:06):
kind of you know, being positioned as like this is
gonna be the hub of the blockchain technology. And in
that press conference that that we watched, UM, they make
a case as to why the technology itself is separate
from cryptocurrency in particular specifically, which is true because blockchain
technology can be used for all kinds of verifications. It
(19:29):
can be used for like chains of title, you know, property.
It's all about contracts, about these smart contracts, and that's
kind of why people are betting on it being kind
of like the wave of the future because so many
things that we do in terms of chain of custody
for whether it's like you know, any kind of property. UM,
it's all based in like handwritten records and deeds and
(19:51):
things that exist in like paper form, you know, in
like court houses and filing cabinets. Um. So it's very
imprecise and there is a lot of opportunity in this
technology to to do things like that outside of the
whole crypto thing. UM. But again, it obviously mainly now
is associated with crypto, which very much is its own
kind of Vegas Baby. But the thing that's so interesting
(20:13):
about this blockchain proposal is they want to create a
smart city that's powered by this blockchain technology. What that
actually means is not perfectly clear yet, but they would
apparently purchase sixties seven thousand acres of private land. They
made that very clear in the press. Carden this is
(20:34):
all private land, so it's not like they're gonna be
able to swoop in an imminent domain you know, your
your house yet, but the sixties seven thousand acres of
undeveloped desert land east of Reno, Nevada at the Tahoe
Reno Industrial Center. And they've been kicking around this plan
for years. Um. Jeffrey Burns, who's the founder of blockchains,
announced the plan to build a blockchain oriented city back
(20:57):
in ages ago. Uh and this was at a conference,
you know, one of those super rich people influencer you
know conferences in Prague. So they have things like yeah, yeah,
so this this shows us a pattern. This plan was
kind of announced by his lack to the public, uh,
(21:19):
way after it was already in the works. What's interesting
about his statements there in Prague back in eighteen as
he said he's not a developer, but he went on
to sell this idea in the high level way. Blockchain
is arguing that the current rules dictate how existing municipal
(21:43):
governments can work are too inflexible for the kind of
revolutionary project they want to create here. And yes, I
can't be the only one who clocked the provocative use
of the word revolutionary. So it goes like it's been
portrayed by Nevada's administration as similar to your example of Atlanta, right,
(22:09):
like a tax incentive that will ultimately result in the
trade off where the state gains more than it loses.
But this goes so much further. The if this goes through,
if blockchains and other tech companies have their innovation zones
in Nevada, then they will take over the functions of
(22:31):
your local government. They will be collecting the taxes, they
will be running schools for kindergarteners through high school. They
will be in charge of infrastructure, maintenance services and more.
And this is where we have to pause for check in.
It should be interesting to sci fi fans policy walks alike.
How would you feel if you knew you, like, you
(22:53):
still had to pay federal taxes, right because you live
in the US and you're not a billionaire, you still
had to pay state taxes. Could you live in the
US and you're not a billionaire, but those taxes go
through this private company, this private company that, by the way,
probably employs you. Would you be comfortable with that. Would
(23:13):
you feel like it's more streamlined? Would it feel like
too much control? I don't know, it's a good question.
I mean, you could argue that it does streamline things
and that if they're the primary you know, mover or
in the same way, like the Gaming Commission. Obviously that's
a government entity, but it's also like holds the keys
to the kingdom, you know what I mean, in so
many ways for gaming in Nevada, so therefore the keys
(23:37):
to like the state. I mean, I'm sure there's like
manufacturing and other industry in Nevada, but clearly gaming is
a massive source of revenue for the state, and this
they're they're hoping that this will They even mention that,
like the governor in that press conference saying how they
wanted to pivot away from just being a gaming state
and having this other thing being this like new central
(23:58):
kind of uh incubator or something like that, or like
in other words like attracting um jobs and talent and
you know, just like something that's on the cutting ad
that's going to put an about on the map outside
of just being you know, Sin City. Yeah, well that's
that's another question to like, Uh, let's say you have
(24:18):
a family and one of these zones, uh and you'r
do you think your kid would still receive a decent,
unbiased education if that education was administered by a private company,
Like what if your kid does a science project in
tenth grade on the environmental dangers of bitcoin mining or
(24:39):
or cryptocurrency processing. But you know, that's a maybe that
feels a little alarmist or sensationalized, but it's kind of
it's a possibility that's in the cards. We can tell
you a little bit more about the specifics of the
innovation zone proposals according to these leak First, it's kind
(25:02):
of expensive to get started. Your average mom and pop
falafel stand is not going to be able to start
an innovation zone in Nevada. The land can only be
created by a private developer who owns more than fifty
thousand acres of land. That's why cis Lack was being
so emphatic when he was saying, this is private land
(25:23):
that they bought, because you wanted to make it clear
it's not the government giving this land away. They're they're
buying this land already. So they made a private landowner
a ton of money at the at like from day one,
square zero, uh, day zero, square one, you guys get it.
So Secondly, this company that wants to become your new
(25:48):
government has to promise to invest up to one billion
dollars in their zone over time. That's also a ton
of money. That's way more money than is in the
banana stand or the falafel stand. And then they have
to agree to a specific tax on whatever innovative technology
(26:08):
in the zone specializes in. So this is something I
think they talked a lot about the press conference. You
were mentioning like the tax incentives, but also for blockchains LLC,
they would need to somehow have a tax program on
the technology that they're concentrating on in their new government,
(26:30):
which would be blockchain. And they've got a very long
term plan here with a some ambitious goals, wouldn't you
say absolutely they do. Um. They plan to break ground
in uh and over a seventy five year period, develop
what they're calling Painted Rock Smart City that would conceptually
(26:54):
be home to thirty six thousand permanent residents, and eventually
they plan to employ one out of every fifty residents
of the state of Nevada, which, yeah, which would account
for almost two percent of wages produced in the entire state,
which doesn't sound like a lot, And so you realize
it's the entire state. It's two percent of a very
(27:16):
very big number. And I know, I know what we're
thinking some of our fellow conspiracy realists in the crowd today,
maybe the some of the more ambitious of us. I
don't know what the problem is, Guys, this sounds fantastic.
Can I start an innovation zone. We'll talk a little
bit more about that after the break and we're back.
(27:44):
So for some of the some of those of us
in the crowd today who consider themselves maybe a little
more proactive, more go gettish, you may have already started
thinking just like Bender and Futurama. Yeah, I'll start my
own government with Blackjack and other vices, et cetera. Which
is funny because the Vegas already has those, and your
(28:04):
question is how do I get started? Well, first you
have to find the land. You have to have control
of fifty thousand contiguous acres of undeveloped property, and it
has to be located in a single county. There can't
be any permanent residence there at the time, and it
can't be part of any pre existing city, town or
(28:28):
what they call governmental division established by law, So you
can't take over an existing town. You have to build
it from scratch, and you have to submit an application,
of course, because it's you know, government bureaucracy. Next, you're
gonna need to include nine different things on your application
to the Governor's Office of Economic Development, and that's stuff
(28:49):
like a plan for Future Development UH an estimate for
construction and future employment documents that prove that you have
sufficient funds to invest UM two fifty million just to
start and a billion over ten years UM an economic
impact statement certification that a qualified developer has UH gotten
(29:11):
and held UM or or can obtain access to public
utilities and natural resources that are needed to complete the project.
And then you also have to kind of specialize. Each
zone has to be tied like we've been saying kind
of from the start to a very specific industry or
(29:32):
more specifically innovative technology and be able to levy that
uh or be able to levy an industry specific tax
that we also mentioned earlier, things like robotics, AI, biometrics,
you know, biomedical technology, clean energy, um, you know, all
that kind of stuff. Yeah, autonomous vehicles would be another one.
(29:56):
All all of these things that you hear about in
tech specific TED talks. Honestly, so let's say get all
this done and you get approved. Boom boom boom. You
also gain control over things that a county level government
or municipality would ordinarily control. As your new corporate county grows,
(30:21):
you can just let the existing Nevada county know when
you're ready. You don't have a hard timeline. You just
let them know when you feel like taking on the
responsibilities of having a police force or firefighters, wastewater treatment, healthcare,
get this, a judicial system in education, and eventually, when
(30:44):
the zone is ready, they will assume all of the
authority of the existing county in which they reside. That
means that at some point the innovation zone itself is
no longer subject to county ordinances. What about once there
are a hundred eligible permanent residents living in that zone,
(31:05):
the zone can organize its own elections. And in the
case of blockchains proposed city specifically because of the nature
of their innovation, it's paving the way to have its
own currency. So I imagine, you know, imagine a hundred
and twenty years from now, you find yourself traveling to Nevada,
(31:26):
you stop by Painted Rock, which is going to be
the name of their city, and you find that your
you know, your U S dollars or your Paul pounds
or whatever they'll end up being called at that time
have to be converted because every store, every every store,
every shop, every place in the zone only accepts payment
(31:48):
and stable coin. They haven't said that's gonna happen. It's
just a possibility, and to me it is darkly hilarious. Uh.
But that's the other question too, you know, is this
moving forward right to the future, whether for good or
for ill, or is this simply returning to an idea
(32:08):
we've tried in the past. It reminds me of a
story that's um maybe not too familiar to some of
our folks in the audience today, but years ago when
I was hosting a wonderful little show called car Stuff.
We went on a road rally together, and one of
(32:29):
the things that that road rally led us to was
a night in a real life corporate run town, or
was corporate run at one point. It was Hershey, Pennsylvania, Yes,
run by the Hershey Chocolate company. Remember that place They
had the car museum of course, of course it was wonderful,
great car museum, really wonderful trip the old road rally.
(32:51):
I've actually found a couzy from that road rally the
other day, and it brought back fond memories. It makes
me think of things though. I mean again, this idea
that about to put forward is maybe a little of
an extreme example, but it's like mining towns and like
the company store and all that, you know, where you
work for the same and are paid for the same
people that sell you the things that you need to
(33:12):
to survive, which inherently has this kind of conflict of
interest vibe, which this does too, Like, you know, it
feels like they have a little too much control, uh,
And the idea of you know, they're collecting the taxes
that are being taken out of your pay it's weird.
Right like it seeing I don't know, maybe maybe I'm
(33:35):
being alarmist, but it just seems like it's going right
back into their coffers in a way that's a little
bit strange. So you see it more as a kind
of like resurrection of the idea of the company town.
That's what the sixteen tons song is about. And this
hers was a company town. Um there. There have been
(33:57):
many of these throughout American history. You can visit them.
You can visit them now as kind of historical sites, right,
But back in the day, it wasn't super uncommon for, uh,
the entirety of a town's population, working population to be
employed by the same company. And that same company also
(34:18):
owned all the stores, all the places you could spend
your money. They also, in a very real way, own
the money. You weren't paid in US currency, you were
paid in what was called script, right, So they were
they were economically locking the residents of a town in
and exercising great control over their day to day activities,
(34:38):
even if they were not on the clock. And from
the perspective of Nevada's government, this is a powerful tax
in sentence, it's a way to prime the pump and
help residents. Who I mean, it's inarguable help residents who
desperately need new, reliable sources of long term employment. But
(35:00):
how far does this plan go? How much mission creep
slips in? Here? Are future citizens of Nevada going to
find themselves becoming citizens of a corporation more so than
a state? Uh? There there are two. There are two
other disturbing facts here. Save for the end. It doesn't
help the image or the optics that the pr people
(35:22):
would call it. Uh that block Chain's LLC donated heavily
to Governor Sizzle Act during the last campaign cycle. They
gave the man sixty grand for his campaign. Uh. And
critics will also tell you that Nevada politicians are kind
of easy, easily influenced, or they have a lower price tag.
(35:44):
And then you know, Nevada already does have a lot
of land deals with big corporations. The second one we
have to get to is who who makes the day
to day decisions in this zone. Technically it's not the
CEO Blockchains unless that CEO is one of the board
(36:06):
members running the zone. There's a three person board that
has to run every single innovation zone that's created. Is
the board elected No, they're not elected. If you live
in the zone, you have no control over who lives,
he dies. He tells your story. Who runs your government.
(36:27):
The three people who ultimately make the decisions are appointed.
They're not elected by you. So who are these people?
And it's funny too. I mean, like I said on
the that that press conference of the zoom thing, the
governor is just evangelizing for these people, you know, and
when you find out that the you know, that sixty
K donation from this corporation to the governor, and you
(36:52):
see how this rosie a picture he's painting given all
of the Again, I don't think we're being alarmist here.
I think there are real potential pitfalls here, as we
know when every every time you the more power you
give corporations are, the more closer things come to a monopoly,
the less individuals benefit. It seems to me it's more like,
(37:15):
you know, the people at the very very top benefit.
And and sure, you know, Amazon is great, we can
get like stuff in five seconds, you know, crap that
we don't need. But at the end of the day,
it is like almost monopoly like. And I'm sorry, I'm
not trying to go to off the track here. But
to me, Amazon started to feel like a company store
kind of situation too, when they get so big and
(37:35):
they literally just start taking over swaths of like whole towns.
It reminds me of like the Augusta National in Augusta, Georgia,
for example, which is where I grew upviously obviously his
famous golf course. They for years, we're just trying to
buy up every piece of property around that golf course.
And there were a few loan holdouts, but they've got time,
and they ultimately got what they wanted, and now I
(37:57):
can't even recognize my hometown anymore. All feels golf Disney World, um,
because they still they still kept those sandwiches, but that's
just all the mythology and the smoke and mirrors and
then of the masters. It's like, oh, we're folks, see
and it's like, oh, we have egg salad sandwiches for
a dollar or whatever. Yeah, okay, um, But you know
(38:18):
that's what I'm saying that like, when you get to
a point where you have so much money you can
throw around, you really can own pretty much whatever you
want exactly. It's not it's not hard to get politicians
to fall in line, right, and that's where that's that's
what I'm getting to when I'm talking about this three
person board, because we don't know there aren't specific people
(38:40):
elected to the board, because this is just draft legislation.
It's a proposal. It hasn't gone through yet. But here's
how it breaks out. There are three people running the board.
One of them is appointed by the governor, which would
be SIZZLAC. At this point, the company gets to appoint
the other two members. Where is far past any other
(39:03):
conflict of interests that we've talked about before. This reminds
me like of one of the most famous I would
say qualifies as a company town uh the Readly Creek
Improvement District a k a. The autonomous the semi autonomous
state of the Disney Corporation in Florida. These are company towns.
(39:24):
I think you make a good argument about Augusta National
as well. This is probably going to happen, folks, and
we'll have people in the audience who disagree on whether
it's a good thing or a bad thing. Looking at
the facts, I think, Noel, you and I can agree
that there's much more opportunity for corruption and conspiracy than
(39:46):
there is for progress and the betterment of the life
of the average Nevadum resident. This sets off my spidey sense,
and not not in the best way. But what do
you think, folks is are are we being a lar miss?
Obviously we don't think we are. But could this lead
to a situation where some members of the U. S
(40:06):
public feel like they're US citizens and then other people
feel like they have two types of citizenship, one for
you know, Uncle Sam, right, and one for Amazon or
one for blockchains. I could totally see Amazon buy in
a town. Well, like, you don't have to have all
(40:28):
of the legal framework to do some of these things
in practice, like think about Walmart. Walmart can hold a
town hostage if it's the largest employer, right and they
can they can close down something like UM to try
to unionize, or they can threaten politicians by saying, look,
we'll just pick up our tent stakes and go somewhere else.
(40:50):
Off air, when we were talking in preparation for this episode, UM,
I think we both noted the rose colored glasses the
governor of Nevada is wearing. Uh. This had some what
do but what do they call it? This had some
big Simpsons Monorail vibes, you know what I mean, like
solve everything, but will it I don't think so. Uh,
(41:11):
it'll solve a lot of stuff for block chains, you know,
and it's certainly a new chapter in corporate dominance kind
of you know what I mean. Now they get there,
I mean, you know, and like again, like the picture
painted by the governor and his cronies is like it
is the city of the future. Nevada will be ground
zero for the city of the future. Again, mont Rail vibes,
(41:33):
You're totally right, But why do we why here's a question,
and why do they need to have their own government?
Why can't this this what's already in place with regulation.
Doesn't mean it doesn't inherently seem like they're trying to
circumvent regulation by setting up their own system where they
regulate themselves. Like where's the oversight again, I know that
(41:55):
the governor would appoint someone, but obviously the governor's in
you know, blockchain's pocket, no question, I mean, I think, yeah,
I'm tending to agree because the lead proposal talks about
how the current governmental structure at the county level is
to quote unquote inflexible for it to work and how
this would be a better alternative. But what does inflexible mean?
(42:18):
They don't really get into the specifics to defend that statement,
but you know, let let us know what you think, folks,
leten know what you think. The answers to these questions
are is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing?
Would you like to live uh in corptocracy? Right? Would
you like to live in a place where your government
(42:41):
is you know, the primary employer and a private company
that is not beholden to give you some of the
same rights that you would currently have as a US citizen.
We want to know your thoughts. Thanks everyone wrote in
to bring this to our attention, and we do especially
like to thank the first listener who suggested this to us,
(43:03):
So shout out to you, the cat in the black hat.
I am loving these nick names, folks. It makes me
I don't know, I love it when people come with
a nickname. I love a nickname and I love a
good story behind the nickname too. So let us know
how did you get your nickname? Uh? You can write
to us on the internet, on the Facebook and the Twitter,
or we're conspiracy stuff. We are conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. Yes,
(43:28):
you can also, if you don't sip the social meds,
give us a call directly. We are one eight three
three std w y t K. Give us a message,
tell us what's on your mind, give us a cool nickname,
let us know if we can use your name and
or voice on air, and please don't censor yourself. If
three minutes doesn't feel like enough time, then write out
(43:49):
the entire story send it to us. We read every
email we get. We'd always love to hear from you.
You can send us one at our good old fashioned
email address where we are conspiracy and I at radio
dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is
(44:21):
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to
(00:25):
the show. My name is Noel. Our compatriot Matt is
a way but will return soon. Nig called me Ben.
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Michig
controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you, You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
This episode will be of particular interest to our fellow
(00:48):
conspiracy realists out west in Nevada or Nevada. It's pronounced
a couple of different ways. No, you're a Nevada. You're
a Nevada guy, right, You know. I don't have occasion
to say it's super up and I guess, But now
that I'm thinking about it, I think I am yeah,
Nevada Nevada. Nevada feels like a Midwestern thing for some reason.
To me. The first person I met from Nevada was
(01:12):
adamant that it was pronounced Nevada. So we're just gonna
get that out of the way. That's the subject of
today's episode. Uh, this is something This is something different.
It takes place in the great state of Nevada, but
it raises a question that we've talked about off air
(01:35):
when the news hit earlier this year, and our our
big question while we touch on several important things here
um regarding some of the state's plans, and we're asking
whether this is a step into a bold new era
of human governance, or if it's a step toward a
(01:55):
bold new era of sci fi dystopia, or if it's
in fact a return to conspiracies we have seen in
the past. We're talking about something you may have heard of.
They have a relatively innocuous theme. They're called innovation zones.
Does sound great, don't what's wrong with that? Innovation sounds
(02:16):
good as a zone, you know, I want to I
want to live there. That sounds cool. Yeah, it reminds
me of Discovery Zone. That's exactly right. Are there trampolines?
That's what I want to know. If there's trampolines I'm
in there may be there may be if you can
count a new type of trampoline as innovative technology, We'll
find out. Like the thing is for a lot of people,
(02:37):
outside of Nevada. When you think of the state, you
properly think of one city immediately, Las Vegas. Vegas, baby
city of sin We've we've all been there. You've been
to Vegas, right, you know I've not been to Vegas. Bet.
I feel like I'm I'm missing out, or at least uh,
I'm you know, out of the loop in terms of
(02:58):
the conversation. But I have seen fear and loathing in
Las Vegas and other Vegas centric movies, so I kind
of I kind of get what it's about. You know,
Casino pretty much like that, right, Yeah, yeah, you've got it.
It's a Vegas is an incredibly fascinating town on a
number of levels because it's one of those cities that
(03:19):
only exist at the size it does due to human ingenuity.
You know, if we didn't have the Hoover Dam, we
didn't have all the infrastructure that people have created, then
a city of Vegas is size located where it is
located would simply not be possible. And it's also it's unique.
(03:41):
Nevada itself is unique in a in a number of
different ways. You know, parts of the state have legalized
sex work, right, that's a big business Uh, gambling laws,
of course, they're different in Vegas. Uh. And one thing
that we can assure you, and anyone who's been to
(04:02):
Vegas can assure you, is the city never really sleeps. Downtown.
Those casinos are always running. You want to find a
blackjack game, it doesn't matter if it's four in the morning,
there's somebody there. There's somebody there. Yeah, And it's really
it's that's I think this is a really good parallel,
uh for the what we're talking about today, the idea
of creating an entire city around a particular industry, and
(04:26):
even like you know, gaming for example, and like the
Gaming Commission and all of that. It's so important, you know,
like for a new casino. You all this again, this
is everything I know. I know here I've learned from
like the movie Casino and stuff, but and and and
things like it. But it's really important to be able
to get that license, you know, to get that gaming
license so that you can start your casino. And um,
(04:48):
it's like you said, been the city would not exist
if we're not for you know, man made infrastructure and
also this very singular industry. So what we're talking about today,
and this is like you know, been historically the bread
and butter of the entire state of Nevada. Um, Nevada.
Now I'm flipping it too, I'm confused. UM. But what
(05:09):
we we're talking about today is something new. It's not
new in concept, but it's something new for Nevada, and
it's something, like you said, been called innovation zones. Yeah.
To get our minds around this concept, first, we need
to talk about some background, because, like Nevada, the US
is itself somewhat unique. Especially during the time of its formation.
(05:33):
It did some things that other countries at the time
we're not doing. Here are the facts. So back in
the seventeen seventies when the United States were formed, UM,
the founders instituted this concept that remains very important today,
with varying degrees of actual enforcement. I would argue, UM,
(05:53):
the idea of separation of church and state, meaning that
the US, unlike many other countries, would not have enough
fish state religion and not be able to like, you know,
force any kind of religious views or practices on individuals,
specifically in government UM and you know, state sponsored institutions.
(06:15):
There would there would be no allowance for mandatory and
kind of enforcement of any kind of religious faith, any
kind of faith based anything, though we know in practice
isn't always the case, you know, in terms of like
school prayer and even some religious language and things like
the Pledge of religionce, you know, and this has always
been a bit of a gray area. But uh, the
(06:36):
tax part of it is probably the most interesting and important,
right then, Yeah, that is one of the most interesting
parts of the separation, because if you are a religious
institution in the US, then you're not You're not paying taxes,
and that's why so many organizations fight so ardently to
(06:58):
be recognized as religious institutions. Shout out scientology. But a
lot of been has been made of the so called
religious foundation of the US, and in many ways that's
a myth. Like I love that you mentioned the Pledge
of Allegiance, the idea of the phrase under God being
in the Pledge of Allegiance. Uh, this wasn't part of
(07:22):
the Pledge until relatively recently, until June of ninety four
they went back and added the phrase under God in there.
And then you can also see that the founders and
the leaders of the early US were pretty adamant about
the secular position of the country as a concept. This
(07:42):
was kind of seen as heretical by a lot of
other places, but it's a cool idea. It means that
in theory, if you live in the US, you can
practice whatever religion you please. You can make a religion
up or discover it however you want to say, and
then and you can practice that. As long as your
religious practices don't result in harming others or breaking laws,
(08:06):
then you should be all gravy. And of course you
know that wasn't the same in practice. There was a
lot of prejudice against people of the Catholic faith, for instance,
or against people practicing Judaism, and that anti semitism continues today.
But like the big thing is they essentially said, look,
(08:26):
unless you have a religion that requires you to like
murder someone once a month or burn down someone's house
twice a year, you'll be fine, but we will prosecute
you for murder or arsin step like sure, and that really, honestly,
you're not being hyperbolic there, because it honestly does take
something that extreme for any kind of intervention to come down.
(08:49):
I mean, it depends varying degrees of that. But like,
for example, not to get too into it. But like
you know, the Church of Scientology has pretty much been
proved to have injured people psychologically, uh and possibly you know,
physically in terms of what happened to David Mimscabbage's wife.
You know, we don't know, but it doesn't seem good. Uh.
(09:10):
And yet they have maintained that tax exempt status which
has allows them to like buy up all this real
estate and have this like absolute stronghold in you know, California,
in that part of the country. And there's another interesting
turn here because nowadays, when you hear people talk about
the separation of church and state, you'll hear people of
(09:31):
phrasing this as a way of protecting the government from
undo uh influence that would turn it into a theocracy.
But back in the day, the rationalization was flipped. Roger Williams,
the guy who founded Rhode Island, argued that you needed
to have a separation between state and religion because if
(09:53):
you didn't, the government would get involved in the church
and corrupt it and make it world And so it's
an interesting flip, but I think we can all agree
in the modern day this is a very good distinction
to have. It benefits more people that it hurts. But
there was another question hanging in the air, and it
(10:13):
was one that was not addressed in nearly as clear
cut of manner. How do we handle the relationship between
business and the state. Should there be a separation between
business and state the same way there's a separation between
church and state, And if so, what form would it take.
It's a sticky question. It doesn't always have a clear answer. No,
(10:35):
it doesn't. And it's one of these things where it
all comes down to, like how bad do you want
to attract industry, you know as a state, Like here
in Georgia, we had some pretty controversial, you know, very
lucrative tax credit for the film industry that ultimately resulted
in Georgia becoming like, you know, location number one for
a film because you know, obviously like Atlanta and different
(10:57):
parts of the of the state. You know, you've got
a really wider ieta of like shooting location types and
all that. So it made sense already. But you know,
the tax credits that we laid out were massive, So
you could argue, like we're taking a bath on that
in terms of like lost tax revenue, but it's an
exchange between losing out there and gaining jobs and you know,
(11:18):
pumping that industry's money into the economy. Um, so you
can make an argument in both directions. But again, this
is one example of American governments trying different approaches to
this relationship, trying to minimize corruption on the part of
you know, CEOs and politicians at the same time trying
to maintain a relationship with industry, a cozy relationship but
(11:42):
also one with like boundaries, right, yeah, I mean, think
about it. It's it's strange the government depends on partnerships
with private businesses for so many things, for countless things,
and it's a relationship that has accelerated as time goes on,
Like if you think about it now, the practice of
subcontracting projects to various corporations occurs at virtually every level
(12:07):
of government and tons of different ways. Most famous, infamous
example is the world of the military. Private military contractors
vibe for contracts to build new hardware, to conduct research,
to supply infrastructure and even soldiers right shout out, academic
and so on. If you name the task, there's probably
(12:28):
some sort of private company involved somewhere in the supply chain.
And it's so normalized and the practice is so common
that it can be difficult for a lot of people
to imagine any other sort of situation. What does a
separation of business and state mean? Does it mean the
government should interfere less than the day to day activities
(12:49):
of businesses of any size if interaction continues, like there
are things that are very important to the government taxing businesses,
and there are things that are very important to the people,
like our mental regulations. When do they stop? And what
about lobbying? Lobbying is weird? Lobbying is a legalized system
of bribery. Basically is that a hot take? I feel
(13:11):
like that's accurate. I think it's completely accurate. I think
we've both shared that opinion in the past on the show.
Lobbying is absolutely that it's essentially like a direct line
to lawmakers where you essentially give them incentives, whether it's
you know, an industry that you represent that will donate
(13:33):
to their campaigns or what have you, or a constituency
you know that representive of the workers. Perhaps so the
industry you represented that will keep this person in power. Uh,
and it allows you to shape policy that benefits you. Yeah,
I think that's accurate. Then it's it's definitely legalized bribery,
and if we're being extreme about it, we could even
(13:54):
say that lobbying itself is a conspiracy taking place on
a daily based is in Washington, d C. And other
state capitals. So what if there was some alternative model?
That's what we're talking about today. For years on this
show kind of sketched out this somewhat dystopian model of
(14:15):
human evolution. But I always saw it like this, if
you look at how people interacting groups, So what the
primary model of a group interaction is? Humans started way
back in the day with the family, and then that
grew into the tribe, the larger family and community, and
that grew into the religion, which would unite people regardless
of whether or not they were biologically related. And then
(14:37):
that grew into the state, which united people regardless of
whether or not they shared the same religion or family.
And what's next For many people, it appears to be
the corporation. And folks have been concerned about this for
a long long time, that the nation state would enter
decay as a concept, more people would find themselves governed
by private industry, and for a lot of folks, understandably,
(15:01):
this felt like science fiction. You don't have to look
far in science fiction to see a world where the
corporation fulfills the function of the state, like the alien
franchise Blade Runner, the RPG game Shadow Run. I mean,
it's corporation as government is an idea a lot of
people have been thinking about, and it's not as crazy
(15:23):
as it might sound. In fact, it may be closer
than we think. When we get to the rise of
something that is called the innovation zone, what are we
talking about? Is this the next step toward a world
of science fiction? I'll tell you afterward from our sponsor.
(15:48):
Here's where it gets crazy. So the Nevada Independent broke
this story in February, but it's based on statements made
by Nevada Governor Steve Sizzlac in his January State of
the State address, which is a hilarious name, but then
also in some later press conferences and nol I think
we we both watched some of these, right, Yeah, there
(16:10):
was one that I saw. You may have seen the
same one. It was about forty five minutes long and
it was broadcast by the Independent on YouTube. It was
a live stream of a zoom um and you know,
it was kind of dry at times, but it was
Sizzlac and a few experts kind of from his cabinet
(16:31):
talking about what this innovation zone situation is and what
it would mean for Nevada and UM. He in the
original public address he kind of dropped that term and
didn't really go into much detail. And then some of
these press conferences that we're talking about, the detail stuff
does come out. We're gonna get to that, but he
(16:53):
kind of initially gave this overview of like, here are
some of these things that we're considering. Uh, this move
could potentially create two new jobs. It's a really great
thing for Nevadans, Nevada's UM. But the proposal itself held
a little something more. I don't know, I think you
(17:15):
and I might argue sinister um and and a little
less blue sky kind of rosy outlook. One particular proposal
by a company called Blockchains LLC. But you can figure
out what they do UM was being passed around on
the state legislature. It talks about, uh, the innovation zone
being this a place where a private company becomes the
(17:38):
local government. Yeah, and they don't say it that in
such a nutshell that encapsulated phrases is a little bit
of me editorializing, but that is what it is, and
that's not a hot take. This also, as you say,
came out not as an official announcement but as a leak.
At the very same time, Sizzla's administration was talked about
(18:00):
how great this would be for the financial and economic
future of Nevada. The Nevada Independent said, this is quote
a plan to create a semi autonomous county that slowly
assumes powers of the county it's based in. Then furthermore,
in blockchain's case, it would be supported by its own currency,
(18:21):
a cryptocurrency they're calling stable coin, which I feel like
is optimistic. And shout out to everybody. We're recording this
on April sixt Shout out to everybody who had a
little doge coin right here reached the dollars. So yeah,
now I took a bath on some crypto yesterday. So
(18:42):
nothing insane. There's this like, there's this coin called x
RP that was kind of like booming, and I got
in and then I kind of didn't look at it
for a day and then went back and looked at
it and gone down, like but thus, you know, that's
that's that's how it goes Vegas. It is, I guess
it really is. And that's that's that's that's why it's
ironic or not ironic at all, that it's crypto. That's
(19:06):
kind of you know, being positioned as like this is
gonna be the hub of the blockchain technology. And in
that press conference that that we watched, UM, they make
a case as to why the technology itself is separate
from cryptocurrency in particular specifically, which is true because blockchain
technology can be used for all kinds of verifications. It
(19:29):
can be used for like chains of title, you know, property.
It's all about contracts, about these smart contracts, and that's
kind of why people are betting on it being kind
of like the wave of the future because so many
things that we do in terms of chain of custody
for whether it's like you know, any kind of property. UM,
it's all based in like handwritten records and deeds and
(19:51):
things that exist in like paper form, you know, in
like court houses and filing cabinets. Um. So it's very
imprecise and there is a lot of opportunity in this
technology to to do things like that outside of the
whole crypto thing. UM. But again, it obviously mainly now
is associated with crypto, which very much is its own
kind of Vegas Baby. But the thing that's so interesting
(20:13):
about this blockchain proposal is they want to create a
smart city that's powered by this blockchain technology. What that
actually means is not perfectly clear yet, but they would
apparently purchase sixties seven thousand acres of private land. They
made that very clear in the press. Carden this is
(20:34):
all private land, so it's not like they're gonna be
able to swoop in an imminent domain you know, your
your house yet, but the sixties seven thousand acres of
undeveloped desert land east of Reno, Nevada at the Tahoe
Reno Industrial Center. And they've been kicking around this plan
for years. Um. Jeffrey Burns, who's the founder of blockchains,
announced the plan to build a blockchain oriented city back
(20:57):
in ages ago. Uh and this was at a conference,
you know, one of those super rich people influencer you
know conferences in Prague. So they have things like yeah, yeah,
so this this shows us a pattern. This plan was
kind of announced by his lack to the public, uh,
(21:19):
way after it was already in the works. What's interesting
about his statements there in Prague back in eighteen as
he said he's not a developer, but he went on
to sell this idea in the high level way. Blockchain
is arguing that the current rules dictate how existing municipal
(21:43):
governments can work are too inflexible for the kind of
revolutionary project they want to create here. And yes, I
can't be the only one who clocked the provocative use
of the word revolutionary. So it goes like it's been
portrayed by Nevada's administration as similar to your example of Atlanta, right,
(22:09):
like a tax incentive that will ultimately result in the
trade off where the state gains more than it loses.
But this goes so much further. The if this goes through,
if blockchains and other tech companies have their innovation zones
in Nevada, then they will take over the functions of
(22:31):
your local government. They will be collecting the taxes, they
will be running schools for kindergarteners through high school. They
will be in charge of infrastructure, maintenance services and more.
And this is where we have to pause for check in.
It should be interesting to sci fi fans policy walks alike.
How would you feel if you knew you, like, you
(22:53):
still had to pay federal taxes, right because you live
in the US and you're not a billionaire, you still
had to pay state taxes. Could you live in the
US and you're not a billionaire, but those taxes go
through this private company, this private company that, by the way,
probably employs you. Would you be comfortable with that. Would
(23:13):
you feel like it's more streamlined? Would it feel like
too much control? I don't know, it's a good question.
I mean, you could argue that it does streamline things
and that if they're the primary you know, mover or
in the same way, like the Gaming Commission. Obviously that's
a government entity, but it's also like holds the keys
to the kingdom, you know what I mean, in so
many ways for gaming in Nevada, so therefore the keys
(23:37):
to like the state. I mean, I'm sure there's like
manufacturing and other industry in Nevada, but clearly gaming is
a massive source of revenue for the state, and this
they're they're hoping that this will They even mention that,
like the governor in that press conference saying how they
wanted to pivot away from just being a gaming state
and having this other thing being this like new central
(23:58):
kind of uh incubator or something like that, or like
in other words like attracting um jobs and talent and
you know, just like something that's on the cutting ad
that's going to put an about on the map outside
of just being you know, Sin City. Yeah, well that's
that's another question to like, Uh, let's say you have
(24:18):
a family and one of these zones, uh and you'r
do you think your kid would still receive a decent,
unbiased education if that education was administered by a private company,
Like what if your kid does a science project in
tenth grade on the environmental dangers of bitcoin mining or
(24:39):
or cryptocurrency processing. But you know, that's a maybe that
feels a little alarmist or sensationalized, but it's kind of
it's a possibility that's in the cards. We can tell
you a little bit more about the specifics of the
innovation zone proposals according to these leak First, it's kind
(25:02):
of expensive to get started. Your average mom and pop
falafel stand is not going to be able to start
an innovation zone in Nevada. The land can only be
created by a private developer who owns more than fifty
thousand acres of land. That's why cis Lack was being
so emphatic when he was saying, this is private land
(25:23):
that they bought, because you wanted to make it clear
it's not the government giving this land away. They're they're
buying this land already. So they made a private landowner
a ton of money at the at like from day one,
square zero, uh, day zero, square one, you guys get it.
So Secondly, this company that wants to become your new
(25:48):
government has to promise to invest up to one billion
dollars in their zone over time. That's also a ton
of money. That's way more money than is in the
banana stand or the falafel stand. And then they have
to agree to a specific tax on whatever innovative technology
(26:08):
in the zone specializes in. So this is something I
think they talked a lot about the press conference. You
were mentioning like the tax incentives, but also for blockchains LLC,
they would need to somehow have a tax program on
the technology that they're concentrating on in their new government,
(26:30):
which would be blockchain. And they've got a very long
term plan here with a some ambitious goals, wouldn't you
say absolutely they do. Um. They plan to break ground
in uh and over a seventy five year period, develop
what they're calling Painted Rock Smart City that would conceptually
(26:54):
be home to thirty six thousand permanent residents, and eventually
they plan to employ one out of every fifty residents
of the state of Nevada, which, yeah, which would account
for almost two percent of wages produced in the entire state,
which doesn't sound like a lot, And so you realize
it's the entire state. It's two percent of a very
(27:16):
very big number. And I know, I know what we're
thinking some of our fellow conspiracy realists in the crowd today,
maybe the some of the more ambitious of us. I
don't know what the problem is, Guys, this sounds fantastic.
Can I start an innovation zone. We'll talk a little
bit more about that after the break and we're back.
(27:44):
So for some of the some of those of us
in the crowd today who consider themselves maybe a little
more proactive, more go gettish, you may have already started
thinking just like Bender and Futurama. Yeah, I'll start my
own government with Blackjack and other vices, et cetera. Which
is funny because the Vegas already has those, and your
(28:04):
question is how do I get started? Well, first you
have to find the land. You have to have control
of fifty thousand contiguous acres of undeveloped property, and it
has to be located in a single county. There can't
be any permanent residence there at the time, and it
can't be part of any pre existing city, town or
(28:28):
what they call governmental division established by law, So you
can't take over an existing town. You have to build
it from scratch, and you have to submit an application,
of course, because it's you know, government bureaucracy. Next, you're
gonna need to include nine different things on your application
to the Governor's Office of Economic Development, and that's stuff
(28:49):
like a plan for Future Development UH an estimate for
construction and future employment documents that prove that you have
sufficient funds to invest UM two fifty million just to
start and a billion over ten years UM an economic
impact statement certification that a qualified developer has UH gotten
(29:11):
and held UM or or can obtain access to public
utilities and natural resources that are needed to complete the project.
And then you also have to kind of specialize. Each
zone has to be tied like we've been saying kind
of from the start to a very specific industry or
(29:32):
more specifically innovative technology and be able to levy that
uh or be able to levy an industry specific tax
that we also mentioned earlier, things like robotics, AI, biometrics,
you know, biomedical technology, clean energy, um, you know, all
that kind of stuff. Yeah, autonomous vehicles would be another one.
(29:56):
All all of these things that you hear about in
tech specific TED talks. Honestly, so let's say get all
this done and you get approved. Boom boom boom. You
also gain control over things that a county level government
or municipality would ordinarily control. As your new corporate county grows,
(30:21):
you can just let the existing Nevada county know when
you're ready. You don't have a hard timeline. You just
let them know when you feel like taking on the
responsibilities of having a police force or firefighters, wastewater treatment, healthcare,
get this, a judicial system in education, and eventually, when
(30:44):
the zone is ready, they will assume all of the
authority of the existing county in which they reside. That
means that at some point the innovation zone itself is
no longer subject to county ordinances. What about once there
are a hundred eligible permanent residents living in that zone,
(31:05):
the zone can organize its own elections. And in the
case of blockchains proposed city specifically because of the nature
of their innovation, it's paving the way to have its
own currency. So I imagine, you know, imagine a hundred
and twenty years from now, you find yourself traveling to Nevada,
(31:26):
you stop by Painted Rock, which is going to be
the name of their city, and you find that your
you know, your U S dollars or your Paul pounds
or whatever they'll end up being called at that time
have to be converted because every store, every every store,
every shop, every place in the zone only accepts payment
(31:48):
and stable coin. They haven't said that's gonna happen. It's
just a possibility, and to me it is darkly hilarious. Uh.
But that's the other question too, you know, is this
moving forward right to the future, whether for good or
for ill, or is this simply returning to an idea
(32:08):
we've tried in the past. It reminds me of a
story that's um maybe not too familiar to some of
our folks in the audience today, but years ago when
I was hosting a wonderful little show called car Stuff.
We went on a road rally together, and one of
(32:29):
the things that that road rally led us to was
a night in a real life corporate run town, or
was corporate run at one point. It was Hershey, Pennsylvania, Yes,
run by the Hershey Chocolate company. Remember that place They
had the car museum of course, of course it was wonderful,
great car museum, really wonderful trip the old road rally.
(32:51):
I've actually found a couzy from that road rally the
other day, and it brought back fond memories. It makes
me think of things though. I mean again, this idea
that about to put forward is maybe a little of
an extreme example, but it's like mining towns and like
the company store and all that, you know, where you
work for the same and are paid for the same
people that sell you the things that you need to
(33:12):
to survive, which inherently has this kind of conflict of
interest vibe, which this does too, Like, you know, it
feels like they have a little too much control, uh,
And the idea of you know, they're collecting the taxes
that are being taken out of your pay it's weird.
Right like it seeing I don't know, maybe maybe I'm
(33:35):
being alarmist, but it just seems like it's going right
back into their coffers in a way that's a little
bit strange. So you see it more as a kind
of like resurrection of the idea of the company town.
That's what the sixteen tons song is about. And this
hers was a company town. Um there. There have been
(33:57):
many of these throughout American history. You can visit them.
You can visit them now as kind of historical sites, right,
But back in the day, it wasn't super uncommon for, uh,
the entirety of a town's population, working population to be
employed by the same company. And that same company also
(34:18):
owned all the stores, all the places you could spend
your money. They also, in a very real way, own
the money. You weren't paid in US currency, you were
paid in what was called script, right, So they were
they were economically locking the residents of a town in
and exercising great control over their day to day activities,
(34:38):
even if they were not on the clock. And from
the perspective of Nevada's government, this is a powerful tax
in sentence, it's a way to prime the pump and
help residents. Who I mean, it's inarguable help residents who
desperately need new, reliable sources of long term employment. But
(35:00):
how far does this plan go? How much mission creep
slips in? Here? Are future citizens of Nevada going to
find themselves becoming citizens of a corporation more so than
a state? Uh? There there are two. There are two
other disturbing facts here. Save for the end. It doesn't
help the image or the optics that the pr people
(35:22):
would call it. Uh that block Chain's LLC donated heavily
to Governor Sizzle Act during the last campaign cycle. They
gave the man sixty grand for his campaign. Uh. And
critics will also tell you that Nevada politicians are kind
of easy, easily influenced, or they have a lower price tag.
(35:44):
And then you know, Nevada already does have a lot
of land deals with big corporations. The second one we
have to get to is who who makes the day
to day decisions in this zone. Technically it's not the
CEO Blockchains unless that CEO is one of the board
(36:06):
members running the zone. There's a three person board that
has to run every single innovation zone that's created. Is
the board elected No, they're not elected. If you live
in the zone, you have no control over who lives,
he dies. He tells your story. Who runs your government.
(36:27):
The three people who ultimately make the decisions are appointed.
They're not elected by you. So who are these people?
And it's funny too. I mean, like I said on
the that that press conference of the zoom thing, the
governor is just evangelizing for these people, you know, and
when you find out that the you know, that sixty
K donation from this corporation to the governor, and you
(36:52):
see how this rosie a picture he's painting given all
of the Again, I don't think we're being alarmist here.
I think there are real potential pitfalls here, as we
know when every every time you the more power you
give corporations are, the more closer things come to a monopoly,
the less individuals benefit. It seems to me it's more like,
(37:15):
you know, the people at the very very top benefit.
And and sure, you know, Amazon is great, we can
get like stuff in five seconds, you know, crap that
we don't need. But at the end of the day,
it is like almost monopoly like. And I'm sorry, I'm
not trying to go to off the track here. But
to me, Amazon started to feel like a company store
kind of situation too, when they get so big and
(37:35):
they literally just start taking over swaths of like whole towns.
It reminds me of like the Augusta National in Augusta, Georgia,
for example, which is where I grew upviously obviously his
famous golf course. They for years, we're just trying to
buy up every piece of property around that golf course.
And there were a few loan holdouts, but they've got time,
and they ultimately got what they wanted, and now I
(37:57):
can't even recognize my hometown anymore. All feels golf Disney World, um,
because they still they still kept those sandwiches, but that's
just all the mythology and the smoke and mirrors and
then of the masters. It's like, oh, we're folks, see
and it's like, oh, we have egg salad sandwiches for
a dollar or whatever. Yeah, okay, um, But you know
(38:18):
that's what I'm saying that like, when you get to
a point where you have so much money you can
throw around, you really can own pretty much whatever you
want exactly. It's not it's not hard to get politicians
to fall in line, right, and that's where that's that's
what I'm getting to when I'm talking about this three
person board, because we don't know there aren't specific people
(38:40):
elected to the board, because this is just draft legislation.
It's a proposal. It hasn't gone through yet. But here's
how it breaks out. There are three people running the board.
One of them is appointed by the governor, which would
be SIZZLAC. At this point, the company gets to appoint
the other two members. Where is far past any other
(39:03):
conflict of interests that we've talked about before. This reminds
me like of one of the most famous I would
say qualifies as a company town uh the Readly Creek
Improvement District a k a. The autonomous the semi autonomous
state of the Disney Corporation in Florida. These are company towns.
(39:24):
I think you make a good argument about Augusta National
as well. This is probably going to happen, folks, and
we'll have people in the audience who disagree on whether
it's a good thing or a bad thing. Looking at
the facts, I think, Noel, you and I can agree
that there's much more opportunity for corruption and conspiracy than
(39:46):
there is for progress and the betterment of the life
of the average Nevadum resident. This sets off my spidey sense,
and not not in the best way. But what do
you think, folks is are are we being a lar miss?
Obviously we don't think we are. But could this lead
to a situation where some members of the U. S
(40:06):
public feel like they're US citizens and then other people
feel like they have two types of citizenship, one for
you know, Uncle Sam, right, and one for Amazon or
one for blockchains. I could totally see Amazon buy in
a town. Well, like, you don't have to have all
(40:28):
of the legal framework to do some of these things
in practice, like think about Walmart. Walmart can hold a
town hostage if it's the largest employer, right and they
can they can close down something like UM to try
to unionize, or they can threaten politicians by saying, look,
we'll just pick up our tent stakes and go somewhere else.
(40:50):
Off air, when we were talking in preparation for this episode, UM,
I think we both noted the rose colored glasses the
governor of Nevada is wearing. Uh. This had some what
do but what do they call it? This had some
big Simpsons Monorail vibes, you know what I mean, like
solve everything, but will it I don't think so. Uh,
(41:11):
it'll solve a lot of stuff for block chains, you know,
and it's certainly a new chapter in corporate dominance kind
of you know what I mean. Now they get there,
I mean, you know, and like again, like the picture
painted by the governor and his cronies is like it
is the city of the future. Nevada will be ground
zero for the city of the future. Again, mont Rail vibes,
(41:33):
You're totally right, But why do we why here's a question,
and why do they need to have their own government?
Why can't this this what's already in place with regulation.
Doesn't mean it doesn't inherently seem like they're trying to
circumvent regulation by setting up their own system where they
regulate themselves. Like where's the oversight again, I know that
(41:55):
the governor would appoint someone, but obviously the governor's in
you know, blockchain's pocket, no question, I mean, I think, yeah,
I'm tending to agree because the lead proposal talks about
how the current governmental structure at the county level is
to quote unquote inflexible for it to work and how
this would be a better alternative. But what does inflexible mean?
(42:18):
They don't really get into the specifics to defend that statement,
but you know, let let us know what you think, folks,
leten know what you think. The answers to these questions
are is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing?
Would you like to live uh in corptocracy? Right? Would
you like to live in a place where your government
(42:41):
is you know, the primary employer and a private company
that is not beholden to give you some of the
same rights that you would currently have as a US citizen.
We want to know your thoughts. Thanks everyone wrote in
to bring this to our attention, and we do especially
like to thank the first listener who suggested this to us,
(43:03):
So shout out to you, the cat in the black hat.
I am loving these nick names, folks. It makes me
I don't know, I love it when people come with
a nickname. I love a nickname and I love a
good story behind the nickname too. So let us know
how did you get your nickname? Uh? You can write
to us on the internet, on the Facebook and the Twitter,
or we're conspiracy stuff. We are conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. Yes,
(43:28):
you can also, if you don't sip the social meds,
give us a call directly. We are one eight three
three std w y t K. Give us a message,
tell us what's on your mind, give us a cool nickname,
let us know if we can use your name and
or voice on air, and please don't censor yourself. If
three minutes doesn't feel like enough time, then write out
(43:49):
the entire story send it to us. We read every
email we get. We'd always love to hear from you.
You can send us one at our good old fashioned
email address where we are conspiracy and I at radio
dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is
(44:21):
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com