Starbase. Prospera. California Forever. Mars. From private cities to interstellar colonies, tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have backed experiments designed to operate beyond the borders — and laws — most of us live by. So we wondered: has this happened before? In this episode, we visit an Arctic archipelago, homesteads floating in the ocean, and a startup city in Honduras to explore where places built with the ultra-rich in mind leave all the rest of us.
Guests:Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, author of
The Cosmopolites and
The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the WorldWayne Gramlich, retired computer engineer
Dan Girma, producer on NPR's Embedded podcast
Jacob Silverman, author of
Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon ValleyTo access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.See
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