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More like blast from the past than current burning culture war battle, but one interesting fact dropped from court documents concerning FTX effective altruist saga.
Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to buy the nation of Nauru to wait out the world's end
Dead bird thread
This article is more clickbaity and sensational than factual, actual quote from the court documents docket 1886 - "Adversary case 23-50448. Complaint by FTX Trading Ltd., Alameda Research LLC" is:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8NgFWTk2puBG5eSJA/ftx-foundation-wanted-to-buy-the-nation-of-nauru-to-save-eas
Hard to imagine worse place to be stuck in the case of TEOTWAWKI that deserted and devastated island that lacks even drinkable water.
It was never a serious plan, nothing more than one of many ideas brainstormed among elite human capital of FTX Foundation, but it is symptomatic as for elite thought and for their beliefs that everything and everyone is for sale. As people on EA forum pointed up, it could achieve nothing than give EA a bad name (if it already hadn't one).
We are not any more in the Holy Roman Empire, selling and buying sovereign principalities is, legally, not a thing anymore and trading land between sovereign states is also thing of the past.
Last case was in 1791, when Christian Friedrich Carl Alexander, last margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach sold his country to Prussia so he could enjoy comfy retirement in England (stereotypical boomer behavior, but probably the smartest move at the time).
Trump wanted to revive the tradition by purchasing Greenland, but small-minded people derailed the plan. Sad!
I still think buying Greenland is an actually cool idea and wish we would have done it.
I mean, you can't, really, it's not for sale.
The USA could've used its might to pressure Denmark into selling it, if it really wanted to and was willing to take off its diplomatic mask entirely over Greenland of all places. But given that, it could've just as well used its might to pressure Denmark into simply giving it up, or done a Crimea on it.
Or it could've done what it usually does, and put its money and weight behind an "independence" movement (that it could astroturf out of whole cloth if need be), and then simply occasionally remind the new Supreme Leader of Greenland who put him there, who keeps him there, and why.
But it doesn't even need to do that, since the Danish government is already de facto the USA's pet poodle, so there is nothing to be gained.
It wasn't for sale at the start, so what. My house is not for sale either, but offer me 20x the price, and I'll be willing to talk. Why not, I could then buy much better house and all the moving expenses will be covered. There are things that aren't ever for sale, and there are things that aren't for sale but given the right price, may become for sale. There may be a price point where both Greenland residents and Danish government would consider doing it. I'm not sure if that price point would also make it worth it for the US to buy, but at least exploring that question doesn't sound crazy to me, and shouldn't just stop at "not for sale" at the beginning. And there's nothing inherently Danish there also, I mean we're not talking about Copenhagen here, so I don't think it's completely out of the question no matter the price.
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Denmark said they were willing to do whatever the residents wanted, so theoretically we could have just bought all their votes and had them tell Denmark they wanted to be the 51st state now. There's not that many people there, I'm thinking low six figures per resident plus US citizenship could be covered by the Pentagon's lost couch cushion money.
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