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 World

Wayne 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 Valley

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