Astral Codex Ten

Próspera

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Próspera

Article

Próspera is a recurring organization in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 14, 2021 and November 08, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “After various other failed projects and false starts, we come to Próspera and the present”; “One of Próspera’s top priorities is making it easier”; “Próspera is mostly the project of a small company”. It most often appears alongside America, Bloomberg, Brimen.

Metadata

  • Category: Organizations
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: April 14, 2021
  • Last seen: November 08, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Prospectus On Próspera
April 14, 2021 · Original source
Not Erick Brimen, and not Honduras Próspera Inc. You might have read about them last month in Bloomberg: A Private Tech City Opens For Business In Honduras. Or in NACLA: A Private Government In Honduras Moves Forward. Or FT: An Investor's Prosperity Vision For Honduras. I read all of this and still didn't feel like I quite understood what was going on. Then a fortuitious mistake led me to an email exchange with Trey Goff, Próspera's extremely open and thorough Chief of Staff, who kindly let me grill him on all the stuff I didn't understand.
Inline links: A Private Tech City Opens For Business In Honduras, A Private Government In Honduras Moves Forward, An Investor's Prosperity Vision For Honduras
The result is this post. It's all the information I could collect on Próspera from basically every public source, plus some non-public ones. It's about a private tech city and a prosperity vision and all that. But it's also about - - - well, people talk a lot these days about “systemic change”. But usually that means something like fiddling with tax rates or ending the filibuster. What if you could actually change the system? Say "this system we have, the one that's letting all these people starve and suffer violence and die of preventable diseases - I don't care for it. Let's try something else"? Yes, this is about startup governments and investment opportunities and blah blah blah, but it's also about trying to fight global poverty by radically changing the rules of the game that makes it possible.
After various other failed projects and false starts, we come to Próspera and the present.
21
November 08, 2021 · Original source
In the summer of 2019, after issues with its cistern led Crawfish Rock to lose access to running water, Próspera connected the village to its own water tank. The villagers were grateful. But some villagers were surprised when water bills arrived. Stranger still, monthly payments went to the Institute for Excellence. Why, they wondered, was a charitable foundation acting like a water utility? Brimen would later explain that, in general, Próspera doesn’t “believe in charity as a primary source of support, because I think it creates dependencies.” But dependency, Cárdenas would come to suspect, was exactly what this was all about.
This wasn’t the first time Próspera had insinuated itself into life in Crawfish Rock. In Honduras, patronatos are hyperlocal councils empowered to speak on behalf of their communities. In June 2019, Próspera arranged for villagers to elect a new patronato. Monterroso handpicked a slate of candidates, who ran uncontested.
In May 2020, just after Próspera broke ground, its relationship with Crawfish Rock started to unravel. There were protests over the fact that few construction jobs went to villagers and an outcry after Próspera’s armed security guards, responding to a spate of robberies, began asking people coming and going from Crawfish Rock to identify themselves and state their business. On Próspera’s website, Cárdenas found sketches of its future footprint. Although hard to tell, it looked worryingly like the ZEDE planned to absorb Crawfish Rock, and some villagers worried that Próspera officials would ask the Honduran government to expropriate their land on the ZEDE’s behalf. At best, as Próspera grew, it would cut off Crawfish Rock from the rest of the island, pinning it against the sea.