The Man Trying to Build a New Country — Dryden Brown

Rory: We've had some very ambitious founders on this show. I dare say this is overwhelmingly the most ambitious project. Why do we need a new country?

Dryden: The blank sheet of paper is always where you want to start. What if we could create a new sort of political foundation for the country? What if we completely changed how we were governed? What if we changed our whole culture?

Rory: So in 2024, you flew to Greenland and tried to buy it for $500 million. What does buying a country look like?

Dryden: Dryen, we've had some very ambitious founders on this show. I dare say this is overwhelmingly the most ambitious project. Uh first of all, it's a pleasure to meet you. Why do we need a new country? I'd love to start there. We have almost 200 countries in the world. You woke up one day and thought, "We need another one." Walk me through what's going through your head. A

Rory: as like a sort of creative person, it's like the blank sheet of paper is always where you want to start. I think that uh you know, when when you go out into the world, um you know, there are often things you'd like to change. This is why people do politics. This is why people start companies. this is why um people make art. And I think that there's something really sort of intellectually creatively stimulating about, you know, taking sort of none of it for granted and just saying um you know what what if we had a blank sheet of paper? What if we could um you know create a new sort of political foundation for the country? What if we uh you know what if we completely changed how we were governed? What if we changed our whole culture? What if we changed you know really everything? It's sort of like a premise for examining um society in sort of I think kind of like a like a neutral way. Um and so there's this TV show that I really like. It was uh it's called How to Start Your Own Country. Um it was um it was made in 2006 by this comedian and basically he he sort of took this premise you know earnestly like you know what if I what if I started a new country and just sort of worked through the entire problem and uh and it was really it was you know really compelling because he sort of like he was able to like examine society from this sort of fresh lens. Um, and so he, you know, he he sort of he decides he wants to start a country. Then he realizes, hey, we need to get, you know, some territory and he's, okay, how do you get territory? Is there anywhere that we can like get in the world? And it's like, well, the the only places that are unclaimed are like it's like some place in Antarctica where you can't make new claims and like uh a part of a the African desert, you know, where it's like 600 miles from the nearest road um in little like river banks in like Croatia or something. He's like, "Okay, well, that's not going to work. How else do people get new territory and he's like well historically there have been a lot of like invasions and you know people have taken land by force

Dryden: the classic way to do it.

Rory: Yeah. And so then he would like his buddy he like he he's like you know emailing his buddies or texting his buddies and he's like all right who's up for like an invasion? And he gets some of his buddies and they like sort of like you know invade this little island that was like it's like on the um it was on some river in England. It was like on the river Tames or something like that. and he's sort of he like we're invading, we're invading. They like run into this island and then they just like put sort of like yellow tape up um on the sort of bridges that connect to the island and he's like hey so we've done an invasion this is our island now the rules are basically the same but you have to like pledge field like you know and it's he's like a comedian. It's like kind of a joke, but it's like then sort of what happens next is the police come and they're like, "Hey, you guys can't, you know, you guys got to get get out of here or whatever." And then he's like, "Wow, you know, turns out that's why you need an army. We don't have we we don't have police. We don't have an army. They have like they can bring force to bear in a way that we can't with our like guys." And then he's and then he sort of goes to Sandhurst or something and he's like learning about how the military works and so on and so forth, right? Then then he realizes, you know, he's like, "Okay, well, how do we get people to join the country?" is like, "Well, we need to have like a set of principles that are attractive to people." A bunch of people sign up. A bunch of people are completely insane. And he's like, "Well, we need to have an immigration policy to keep out the insane people." And so, in this way, he's sort of like working through these like sort of foundational problems that we think about in the context of politics through this sort of fresh like creative lens. And so, um, you know, even just at the sort of the the meta like the meta level, why would why would you start a country? It's like well like do you think you know there are a bunch of things that are broken about the world that you know could be uh you know where we could benefit from examining them with fresh eyes you know and then in our case with practice we have a bunch of you know very particular uh objectives but just sort of at the abstract level I think there's like a ton of value that comes from just like examining a problem that's so big that most people don't think about it like with kind of fresh eyes in a really sort of practical concrete way. You mentioned uh being able to essentially legally enact violence uh or or force probably a better way to frame it. In Max Weber's essay, politics as vocation, he defines power as the monopoly of legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. So my question for you is how do you establish trust in your government when your government's capacity to enact violence hasn't been tested yet? Well, I mean, I think people uh, you know, you can think about like, you know, when a political candidate's running for office, you know, people are thinking um, is the vision for the future that they're sort of, you know, painting a portrait of compelling to me? And then do like, do I trust this guy? Do I like this guy? And and it's sort of like you know if you know if you know Donald Trump or Kla Har whoever you know gets elected and they were trusted with that you know that sort of um you know uh sort of power framed as like the capacity or monopoly of you know physical violence or something um if they had that power um would you know would that lead to a better future for me or for the world or whatever and so I think that you know in a sense we're like running for office of a country that doesn't exist yet we're you know we're saying hey like this is what we want the future to be like. Um and we're asking people if you know if they trust us and and they like you know our vision. Um so so yeah we're running for office or something.

Dryden: This is a very ambitious project and that it's probably going to take multiple decades in order to uh fulfill.

Rory: Uh you've done an incredibly good job fundraising which we'll we're going to touch on in a moment. But I want to touch in on the current state of how things are going and uh any progress you've made towards finding land or or what do you perceive as sort of like the next big milestone for for you for you and the practice team?

Dryden: Yeah. Um well I I guess I would say um you know the way that we think about the project is like there's this sort of there's this arc towards establishing you know like a new sovereign country. But the form that we uh that we exist in today is um is is something we call a digital nation. So it's like a sort of an internet native community that we started and you know I guess the first practice uh group chat the sort of pre-praisto practice you know was like 2020 or something. So we've been sort of kicking around this idea for a long time. Um but the the sort of core idea is you know building an internet community with people who are um you know values aligned who have you know political, philosophical, aesthetic sort of goals in common and then building uh well sort of growing that network and building sort of capacities that allow us to you know express our vision in in concrete ways. Like for example, you know, we've built the community from uh you know, group chat with like six people to um you know, now we have a few thousand members. We have like 3,000 members and we have about 160,000 people, a little more um who've applied to be a part of the community. We have like 60,000 people in a Discord, like so on and so forth. So, you know, what we think about doing is growing that community. And I I guess to sort of touch on this like idea of a country sort of the UN in the 1933 Monte Vido Convention defines a country as having a few different characteristics. So one is um one is a a permanent population um you know a government with the sort of capacity to to run the country um and also the dipl like a sort of a diplomatic capability to interact with other countries and to define territory. So as we think about you know working through these sort of three pillars of you know population, government, territory, the territory one um takes the longest. It takes the most sort of political um uh sort of uh trust you know from you know different countries in the world um and it also takes a lot of money. So the the sort of the the insight was starting as a like a digital nation building this massive group of people who are um you know sort of uh motivated and committed to you know move to a potential territory um and then sort of raising financing on that basis on the basis of that that sort of commitment to move to a territory were were there one. Um and then sort of you know concretely it's like we're not going to jump all the way to the end to like having a sovereign nation right away. And so we think about you know taking small steps. So one is like right now we're in the practice embassy. What is it? It's like a loft in New York you know where the sort of highest number of praxians are you know in any city in the world right? So we have like a space where people could come together and they can start to feel like what it would be like to have you know physical space that's theirs. Um next is building a new city um not in like a sort of a you know uh in our own sovereign country but in another one and seeing how we can um create a bunch of value for a host nation basically how we can you know create a bunch of real estate value bring a bunch of super talented um technologists you know people in in art and culture and so on and create a huge amount of value for the world and for you know one host nation in particular towards you know building this sort of um trust with the nations of the world that we would need to be supported in like a you know a UN recognized new

Rory: but yeah concretely it's like we think about growing the community we think about growing the capacities of like you know the sort of the company around the community or sort of quasi you know government um and then we think about you know taking the sort of incremental approach to like uh developing like territory you know right now it's sort of territory like it's like you know loft in New York eventually it'll be like territory you know

Dryden: I love this step function of uh first let's establish a city within an existing country and then build out from there. I think it's like one of the more plausible approaches I've heard. Um is there a front runner right now?

Rory: And so we can't we can't share sort of all the details because you know there are still things that we can't sort of we haven't we have partners and we're going to do announcements with our with our partners but um I I would say like we're very excited about about um Latin America broadly. So I'm you know I'm going to be in Colombia tomorrow. I'm going to be in um in in Buenosaris the day after that. And and so we've been sort of bouncing around Latin America quite a bit for the last like 6 months or so. Um I I think when you when you sort of like there are a few different lenses, you know, from which you can think about this. I I think like you know when the when the sort of um Iran war really escalated in like February I I think it became clear that sort of if you zoom out and look at like a map of the world it's like I have a map there but it's sort of like like Asia-Pacific is kind of like it's really kind of like China territory you know if the sort of Iran war was to escalate in such a way that China was to get involved it's sort of like you know the whole sort of Pacific is like you know we're just talking about like Australia New Zealand it's like there are these like very sort of Chinese economies Um so may maybe you don't want to be in sort of like China sphere. You move uh west and then you get to sort of you get to the Middle East which is like obviously sort of ground zero for the conflict. Then you get to sort of Europe and Africa. Europe has these sort of you know sort of pretty brutal demographic problems. Africa uh has been a complicated place you know forever and probably will be. um North America um [clears throat] similar you have these sort of demographic problems and I think in particular um this is a slightly different macro theme but I I think that

Dryden: if you see where sort of AI progress is headed you're going to see like just a really brutal sort of meltdown in white collar labor and a huge amount of political unrest and so you probably don't want to be in like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles. you probably don't want to be in these cities as like you know an incremental 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 you know percent sort of unemployment like hits right because it's sort of like you know the software engineers lose their jobs then the accountants then the consultants so on and like not only is that bad for that you know sort of like high IQ politically capable sort of like chunk of the population but also their spending decreases and then you have all these like blueco collar people and service worker people and so on that like uh end up in a much more economically precarious you know position So, so then it's like, well, process of elimination, you kind of, you know, just you just got to go south at that point to to sort of Latin America. You're kind of out of the blast radius for World War II. And there are these more kind of like sparsely populated, but really well resourced from like an energy, food, water perspective places in uh in in Latin America. So like by process of elimination we've arrived at small handful there are a small handful of places that are not in Latin America that we think are interesting that are kind of like that we're maintaining interest in but then Latin America is sort of where I'm spending most of my time and yeah

Rory: operationally it's fascinating because you're contacting governments and and essentially pitching this to them. What does that look like? Um well I mean so we have a community of really talented tech people basically and I think it's two things. It's like one we have a bunch of people in the in the tech industry are really talented have made a lot of money have been sort of the big economic beneficiaries of um you know the software boom and like AI in particular. Um but I I think we've also kind of had like our finger on the pulse with culture like to um to like a pretty impressive degree. think, you know, there was sort of this like right-wing tech downtown scene kind of thing that we were doing in like 2020 that kind of uh prefigure the whole Dime Square thing. I think maybe a lot of that stuff's like totally lame now or something, but like you know 21, 22, 23, it was like a that was kind of the zeitgeist and we kind of like were doing that stuff a little before and kind of like rode that wave a bit. And then now I think there's like you know different sort of cultural trends that that we can get into. But I I think it's sort of like one, we have a bunch of like really young creative talented people who are really fired up about the practice sort of aesthetic and culture. And then two, we have some of the most talented people in in in the tech industry and like in at the big AI lab.

Dryden: So it's very enticing for any country. You're saying we could bring this talent

Rory: Yeah. We we go and we're like we have all these people. Um and then we'll host like events and we'll do events with a bunch of the people so they can kind of like you know flesh and blood like shake hands with these people and so on. And then there's sort of um you know there's kind of just the numbers. It's like for most of these countries it would be you know the the biggest if not one of the biggest foreign direct investment um events in their history. Um so it's you know we can invest billions of dollars. We can uh create you know tens of thousands of jobs over you know some meaningful period of time and then we can bring some of the most talented people in the world who really are only in a handful of cities. You know what I mean? It's so if you're like, you know, if you're, you know, Croatia or something like that, one of the most beautiful places in the world, you know, amazing culture, so on and so forth, but like the people from the top labs are not spending meaningful time in Croatia. The people who are kind of at the bleeding edge of edge of, you know, art, culture, fashion, like are not, you know, maybe they're there for like a week in the summer or something, but if there's like a permanent community that kind of brought together these two groups in a place like that, um,

Dryden: that would be quite valuable for for the

Rory: I love that. um in terms of like the nuts and bolts of like meeting people in government um I mean our just like sort of as a practical matter it's like our our investors and then some of the groups we've worked with on the real estate side um either have direct relationships with political leadership we've also had uh two former heads of state you know work with us on government relations and so we've been sort of lucky enough I think as a function of uh the sort of organic demand that we've seen from the community to get connected you know, like I'm going to Argentina and um I think basically everyone that we're meeting uh there and um basically everyone that we're meeting there we met like either directly through the community or indirectly through the community. Um and that just tends to be the pattern. It's sort of like you know even these people that we work with that were you know pretty like you know high level government people like

Dryden: we met them through someone who was in the community in pretty much every instance. So

Rory: I don't think of practice as a startup but in many ways it is a startup and and you raise from I would say either traditional Silicon Valley based funds or very Silicon Valley adjacent tech style funds

Dryden: uh from very legitimate funds including the Winkeros twins, Sam Bankman Freed, uh Sam Wolvin's funds like a lot of very prominent funds have backed you and more recently 500 million in what I would call uh teargated funding. Uh, what can you teach our audience about raising from billionaires for very ambitious projects because someone had to write the first check into this knowing that it's probably a 50-year time horizon and you you were savvy enough to talk them into it. We we left our jobs at um at this hedge fund. We were I was actually just immediately before this with uh our old our old boss, our old portfolio manager, but we we left um this fund in like you know the beginning of 2019 and then we didn't close any money until I think like

Rory: mid 2021. We didn't close the first round. you know, the sort of big inflection I would say was when Bedrock led our seed round and I I think that closed in like September 2021 and then our series day closed like, you know, a few months after that or something. So, it was sort of like nothing for like two years basically. We got a grant from uh from um Tyler Ken at you know, Emergent Ventures and we sort of traveled around. Anyway, it's all just to say like I think you have to be like incredibly persistent. You have to keep kind of iterating on on these on these ideas. I think there's like I think at this point I h I I probably have like a pretty strong intuition like a pretty strong commercial intuition and like an understanding of like how to like construct a pitch for investors. Um I I think it's

Dryden: such a unique product.

Rory: Yeah. Yeah. It's like you have to think about like yeah what are the sort of macro flows that that you can sort of intermediate and you have to think about your sort of positioning in that like it's sort of like you you know if if if there's like a sort of a big story then it's like going to be hyperco competitive like it's sort of like you know the you know what are sort of the bottlenecks for AI it's like you know uh it's like power and memory and what so if if you're trying to sort of like intermediate like an existing capital flow that investors are really excited about you're also competing with like, you know, it's like Chimoth is probably starting a thing. And, you know, there are all these guys who are like really good at sort of like hopping in there when there's a big trend. And so, you kind of don't want to do that if you're like starting out. You want to like

Dryden: have a thesis about what a big flow is going to be in the future and then just be like blindly, incredibly earnestly like committed to that idea. And I think I hadn't really conceptualized that, but that was kind of implicitly what I was doing. It's like there are some I think there are some people who thought um you know if the world gets really crazy maybe people want to move to a new city and if you sort of skate to the puck and you you have the asset kind of ready for when that like title wave hits. It's sort of like there's too much like lead time to like just hop onto that trend like you kind of have to have been doing it for like as long as I have to like

Rory: you know to to have the asset ready when that trend happens. like you can't just like maybe you can pay a cut the line tax and like you could like buy practice for like hundred billion dollars or something when it's like the only new country that you know is sort of a haven for the tech people or something like

Dryden: Like that film Snow Pierce so with the train where the end of the world I'm not sure if you've seen it but they anyone who was wealthy enough to get a ticket on the train can get on the train and if you can't that's it.

Rory: Yeah. So like at that point it's pretty valuable to own the train but maybe you know no one believes in the train before you know the snow whatever the [ __ ] but

Dryden: But yeah, so I guess it's like it's sort of like investors want to invest in these sort of like capital flow stories a lot of where you know they want to invest in these sort of big these sort of big macro trends but like you can't craft your business for them because like if you're doing that then you're probably too late particularly if you're a young guy. You have to have some thesis about why the thing is going to be a giant thing and and kind of just be insanely committed to I mean I guess

Rory: yeah as a practical matter like a thing that a friend and I talk about all the time is just that um

Dryden: when you sort of go out to there's just no way to like shortcut the process of like developing a good pitch through like iteration like just like even

Rory: now I'm like maybe I'm you know okay at fundraising some of my friends are okay we at fundraising we all kind of agree that you just have to do like a huge number of pitches.

Dryden: We learned the same way.

Rory: Yeah. So, like I I don't know. I think

Dryden: but it's just kind of a momentum thing. It's like once once you kind of like clip it and figure it out, then it then I I think you want to like, you know, be really aggressive in terms of getting to all the right people and so on.

Rory: I love that. Especially with most funds have like a seven to nine year return horizon where they hope to get money back and you're probably coming in saying like this could take 30 40 years.

Dryden: Well, I mean that that is part of it. I mean it's like I I guess like yeah more concretely with like practice it's like there there does have to be some kind of liquidity event that comes before so like you know part of

Rory: secondary market yeah

Dryden: yeah I think like um it's sort of like on on the one hand maybe practice is like it's like the most exciting sort of scaled real estate project you could do but like I think part of the story for us has always been it's like the digital nation and it's like can the can the sort of digital nation start to acrue value before that and And you know there are a few things to talk about to talk about there but like it's sort of like does does this sort of technology piece like the sort of digital nation platform have some you know commercial value before the city and I mean if you build like if you have like a really big audience that is sort of you look at like Brian Johnson or something like that it's like you know I bet that guy does like a huge amount of like

Rory: you know whatever like supplement sales or whatever cuz people like really believe in in in his mission. And so I think for us, you know, we have no interest in, you know, selling supplements. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but like, you know, but there are other ways that we can make money to like get investors to want to underwrite the long-term thing. It's like just this sort of match

Dryden: m you have to figure out how to like match your ambitions with their, you know, commercial needs. And

Rory: I love that.

Dryden: But it's it's not just like, oh, we're just going to make money in 50 years. It's like there has to be some kind of value that was earlier. Yeah. Your distribution is honestly very impressive because I think a lot of a lot of startups coming through like YCM, places like that will struggle to get 5,000 people to put an email into a form. You've had 167,000 actual applications of people who want to come and live and practice. How many of those have you

Rory: About 3,000.

Dryden: And how did you get the word out so

Rory: Cuz I feel like I started hearing about this maybe maybe two or three years ago and um and then suddenly it was sort of everywhere. It was all over the media. you did a fantastic job of getting

Dryden: Yeah. I mean, I think if you have something that's like true to say that people are afraid to to say, um, then you'll do well on social media. I mean, it's it's pretty simple, but I think most people are too um

Rory: you have to take risk basically. You have to be sort of like biting off risk and like just going a little bit further than other people are are willing to go. And ideally in such a way as to be like vindicated. you you don't want to just be sort of like, you know, rage baiting and saying controversial things just to just to get attention cuz people kind of feel when you're doing that and it and it sort of feels like like like sort of cheap and crass or whatever. But like if if you have like a point if if there's something that that you really care about that you're really like pass like passionate about and sort of like able to speak earnestly about that's like just a little bit outside the Overton window, like

Dryden: that tends to do like really well. Well, I mean, I think concretely like, you know, all the sort of techright aesthetics and ideas and whatever that are sort of in vogue now that Trump is president, um, really were just completely outside the Overton window in like I mean, man, it's like, you know, we we had like classical architecture on our website in like 2020, 2021, and like we were getting like cancelled by the New York Times for being like racists for having like Roman columns or something, you know what I mean? Now it's like that's almost like unthinkable and it's sort of everyone um it's sort of invogue to be center right you know the sort of tech right thing is is really the dominant culture in the valley but I mean that that's sort of what makes it less aesthetically sort of creatively interesting to me now I think there's sort of new frontiers that you have to you know and sort of there was like a way in which I think everything that we were doing in 2020 the whole sort of tech industry kind of caught up to a couple years later um because there was truth in the ideas and there was beauty in the aesthetics and whatever. But but now there are sort of new, you know, sort of greener pastures that we have to to get to to, you know, to uh to keep pushing things forward.

Rory: It's funny, we've had three guests on season one of the show give almost the same answer to that question, which is say the thing that everyone's thinking, too afraid to say, or the thing that everyone has had at the back of their mind, but never put into words. Yeah. And um Sarah Pearl, Hot Priestess, said the exact same thing about how she's been growing her TikTok. It's Yeah. I'm

Dryden: Easier said than done. It's like cuz you get you can get like super rinsed if you I don't know maybe I need a better answer then um but um

Rory: yeah it's like these sort of particular cultural trends. I'll give you an example. I mean, like in, you know, like when when Andrew Tape got really popular a few years ago, if you were like a 12-year-old, 13-year-old, you were on TikTok, you're on, you know, reals, you're watching these things and he's he's saying some things about society. He's saying some things about like gender and race and whatever that um that that maybe resonated. You know, if there are people saying, "Hey, there, you know, there aren't two genders." Then you're a 12-year-old and you look around, you're like, "Wait, like I think there might be two J, you know, then you you can sort of get um you can get you you end up sort of, you know, you take the red pill and you uh you sort of um you know, accept all these ideas as truth and then, you know, as like a sort of earnest, you know, young person, you want to like share this truth that you learned. You want to like proitize the the sort of the the tape gospel or whatever. And then you find out that like if you you know if you're sort of on like a red pill mode um at school or with like you know girls or with your parents or whatever there are negative consequences for that.

Dryden: Um and you know people think you're like a chud and you're just trying to like get reactions or whatever. And so there there's sort of like a real social cost to um you know to sort of uh like espousing these ideas that that you do think are are like correct basically. And so I think now there's sort of um and and sort of the lesson that taught is like I shouldn't tell the truth about what I believe. I should lie, you know, and I should sort of cynically cynically lie about like, you know, society and how I see the world and so on because like, you know, girls will like that more. My like, you know, I'll like get into a better college. all like I think there was this sort of earnest millennial thing where like the millennials are like the real like chuds that were like you know saying the right-wing stuff and then getting in trouble and like their younger brothers and sis or really mostly younger brothers saw that you know or did it themselves didn't work out. Now there it's sort of like you have this kind of like it's sort of like clvicular or something. You have this sort of like um this sort of like Gen Z is like they're not like out there like sort of speaking truth to power and you know speaking their truth or whatever. They're sort of like cynically harboring um well they're sort of harboring you know real convictions about society in the world. Um, but then they're um, you know, basically they're they're extremely cynical about uh, you know, about how they need to represent their beliefs and and so I think there there's sort of this like this sort of term like sort of the indie sleer or something like that. It's sort of like it's like there's some kind of interesting thing that's emerging that's like it's sort of this like sort of aesthetically culturally like aware young person who like has sort of uh you know controversial beliefs. It's like a new like type of guy that's like emerging. And I think that um

Rory: I don't know. I think somehow that's kind of the next thing. It's like not this sort of earnest tech right like we're rightwing. It's like this sort of like aesthetically sort of uh more progressive refined but also sort of harboring the I don't know there's something happening like that.

Dryden: it's very interesting

Rory: that's like a particular thing that I see like on the internet that I find super interesting.

Dryden: So great answer by the way. Uh so 167,000 applicants you've accepted a few thousand. First of all who's making the decision of who's in and who's out and what does a model citizen look like? Like what do these the few thousand applicants that you have accepted? what are the common traits that they possess? well um in terms of who accepts them basically you uh we we built like um a a set of like interviewer agents. So you like you basically just talk to like uh you talk to Eric which is like our our AI character that that interviews you. Um we used to have a guy on the team named Eric who would read the applications. Um but now we have more applications. So, we basically built um we we like trained Eric on um just a like a a huge number of of sort of examples of how we were scoring people. Um and now Eric scores applicants and um and and then we you know sort by top score and then we go through the the you know ones that are over a certain threshold um ourselves like Charlie and I do. So it's sort of like this barbell approach where you know um we could have you virtually infinite infinite number of applications and still I think do like a reasonably good job of of making sure that you know at least sort of uh

Rory: the people that our system recognizes as being um you know the sort of best prospects are are um you know read by human eyes and and so on. So it's Eric and then Charlie and I. Um

Dryden: uh we're like notoriously slow at processing applications. Uh we've had people on the wait list for like years in some cases at this point. Um I think it is kind of you really do need to meet people in person to have like a really good read on them. Like I I think that we need to kind of crack that somehow. Um and the way that we're doing it is like basically turing. So we have like there's like the nomads you can just sign up to be a practice nomad. Um to be a a member you have to be accepted through this process that I'm describing. And then uh to become like a a sort of full citizen, we're like kind of revamping the structure and we're going to share more about it soon, but like to become like a full citizen in practice. Um there's going to be an inerson component in some kind of uh basically project that demonstrates your commitment. Um what makes a good pract it's people who are uh they're talented uh they're committed and their values aligned. And we assess that in a few different ways. But um you know talent it's like there are a bunch of different types of talent. there like a broad set of skills that you know that that um are desirable and as like the sort of as like AI affects the labor market in different ways like sort of as new skills kind of like artificial skills kind of come online there are different human skills that we value as being part of our community and we try to like anticipate what might be extremely valuable in the future and so that's more of like an economic assessment. Um commitment is pretty straightforward. It's just like, you know, do you spend a bunch of time coming to the events and, you know, talking to us and, you know, do you like propose projects to help move practice forward? Do you offer introductions? Just like, are you demonstrating your excitement about the project in in, you know, kind of concrete ways to us? Um, and then values alignment. Um, we ask a bunch of questions that we think kind of get at that and we we give um

Rory: uh you know, examples of of sort of how we think about

Dryden: our value system. the so AI is coming through and drastically changing the economy especially over the next few years going forward. You've mentioned you're looking for particular skill sets. What do the cities of the future really require in terms of skills from their citizens?

Rory: Um well it's it's interesting. I mean I think if you go sort of all the way like it's sort of like on the one hand someone might say hey like um you know sort of like what are the what are going to be the big like bottlenecks? Like you look at like Korea or like South Korea, right? And it's sort of like South Korea is like, you know, they have like, you know, it's like the two most profitable companies in the world this year are like, you know, Samsung and Highix, right? Both Korean companies. They're like, you know, doing a bunch of the defense manufacturing and like the ship building. And it's like now somehow like South Korea like leads the world in like

Dryden: you know, like shipping and like defense. It's like unbelievable, right? And so it's sort of like if you can sort of look around the corner and see where you know uh AI bottlenecks are are going to uh like what the AI bottlenecks are then you can kind of like solve for that. Maybe it's like like labor is a super important one right? So it's like maybe you want to have like you know a ton of electricians in your country or something like that. I think we we take um you know if you take like the sort of the long the sort of the really long it's like AI automates like the entire the entire economy and and then it's sort of like you know um it can do basically it can do any sort of economic function better faster cheaper and then it's sort of like well why why are we really here what do we do with our our time and I think like you know when you zoom out it's like we're we're actually maybe we're not here on earth to uh you know to be economic production units like maybe there's like something more to life like at the end of your life you're not purpose

Rory: yeah you're not thinking about like how much shareholder value did I create man I wish I could have like you know increased America's GDP like you know another basis point or something you're thinking about like you know did you did you like fulfill your destiny did you you know were you like a good friend were you a good you know father husband like these things right and so um and so I I think that you know in that kind of world you look at these cities like you look at like New York or San Francisco the reason that people move from you know say you were born in like you know Ghana or something right you're you're you're in Ghana you're part of this tribe this tribe has a culture that's like an expression of really your sort of biological um um sort of intuitions as to like how life should be lived the kind of food that you eat the religion the songs the like you There's a reason that when people, you know, if you're if you're like, you know, from a culture and you go back like, you know, my a bunch of my family's like Irish. If I go back to Ireland, I'm like, "Oh, this is like kind of interesting. It like resonates in a bunch of surprising ways to me." Um, you know, if you're like, you know, a Ganaian person and you come to New York City, um, you're probably doing it because there's a really deep labor market. You know, maybe you want to be like a software engineer at Facebook or, you know, whatever it may be. If AI if if AI automates all of these functions and you're like sitting there in New York, you sort of look around, you're like, man, the whole reason I came here was for a job that doesn't exist anymore, maybe I want to go back to like to to Ghana to a place that really kind of like, you know, resonates with my intuitions as to how life should be lived. I want to be part of a community. I want to be a tribe. I want to be part of a, you know, a culture that really resonates. I think like there was this sort of way in which the industrial revolution drove people from their sort of native tribes to these labor market cities. And I think that could like unravel or just totally reverse. Um, and so when I think about like, you know, how to uh construct a new a new country, um, you know, taking like the the sort like a long-term view, it's like, well, I think that people are actually just going to want to be um with other people who have similar moral and aesthetic intuitions about like how life should be lived. And so that's something we think a lot about, too. It's like practice is it's a you know it's a it's a digital nation for western civilization. It's like there's a particular culture, a particular sort of moral aesthetic modality. When you look back through, you know, the ages, you look at, you know, sort of like high medieval culture or Rome or Greece. And there are these sort of there are these like motifs and ideas that sort of you know come through in each of them like the sort of the sort of the spiritual worth of heroism you know these sort of gods of like the sun and light like Apollo you know sort of the the primacy of like reason and you know rationality and um you know so I think sort of taking a a sort of a concrete stance on what the sort of moral and aesthetic ideas are that have been sort of loadbearing throughout Western civilization and sort of like putting those at the center of this new digital nation, this effort to build a new country is like super important because that's what people are ultimately going to be attracted to as opposed to, you know, a job as a software engineer or an

Dryden: Let's uh it's a fascinating answer. Let's put a face on it then. So, I'm sure whenever you get a wonderful applicant, you accept it feels like getting a power user, right, for a

Rory: Tomorrow morning, you refresh your inbox. the dream to applicants on Earth. If you could get any two people on Earth to to want to be in on this project who you think really embody what it means to be a part of your future country, who are they and why? Okay. I mean to sort of start at the end, it's like what okay like what is uh what what is sort of the the contribution that humans are even making in a society where you know AI is AI is um producing everything you know producing all the you know sort of goods and services all the um the media that sort of shapes culture the maybe even the governance. I think it's like there's this idea, you know, it's sort of like a there's this idea of like a sort of um like you know like a pontifax like it's like the pope is like you know pontifacts or whatever and that word means like it's like bridgeuer or you builder of bridges and basically the idea is that this person's role is to build a bridge between like the physical like sort of humanity and like the spiritual like God. It's like they're sort of like supposed to talk to God and like lead the way to, you know, to a better future. And I I think it's sort of like AI is going to master like physical reality. Um, but for us to live a for us to have like a civilization or to live individual lives that have spiritual meaning, you you have to like sort of tell the AI like what to do. like we want the world to be this way, we want to live this way, you know, we want to eat this kind of food, we want to like go out into the universe because and expend, you know, scarce resources to do that because we think going out of the frontier is like spiritually important, not because we want to get some like rocks from an asteroid or something. So like at at the end of the day, the thing that is that is most needed is sort of like this Pontifax like character to it's almost like this is like the chief prompter of the society. It's like the king in the society is the person who's like the most kind of uh spiritually tapped in person to like give the AI like prompts as to it's like they're like the king and the AI is sort of the whole government apparatus or something like that and they need to have like the wisdom and the sort of moral intuition to like produce a optimal outcome on like a moral basis for all the people in the society. And so like in um and so basically like you know you can think about like Enders game or something. You could have some like selection mechanism for this person. It's almost like a game and then it's like when you think about like um uh the sort of stories of like the sort of the grail stories like the sort of King Arthur Grail stories. It's like the kind of person who like you know who who arrives at the beginning of the story um and who you know might have be a practice applicant is someone who it's it's like they are they are courage they are courageous but not yet wise and the idea is that like you know if you come to practice if you come to um you know you know if you if you want to like you know start a quest the only thing that's required is is you know courage and bravery and that you know through the trials and tribulations to you know do the needful task of in the Grail stories like healing the kingdom by like attaining the grail by finding this like sacred object. Um you have to go through all these different like you know hurdles and you have to like you know defeat the like you know the black knight and like you have to you know not be bewitched by the witch or whatever. You have to go through all these things that demonstrate your your courage and and spiritual purity basically. And so I I think that like really at a foundational level, the thing that we're looking for is uh is you know a set of people that have like courage and bravery that like you know see the world in the same way that we do and want to like take on this sort of quest of uh of you know becoming wiser and more sort of spiritually elevated towards you know potentially being like a leader in this sort of shape of society.

Dryden: love that.

Rory: That's one way that I think about it. So, let's dive into more of like a GTM kind of go to market approach here. So, let's say uh we're 5 years in the future. You've secured land. You've built a bunch of stuff there and it's more or less good to go.

Dryden: How do we get those first 1,000 people to move there?

Rory: Yeah. So, the way the way that we think about it is sort of it's sort of like a two-tiered two-tiered approach. So, there are um there are people who uh who have a ton of money and there are people that uh are really interesting, cool young people that maybe don't have a ton of money. um you know there's a sort of line about um it like sort of escaping the permanent underclass um

Dryden: and escaping the permanent underclass. And typically when people say escape the permanent underclass, what they mean is that like you know if you're like a young person who doesn't have money, you need to like gamble all your money on like poly market or something to like you make some money so you're not like totally [ __ ] You can like get out basically. Um which implies that there's sort of a like there is some get out. Maybe it's, you know, just like the penthouse or something, but you know, probably it's like the the Bitcoin Citadel or it's like you got to get out of these cities that are [ __ ] melting down um through achieving class mobility. And then sort of in another sense, escaping the permanent underclass, you know, it's sort of like if you're a person who already has a bunch of money, you need to get the [ __ ] away from the permanent underclass cuz they're going to go French revolution mode on you. They're going to like kill you. So it's like you need to escape the permanent underclass either by getting out of it or getting away from it. Um and um and so when we think about like the the go to market, it's sort of like for the second group or the people that already have money, it's like this is a hedge. This is like buying a really nice luxury villa in practice is uh a hedge on you know AI happening or continuing to happen as it sort of obviously is and just these cities kind of melting down. Um and so it's you want to have like the super nice house in this really safe, beautiful, awesome place. Um, one because it might be really fun and cool to be there. Just in any case, you might just want to move there tomorrow, but you might have to move there. And also, if you have to move there, there's going to be this like rush to the exit sort of fire, you know, situation where probably those assets become

Rory: insanely valuable. Like you probably sort of don't have in your head that like a house could be a house could trade for a billion dollars, for $10 billion, but like I don't know, who knows? you know, if there's like one place that's kind of the best place to be. Maybe like all the capital is like just like floods towards that single asset. Um, so maybe you want to own that asset. Um, so that's one that's like one half of the go to market. Um, that product, the sort of high-end luxury product is also, you know, if we do our jobs well, a pretty high margin product. Um, and so then we have this cash that we can invest into the culture, into the community to make it like a really awesome, you know, like interesting culturally dynamic place. And like, you know, I was I I'm like I love sort of figuring out what's happening in culture and like what's around the corner and so on. And um you know, I was talking about this a little bit earlier, but like basically taking that cash and building out um a really like cool, interesting place for young entrepreneurs, for young artists that maybe even is is giving them access to place to live at like below cost, but giving them some uh this is more in the weeds, but some kind of like uh sort of exposure to the upside. So like when you think about like you know Soho where we are now or like Berlin or any of these places you had a bunch of artists move in make the place really cool they were generally renting they get priced out they move somewhere else and so one of the things that we want to do is give super young talented people uh access to super cheap nice beautiful places where they can live and work and create things um at yeah super low cost maybe even below sort of the you know our cost um but then also give them these like long-term from grants that represent some kind of underlying ownership in the city, in the neighborhood that they're in. Um so that if they stay there and they sort of as a group make the place really cool and awesome, they benefit and they don't have to leave. They now have this sort of equity. They have this like asset um that appreciates. So, um I think like fundamentally, um those are two just like extremely attractive products for like each group and they sort of like, you know, and and also it's like if you're like a, you know, a rich dude who lives in San Francisco, you started a you know, awesome AI company or

Dryden: I think you would much rather move to um a cool young happening kind of like surf beach town where there are cool artists and you can surf every day and like there are fun restaurants and bars and so on that like all the young people have been sort of like, you know, building over the years. Um, you'd much rather move to like your sick house in that community than you would to like Yellowstone Club or some place where it's like just kind of people like you. You want you kind of want access to like it's why people move to New York, you know, it's like fun and cool. You got to make it fun and cool for the rich people that want to actually move.

Rory: So, diving more into that operationally. So, let's say first 10,000 people living

Dryden: Two-part question. One, do you think democracy is necessary for a country to thrive? And two, do you Dryen want to be the leader?

Rory: Yeah. Well, I mean I I I am the the leader as it stands. Um uh no, definitely not definitely not required. Um like companies are are kind of like a demonstration of this. Um so we have like a corporate governance model. It's like effectively like a a monarchy. So there um you know it's sort of ultimately like I I think that there's you know there was sort of this intuition I think that people in crypto developed basically like you know it's sort of Bitcoin is this like like incredible thing. It's incredible in all these different ways. And I think one of the lessons that people took from it is there's something like kind of like noble in um in like shedding responsibility in like decentralizing governance in giving up power. Um and you know maybe it's sort of America's like a lesson. It's like George Washington decided not to become the king and do the democracy thing and so on. But like there's a sense in which you know if you uh if you sort of decentralize power to these different um you know these different sort of bodies of government if you shift power onto the media which informs you know the the sort of the population like as to who they should vote for. In large part what you're doing is really um it's kind of cowardly. You're actually like shedding responsibility. like the sort of the noble thing to do is to take on responsibility um and to wield it in like a wise and thoughtful way for the other, you know, for the people, right? Like taking on responsibility is like a really gnarly thing. If things go wrong, it's your head. Like you're the person who, you know, suffers the consequences. So I think that um there's something like natural efficient um strong about having a like a hierarchical you know sort of governance model which is why every company in the world virtually adopts it. And you know in the context of governing a political body sort of same thing holds like you want to have a person who you know not out of a sort of caricature of like arrogance or e egoism or whatever wants to uh you know control everyone or something but it's like no you're taking on like a big responsibility to like lead a group of people and then also if the people don't believe in you as a leader they can leave they can go somewhere else they can do something else. So I I think that there's something kind of like noble about I mean just like leadership is a is a noble undertaking and pursuit and I think that we need to like rehabilitate like leadership and sort of

Dryden: governance in a political context.

Rory: So in a monarchy where you're the leader let's say uh 10 years into practice unfortunately you pass away for whatever reason maybe let's not call it political assassination but something happens

Dryden: what does that succession of power look like? I I think that uh I we need to have a good succession plan. I think uh I mean deacto my my co-founder Charlie would be in charge and he he would do a good job but um

Rory: but um

Dryden: I don't know. I mean I think I mean you have to have good sort of mechanisms for for a succession for sure. I think probably it'd be just kind of like a like a company like there you know there would be uh you know someone that we had in mind and we'd want to like you know sort of manage uh a sort of process for vetting those people well and like sort of my selection but ultimately I I would make a decision as to who the person would be in that you know in in that case just like you know Trump picked you know Vance and and then if something and there's sort of a chain of succession if like something happened to that person and so on and so forth. Yeah, super

Rory: Um, yeah, but it's it's sort of like uh incumbent upon the leader to select their successor.

Dryden: Yeah. So, we're here in the practice HQ and there's a lot of live stream equipment set up and you've been making some broadcasts over the last few weeks. Um, what's the message that you're getting out? well, okay. So, I I think that um to to like sort of cut through the noise, like it's it's sort of like like going viral is so like ephemer ephemeral and short term. It's it's also insanely competitive. I think kind of the way that like young people want to consume content now is like one, it's like the platforms are just Tik Tok and Instagram. It's like short form dominates, but then it's like you because there's like so much content and it's so like manufactured, you want to like it's more powerful if it feels more raw. And so like if there's sort of a narrative around the content that it's like it was live. It's like you're watching a clip of a live. It feels like more authentic just sort of like even like just subconsciously. And then further if you're live basically we've been live every day since we've started and so I think doing it like really consistently like I'm going to go live after this like just doing it a lot. Um you know and and we like every clip is like numbered every live stream is like numbered and so the clips are it's like you know starting a new country live day eight or day nine or whatever you know. So like when people kind of like have that frame they're like oh this is like a kick live stream and it's a number day. They're like like one that's a viral premise. It's like I'm starting a new country live day, whatever. It's just sort of like a viral premise that people want to talk about. But further, the actual like short form clip piece of content is just like more compelling because it's like more authentic on like all these different at all these different kind of like layers.

Rory: I completely agree with that, Frank. There's so many ads now that look like a fake podcast for the ad. It's like a guy speaking to someone off camera on a microphone and they perform so well because your brain thinks, "Oh, it was part of a discussion."

Dryden: Yeah. I must hear what this was.

Rory: As opposed to like you know like the shamwow like you know produced like bottom I think you people just don't it's just like inherently uh repulsive in some way.

Dryden: On that note in September last year uh Joe Rogan and Tim Dylan had an episode where they mentioned practice and they spoke about it for five or six minutes I think which is quite a lot of air time. Joe Rogan. Was there a ripple effect from that? Did you have a swarm of signups? What's it like when Joe Rogan speaks about you on air? Um yeah, ton ton of people signed up. Um it was pretty it was pretty cool. I mean like the the actual content was like you know um there was like a like there was sort of like ah like you know this is crazy. It's like the the elites are trying to like wall themselves off from us or there's some truth to that. But like there was like a line where he was like musing about uh whether or not like maybe we did know the um you know we knew who the antichrist was and we were actually like privy to these like secrets about like the end of the world or something like that. Um and I'm not going to say whether or not we know who the antichrist is, but um but uh I you know it was it was totally wild and funny and I I don't I like both those guys and so it was cool.

Rory: I love that. So, in 2024, you flew to Greenland and tried to buy it for $500 million. What does buying a country look

Dryden: Well, you know, we have a map here. We we always have like a lot of maps everywhere in our offices. And um one of my buddies who um did you see the analyst number three thing like the guy who went to the straight of Hormuz um during I don't know, one of our friends like went to the straight of Hormuz.

Rory: Oh. Um

Dryden: like counting ships and like

Rory: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and he worked for Catrini, the the guy who like wrote the stuff about AI that like moved the market like an insane amount. But um anyway, my my you know good friend uh who is like a crazy kind of adventurous guy that went to the straight of horses and whatever. He was at our office uh in I don't know it was like July 2024 and we were looking at this map. He's like man what's going on in Greenland? Like what the [ __ ] you what's he what happens there? Um and he's like what if what if we did something in Greenland? And I'm like, "Dude, I think it's like really cold. Like I bet nothing happened." And then we were like, "But it is pretty big. Like that is just like a big maybe you could do something there." And so um and so we we just kind of hunker down in the conference room and we're doing research for like, you know, a few days and learning about the government and whatever. And I just like I found all these emails. I'm like pretty good at finding people's emails at this point. I found like the I I was able to get the email for the um the uh minister of defense and like some people in their uh parliament, whatever. And so I just cold emailed all these people. Um and then we saw that there was a flight connecting through Iceland and we were like [ __ ] it. Let's just go. Let's see what happens. See if anyone hits us back like you know. And um and in our research the sort of the the idea basically was like there was like an overwhelming um sort of there's overwhelming support in Greenland to become a new country to you know sort of leave their um

Dryden: uh exit their sort of relationship with Denmark basically. Denmark. However, the reason they haven't done it is because the the sort of the the political leadership in Greenland ba basically every political party in Greenland is like an independence party, but some of them are kind of captured by Denmark. And so they they win and then they're like, "Wait, you guys, we just did the math and like we get too much money from Denmark to leave right now." And so we're going to do it in like a little bit and you know, they get to hire all these people, the Denmark money. So there's a sort of strong incentive to not actually leave Denmark. Um, and then we were like, "Okay, let's find like the most hardcore uh leave people in Greenland and just say, hey, like you they get a $500 million block grant every year from from Denmark." We're like, "What if we could offer them that? What if we just said, "Hey, we'll cover it. Maybe we'll do even a little bit more and like not from my pocket, but like we'll go find a bunch of companies that want to, you know, do stuff in Greenland." And we and we kind of thought that

Rory: there was a ton of economic value that could be unlocked there because like you can't really buy real estate. the real estate's kind of like auctioned off for lease by like the government. So there's like no like real there's a tourism industry, but it's like it would just be way bigger if you could like develop real estate. Um there's uh the shipping industry is kind of weird there. There's a bunch of there's a bunch of sort of like mining opportunities that I think are pretty interesting there. Um and then there's probably some defense stuff that that you could we had a whole sort of thesis around what all the things are that you could do and we talked to some companies and so on and so forth. Um, so we we fly there with this plan and we get to to Nuke, the capital of Greenland. It's this like tiny little town. There's like handful of restaurants, two hotels. We stay in the hotel. We're the hotel's right across from this like kind of big mall and like like convention center thing that's right across from the parliament. Um, so we get there, we check into our hotel, I look at my email and I have a email back from this guy who was like uh one of the ministers and he's like, "Hey, like we're right across the street um from where you're staying. If you want to just come over, we can like meet and you know, I'll hear you out and whatever." And so I I end up

Dryden: surprisingly easy at

Rory: it was crazy. I was like not, you know, dressed formally or whatever, but I was like, "Fuck it. I guess, you know, whatever. I guess we got to go." So I uh I just sort of like, you know, run over to the parliament. I go in. He's like the nicest guy. He's like super passionate about the country. He's an entrepreneur. Um and I talk about this idea of like basically um sort of aggregating a huge amount of demand for for economic activity in the country and bringing these people and all the investment that they would make into the economy and the sort of taxes they pay and so on in exchange for like a chunk of Greenland. And I think that um I don't No, I mean I think that like you know they obviously no one no countries like want to give away a chunk of their sovereignty but like as you know if if that was sort of the the deal and the only other offer is like sort of you know stay maybe that's more attractive. Maybe it's like you get your whole country and there's some part that you think is like not that valuable and you give it, you know, and you give it to us and and we and we do something really remarkable with it. Maybe maybe that's pretty attractive. And so we were sort of talking about this and um and then also you know Trump had made sort of like a foray you know sort of towards buying Greenland like in Trump won but it was like a much sort of smaller media item and so I think like maybe it's like practice having a little chunk of Greenland is more attractive than the US controlling all of Greenland or something and and then it and then I don't know we we had a good conversation and we were going to talk more about it and we were you know thinking about how we were going to like get these different groups in the country um sort of excited about the idea and so on and so forth. And then like I had to go to Thailand for like a conference and I I was like just like up at like you know 2 a.m. jet lag and I wrote this super long thread about like describing this

Dryden: I remember that.

Rory: Yeah. And I just like fired it off, fell asleep, woke up and it just went super viral. Like it had gone insanely viral. And I I texted like um I had like a version of the first tweet that I I think I sent to like I think it was like John Kugan or something and I was like what do you think about this? And he's like oh no it should and he I think he tweaked it

Dryden: It may be a different I don't know. that guy always just kind of knows how to like write a tweet that will go super viral this stuff like I kind of like hit that guy up when but yeah I just posted went insanely viral and then uh we had the funny thing with this sort of like epilogue or whatever was like I think it it was maybe sort of like maybe it was received as somewhat silly or unserious or something um until people in the government in the Denmark in in Denmark's government were responding to me saying, "You will never get Greenland. You'll never take Greenland away from us, like giving real credibility to the idea that that we would." And so, I thought that was really interesting. And this is when they I think it was like right around when Trump uh had had won um and was putting together the administration and

Rory: um I'm sure they were already thinking about Greenland because they were thinking about it a few years earlier, but but you know, knowing how like kind of tapped into media stuff they are, I mean, it kicked off just all this this big conversation, right? So I imagine that like we were at least sort of a bellweather for the appetite on you know the media's appetite on covering you know stuff around Greenland. So I don't know maybe we were like you know the tiny do a tiny domino that like affected this in some way. So

Dryden: but yeah that was crazy.

Rory: Does practice need nukes?

Dryden: It's interesting. I mean I I I wonder if uh in a few years that's going to be the um the biggest stick. You know, I think that like you know, if you go to San Francisco, these guys are just tweaked out about like like sort of AI bioweapons and stuff like that. Um, like I don't know, maybe you ask the whatever comes after Mythos like how to make a nuke and it just tells you you're like, you know, there are all these like, you know, maybe there are a bunch of ways that you can do it that people haven't thought it. I don't know. There there are different ways to get the materials and so on and so forth. I mean, I think that um but I I I mean, I think just like AI is going to be the the sort of the um the dominant sort of modality of like

Rory: uh as the sort of like meta tool and it'll just like tell you how to

Dryden: rearrange the atoms in your vicinity to be like as defensible as you possibly can be. There's probably some like the more access to the more if you have access to more stuff there more sort of ways that you can configure matter to but like I bet it's not just going to be this sort of binary of like you have nukes or you don't have nukes. I think it's going to be some kind of like consequence of uh having like super

Rory: Well, there may be a better phrase. How early in country establishment do you start establishing a military? So, I mean, we've seen this sort of shift from um I was having I was having dinner with this guy who was um he's like a like a team's guy active duty Navy Seal and he um he was really uh sort of obsessed with what was going on in Ukraine. This is like a year ago or something, but he was talking about how like you have these kind of like gnarly kind of like brawler guys uh you know that he that he works with that are kind of like you need like some of those guys, but you need to kind of like synretatize their skill set and worldview with like the the like nerd video game guy in the like uh what's it called in the like uh that little box or whatever like direct, you know, flying the drone. Um, and it's sort of like if if you aren't like really on the cutting edge of technology, you're just like totally outmoded. And um, and so it's it's sort of like

Dryden: on the one hand, um, the long term is probably like it's just not a human thing at all. It's like just just technology and so you don't need to like establish a military in a human sense. I I do think on the other hand though that like it's sort of like the sort of spiritual like worth of a country is like a consequence of like it's like do you have like a group of people that believe in it. It's really about like belief or something and I think like the highest most intense expression of that belief. It's like willing to give your life for the nation. So I I think there's like this sort of spiritual worth to like um you know the sort of courage and excellence that like having an elite military and elite fighting force sort of entails. Um, so I I think it's like you want to cultivate that like spirit uh probably like you know at the at the outset like probably everyone should be we we joke not really joke as much anymore but about having like um establishing the practice reserves um and if if we get into a war we might get called up to duty um and uh and basically having just like a training course where like if people want to join the practice reserves they can come do the training course they get like you know uh they get the the uh the the badge or whatever it is and then if if Brax gets in a war then we you know they might they might be called up to duty. So I I think it's like on like a sort of moral spiritual human development level like it's super important but I I I think probably by the time we're in a situation like and I guess I would also say like then like we don't need an army to defend the embassy at least you know not yet. we won't need an army to defend, you know, a city that we build in like some existing country. Like hopefully they have their kind of situation pretty locked down and and most countries do. But like, you know, let's say hypothetically it's like we go from the embassy to now we have a city in like Brazil or something like that. It's like, okay, maybe we need some private security, but like Brazil has like a military, right? Um then, you know, that city goes super well. It's like all these people move. It's like a really cool place. And then maybe there's some country this is like not going to happen but but you know just to sort of illustrate a point like it's like you you look at India and it's like the economy is like call centers or something like that and like the whole thing just [ __ ] collapses. It's like all they every single Indian gets like automated except for those guys selling the like foot juice on the street or you know whatever and uh and and then they're in a position where we could say hey like we'll buy this like island or this like chunk of you know I I don't know if it goes all the way up to the Himalayas but like we want to buy some chunk for like $10 billion or something and we but we need you to recognize it is sovereign nation of practice and we need you know you to help us corral all these other governments to like recognize practice as a sovereign nation. Sort of point being it wouldn't be in Brazil. It wouldn't be in the host nation. It'd be like some other special situation where or like the Greenland thing I was talking about.

Rory: In that case, we would absolutely need, you know, to have the capacity to defend our territory. you know, it's like there are countries like Costa Rica that, you know, are totally demilitarized and like are reliant on like the US and their neighbors and so on and, you know, sort of international norms, but like really you're you're in a pretty vulnerable spot, you know, and so it's sort of like

Dryden: I think we have uh you know, let's see, I think it's the third one here. It's like embassy, you don't need really a military city, maybe you need some private security. Country, you do need you do need a military at that point. And we're sort of, you know, eyes on the prize thinking about this long-term thing. And we're like, okay, you know, one for step one, build the population, get people excited about it, start making money. Two, start like staffing the government. And the government of practices like this company, and then what are the capacities we need? Well, at some point, we're going to need, you know, to have the capacity to defend ourselves. So sort of thinking about that in terms of like maybe these things that are almost more like health training activities like practice reserves and you do some crazy obstacle course and like whatever with us you do like an iron man or something you know it's sort of like it lays the foundation for when we get you know sovereign territory we get the country we have a bunch of guys that are like locked in and ready to go.

Rory: So let's say we've made it to step three here. Territory is achieved 10 15 years from now you have 100,000 people living

Dryden: Yeah. And the country next door has a horrendous civil war going on and there's a lot of people in a lot of trouble. Does practice take refugees? well I mean I think that um depends who they are. Probably depends who they are. I I don't know. I mean I get I think the particulars would probably matter a lot in that case. I think that um if we think that they would be good uh we would we would certainly do that. If there are people that we didn't want to be in the country long term um you know I think there would be some argument to like you know maybe there's some chunk that's like unpopulated or something and we can kind of set up a thing for them for a little bit with the understanding that they're going to move back and we'd have like a really straightforward legal process for doing that. I think like we're not going to get in a situation like you know the the US or parts of Europe where you get like all the Syrian people or something like that and then there's sort of like a cultural and political dynamic that does not allow you to like remigrate them. It's like we would

Rory: I I think really foundational to our country is like a a sort of clear-headed pragmatism about some of these issues that like I think would basically disallow the possibility of us like being like burdened with a population that like is not somehow like uh native to the idea of practice.

Dryden: Yeah, that makes sense.

Rory: Dan, this has been fascinating. Thank you so much for your time.

Dryden: Uh we're watching and uh expecting and hoping for big things and uh yeah, very very interesting project. Well, thank you, man. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Of course, dude. Yeah. Yeah.