{"id":19251,"date":"2013-10-30T18:18:09","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T22:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=19251"},"modified":"2013-10-30T20:25:26","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T00:25:26","slug":"silicon-valley-may-do-better-without-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/19251\/silicon-valley-may-do-better-without-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Silicon Valley May Do Better Without America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Balaji S. Srinivasan<\/a>, a computer scientist and co-founder of the genomics company Counsyl who also serves as a Stanford University lecturer, made waves earlier this month when he told an audience<\/a> of young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that they should secede from the United States. Wisely, Srinivasan didn\u2019t call for Silicon Valley braniacs to attempt to form an independent state. He did, however, encourage his audience to look for ways to work around, or beyond, America\u2019s suffocating government.<\/p>\n

His speech became a rallying cry for innovators frustrated at America\u2019s tax laws, regulatory burdens and other bureaucratic barriers to creativity. Since \u00a0Srinivasan essentially called for the creation of physical and virtual libertarian cities, his speech crossed over from Silicon Valley\u2019s tech crowd into websites and email lists consumed by those of us who champion individual freedom and free market economic policies.<\/p>\n

Because of government policies and social factors, the U.S. has become\u00a0obsolete according to Srinivasan.<\/p>\n

The logical conclusion of Srinivasan\u2019s philosophy are free states<\/a> and free cities<\/a>, or perhaps seasteading<\/a>. But Srinivasan recommends a number of more viable options in the near term. \u00a0The New York Times points out<\/a> that it\u2019s already possible utilize technology to opt-out of government oversight, intervention and taxation by \u201cspending unregulated digital currency, sleeping in unregulated hotels and manufacturing unregulated guns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Srinivasan\u2019s speech<\/a> should be a wake-up call to entrepreneurs, innovators and employers hampered by government interference. The speech should be taken even more seriously by the federal government. \u00a0Technology has created opportunities for clever individuals to live outside of government, and the more damage taxes and regulations cause to individuals and businesses, the more taxpayers and job creators will choose to avoid the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Balaji S. Srinivasan, a computer scientist and co-founder of the genomics company Counsyl who also serves as a Stanford University lecturer, made waves earlier this month when he told an audience of young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs that they should secede from the United States. Wisely, Srinivasan didn\u2019t call for Silicon Valley braniacs to attempt to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3693,2971,4352,4353,3843,4351,4354],"class_list":["post-19251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-free-state","tag-seasteading","tag-silicon-valley","tag-srinivasan","tag-stanford-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19251"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19253,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19251\/revisions\/19253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}