175 - The Last Free Place: Oswald Horowitz

Welcome to the Free Cities Podcast. My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official

podcast of the Free Cities Foundation.

Hello and welcome to this episode number 175 of the Free Cities Podcast.

Brought to you this week by our two wonderful Free Cities Aligned sponsors.

That's right, our lead sponsor Veritas Villages are building off grid

freedom oriented communities in Latin America. Look out for their new 340 acre

acquisition that just got the go ahead in Costa Rica with nearly 400 residences

planned. Click on the link in the show notes to inquire about their other projects

in Nicaragua and Panama and especially if you're a Bitcoiner because you can buy

your property in a Veritas village with Bitcoin and you can spend Bitcoin at all

communities and they will even help you to set up a mining rig in your self-sufficient

home so you can mine Bitcoin as well. www.veritasvillages.com forward slash Free Cities.

Also our other sponsor Arc Pad Arc Pad or a Seasteading Company planning a second iteration

of their ground breaking reef resort in the Philippines. This time their project will be off the

coast of Prospera in Honduras. One of the most important Free Cities projects in the world there.

You can purchase ownership in the Prospera reef resort either outright or via

fractional shares from as little as 1%. So anyone can get involved at this stage.

tinyurl.com forward slash Arc Pad also in the show notes. If you want to start investing

in a ground breaking Seasteading project one of the first. Right today's guest, well it's

a gentleman by the name of Oswald Horowitz. He's a filmmaker who stumbled into the world of

Seasteading and somehow ended up chasing one of the wildest frontier stories. I think I've heard

in a very long time. Now as with many crazy Seasteading escapades it starts with a Joe Quirk

encounter. Joe you have a lot to answer for. Oswald read Joe's book on Seasteading and then

took a trip to a floating festival in California and after a few strange online connections

he ended up trying to track down a mythical character by the name of Samuel Landy.

An Italian tech entrepreneur who was living at the time on a rusty barge in international waters

between Dubai and Iran. Samuel had a plan to bolt more barges together and build a floating

city state at sea. Now this isn't just a chat about the film. It's a conversation about the kind

of people who actually push out to the edge and try and live beyond the reach of the normal system.

It's both fascinating and quite frankly insane at times and when I say insane I mean both Landy

and Oswald to be honest. It's a story about risk, obsession, myth making, sovereignty and what

happens when a crazy idea stops being theoretical and starts actually becoming real anyway. Oswald's

new film is called The Legend of Landy. It's still in production so you can't actually watch it

yet but this long conversation will hopefully give you a taste of what's to come I think you're

going to really like this. Now as I mentioned last week, value for value people and comments

and bitcoin donations this week unfortunately you'll have to wait until next week. I'm recording

these two episodes in advance because I'll be traveling to prosper later on this week

and I will have zero opportunity to record any intros in fact thinking about it as you listen to

this. I will already be in prosperer recording new episodes of this podcast. Talking of prosperer

don't forget the free city's conference is looming closer and this year's event is a massive one

for the first time ever. We'll be holding our annual conference inside a real functioning free

city in previous years. We've gathered in Europe mainly Prague but also Malheim in Switzerland and

Monaco. If you're an OG you'll remember them but this year prosperer is ready to host us

on the beautiful island of Reitan in Honduras. This event is quickly becoming our most anticipated

conference yet and we're expecting more international attention than ever before. So what can you

expect as an attendee? Well everything that made our Prague conference is so valuable presentations

and updates of course from more than a dozen of the world's leading free city projects and see

steady projects too. But what makes this event a first is that you won't just be hearing about free

cities you'll be experiencing one first hand. If you're short on time the core conference

program in prosperer runs from September the 3rd to the 6th featuring keynote talks panel

discussions project presentations and plenty of opportunities for networking which for me that's

one of the big things about these events. The networking the sitting around in the evenings late

night dreaming up new projects that's what I love the most. We'll also have our famous VIP dinner

an auction with Mr. Mark Edge in charge there he's been on the podcast a number of times.

If you have a bit more time though I would strongly encourage you to arrive early and take part

in our optional activities on September the 1st and 2nd. These include a site tour of prosperer

networking events with local businesses snorkeling. Reitan has some of the world's best coral reefs

chocolate tasting visit to a visit to a wildlife park and beach volleyball plus much more.

We're also offering a special day excursion to see your dad Morazan which is one of the other

free city projects in Honduras over on the mainland. These trips will take place on September the

2nd and again on the 7th of September. So if you can extend your stay you'll have the rare opportunity

to visit not just one free city but two in a single trip. This really is an historic moment

for the movement. Not only are we hosting our conference inside a functioning free city for the

first time but the political winds in Honduras have recently shifted way in the favor of free cities

with the election of a new president so if you can make it this is truly the year to not miss

the free cities conference. What are you going to pay for this folks? You think it's going to be

really expensive don't you? Guess what? Tickets start at 239 dollars people. What's not to like about

that? Get in quick though there will be limited availability of tickets compared to Prague because

the venues are slightly smaller and on April the 30th there'll be an increasing prices. So secure

yours before then if you can and start planning your trip. Ruata is a wonderful island but getting

there from some countries can be a bit tricky and involves over nighting in America if you're

coming from Europe etc etc so this is the one to plan in advance get it all locked down

and then you can just look forward to it. Right time for the conversation and this week I suppose

why don't you just well grab your favorite rusty barge I know you've got a massive collection of

them and drift out beyond the reach of the usual rules and whilst you do all that well you don't

to do sit back relax and enjoy my conversation with Oswald Horowitz as I was saying to you

early we've done a fair number of sea-stepping episodes recently because there's just

a whole lot going on in the sea-stepping world it was it was kind of flat for a number of years

it had a massive pump at the beginning when everyone got into it and then it was almost like the

reality hit well you know how do you do sea-stepping it's a great idea I mean it's one of my favorite

ideas in the whole of the Free City's ecosystem I won't explain why now but just listen to any of my

episodes with Joe Quirk and you'll realize why it's one of the fundamental ideas of self-sovereignty

it has to be because you can move basically at any moment but yeah it was flat for a while and then

in the last couple of years three of the major sea-stepping companies have come out with

prototypes and suddenly I realize it's going to happen it's happening on a small scale now

so individual things but my absolute belief is now that it will be they'll be floating cities

in possibly even in my lifetime if I'm lucky enough and that's that's amazing and I love that fact

so I think I tell you what a nice place to start might be how you end how you came across the world

I mean were you already into weird things prior to this or you know how do you how do you become

someone who ends up making a film about sea-stepping so yeah so I've always had a strange niche

interest in various things and I'm going to return to forms of governance and the way in which

the project started was I read Joe Quirk's book sea-stepping another person that another person's

life that Joe Quirk has messed up very much so yes he's always killed me actually literally

but yeah so I read the sea-stepping book and I became fascinated by the idea and it says in

the early chapters about does this floating festival called a femoral and you know femoral is in

Sacramento Delta and I thought while I was living in San Diego at the time I should go and of

course I knew no one out of femoral and and it was very difficult to get to a femoral because it's

in the floodplain in the Delta and the nearest piece of land is a giant marijuana farm and so if

you set foot on there you might get shot so the thing is there's the nearest piece of land is like

seven kilometers away so with my friend I said all right let's get an inflatable boat off Amazon

so we got 120 dollar inflatable boats and we thought we'll just drive up there and see if we can

get there so eventually yes I met this guy called Brewster and he had this boat called the

Electric Avenue and yeah I spent the week at a femoral and that was the thing that started my

interest off in sea-stepping can you just I've never heard of a femoral yeah does it still happen

now it still happens yes how right how's Joe never told him Joe always just he knows so much but

there's loads of things he just doesn't bother telling me about that sounds amazing like a sea-stepping

festival like yes what happens at femoral for example so out of femoral there is it's not

technically run by anyone not by the sea-stepping institutes there's no organizers there's no tickets

the challenges you have to get there so it's kind of a nice wordplay an a femoral island so for one

week it all these people bring different floating structures attached together and the original

vision of a femoral was that this thing would happen once a year and all different people would

meet each other and eventually it could move out to the ocean and become you know the first

floating city or so but that was the original idea behind it it's basically burning man on water

right that kind of pretty much yes and how far off the coast is it or how far it's not off the coast

it's in the Sacramento floodplain so the Delta there's lots of different river networks and

you know like a lot vast areas of water and it's in the in the Delta so not actually out at sea

it's not moving much fast moving water there is no no no it's it's fairly it's I mean it's a river

you know so so there's a very large river system so the water's moving fast but it's not out at sea

so it's it's well a safe place no one's died the craziest structures you see there or is it

mainly just people in boats yeah it's many people in in boats it's they have you know there's various

catapults that all you know fling people across the water just for the sake of it yeah because

why not but it was yeah going to a femoral that I decided that I wanted to make a documentary

someone that was actually seasteading and by seasteading I mean living in international waters

because the point of seasteading is sovereignty it is to live outside the jurisdiction of any country

and so I start searching around and I find that there's basically no one that's actually living

in international waters so I do a lot of hunting around and I joined this group chat called Atlas

Island and Mason exactly yeah now Mason's been on the show a couple of times a good guy he's just

come out with a new probe he's just come out with an actual prototype for a yeah yeah the Libras

yes which is a phenomenal idea and a last I spoke to him actually you made me realise once again

seasteading is a reality because I've what I love about seasteading is that it sounds like sounds

crazy but there are working examples of seasteading happening cruise ships is the most obvious great

great example of free private floating cities but what what Mason's making these month movable they

almost look like movable barges they exist all over the all over the world in cities and you just

don't give them a second look parked up I remember going to Amsterdam once and we got a boat

somewhere and on the way out of Amsterdam all down the sides of the rivers were large square

floating houses basically you know and I love that idea of seasteading the sovereignty side of

it being I say well you could go to Amsterdam and then we could go to Prague and then we could go

to Venice and then we could go here and you know and and that's that's the self-sovereign life

anyway I butted in there could you better carry on yes so Atlas Island yes so I messaged this

telegram group chat and I said you know I'm a filmmaker I want to make something about seasteading

as anyone you know got any projects out in international waters and there was one guy that reached

out to me a guy called a Stefan Stefan yes don't know whether I've come across him tell me more

so so Stefan was in the process of divorcing his wife selling all of his possessions and he wanted

to liquidate everything and move out to a boat and live out on international waters so for a while

I was in you know chatting with Stefan for a few months and eventually he starts hearing about

this man that is living on a platform between Dubai and Iran in international waters

and Stefan had been trying to come up with how it was that he could live out at the sea and he

thought well it's probably better to join forces with someone else that's already out there

and so this guy was living on a deck barge so 20 meters by 72 meters so quite a sizeable area

and this guy's plan was he wanted to connect lots of these barges together to form a mini city

state that could break away and and so this is kind of one of the that's pretty much the

straight of hormones isn't it that that's kind of like that that part of the world we're all very

close to all the shits going down right an hour as we speak exactly right okay yes it seemed like

at the time I thought that's a very strange place to create some kind of new freedom project you'd

think between those two countries yeah I would agree with you there because I mean I don't know

who owns that block you know how is how wide is it do you know because there's a limit to how much

of it can be owned possibly I know so I think the straight of hormone that's maybe I think 26 or

30 miles but off Dubai it's probably more like maybe I'm not sure exactly maybe 150 200 miles

right so that that means that that bit in the middle is stateless yes effectively well it's

this thing with international waters there's no actually clear definition of what is international

waters because like zero to 12 miles is in the territorial waters 12 to 24 is your territorial

waters where you're able to police that zone but from 24 to 200 is in the exclusive economic zone so

even though that is international waters countries will still have rights to mine and fish there but

200 miles out is considered full international waters so there's various levels of international

waters that you can be in all right 200 miles is your safe safe bet I didn't know that I thought

it was just the 20 I thought it was 21 is what you say 24 yes 24 miles yeah yeah 12 to 24 is

known as the custom zone where even though 12 miles out is international waters you can get kicked

out by the nation state there but 24 to 200 is yeah right okay so there's a dude living between

Dubai and Iran yes on a barge exactly tell me more so I thought while I want to go this is my

guy it seems I've got to go and find him so Stefan has a meeting with the guy from the barge

and I do you have a meeting with a guy that lives out to see you mean on an online meeting kind of

exactly yes that's the cool thing is with Starlink being released all of a sudden now it is

actually much more achievable to do these seasteading free city projects in very remote places

because with Starlink you can be absolutely connected to the modern world so yes Stefan had a

exercise a zoo meeting and you know I had given Stefan lots of questions because I obviously

fascinated about what the sky was doing did he not want you to approach him directly is that

so at this point in time I thought it's it's this this thing with filmmaking is a huge

part of it at least what I do is figuring out how to get to people how to reach people that's

oftentimes the central problem and you could imagine a guy that's living out in international

waters between Dubai and Iran you know who does that like what what is the reason someone would

choose to do that like these these types of people as you all find out are quite hard to reach

so anyway Stefan is in the meeting and you know he's asking my questions and my last question

to the man was well could I come on board and live with him and so the man he's called Samuele

Samuele Samuele Samuele Samuele Samuele Samuele Samuele Samuele

yes and when he asked if I could come on board he was very against this idea

and Stefan found this really strange because he thought this guy's been very friendly very open

but as soon as there's any talk of someone being there with the camera all of a sudden his demeanor

entirely changed and there was actually a third person in this in this meeting it was a very

important character in the film I'm sure you know him and he's a guy called Vitt oh yeah we

can come to we will come to his involvement later what what was Vitt doing there

Jesus okay Vitt everyone should know that but Vitt is the president of Lieberland yes but at

this point I had no idea if it was it was just he was just a dude called Vitt but he was he

happened to be on the call and invited himself or you know I suppose he was friends with Landy

that's interesting I mean it's a small world but yes so anyway after this Stefan he's got a

paranoid guy he starts to do research on Landy and when you google Samuele Landy you see all these

art schools where it's like fugitive you know wanted by Interpol massive bankruptcy fraud and all

the rest of it and and Stefan thinks well I don't given that I've just liquidated all my possessions

I don't know want to invest them with what seems like a big financial criminal so Stefan wanted

to go live there as well was he just more next to him he wanted to get another barge and join it

on to Landy's project because there's this concept and c-steading of you know vote with your

boat and in this barge model of c-steading if you don't like the society you're in you can just

break away so let's see yes so obviously after doing this research Stefan thought well I don't

want to have anything to do with this guy so he blocked Landy and I was like you know you can

can you connect me with Landy and he said no and you know he didn't want to have anything to do

with these people he didn't want to put me in jeopardy or something by associating with these

sorts of people so for a while I sort of forgot about the project and then I was in another

telegram group chat and I see this new member has joined called VIT I thought wow what if it's

the same VIT so yeah message VIT I tell him about that you know I've heard about this platform

out in international waters and you know I want to go and film this thing and VIT says to me he says

sure send me any of your previous work and I suppose this is a something I've found a lot

with making this film and in general in life is that it's very important a lot of the time to

appear foolish rather than appear smart if you appear smart you can often put yourself

in jeopardy so one great historical anecdote about this is that Stalin kills all of his inner

circle the one guy he doesn't kill is Chris Chev and the question is why didn't he kill Chris Chev

and to me the most convincing explanation as to why he didn't is that Chris Chev at Stalin's

command would start dancing funny jigs and doing like folk songs for Stalin and someone thought I

can't kill Chris Chev like this guy's funny and Chris Chev of course ended up you know by ruling

the Soviet Union after Stalin and it's this thing of throughout history wise men they bring King's

grief but the Jester always always lighten their mood so you know I was thinking about this and

I was thinking well what can I send to this guy Landy I already know that he seems to be some kind

of criminal he doesn't want anyone who's a filmmaker to come on board so what I what I sent him

is our vital importance and I had the perfect video to send you talking about you didn't you didn't

send this to Vitt you send this to Landy this is through I was still I didn't have Landy's contact

directly I was sort of communicating with him through Vitt right so I thought well you know

what can I send and so luckily a few months before I had made a short film which we call American

dreams and American dreams utilizes the following ingredients so he utilizes a giant American flag

utilizes 150 dollars worth of ketchup a very beautiful Mexican opera singer and a single

bottle of mustard right and the American national anthem it wasn't an ad was it now it was

it what would you make this film for for fun go on so essentially I have a friend that's used to

have a ketchup addiction and this guy would consume bottles of ketchup it a day and it was quite

disgusting and it's a bit a little bit of a crude joke but we were trying to come up with a

short film idea to show him how disgusting his ketchup addiction was so someone was joking

what if you were to make a sort of you know pornographic film whereby the finale is ketchup and it

would be like this absurdist humor and we thought well obviously we can't make a we can't make a

porno but what if instead we just completely covered a girl in ketchup and we shot it impeccably

and it's this thing if you have very high production value you can make a lot of strange things

seem perfectly palatable anyway we shot this thing and there is this German word I really like

which is gazette kunsteverg gazette kunsteverg there's no direct translation but it means a total

work of art it means an all-encompassing art form and that was how we felt about the ketchup

video so anyway when VIT asked me then sending your previous work I figured well I should essentially

send in this ketchup video for girl thing covered in ketchup and it was shot impeccably I won't

make that clear this was not a low budget what was a low budget but it was a higher high production

value anyway I sent that video to VIT and I click send you know and then a few minutes later I see

see VIT typing the typing goes away and then VIT just ignores me and I'm thinking you know I was

so close I was I was almost going to get to landy and all of a sudden I send this I suppose you

could call it if you're being very crude you could call it a ketchup bookarchy if you're being

very crude and I had sent this to the associate of a you know international criminal or whatever

now these guys are ignoring me so for about a month I again I sort of forgot about the project

and then after that VIT he replies to me and he says he says nice he says we're happy for sure

to have you I was thinking oh my god it seems to be on and then again I say to VIT great you know

when are we going to go and visit landy and then again VIT ignores me and you know like I call

them some of those messages here nothing from him and at this point I have no idea who VIT was so

I thought well if he's not responding to my messages over the phone the only logical way to

continue the project is to find him in person so I thought well how am I going to find him I

thought well I'll go on the internet and just type in VIT Libertarian and as probably all your

listeners will know VIT Libertarian will take you straight to the guy so I thought okay well this

is VIT he's this president of Lieberland this micro nation and then I'm reading VIT's Wikipedia

and I see it's VIT's birthday coming up so I'm thinking surely I'll find VIT at his own birthday

party at Lieberland so I thought well I'll go to Lieberland and try and find him they do he does

celebrate it in I think I went last year but not in Lieberland in ARC exactly they have a festival

at the same time don't they they have the Lieberpulco yeah I went last year yeah so VIT's birthday

if I remember correctly is September the 14th I think it's around that time I think Lieberpulco is

maybe a little bit before but yes I got to Lieberland I went to the ARC village and no one was there

at first and then yes I went to Lieberland and no one knew where VIT was and then I find out

that VIT's been banned from Lieberland and Croatia really yeah yeah Croatia I mean but Lieberland

as well like in practice the police don't allow them to set foot there and so it's kind of this

like strange legal anomaly where Croatia shouldn't technically be policing the region but they do

there's plenty of episodes to just research that in this podcast we talked about it in depth

but yeah yeah I think people understand the terror nulias it's called areas of land which are

unclaimed by anyone there's only a couple left in the world one in Chad I think and the other one

is in Gornacee here it's called in Croatia yeah yeah yeah so there's also beer toil in

Chad yeah that's the Chadland and also parts of Antarctica are also unclaimed there is a slice of it

I think it's called Marie Bird Island I believe but it's on the mainland as well I assumed that

um they just declared Antarctica sort of owned by everyone all over the country's are made claims

but not all of it I'm not sure the historical reason why there was an error that's still unclaimed

I doubt anyone's putting a flag there are they actually it tells me that he does have his flag

on Antarctica and he also tells me soon gonna have his flag on the moon no apparently so I think

it's happening at the end of this year it's what I've been told I can't it's not that I don't believe

with that I just don't believe it believes people went to the moon you know I don't have to ask

go on because Vid recently had his prime minister go into space on this commercial space flight yeah it

was it was the crypto guy what was his name exactly yes the guy behind Tron yeah what's his name

oh god I can't remember yeah so all right so you're being ignored by Vid on email that's a

common experience don't worry like happens to everyone but I found out you get you do you what you

describe is absolutely crit though you get responses about one month later as if as if you'd

literally just press the button yeah yeah so Vid did a bit like I was on the leave like no one

knew where Vid was it was this kind of great mystery and and it was his birthday birthday coming up

and then I find that he's been banned and anyway he then appears on this speedboat on his birthday

and so I so get glimpses on of him in the distance I managed to kind of film him but I don't get

close enough to actually ask him about landy and so then Vid leaves and my seven days were up

you know for various reasons the creation police are keeping this this ban from creation

I have the same one exactly you've got you've got stopped on your way into Lieberland and they gave

you they basically kicked you out of Croatia but you have seven days yeah same thing happened to me

I just sit in the in the police station for like three hours and yeah yeah typed forms and stuff

like that they were sitting there going you know yeah yeah right ask it happened to someone else nice

yes so then after I'm then ejected from Croatia I have this bike and I was with this other guy that

was also been kicked out and at this point I'd like kind of lost faith in the project like I was kind

of feeling like it was a very tricky way to find Vietnam again I wasn't quite sure how to continue

so anyway we're we're biking back in beforehand I'd been in the arch village but there was nobody

so I leave my bikes at the arch village and then as we're about to get a bus back to

Apton and get back to Belgrade then suddenly this guy who I'd met on Lieberland a few days before

says oh you know Vid and the inner circle of Lieberland having this dinner and then all of a sudden

I boom I'm having dinner with Vid in the arch village I'd like to take a couple of minutes just to

tell you about what I think is one of the most interesting real world freedom projects that we've

come across recently if you've been listening to this podcast for a while you'll know that I'm

always looking for things that actually exist not the concepts not the renderings but real projects

where people are already building the future and this brings me to the reef resort developed by the

Seasteading Company Arc Pad founded of course by Mitchell Suchner who many of you will remember was

the winner of the Innovation Award at the 2025 Free Cities Conference the reef resort as far as

we're aware is the world's first operational seasteading resort it's located just off the coast

of Samal Island in the Philippines where Arc Pad currently operates 14 floating units available

through Airbnb and other platforms a project that has already hosted thousands of guests in both

their accommodation and floating restaurant now here's the development that will be especially

interesting to listeners of this podcast Arc Pad is planning a second reef resort this time

off the coast of Prosper in Honduras one of the most important Free Cities projects in the world

and construction is intended to align with the 2026 Free Cities Conference so this is where the

opportunity comes for you you can now pre-purchase ownership in the Prosper reef resort ownership is

available either outright or through fractional shares allowing you to purchase from as little as

1% up to full ownership your ownership percentage determines your usage rights your share of rental

income from the eco resort operations and your voting power in property decisions this also gives

you the opportunity of course to be part of a pioneering ocean based development within the

Free Cities ecosystem full units at the Prosper site start from $95,000 but with fractional ownership

available you can participate at whatever level suits you if you'd like to explore this opportunity

I've included a link in the show notes where you can register your interest and access the pre-purchase

information if you're interested in Free Cities frontier living and the future of ocean-based

communities then this is a chance to get involved at the ground floor sea-steading is no longer

just an idea it's happening and now it's coming to Prosperer and a bit you know he's he

apologized for not getting back to me so soon he said that his telegram inbox he's got like

thousands and thousands of like scam messages as telegram does and he said he just

he was unable to reply to my messages so anyway you know fast forward a couple of weeks

Vitt invites me out to Dubai and we're getting ready to go out to land his ocean hideout

so you know Vitt hires this yachts and you know we're getting ready to go into international waters

I'll take it you brought your cameras with you at this point yeah yeah I was I was filming everything

along the way so you were filming looking for Vitt is this all part of the narrative of the film

yes this is the early part of the film which is how I actually found landy and I suppose also my

entry point into this world will also be how the audience experiences at some you know now I can

tell by the way you're describing it is very narrative driven already like I was going to say

you know should be in the film but obviously yeah but yeah great go on then so so let's see so yes

we're on this on this yacht we're getting out into international waters again I'm thinking great

you know I've I've almost made it I there's so many times prior to this where I thought I've made

it and then you know Vitt stops responding to me and anyway I thought I've made it now you know I'm

on this yacht with Vitt and Vitt tells the captain the coordinates of landy's platform and anyway

the captain didn't know about this until the day of and then the captain there's a big argument

he says too far out in international waters is this a UAE boat okay yes yeah so we all get ejected

from the yacht and then Vitt flies off and basis just me in in Dubai and I'm messaging landy

and then landy's speedboat had broken down oh so you are you are managing to speak with him now

you know finally yes in in Dubai we've sort of connected through this and then I was messaging him

and at this point I was getting kind of paranoid it felt like some prank was being played again

because I'm like how like how can I not reach like landy's speedboat has broken down a ring up all

these boating agencies all of them say it's too far what's going to like cost insane amounts of

money to go out there and it's like there's just no way to get to landy so it's again it's the

same principle if it's not working over the phone you go in person so I went to uh watch along the

Dubai Marina and I spoke to everyone I saw with the boat and uh anyway I sort of charmed

these fishermen with my uh by a limited Arabic knowledge and convinced them to take me out so

that is the fishermen yeah yeah these uh you know they take people wrecking uh in the Gulf you know

fishing ever wreck so they were accustomed to going fast yeah I know the I remember the

I don't know whether it's Dubai but when I used to work in charger a lot every week every year

and we used to go down to the port there where they're all they're very old looking ships

and you know it's really beautiful ships compare it when you compare them to what Dubai looks

like with super high tech so you get these massive living galley and ships that look you know

are you talking about those they're pretty slow and they no no I didn't go taking out one of those

ones it was more of a modern one uh but that would have been that would have been pretty cool uh

well imagine it would have taken part though I I couldn't imagine you could convince any of those

guys I mean no no no there a lot of them are immigrant workers who just go out to see for like

months at a time don't they go fishing and they just live on hammocks basically I've photographed a

lot of them over you know over the years um but um okay so you got you got you found someone

there was it expensive I can't remember exactly I think it was maybe like $250

oh you didn't seem didn't seem excessive I thought given obviously it's but does he just drop

you off I mean how do you get back have you got his number like yeah is that is there a

phone signal out there I suppose well there is starving so you can't see messages right but yes they

they dropped me off uh out there and um come on you can't just go straight to they drop me off what

was the journey out there like how a lot is it 200 miles do you say no no no no no no I'm so 200

miles is in full international okay um but he was about I think about maybe 40 miles out still on

a boat on a boat it still takes quite a long time yeah yeah it was a few hours um but it was

luckily the waters are very calm so we made it in quite um some quick time but then actually

it started to get sort of rougher and he knew you were coming land you knew I was coming yeah yeah

he knew I was coming and uh Jesus you must have been relatively nervous oh yeah I was all alone

that was no one with me I didn't have a sound guy no I just mean nervous my because I've made a lot

of films my nerves on films is not what's going to happen to me it's am I going to get the story

that's the the bit I hate about filmmaking is this constant fear of realizing and when you start

seeing opportunities and you start thinking oh my god I really need to film this or I can't because

it's the wrong moment or it's going to cause a cultural problem it's just pure like pain you know

and I can't imagine going out to a place like this not knowing even if the guy's even going to

friendly to you yeah I mean he could have he could have turned out he might have ignored you

or something which would have been yeah I suppose can I ask you there's something I thought of

earlier in your film are you doing any filming of yourself yourself or is it is it is it more like

of a higher production type of film than that I would say like do you do pieces to camera on a phone

and things like that which you're inserting into the into the film there is a little bit of that

but mostly not I would say that you know my voice is this presence throughout the film right and

you're asking people questions but I'm not really necessarily I think you will feel my presence

throughout the film but you don't physically see me okay right I suppose you know that at any moment

in the film it is me is me filming it so I am I am the eye right so let's see so yes we uh it

was very exciting of course and of course I was a little bit nervous but at the same time it's

it almost felt like there was no way not to do it like to find out about such a thing and then to

have this opportunity to go and then to not go because you're scared or something it was kind of a

denial of life self describe this and the scene when you arrive it's literally water and a barge

there's nothing for 40 miles all the way around I mean visually nothing at all nothing

or truly just in the middle of nowhere yeah in the middle of nothing yeah oh my god so yes so we

arrive and you know it's kind of the voices are getting bit choppy and and it's kind of like

tricky to actually sort of more against it and especially the fishing boat was like very they were

kind of very apprehensive about dropping me off because this thing visually appears very rusty

and you imagine that there could be some quite serious damage to their boat if they're going to

give a side by side and then he did have this like little sailboat that was maybe 40 or 50 meters

away on some rope and the fisherman were like thinking about trying to drop me off from the sailboats

and I would like pull myself up so I didn't damage their boat but anyway luckily they they did end

up so more on the side by side and you know they land you so crew haul my stuff up and uh you know

I was really apprehensive I thought well who was this guy you know I knew very little about him

apart from that there were these assholes that say he was wanted by Interpol and all the sort of

stuff and you know suddenly struck me when I was actually there well um you know I didn't know

what was happened anyway so he invites me on board and he takes me into this shipping attainer so

essentially what it looks like is you have this flat piece of concrete it's kind of like mad max

the things screw never adds a fork lift truck there's you know these workers doing a lot of welding

and it's very basic and there's there's people so it's not just him there's not just him yes he had

five workers who who who are these who are workers they um essentially migrant workers the work

on ships oh cool so yeah they were from yeah India Philippines Jesus yeah that what a what a

prospect what what a story now forget what I mean I it's a great story but I'm just thinking

imagine you're an Indian guy who comes to the Middle East to work and you end up

and you probably go home and think nothing of it's just some job you don't realize that

it's a very unusual thing that you're doing you know as you'll find out later I don't think

they had that experience at all no they were they were very they were very sure that what they

had survived was something very very intense oh right uh it was I think there's no way you could

leave that and and actually um some of them didn't leave it uh ever um but anyway we'll get to it

later so um yes so I arrived he takes me into this uh shipping container he's not really saying

very much at this point sorry before you go on is there anywhere I can see a picture of what

this looks like oh of course I can show you I mean can I put can I put it into the internet because

I'm I've got no idea what I'm looking at yeah are you describing it as a kind of like a concrete

barge with with like a container on the top and you know I'd really like to be able to see this yeah

yeah I can show you off to the interview I've got lots of uh maybe about 40 minutes 40 minutes of

the film and some a drone shot of what it looks like and I'll pop it into the yeah yeah I'll pop it

into the this so that people can see great yes so yes the invites me into this shipping container

at this point like it suddenly like it hits me where I am I think like if anything goes wrong

out here there's literally no way to get help I know I'm not even basically no one really even

knew I was particularly out there apart from I don't think I really solved my parents maybe something vague

I was I was going to Dubai or something but anyway uh so don't it yeah no I knew where I was um

anyway so yes he takes me into the shipping container and um he uh gets out of bottle of whiskey

and he pulls me one shot of whiskey and yeah it kind of seemed like a customary thing to do you know

with some pirate type out in international waters and I was waiting him for him to pour a second shot

and he doesn't pour a second shot so that was a bit weird and then he motions for me to drink

and he's not really saying anything the whole time and I was thinking okay um well there's kind of

two options like either it's either it's poisoned or it's not and if it's poisoned and I refuse to

drink it and basically already dead if it is poisoned because even if I refuse to drink it there's

many other ways he can kill me at sea but if I don't drink it I'm thinking then maybe he'll become

suspicious of me so I'm thinking in this moment in time the only thing to really to do is to just

take the shots ages and knock it back and hope for the best and it was totally fine um it was

totally fine I was not poisoned and um he's not a drinker himself he's just not a drinker

himself but maybe he was a little awkward and I didn't quite articulate that and anyway I was

expecting Landy to be this weird recluse you know he's he's wanted by the government for some reason

but he was the total opposite like the perception of him online and the perception of him

as he actually was his entirely different he was like always always cracking jokes like he would

call his family about three times a day every single day so he's really a family man which seems

like a strange thing he's got a wife and children he's got a yes he's got wives and yeah multiple

children yes what and he's he is he's Italian right is that a little he's Italian and his wife

and children are Italian as well aren't yes yes so so how does that work then do they know do they

like why is he there or is that something that will become apparent as the story they will become

apparent as the story continues um but uh yeah I suppose it's this thing of as we'll find that

later he's someone that's been a real adventurer throughout his life and for this he saw it as like

one um big adventure to kind of end his life at these was 58 and he says you know he told me in

his interview to say I will die at sea for sure I'm not going back but what about his family though

did he not want to see them no no he did uh he also said uh it's better to die in adventure than on

a bed when you are very old and this is this current that has run all the way through his life

and it seems like even if you are a father and you love your children very much it is also very sad

for your children to think of their father as this great adventurer who was now new to himself

because he had children you know he saw that in some sense his his fatherly duties were not finished

but all of his children were adults they were living their own lives and this was his you know

great adventure and if you think about it he probably had you know orders of magnitude more

communication with his children than most fathers would you know given that he would call them

literally three times a day so he was still very connected with his family so I thought that was

that was very different to how I imagined him well yeah I mean I am a dad and I'm about to go away

for six weeks and it's a test it's literally a test you know partly to see whether I can do it

because I've never been away from my kids for more than two two or three weeks and not much at all

because I work I work a lot in short bursts and then I spend you know large long periods of time

at home but I can't imagine not I can't imagine saying it's a bit like that film was it

uh the weird one where the guy goes out into space and he sees you know and while he's the way

he ages what's he called oh interstellar yeah and that's the thing about interstellar that I always

thought was a really was bullshit was him saying I'm gonna go and save the world but I'm never

gonna see you all again because you'll all be dead when by the time I come back and I thought

that's a bit unrealistic why would you put that over and above your own family I don't know

maybe that's just me but come on then so you're there you've got there right

let's see so yeah landing was very friendly he was very welcoming to me and um do we know why

then he didn't reach he didn't really want you there in the beginning do we know what that was all

about so let's we'll come to a bit later land he had a lot of problem with journalists and uh especially

with seasick and general experts has this problem with uh with journalists um like it seems very

strange for example like there was this uh recent New York Times article about ocean builders and

they kind of frame this as this these weird rich libertarians trying to like I don't know

fuck the common people over and move out to sea after they've destroyed the land or something like

that and it's like if you think about like what the ocean builders pods are these are these eco

restorative pods like whenever you build any kind of structure in the sea it fosters life it can help

rejuvenate the oceans and yeah people that write these articles about it they don't actually care

about this at all I think I know I think I know why though I thought about this a lot I think every

your majority of people on this planet without realizing it I asked what you were called status

but it's it's a it's a in their subconscious because whenever someone says to me or I'm just

trying to live outside the system me I think cool your average person sees that as a selfish move

which is a bizarre concept really when you think about it because it's a liberating move

and and I think it it comes from this very deeply held belief that kind of the collective

the status collective this idea it's just very much pervasive it's been drummed into people a lot

that whenever they see anyone wanting to do something which for me seems so fair the fair thing is like

yeah you do what you want to do if you want to be a collectivist that's absolutely fine

but and if you don't want to be a collectivist cool I'm I'm really happy with that but

libertarians tend to think that's cool that's fine collectivists don't like you going outside the

collective and a lot of times you know you get the same the same thing happens when people

create a tax strategy that saves the money or if you see now people talking about people that

moved to Dubai to save tax they're slagging them off left you know have you noticed in the media

it's all these terrible people in Dubai because of because of what's happening in Dubai

these now getting laughed at because they went out there to get to to stop paying tax and

me I'm thinking yeah well you know to stop paying taxes is a good it's a good thing for you

you get more money to basically invest in in other things so but but your average taxpayer it's like

there's a name for that there's a syndrome isn't there where where you're a taxpayer so if you see

someone you know like doing something different you you have to hate on them because you're the

what you think oh there's not fair they're not paying tax but yeah they made a move they thought

it through and they moved to the other side of the world to get a better life and you know

but it's a very yes a deeply the collectivist idea is is all is very deep in a lot of people

subconscious is and as a result anyone trying to do anything on their own especially if it's

this a self-sovereign as this this is like but seasteading is a very self-sovereign

movement because it's and it's also very difficult to stop out of all the kind of sovereign

identities that you could take on it's the most I think personally the most pervasive and the best

one and only probably will ever be topped possibly by space travel in the end and you know when

it happens when it comes and because there there's a sovereign presumably at least there's a sovereign

space out there which is where you can really get left alone it's not 200 miles off the coast it's

like two million miles in the middle of nowhere God knows you know but but no I agree the sub that

seasteading has there's a lot of misunderstandings about what what's going on with seasteading but

on the whole I think it's people who don't like the idea of someone being self-sovereign

really in it in a deep in a really deep sense you know yeah and I think with Landy I mean

part of the reason why he probably didn't want me on board is even not trusting journalists is that

he wanted to just do it he wanted to so he bought this second-hand barge which cost about $200,000

US dollars and he was spending a lot of his time repairing this thing and I mean at least when

people see footage of the barge they'll think is this guy an idiot you know he's living on this

incredibly rusty barge it looked like it's about to fall apart and like there's this financial

times article where they described about Landy's project as something like a floatiller held together

by giant rubber bands you know it sounds like the ultimate fools errand like he seems like a complete

idiot but I think what is very important to articulate for Landy is that he was buying a new barge

there was twice as long and twice as wide and this is currently being manufactured so we thought

well while I wait about a year for this thing to be made I might as well get a second-hand barge

and live out at the sea and test the difficulties so I actually know do we ever sorry button

do we know Landy's history I mean having to having 200,000 pounded by a barge is not something

that everyone's got access to yeah especially while you're waiting for another barge to be built

yeah yeah no we can get I can give you a few breadcrumbs at the moment right of Landy's so

let's see Landy created one of the first VPNs on the internet it's called one click VPN

all right so he's he's got money he's got money he made a billion dollar tech company in Italy

telecoms company he brought high-speed internet to central Italy he was among the first people

laying fiber optic cables well across central Italy I think he had about 12,000 kilometers

of fiber optic cables so he was an incredibly smart competent guy and yes as we'll find out a

bit later I mean he was also among the first people that was selling encrypted mobile phones

so this is in you know 2008 2009 yes he would sell these at this company called crypto tell

and they would sell their phones for a very small price you know three thousand US dollars

per phone but if you wanted to audit it to know that the security claims were true he would then

sell you the source code but that would cost a quarter of a million also three-quarters of a million

US dollars so you can imagine the kind of people that are buying phones that effectively cost

you know three-quarters of a million US dollars you can imagine he had a certain clientele

probably the CIA probably he I did actually chat with him about this and

um anyway I can't say I'm not sure if you take too much but all this is all the things I'm telling you

these are all still known on the internet you know right people can research it if they're

interested you but it might you actually before we go on how far through this film are you

like as in we're you know when do you anticipate we can be able to see this because obviously you

don't want to give away too much now because you want to find a lot of this out in the film but

yes so I would say that it will most likely be done in spring of next year right okay that's what

I anticipate and if you've got much more filming to do there is one part of it that is very very

very difficult to film but it'll be the way the film ends but we'll discuss it later okay but I

would say that I've filmed on most of it so I know after this I spent a few weeks with Landy and

um you know film every on the barge for every on the barge because to me it seemed like

what seems to hold back a lot of sea-studying projects is actually the individuals that have the

willpower to actually go and live out in international wars and at least for Landy he saw there's a lot

of these sea-studying projects where people are coming up with prototypes and designs but there's

very few people that are actually physically building and Landy thought well I didn't want to invent

anything new instead I want to rely on what already works because these barges send goods all

around the world so they're well tested traversing the world's oceans so he thought that this would be

a good place to start as you get these barges you connect lots together nothing new necessarily

needs to be made and also even out at sea it's incredibly difficult to make a living through doing

things at sea you know through like mining or fishing or whatever it is it's going to be insanely

hard to actually have that support you so he thought I want to make things as simple as possible

I'm going to continue working on my software projects out at sea and I can use Starlink and I can

receive crypto and this can sustain me very 25th century and so I thought I really want to just

make things as as simple as possible so yeah I spent years I suppose lots more of the details

about Landy you know can be uncovered in the film but essentially yes then after this you know

I left the barge and at this point in time I filmed so many interviews about everything Landy was

doing but there was this big question that perhaps there's a question on your mind which is

about who is Landy you know why was he living out there like you know what about these these

giant tech companies like how do you go from having a billion dollar company to living on this

rusty barge in the middle of the ocean and I thought the well when I went at the first time I was

kind of a little bit afraid of course to to ask him all these questions go I thought what if you

think I'm trying to expose him or something and I became good friends with Landy and I thought

that you know I will return and on my second visit I will ask him you know all these questions about

his past so you know at this point in time where we're exchanging lots of messages and he's telling

me oh you know you've got to like go to Liberia you've got to meet my friends you know you've uh

because um Landy was the uh running the Liberian Embassy into by and he knew many uh Liberian

presidents and former presidents and he was trying to connect me to uh to these people

why for the film I think so so the thing about Landy is that a lot of people take this as being

something very sketchy but I think I I feel like I understand why which is that he would associate

himself with like some of the strangest people uh in the earth like so for example he was

good friends with the sky called Charles Taylor so Charles Taylor is currently the only world

leader in prison and he's actually in prison for crimes against humanity so it's a strange

person to know and anyway Landy was trying to organize for me to go and be able to interview

this guy in prison because he thought this would be another cool documentary idea for me you know

no one else has been known has been able to interview Charles Taylor since he went to prison

and Landy thought it'd be I found adventure for me to it's he's some African leader who

embezzled loads of money and did loads of nasty things right so essentially so Charles Taylor um

god it's it's a whole mother town in the history of Liberia but essentially during the Liberian

civil war he was trying to overthrow the Liberian government and so he was like trained by

Gaddafi in Libya and then he in the sky called Prince Johnson who I met later in Liberia they both

went together to try and overthrow the Liberian government and anyway he manages to overthrow the

government he he wins the civil war and then he then holds an election and this is his election

slogan and this is not a joke and I'm I'm I'm being serious like people can check this out his

election slogan was he killed my mar he killed my par but I will still vote for him vote Charles

Taylor that's his actual election slogan it's not a joke he taking honesty to a whole new level

yes and the very surprising thing as you think well did this work and yes it worked very very well

because not only did he win but he won the highest share of the vote ever in Liberian history

and since then no one has won a larger share of the vote than him so he is this very beloved

Liberian leader which is very strange because the perception of him in the outside world is he's this

genocidal maniac or whatever but in Liberia he is really loved by the people and essentially so he won

the Liberian civil war won the election and then there was this lady called Ellen Johnson and she

basically funded these rebels in Sierra Leone to then go and invade Liberia and Charles Taylor's

like there are these rebels trying to invade me I've got a well you know I've got to get them back

and so you know go to some Sierra Leone takes all the diamond fields obviously African wars are

are very brutal brutal things and so then after this then he has then tried in the hagg for

crimes against humanity and then when he has tried Ellen Johnson the lady that funded the rebels

in Sierra Leone then ends up ruling the country and a lot of people in Liberia basically think

because Charles Taylor was like very strict with like Western influence about them taking materials

and resources in Liberia and essentially there was so many people that did such horrific acts during

the Liberian civil war but only Charles Taylor was imprisoned specifically because he was the president

so not to say that he shouldn't be in prison but the fact of he should be in prison many other people

should be in prison as well but it was only to take him out so anyway yes he landed one meter

to interview him and I didn't have much to interview him but I have interviewed his children

because when Charles Taylor went to prison for crimes against humanity his children one of them

at least lived with the landy family in Dubai but wait a minute but this is nothing to do with

cease-deading now this is is it in the film just as an interesting trip so but what's he got to do

with cease-deading or has it nothing no no so I would say the film is it's called The Legend of

Landy and it is of course about landy cease-deading attempt but I would say that is more broadly

about freedom and because I think even with cease-deading is that it's fine to come up with engineering

designs but you kind of have to have some kind of like spiritual drive to do something like to create

a new city or a new country usually these these founders will they'll be like these mythic founders

you know like Romulus founding Rome or whatever like every city has these these figures you know

you walk around London you see you know Trafalgar Square and any kind of movement needs these kind

of heroes so I that's kind of how I hope that landy will be as I'll explain now you know I think

you could call him the first martyr for cease-deading so essentially yes we're I leave the barge

we're exchanging all these messages he's telling about Liberia he's telling me about these adventures

I should have and I'm getting ready to go and join him in January of 20 of 2023 second so on the bar

yes yeah yeah and so sorry sorry I'm of I'm 2024 and so you know I'm I'm getting ready to return and

landy stops replying to my messages I suppose it's been this common thread of when someone

someone stops responding to my messages but I've just got to go and find them but this time

is different because yeah he doesn't reply to me for about a week and you know it's kind of unlike

him and then I get this call from his daughter and she says there's been this giant storm

and his barge has been ripped apart and his body has washed ashore in Dubai really and it was found

with that happened it was well that that's this question it was the body at least was found naked

with all of the skin removed the only bit remaining was the tip of his pinky and so they were able

to identify him through his his pinky and then they did a DNA test to know if it was really him

and you know the use of sons DNA and his and the body's DNA and then landy's lawyer told me

the results of this would never have been made public so I was thinking wow I mean well what the hell

has happened you know I was good film about freedom the ultimate freedom is to fake your own death

isn't it well you know I don't think you fake your own death necessarily but lots of people did

think this for a while but suppose it's this thing of in any kind of movement like if you want to

actually propel it to like it's greatest possible potential and you have people actually pushing

at the frontiers necessarily when you're on the frontiers things go wrong you know things break

like for example if you want to go to space there have been many astronauts that have gone up

in rockets and then they've exploded after launch like necessarily if this is what is required

for any new movement is people that are willing to to push things forward so at this point in

time I thought well you know I hope that what my film was going to be at the beginning is I

hope that I would go out to landies you know floating city over many years and more people would

come and I thought I would be like as PR man you know like I went through my film other people would

join him more barges would come and and after this I thought well you know I've got to find out

about landy so it was this point in time that I then go to Italy you'd love its friends I see

so we're only halfway through the film really at this point when he does okay most of the film

has happened since then and since then of course I mean there's a lot of people in the sea

studying world that's all a cup to landy and you know things I can you know like a Mitchell Succino

and like he was in contact with Landy Lawson they were having had like plans to collaborate in

the future and you know Joe Quirk was you know messaging Landy for a long time and he's someone

that he knew all these people in the widest sea studying world so since then you're not been going

to ocean builders spent a lot of time with Joe and it's almost like through the other stories

of sea studying we also find more about you know landy spirit and the way in which this you know

this movement continues without him and the fact that he hadn't people be honest with you I mean

as someone who I know you know I dipped my toes into the sea studying world a few times I first

I'd heard of him was when I think I I don't know how why I got an email from you but I think it

was about the film I think he was when you were looking for probably investment or something and

yeah I'd never heard of him I I surprised like I say I speak to Joe quite a lot and there's

he's just forgets to tell me really important things like that for example like I've spoken to

I've had nine hours of conversations with him he's never mentioned Landy once and he sounds like

he's one of the central characters in the whole thing maybe it's because he died maybe he

doesn't want to give it back you know to tell the story of a seastate who ends up basically dying

because you know that's not good PR at the beginning well I mean you know Joe has written about

some lots on the on the seastating his website I suppose maybe Joe is I was the word I'm not sure

perhaps being chivalrous or something perhaps he sees it as my story to tell so he feels but

but yeah I think that ultimately for any kind of movement you need these you need these kind of

early heroic figures these people that risk their lives for something much greater and Landy saw

this as this kind of whole new opportunity for humanity and he thought well instead of you know

waiting for the perfect time I will try I'll try and do this thing and he said that any all the

successive attempts are likely to be far better than mine like all I want to do is just try you

know why not risk your life for some for some you know bright future on the ocean so we're sure

then that there was a big storm and the boat sank and is that is that is that pretty much true

I know it's true right so the reason why I can be very sure about this is that

so obviously one would think this point in the story that I would never return to the barge

obviously it's been destroyed so there was you know a whole period where we're thinking well we

want to go and we want to go back to the barge and we want to film the wreckage of it on the

bottom of the ocean so for a long time so it's not too deep there I suppose no in the Gulf it never

gets very deep I think it's about 30 meters or actually it is exactly 30 meters where the wreckage

where we found it I think the deepest thing you found the wreckage yes yes and filmed it

impeccably like it is did I mean this is pretty grim to ask but did you see any bodies down

they like no did the did you a or Iran or anyone did they send anyone out there to look for bodies

or is it because I mean it's in a way it's an interesting test of the thesis of are they really

in the middle of nowhere like did anyone show any interest in the fact that some people died there

so the thing with the UE I suppose is they are quite secretive about things you know it's not

as if they have a totally open and free press maybe it doesn't exist anywhere but anyway the UE

it definitely doesn't so there was there was nothing really on in the news about this there was

so there's let's see uh yes so Landy on board and five people on board and these guys Indian guys

yes so Landy's body was um they say I was found there was another body a one person is unaccounted

for and there were two survivors really yes Jesus what did they do swim so I I managed well I

so I had heard um so yeah one of this one of the survivors um you know of course I became good

friends with him and um I had heard that there were two survivors but I wasn't quite sure who it was

but I knew their names so I then just started searching the internet if I could find any trace of

them and find their family members so both of the survivors I've found a lot of their family members

online and so I start sending messages to them and um I'm actually getting contact with one of

them called Jeffrey who is from Tamil Nadu so uh yeah it was I I suppose I felt like kind of a

detective or something at this point it was kind of fun it's almost like living out this sort of

boyhood fantasy and yeah so I found Jeffrey and then I went to go and you know interview him and

get his his account of everything being destroyed so can you go into that and you can

yeah well that's incredible so how did they get back how did the two survivors get back to the

shore? So the accident happened February the 2nd of 2024 and there was at this point in time in

Dubai there was actually a lot of flooding going on it was kind of like storm season in this northern

part of the Indian Ocean and so yeah it was 5 p.m and you know it stormed me and they um you know

land he tells everyone to like tie everything down on board and uh Jeffrey and he hears this huge crack

on the side of the barge and he goes to investigate and he tells land he and this crack is getting

larger and larger and larger and until the barge splits in two um so as was yeah as an aside before

I continue with the story is that people assume that if you build something larger on the ocean

it is necessarily more stable but that is actually very much not the case especially for um for

large objects it's much better to um go deeper I mean the way to see this is if you imagine like there's

you know a wave like this kind of shape if you have a barge on hearing it's on the on the crests

of the wave there is a huge amount of force in the middle that can split the barge in half where

it'd be much better to have a barge that was half as long and it can actually slide down the wave

when things are too big there's actually a lot more forces that can um destroy them so in what

you kind of want to take ocean builders approach of the way to get stability is not to build um wide

is to build deep first um so actually as also I was kind of an interesting aside um is that

this is the same way that whales sleep in the ocean it's much more stable and so there's

this thing called moment of inertia uh where you know if you try and balance a pencil on your finger

it's very difficult if you try and balance a broomstick it's very easy and actually as things get

larger they get more stable so for example reusable rockets the larger they get actually the easier

is um to land them because they have a greater moment of inertia it requires more force to

off-balance them it's kind of a nice observation about whales and then seasteads and also

reusable rockets and then of course there is this narrative of one of the most important

use cases for seasteading could be taking us into space because there was so much regulation

around um launching rockets on the land that you know Elon Musk does now have a lot of his

launch sites on the ocean so this perhaps could be the most important use case for seasteading

because the safest place to build seasteads is on the equator and the equator is also the spot

which you need the smallest payload to get into orbit so perhaps this could be in the future if

you know governments get far more oppressive in their regulations towards um space like the oceans

and seasteading could be the way in which we get there but anyway um back to the story so the

barge is um yes cracked into and uh so land is someone that he's always joking you know even in

dire straits as it turned out even in the face of death his personality didn't really change

so jeffin said that you know land he was he told everyone to get life jackets on get wet suits on

and the barge had split into two and he said that land he was joking about it's fine because

beforehand they had one barge and now they've got two barges you know we've increased our

number of barges and land use of cracking jokes trying to get everyone to um you know remain calm

and you know they're getting landy like can you cool some of the health and um yeah there was no

mobile signal you know the starving could be destroyed and after a while um when they were gathered

on the back you know it's time to get dark you know the waves and the wind are increasing and

and he said that the barge uh flipped over so everyone is thrown into the water and um yeah jeffin

in his interviews he says uh in that moment also he was smiling you know he said uh land he

oh land he landed he was bleeding with his head and he's you know he's he said oh it's nothing

just a bit of blood and then jeffin says with the smile just a bit of blood so anyway land

he stayed near the barge and then jeffin and the other survivor called jay lord they hold onto driftwood

and um you know they're so latched on like this and they get blown towards the bias of into the dark

and actually jeffin couldn't actually swim um but he was wearing a a wetsuit and life jacket and

they were just holding onto this driftwood and um yeah you imagine for 18 hours being blown

through the night oh god it's gonna work night man man then uh and they were saying that literally

that they they couldn't swim or like they couldn't even move you know he said his muscles were like

so tight just locked in like this and the only thing they would do is like move to one side to help

keep it balanced and so anyway they get they're getting blown through and um then they they you know

they see these ships off in the horizon the next day and they try and like wave to them or whatever

but they're getting blown the other direction and the ships don't see them uh they keep getting

blown along and then just as I said you know they didn't swim because if they lost any if they

started swimming they'd lose energy and then yeah they see the ship that's like quite near to them

and then jay lord says to jeffin you know this is our last chance that we've got to swim

is it and but at this point the seed died down a bit it's died down a bit yes i mean it's still

still rough weather and uh strangely enough um i actually found um a picture online of them

being rescued we managed to find the exact ship because the thing is it all ships on the ocean have

these a i s tracking numbers and um you know we we knew the rough coordinates of um the barge

and then um you know we could see which boats like uh we're uh need to buy at that time to

manage to pinpoint the exact boat and and also the exact time that jeffin said um so that way

we could also know the direction of the current which also then aid it with our search plan for

the barge because we would know which way the currents were going at that point in time so yes

and then you found the crew and then you got their mobile phones and you realised that this

um yeah so they were then obviously all of them you know mobile phones and stuff everything was

totally destroyed no but i mean to get a picture of them oh yes where do you find the picture uh

linkedin yes so oh my god someone just said oh look we found these crazy guys oh

yes so the captain of the boat like there's this whole whole like photo shoot with the crew and

they've all got these certificates and he's saying i'm so proud of my team like they acted really

decisively and rescued these two guys and yeah i did this whole yeah linkedin posed for his

company and then we found that and then found them this you you see them you know with their life

jackets kind of up above their heads and they're sort of just keeping up above the water and they

they left the drift world saying start swimming this guy had taken some shots when they were

yes being saved yeah yeah really yeah so yes have have those two shots and then a picture of the crew

and so yeah and then you know jeffin uh went back to india and obviously like i did i think i did

have his phone number but obviously his phone and some card is totally destroyed so i managed to find

his brothers on instagram and reached out to them and then i you know flew out and and found out

this fact this aspect of the story yes but the thing about it which i found quite

what i suppose endearing in a way is that you know even in death like land he didn't change almost

like that's how you can tell who someone really is like when you're being tested in this way

uh i suppose it's this kind of this i don't know this sort of like spiritual aspect of like being a

warrior is that in every moment you're being tested you know are you a courageous individual are

you a coward and like what do you do when you're faced by you know you're impending death are you

a chicken are you are you afraid or something but land he was he was still the same you know keeping

up morale and he did say in his interviews he said i will die at sea for sure i'm not going back so

for me that the film is that it's not necessarily a sad story about someone dying it's about someone

that had this this this this dream that they believed in more than life itself quite literally he

was quite happy to die for this dream for for what might have happened so um yeah it's i suppose

it's making so so after that you've shot all this yes the next the rest of the film is about

you find we as finding out who land he is and and his his life and what drove him presumably and

yes that is that is one aspect of it um so yeah so yeah and also you'll be matched if we found the

wreckage yeah and um and what it dived down there's too deep to dive was no no no uh 30 meters is

oh yeah yeah i've been to 20 meters you're right yeah yeah yeah i mean divers can go down to uh

i don't know they can get very deep you know hundreds of meters with the right equipment so anyway

then we did this kind of whole um search for the barge and uh you know we'd contact all these

wreck hunters and ask them for strategies and friend of mine is helping it me out with a project like

the uh like we both studied sort of maths and computer science university so it was kind of fun

it was like designing this whole search pattern and then getting people to go and search for it with

sonar and um it was also quite strange because we'd we'd keep like i'm getting people to go and

search for it and then they would just stop replying to us so we had to keep finding new people

to search it was it was kind of strange anyway um so eventually we we we founded and then we found

a like a people that specialized in underwater cinematography to go and film it and again like we

were trying to raise money in we weren't raising our money in all the rest of it and it meant that

we didn't end up actually filming the barge though the wreckage until i think it was around maybe

18 months later perhaps and the thing was this was actually perfect because when we went down

there this thing could became an oasis for life covered in coral and there were sea snakes and

and sharks and and this is one of the arguments for sea studying that i um hinted out earlier

is that whenever you build on land you destroy all the life that was there but whenever you build on

the ocean it fosters life and landy's barge has become an oasis for life like as soon as you go away

from the barge it's just like sea in the sand and there's there's nothing at all but landy's barge

has become this real oasis so there's some kind of poetic beauty in it and also um one of these

these arguments for sea studying is that he may have died but you know all these all these animals

have a new home where did you find your divers then to dive to 30 minutes i've made a few films

under water and yeah yeah but i know a few there's a few guys around the world that do that kind of

yeah yeah well do a shout out for them they're called our scholarly media uh and uh yeah this

sort of team of uh british divers and i suppose there's another one of those things you know you

just do some research on the internet you know compile the list of maybe you know 20 people that

seem our 20 companies that seem competent and then email them and you know you find the best fit

and um but you sound like you are very happy with what it looked like you say oh yes no

really um they they didn't incredible job the divers um and yeah very i just did anyone find i mean

did you find anything unsettling down there or interesting or you know well um we found landy's laptop

we have his laptop that's kind of uh have his laptop i have his have his mug what was actually

very strange was you know landy would always be sitting in the swivel chair you're doing his coding

whatever and um yeah just seeing that i mean perhaps one of the last shots in the sequence

i imagine is you know just the camera's going above the sand and there's bare sand and and then

there's just the shot of his chair being covered in coral and then the sort of camera goes of

weapons of up into the sky so very just yeah it's so strange seeing this place but walked around and

now now something destroyed it was really something very strange no i yeah i love filming underwater i

think it's i love being deep underwater as well it's just so um nothing bothers you down there

it's one of the best feelings in the world being down the only trouble when you're filming is you

i've i ran out of air once in in the Philippines purely because i was concentrating and what i was

doing and got completely engrossed in it was about 20 meters down and i i realized a fuck it's

and i had to just shoot at the top i signaled we had some support boats i signaled you know they

gave me some air and i went straight back down again but um but um i do love being down there we

were making a film about um what was it called um hooker pipe divers so it's second hooker pipe

divers they're like uh fishermen who basically use tubes that pump air down to them in that this is

in the Philippines he was incredible it was it was called moro ami it's a it's a fishing method where

you get about 30 guys that go down with with little pipes you know and just breathing through their

mouth and they basically all take a part of the net and then they just swim over the top of um

coral reefs uh we were four very these are out to sea coral reefs you get these little bit like

what you're describing at about 40 meter depths you get these little islands of coral sometimes

because all the coral in lands been fished already and they just literally walk them across this

thing and all the but all the fish get trapped um but people yeah it was a it was a terribly

dangerous method it's an illegal fishing method but um we we we got we stayed on one of those boats

for like two weeks but yeah being and i don't know i love the i love the feeling of being underwater

um you don't die of yourself um very but i don't have my like um i don't have my paddy

qualification but i haven't i have not really you didn't want to be there to direct it then um well

i suppose i was directing it from the boat so i mean they would we were filming it for 10 days in

total so at the end of each day we'd wash all the footage and be chatting with the divers about

what we wanted and all the rest of it so um i would like to go and i dive at some point i think it would

be this this fun thing in the future you know to go down there um but yeah yeah so let's see what

else um so we've okay now we're looking into the landy back story yeah so i suppose that the

two major components is is the landy back story and also how the film will end are you allowed to

i can tell you how the film will end yes okay i'm not gonna give too much away no no no no i think

it's it's the it's a similar thing well i'll tell i'll tell you well it's well certainly you

went to Liberia anyway because that was to part of yeah why you know who we use and stuff so an

interesting connection at least with Liberia and seasteading is that so i think the most um common

flag on the ocean is the Liberian flag so they have the biggest shipping registry um because it's

very easy to get Liberian flag and they don't really police you anywhere around the world so

landy was flying the Liberian flag out in international waters and um it is likely that if seasteads

emerge the flag of Liberia would be a very good choice um so there is a seller i've been there

next we've made some films in in Liberia yeah yeah really years ago in what years um

oh god knows what what i'm gonna guess two thousand and ten maybe two thousand ten oh well

i mean it's a it was a pretty pretty harsh place um completely corrupt that that was my

experience we because i was i was working on behalf of a um an NGO i was making a film for an NGO

and everyone we met was it was it was it was it was a really dastardly scenario there was

is it monrovia there's a capital right in monrovia um it's completely squalid mostly

except for the five star hotel where all the NGO people stay and the UN had quarters there where

everyone's driving these brand new things and we and and one of our contacts they said oh you

must come and meet the mayor you know of monrovia and i'm and she showed us around this lavish

you know like she she wanted to show us this new room she'd built a tv room with like walnut

walls and all this kind of stuff and it was just like this is all so wrong this is this is everything

that's wrong about NGOs is they're funneling all this money into this place and and i i came away

that was one of the last jobs i did for an NGO actually i came away with a really bad taste in my

mouth because even the projects they were pushing were were really not um not something like that

it was beyond what i thought NGO should be they were they were policy projects let's you know

get them to grow these strains of rice or let's build these things and you know i i i prefer to

films actually what were you what stories were you covering in i covered the first one was about

was about create i was such it just was so stupid i hope they're not listening but um there was

this project this NGO funding projects you know monrovia had no sewage uh system at all

i don't it probably still doesn't now that that basically people were shitting everywhere like

everywhere you went there were these kind of places where people went to the toilet it was

disgusting obviously but it was just the way things work because there was no way to to take

this stuff away there was just no system for it the beaches as well or just tell you yeah right

everything and some bright spark in an NGO in the UK that i won't mention it just come up with

this great idea to do these composting toilets with live with live worms living in them and this

you know and and it was just like oh you know you get out there and you realize they built five or

six of these things no one used them and the whole all the money got funneled into something else

and and people pocketed the money and blah blah blah and it was just one of those scammy NGO

things that most people don't realize a lot of the time this is what happens in these kind of

organizations and it's not that these are nasty people these are well-meaning people in the UK coming

up with ideas i did another one once in um Pakistan where they they had a refugee camps they had

this problem with people going out to the outside the the edges of the camp to go to the toilet

so they said right cool we're we're going to create all these like toilets so that they can

you know and we dig and they spent all this money building these things and obviously within

a few days they were rancid and no one cleaned them and nothing happened so everyone was using

which wasn't about necessarily a bad idea because it was just what you did and early in the morning

you walk out to the edge of the desert out there you do your thing and you come back as soon as

they put it all in one place this idea was right this is going to be great because then we can have

a proper and you know there was no thought that maybe if no one no one wanted to clean them because

they were disgusting and but within a few weeks they were completely useless useless you know

no load of money pumped into that but yeah the Liberia one was that was the compound

distinct toilets and then I did one the last one I did which just I realized this is wrong

they were trying to get inland farmers to change the kind of rice they used to this GM

rice because it gave four crops a year instead of two or something and I'm really suspect

of things like that because I think like just leave them alone I mean in in land it was actually

it was actually a really lovely country the roads obviously were unbelievable like they were all

dirt roads and in the rainy season which second time round we were there in the rainy season you

can imagine I've got the the best footage of trucks trying to get across these horrendous you know

it's just one of those countries that's unfortunately you find just not working corrupt

no infrastructure just you know and I don't really know how you were short of starting from scratch

anyway this is a bit of a side how did you find Liberia did you like Liberia?

I I love my time in Liberia I don't think I would recommend as a tourist destination

no I'm not mean he's well I don't know I haven't been there for a while but

it depends on what you're like I mean I let's see I suppose it's to your point about the the

composting toilets I found this quite amusing which was I stayed like pretty much next to the

president's house and on one of the walls next to his house like on the outside of his compound

there's this graffiti you see all over Monrovia that's all it's probably 50 plus times it says

only dog allowed to pee pee here by the president's house yeah Liberia is interesting as well because

it has exactly the same constitution as the United States almost exactly the same and it's one of

the longest independent African nations I believe the second after Ethiopia and it has a huge

amount of natural resources yeah so it's strange rather than it is yeah because almost

the whole population lived in poverty I would say is that fair to say I mean I can't I don't yeah

it is one of the poorest nations in the world yes but yeah let's see so in Liberia yes I met a lot

of Landy's friends a lot of people in the government that knew him of course what's the initial

connection between Landy and Liberia then so even to give back a step so we're going to depth

about Landy's past but it's a sort of broad overview is that he's born in the middle of Italy

and as a young child he does a lot of these motorcycle races all across Africa does the

parrester car he's always had this early adventurous spirit and just like he kind of likes the frontiers

of being out in Africa and being in these dangerous places he's also into the frontier of

of cyberspace you know creating a VPN technology like he would make these when you probably remember

like payphone cards or whatever he was like among the first people making these in Italy and then

he makes this telecoms company called Utilia which lays all these fiber optic cables all across

central Italy and the space of you know about five years from basically nothing it becomes the

fourth largest telecoms company in Italy and at least this is Landy's side of the story I mean

is that he said that he was his company was entering into a deal with Burlusconi where there be

some kind of merger because you know Burlusconi the president had this company media set and he's

kind of this media mogul and anyway Samuela said that at the last minute Burlusconi pulled out of

this deal and then started accusing Samuela of like massive fines from the government and these

fines like worth hundreds of millions of of of Euros and so basically from Samuela's perspective he

feels like you know I create this big company I tried to enter into a deal with the president

obviously he's the president so he can basically get the courts to do whatever he likes

he pulls out of the deal accuses me of all these fines my company eventually goes bankrupt

and then all of Samuela's fiber optic cables are then acquired by a shell company owned by Burlusconi

that's Samuela's side of the story I mean I'm not going to delve into the details too much in the film

because also it's a very long legal case that you know lost in many years and you know lawyers

devotional their energies to this so it's not for me to say where the Landy is is innocent on

North but at least what Landy was then accused of of a fraudulent bankruptcy and you can imagine

perhaps from the more libertarian perspective you create this giant company the government tries to

fuck you they accuse of all these fines and then you think well if they're going to take all my assets

I might as well try and save some of them so he leaves the country and you know maybe he does

fraudulent bankruptcy maybe he doesn't I'm not sure but after this he then has to flee Italy

and so even before this Landy would spend a lot of time in Liberia he did have a portion of

Utilia that was doing a lot of infrastructure in Liberia you know so they were built hospitals

out there and they would do the whole telecoms network in Liberia and of course if you want to do

business and African countries you have to know the people that are running things it's impossible

you know to do large scale projects without that so yeah that was sort of Landy's

Landy's involvement in Liberia and so the thing is yeah Landy's set up the Liberian Embassy in Dubai

and there is this kind of I suppose you would call it like a meme perhaps amongst commodity traders

of being a Liberian diplomat because in the 90s it used to be that you can pay to get a

Liberian diplomatic passport and as a diplomats you were able to you know you have diplomatic

community so able to take like a briefcase or whatever of diamonds or whatever you know

across borders and things like that and anyone that's a Liberian diplomat is considered insanely sketchy

but I would consider Landy probably the only legitimate white Liberian diplomat that has

ever existed I'll tell you why so after Landy even before this so one thing that's very

endearing to me about Landy is he was never trying to show off he was never trying to

you know do good PR for himself he really just wanted to pursue his projects essentially in peace

he was really only because I was so persistent in trying to reach him that a filmmaker even came

on board and filmed what he was trying to do he was never chasing publicity at all and of

course there's all this negative press about him and and so anyway after after Landy died I

get in contact with someone from the Liberian Embassy in Dubai and he tells me how Landy coordinated

the rescue of hundreds of Liberian girls that had been sold into slavery in Oman and so essentially

what had happened is you know these girls would be promised that they would be up to study go to

school you know to get jobs in Oman they would be sent to Oman when they would arrive they would

have their passports taken away from them if they protested against this they would be beaten and

a lot of them essentially were working a slave you know for little to no pay and you know of course

some of them you know the more attractive ones would have a certain fate and also Liberia has no

diplomatic ties with Oman so there's no Liberian Embassy with which these girls can get any help

and some of them would escape you know try and leave through the airport but they're unable to escape

because they have no passports and oftentimes when they went to the airport they would be beaten

and taken back to their slave masters so anyway some of these girls then think well how can we escape

from here there's no Liberian Embassy in Oman whereas the nearest Liberian Embassy it was actually

technically floating in international waters between Dubai and Iran and so what Landy would do

is when he found out about this he figured well I've got to try and get as many of these girls

out of Oman as possible and the Liberian government wasn't particularly helping with this issue

so Landy personally used you know his own money he would pay for safe drivers or for you know

if a getaway driver is to go in the night these girls would then have to escape from the houses

they would be a driver that would pick them up and as I said they couldn't just go to the airport

and leave because they didn't have papers so they would then all stay in a safe house

that was paid for and organised by Landy in Moscow at the capital and then Landy would then

sought the basic negotiations with the government and you know the slave masters to allow these girls

to leave you to be able to get their papers and all the rest of it are there land borders they

could have gone out on well I think they just basically didn't have any documents with which to

leave and you imagine let's say you have no money at all you've essentially been a slave you know

you go to the border I mean what do you do next you know then you're just in some other

strange place I don't know sneak over I was just thinking about I don't I don't never travel

across any borders there I actually know I've been from like the UAE to somewhere else

I can't remember you know but and there's no border really you know you just you know

so as the point is you know what do you do then you know then you're seeing some other strange land

well but you you said that he set up the Liberian Embassy in Dubai right yeah yeah yeah

yeah so then so with these girls they were all in this safe house in muskats and then he would

then get all of their papers anyway you know pay for their complain tickets to go back to

a Liberian you know hundreds of these girls were basically rescued by him and this is another

thing with the media how they oftentimes don't care about the truth whatsoever so for example

there was this financial times article about landy and everyone that reads about landing on the

internet they consider him this terrible guy for some reason but what did he what crimes did he

actually do the only thing you can say that he he might have done is fraudulent bankruptcy that's

the only real thing but he seems like this terrible criminal or whatever from the way the media

portrays him but when you say fraudulent bankruptcy as well yeah I look at that and think I thought

when you were saying it I thought what you said yeah I thought here's a pretty you know authoritarian

government trying to steal all my possessions hmm I'm going to try and hide some hmm yeah yeah

I mean I think that's a very normal thing to do exactly and you can also see this as perhaps

one of the reasons why landy was even drawn to sea studying in the first place is he thinks that

well I'm clearly a highly competent individual I have a lot to give to my nation I brought high

speed internet to it and if my nation isn't treating me right well why don't I try and create a

state in which I will be valued in which I can you know recreate a state with the right ideal so

you can see maybe that was why he was drawn to sea studying do you did it was that an expressed

I um you know was he trying to create a state or is that just you know did he ever say that out loud

well I suppose he's someone where he doesn't like to make grandiose claims you know he's

you know he considered himself as living out in the frontier he wanted to encourage other people

to join I think definitely that was his ultimate ambition but he perhaps wouldn't have stated it

in such you know grandiose terms he was just I'm saying let me grab some water oh yeah yeah

back in a moment can you can you go I'll speak while you're gone so that I don't have to cut this

yeah what was I going to say um I don't know actually yeah I thought as much that we should

probably bring a bottle of water out here I figured this might become a long conversation thank

you very much indeed thanks um so he's not so he's yeah go on that's he where were we so yes in terms of

his did he expressed did he express that he was actually thinking of creating a new country

necessarily um was he just playing with diplomacy because that seems it quite fun was he actually

a librarian diplomat himself yeah I mean he was he was he had a library in diplomatic possible right

so he's obviously someone like in our world you know you know passports and voting with your feet

and all this kind of stuff and how to work how to skirt the system is always talked about

that seems like just another version of that to me just at a higher level you know yeah

it seems like you know landy really almost embodies the kind of archetype of a person that is

actually able to create some kind of new society or some kind of new state because ultimately you do

need to be incredibly competent to I mean I mean even for example it's probably much easier to

create a billion dollar company far easier than it is to create a state yeah and ultimately people

that are going to build micro nations have to be people that are supremely competent in what they

want to do and also even in trying to create a new state like I actually don't um think that

you know see status will say oh there's no more land left or whatever so we have to do it out in

the ocean but I think ultimately if you're good at diplomacy there is like vast areas of the world

that are totally uninhabited like example Kazakhstan there's so much area there if you're a very

skilled diplomat you can negotiate you know especially economic zones and all the rest of it so I

really don't think that the bottleneck in creating new states is land I think it is almost entirely

very competent individuals that are actually able to you know make these things happen

I think in the case in what you're saying though I agree same with large sways of most of Russia

is like the forests that go on for hours and hours and hours yeah there's not a shortage of land

the problem with the land-based version of sea-steading which is what you're describing is

you cannot move and this is why I love sea-steading so much because as a sovereign entity

you're the ultimate you have the ultimate ability to change neighbors and which you can't do

on land once you commit to their land to your physical space you are at the whim of your host

nation no matter who they are and there's nothing wrong with that as a strategy and ironically and

this was something I didn't mention earlier but I think one of the best strategies with sovereign

sovereignty is not to be known about and I was wondering whether that was part of the reason

you didn't want to speak to you in the first place as well because it's one thing living in between

Iran and Dubai it's another thing when everyone knows about it because as soon as people know about

it as soon as you become a person of interest that's when people start showing up and the wrong

people start getting but if no one knows you're there and I I think as a strategy I almost think

if you really want to sort of sovereign life you're probably just better off sometimes just building

a little community in the middle of nowhere where no one really wants to go and just keep it under

the radar because because it's very easy to do that so as you like you say as soon as you start

negotiating with governments it's like suddenly things get very complicated governments are some

of the least efficient organizations in the world literally they have a terrible incentive model

compared to the private sector you know and as a result dealing with them you know because they

all have all the guns as well which doesn't help by law they have all the guns so you can't even

sort of like stand up to them from that sense I mean you can but you do you would do so at your

peril I think some people have you have to use legality on the whole legal sort of like you know

systems and diplomacy and communities you know if you've got a big enough community then you can

affect the opinion of governments and stuff but but yeah yeah the sort of different strategies

like you know you don't necessarily need to get any weapons of tool like for example one thing that

could be a future legal and strategy is obviously Croatia is giving them a lot of grief so one thing

you can get is get a larger nation to look out for you so example Malay has said on video you know

when he says when you ask Malay like what country is he from he doesn't say Argentina he says I'm

from Liberland and if for example Argentina decided that they already wanted to leave a land to

exist they could put you know a huge amount of international pressure on Croatia so one way

the diplomatic way is to get larger nations to support you for whatever reason maybe it could

be for research and to add no such in medical practices or whatever it is that's not possible

in other states but because that way or of course there's also you know you've got to develop

um you know advanced weaponry like you could think for example North Korea has you know

one's trying to invade North Korea because they have nukes and you imagine if technology gets

much more advanced in the future you could have smaller nation states that or smaller start-up

societies that would have nukes and just say guys you know we're sovereign I don't mess with us

and probably nobody would so obviously it's a lot of thing that you necessarily want to do is to

start developing nuclear weapons but it is a way actually it's one very clear way to guarantee

your sovereignty because you say you guys were messed with us because we're able to defend ourselves

so do you really want to be at the whim of the changing opinions of different governments

or especially with drone technology perhaps like small nation states can become incredibly powerful

in and of themselves and defend themselves with the technology yeah it's a tricky one it's a very

tricky one because I think my hope is that we enter this new age where um institutions because

institutions are crumbling according to me the world over and that a lot of that is a function

of the internet yeah I don't even notice this but in my life I might I come I come from the

pure analog world when I was younger to this world and information is now so free and easy to

obtain it's caused so much turmoil on the planet you can see it I mean even the simple things

like the Epstein files you know I wonder how many people are now wondering new thoughts about the

people that that govern them that would never have known about that kind of stuff oh hello

there's your horse it sounds like Skype

Skype I didn't know Skype was what's still working um you know like and yes the age we live in is the

age of of chaos because now you and me have access to this very high level of information

that we would have would have been gate kept from us before and it allows us to form new

opinions and stuff like that well why are you talking about Libeland there and you can be as

diplomatic as you want what do you think about Libeland that you've been there you know

Vitt you know what's going on what give me what's your 101 on the situation and what you think

about it and what you think might happen and you know well I would say to start with of course I

hope that Libeland is a great success I think ultimately you could think of the startup city state

projects maybe of course it's I mean it's it's got you know lots of different citizens they do have

some kind of government structure actually funny enough Landy was one of the main contributors to a

lot of their software this is how Landy and Vitt got connected is that a Libeland so essentially

I mean the idea perhaps of Libeland or the core idea at least according to it is that you have

voluntary taxation so citizens don't have to pay taxes but if they do pay taxes you have a greater

share of the vote which kind of makes sense I mean if imagine you have 10 friends you're deciding

where you want to go on holiday some guy says you know don't worry guys I'll pay like 90% of the

holiday obviously he kind of gets to decide what happens with the money like this is a very intuitive

way that all of us will naturally organize ourselves with smaller in smaller scales so this is his

idea for governance which also means that you know the Libeland governance style necessarily means

that they will be less involved with the running of the actual country but you know a Landy did

actually he fixed a lot of bugs in their code and that was how he got connected with Vitt is all

of a sudden this you know great program it comes along and just like rewrite your code code base

and for Vitt I was very exciting so I do think that idea ultimately is very important about

this whole like you know voluntary taxation and I think like for me whether Libeland fails or not

I like the spirit of trying to create something new and I think even if you think some people might

be skeptical and think that what Libeland doing is a bunch of nonsense you imagine a thousand

Libelands all with different styles of governance some of them are going to really thrive so if for

me I like the spirit of Libeland whether they're going about it the right way who's to say but I

like that spirit of of exploration and actually trying something and it is one of the few places on

earth at least where it is unclaimed by any government or even I mean just it's not necessarily

unclaimed but it's like Serbia says that it belongs to Croatia and Croatia says it belongs to Serbia

so maybe Croatia might say is that actually this isn't unclaimed land it is just a land that is

on the negotiating table that hasn't yet been decided yeah but they they police it so they do

police it and with that that in law in the courts that basically alludes to the fact that they

think they own it even though they don't want to admit to our last yes but even Croatia would would

claim that they're just managing the area they don't actually own it but I suppose the problem

that the challenge maybe for Libeland is since this piece of land is on negotiating table are they

able to develop enough such that if it is finally decided that it belongs to Croatia or Serbia can

they develop enough that there could be international pressure that could stop it maybe from Argentina

or through other nation states yeah but it's kind of one of the challenges my my opinion looking at

the game theory of Libeland is that Croatia and Serbia will never decide on a result

because they they don't want to lose out which is great news for for Libeland however

the Croatia is never going to give never going to want to give them sovereignty

because then they lose either way like Croatia loses if they give it away and Croatia loses if

they claim it if you see what I mean because if they claim it they lose land on the other side

and if they give it away they've kind of lost whatever remaining land they have the way that they

can win is by it being beneficial that it's Libeland yeah and that is a very long-term strategy

as far as I'm concerned and you know arguably it could bring in huge investment to there

the question is is did they want that you know you know your average you know kind of

free market economist would say yeah great you know there'll be jobs there'll be this there'll be

but who knows whether you know a country wants another country suddenly popping up

next to them there there's all kinds of connotations I did ask him once I think he said would

you ever can would you ever make it a free zone within Croatia like an economic zone and I'm

pretty sure he said he'd entertain the idea so maybe that's a way forward I don't know but having

spoken of it a lot and studied it myself and been there a few times and thought about it

I see it goes nowhere until some high level political agreement gets made you know there's no

point in trying to keep building stuff there as far as I can tell you know that the incentive model

won't favor that for you the incentive model is you need a very like you need Croatia to suddenly

get a melee style president randomly who quite likes the idea or something like some bit of

fortuitous luck like that I don't see the constant trying and trying and trying is actually working I

don't know I'd be I'm exactly like you I'm happy it exists because it's great but having been

there it's really chaotic and and and I can't imagine people I can't imagine Croatia if I was

in the Croatian government I wouldn't be taking it seriously but you know if you see what I mean

you know I suppose at least what Vitt would say is it may be chaotic but I mean part of that chaos

arises because whenever they do do construction they know build tree houses and all the rest of it

the Croatian police comes in and destroys it I mean one thing that is called by Lieberland is that

it actually I think would be very easy from an infrastructure perspective to develop it very quickly

because the Danube there is very wide and you have huge barges that could carry like an insane

amount of building materials that they get all the way up to to Hungary through the Danube and

you could actually develop quite quickly because it's so easy to ship materials there so it does

have the potential have you have you since ahadids and plans that they created you know like Patrick

Schumacher interview yesterday you should have a look at this crazy stuff they came up with I mean

yeah it's a it's a I think they'd have to drop a lot of earth there because it basically floods most

that a lot of yeah I suppose it could be like you know Venice or something some of the most beautiful

cities have been built in water and on swamps basically and Lieberland is effectively a swamp

Venice is the one of the best well it's that one I think on the most successful cities of all time

there's a thousand years worth of great governance you know that that really worked

and it was built on water I mean it's the ultimate sea-stepping like advert you know

yeah I agree I agree it could be a great you know Lieberland could be great I just I think

what I want to know is like when if I could go back into history and be there when people were

deciding to found Venice say I just want to know what what kind of people were they because

what you notice in in the free city space is you see a lot especially actually in the sea-stepping

space even more so there are some very serious people or in but there are a lot of fringy people

like Lieberland's a good example if you go to visit Lieberlanders I'm still on some of the

telegram groups I'm you know I've been to I went to Liverpoolco last year you see a lot of craziness

there as well I love very fringe ideas yeah yeah very fringe not not necessarily flat earth fringe

and and I and I love all that stuff yeah me too but it doesn't necessarily work well in you know

in the diplomatic arena you know you there's a way to there's a way to you know I think I don't

know I I think that it needs a lot of that I think I think you need you need serious people

and I know it's serious he's a serious guy but but when you go when you see what surrounds

the Lieberland and what the community is like it's quite it's very chaotic but maybe that's how

that they're the frontier people maybe that's how it starts maybe if we could go back in time

to the to people deciding to live off the coast where Venice is now they were the same people they

were a little bit crazy a little bit wooed in a way you know because you need those people you

know but I like the idea of someone like Landy because not only is he a frontiersman in the extreme

he also is very intelligent and he's built billion dollar companies and he's you know this is

the kind of person I mean I mean an interesting side about Landy is I've done a lot of research

into his family history and so first of all the Landy tribe specifically called the Landy tribe

have been in existence for at least 2,300 years they were first mentioned by the ancient Greek

Geographer Strabo so they were this Germanic tribe they lived in northwestern Germany and so the

Landy tribe was part of this thing called the thing and the thing was this collective of Germanic

tribes that then sacked Rome and destroyed Rome so after the Landy tribe then sacked Rome they

then moved to northern Italy and they established a city state called Lostato Landy the Landy

state and the Landy state is the longest lived Italian city state run by a single family so land

and also the only the description of the Landy tribe in you know 2,300 years ago in 300 BC

is that they were described as a Germanic tribe living near the ocean that was where they felt

the affinity towards and then of course his family having this city state and then it's kind of

interesting you think these I suppose you could call it maybe blood memories that Landy has you

know these because I don't think all of his family that I've spoken to they don't even know about

Lostato Landy it's actually kind of incredible that you know only in 300 or 400 years you know

the memory of this phase but you know Landy in his blood like his exact lineage they were creating

city states but you say so Lostato Landy now is no longer a registered city state no it was

it was a city state in during the Renaissance right so it was you know in Italy was many different

city states they have a huge amount of castles I have been to a number of the Lostato Landy castles

and there are kind of an established family in I don't know actually it's behind you there

you can see the the noble house of the Landy it's the their entire family history and the Landy

family they were you know did a lot of innovations in like banking and finance during the Renaissance

and I suppose Landy is you imagine that you know if the people that created Lostato Landy if they

were alive today how would they act well maybe just like Landy and somehow Landy is not conscious

of his past but this is what his people do I so at least all of his children that I've spoken to

have no idea about this I don't know if I of course I didn't have a speak time so you found all

this out since you've since you've been making the rest of the film that you died yeah yeah

gosh that's when it was a real tragedy that he died when you think about it imagine if

maybe he had drawn the dots who knows but that might have that might have been a really interesting

resurgence of understanding you know because imagine that if you realize okay I used

you know because in a way a lot of what people talk about in the free cities world is people

they we love a lot of people love the city state model it's it's a good model maybe a little

bit tweaked and a little bit cha you know but to think that your ancestors were you know

created their own now you're alive and you're creating another one you know yeah well I think to

me it's this important reason to have an appreciation of your history and like where you came from

and what your ancestors did not to say that oh my ancestors were great therefore I'm great

it's more that you know look at what my ancestors achieved that can inspire me in the future

and if there is no future to it it's there's no point in doing it because but so I think we've got

to think that throughout you know the history of western civilization when have we seen the

most flourishing in places like Renaissance history in places like you know when you had you

know thousands of little city city states in you know in modern day Germany or during you know

ancient Greece like the times we've seen the most development and the times that stick in the

memories of Europeans is ancient Greece is Renaissance Italy and if that led to the greatest

flowering of culture it can happen again of course and you know all these little city states merge

into much larger states but then collapse out so I think if we just look at our history we think well

you know this can happen again and and you know perhaps it's vital to because sometimes larger

nation states I think it of course flourishing of culture particularly I think it's vital because

what you're describing is complete competition it's a free market like if you if if if you have

a hundred Greek islands and they all have different governance models and it's easy to get

between one and the other you get to see the in the free market which ones do well this is the

market so showing us what governance model works best yeah the problem we have currently is we have

these behemothic states which command it you know vast areas and don't allow that yeah and

and we're so we're arguably we are at the we are at an inflection point where we get

to see that crumble again into smallest smaller decentralized governance models which would be

I mean that's obviously the dream who knows maybe in 500 years they might be 30,000 yeah I mean

I don't know I mean it could even be soon like for example you think of no one could have

predicted the USSR collapsing and like one I mean one of my favorite countries is Turkmenistan

you know the US cyclapses Turkmenistan was it was part of the USSR and then there is just this

like random dentist and he thinks to himself this whole region is mine it's it's not only is it

mine I am the king I am like the gold of this place like he builds this golden statue of himself

made out of gold and puts on this marble column and it rotates around such that it always faces the

sun in so in Turkmenistan there was this holy book that he wrote where he's the prophet and the book

is talking about him all the time and like for me what actually creates cities and culture is

usually like a couple of individuals imposing their tastes on a place so with this guy in Turkmenistan

he declared that the whole city had to be made of white marble every car that was not white

was outlawed for an example that's maybe closer to us is that you know Paris was basically a giant

slum for most of its existence and then Napoleon III comes along he decides to just

knock down all of the slums and then build Paris as we know it today which is why when you walk

around Paris it is you know very uniform in the way that all the buildings appear so oftentimes it

is even if you might think a city is you know millions of people potentially contributing towards

its development it's usually just like the aesthetic tastes of a couple of individuals they're

really propellant forwards so but what about the ideological places do you think that you know like

because taste wise I think yes a lot of people are drawn to a place because it looks nice

but I think in this age and I think one of the driving forces really that we see in movement is

apart from economic freedom is physical freedom like it you know we know that from 2020 onwards

lots more people started thinking about physical freedom and about political freedom

because we were all told to stay in our homes and a lot of people went no why and then when they

tried to get out they realized it caused them a lot of problems and then a kind of a map of the

world appears quite quickly and you can see which places are more welcoming to you as a free

free spirited person which which aren't and that's what I see most people grappling with now

there's like like we're seeing many we're seeing the veil being pulled back in many senses

and as a result many institutions are basically stumbling many things are stumbling because the

veil is being pulled back you know from most things because of the internet and because of the

free use of information but then as it as it the people deal with that in many ways some people

stick their heads further in the sand but a lot of people are going okay right I presume we've

read the sovereign individual the book all right okay the sovereign individual thesis but this is

a book written in the 90s which is basically predicted the the world we see now which is the

empowerment of the sovereign it's called the sovereign individual in many ways now we we're

living that you know you as a sovereign individual could probably move anywhere in the world and

make a living and live a good life and you're very mobile with your capital now because you could

as long as you you understand how cryptocurrency works you can just leave with your whole net worth

in you even in your head you don't even need it on a hard drive or whatever so so this is playing out

now this this thesis and there's two sides obviously the sovereign individual is here and the

the state is here and there are genemies and this is the kind of ebb and flow of

it's just of culture of freedom of control you know and it's been it never it never

never resolves it just continues at infanitum but we do seem to be because of technology at now

we do seem to be on a threshold where there are two paths ahead and I just I don't know how it plays

out I know how I want it to play out for myself and my family and friends and I hope that probably

there'll be parallel worlds that exist I think it's very hard to know because we we we see

technologies offering the authoritarian state a massive opportunity right now especially artificial

intelligence combine that with centralized power and you can monitor almost every aspect of

a person's life pretty much unless you're living on a barge in the middle between you know

like Dubai and Iran and even then probably you can probably still get monitored there in the

next 30 or 40 years you know so so there need to be places where ideologically people understand

no we don't actually want this kind of of method of living and I'm pretty sure in the beginning

they'll be at the fringes they have to be yeah because the fringes are ungovernable and and you

can't you can't conquer the fringes either really because they're a waste of it's a waste of resources

you know authoritarians want to conquer the main bulk of everything it's like if you live in a city

you're easy to control if you live out in the middle of the countryside down the end of a track

you're much let expect less cost effective to try and control you and I think you know a barge

in the middle of the streets of homers or wherever it was is is is is a very hard who's going to spend

money trying to to stop that when it gets big enough maybe yeah you know it becomes a thing of

interest at that point but but I don't know where we got into this but yeah especially one thing

to follow on from this is I think that like from a strategy perspective for new nation states I think

or new micro nations or whatever I think it's very important not to be too ideological like you

can have your the ideology but I think it's important for it to be kind of implicit if you're

if you're very certain about all these sorts of things and you declare that to the world it's very

easy for people to attack your project like I think it could be better even for example for a sea

stud instead of saying it's going to be this libertarian paradise where we can do all drugs and

experiment on people and do all these crazy things outside of control of the law you know maybe

it's better to say that okay we're making this sea stud out in you know international waters and

it's going to be a you know I don't know biodiversity research center you know we're going to

experiment with corals and breeding them and things like that and that being like the clear reason

that you give to the outside world because that's harder to attack I think that a lot of people that

set up like micro nations for ideological reasons I basically if they do that it's basically

going to fail straight away because you know large states are so powerful that if they see this

they're just going to crush you because even in international waters you're not outside control

of the law and they can just send a destroyer and you know destroy your project so I really don't

think ideology is the way to make it happen I think it's like legitimate businesses maybe or

have you know like like the business is the state or something and they have specific aims

that are palatable to people like I know rejuvenating this area of forest and we're going to

integrate these this forest with our I don't know eco restorative homes or whatever but I think

that is a much better path forwards like you say doing it kind of underneath the radar but it's

still being a public thing where people can find out about it's Mitchell's Mitchell search in the wood

but we're very much cosine what you just said he that's his theory and I understand it as well I

think it's it's true because when you look at the when you look at said you know like if you go

look at the origins of cities there's always a reason why a city's placed where it is and it's

normally by a river because it you can bring goods it becomes like a merchant place very seriously

a good example of that though you know run by merchants and Mitchell's idea he has a sort of a way

in to see Steading which is you need a business first in his case he's experimenting with

tourism fish farms you know he's talking about mining eventually but I think that comes later

but I think you're right I think if you if you have a if you have a financially viable project

before you know it you'll you'll have a community and a thriving community because the reason why

people are there is to make money and I think you know I mean Dubai is arguably that Dubai is a merchant

city you know and people don't go there to do politics nobody goes moves to Dubai to be political

at all because there is no real politics for you as an outsider you go there to be a merchant

to do business and to follow the rules that that seem to work and and if you're unhappy with the

way you're governed you get to leave I mean this is the really the whole thesis of this you know

and so yeah I think I think maybe you're right I think if you declare like Vitt has you know

if you declare okay we're going to start a mic donation suddenly you're a person of interest

and your project is a project of interest because you're basically a direct threat if you're a

business you're actually someone who is not a threat necessarily you're actually someone who might

who might offer something in return but yeah what about landing though what was what was he

he wasn't really well he was ideological wasn't he was a kind of leave me alone don't tread on me

kind of guy right I think landy here's someone that throughout his life he wants to be on the frontiers

like he I think he's like the kind of archetype of a person that likes being in an environment

where other people simply can't live you know he thinks like being out on the scene obviously

while he did of course die out there but as as you know the frontiers are inherently dangerous but I

think the kind of people that create new cities or you you're asking earlier about you know what

kind of a person creates Venice I don't know about in the specific case of Venice but I can say in

the case of the United States all of the founding fathers were considered terrorists you know

if the British caught them we would have hung them and you know considered a good job and it's like

that I interviewed Joe for my film and he says something like the first pioneers who go to the

frontiers have always been outlaws who say what does he say he says fuck you to society fuck you

fuck your laws I'm creating my new by own state or something like that but the point is

you know new nation states don't want to see other states popping up like they would larger

rather absorb them you know into their territory and the people that want to create new states are

always going to have a strong incentive to do so like with landy even though it isn't actually

a very important point to add which is that a lot of people think that because landy was some

fugitive or something that he moved out to the ocean to be free from the law that's not the case

at all he was living in Dubai he could have had a very nice comfortable life in Dubai for the rest

of his days but instead he thought you know I want one last great adventure by way do I want to just

you know here he's an interview with him where he's saying you know he's saying you know what is the

most important thing you can have in your life the option to do what you like you know anything

to see want to just spend his days having brunch in Dubai or whatever or does he want to go out to

the ocean and try and create something new so I think that ultimately the people that create new

societies they are pretty much always considered outlaws at the beginning but once they win and the

establish a state then they're these great founders of a new of a new nation and then the kind of

the more normal people come and develop the vision but I think to even try and create a new state

you have to have a very strong incentive to do so so I think really Landy is the archetype of the

person that does want to create you know a new state and also with Landy I think the thing that's

very admirable about him is that this like drive for freedom is ever present throughout his life

like there is one person interviewed in Italy who says you know he says in Italian but it translates

to he was a pirate but a white pirate who searches for liberty for himself and for the others

and it's like the story of um those telling you early about these girls that were enslaved in

Oman for Landy for him to find out about these people that are living in such a fundamentally

unfree way like it makes them like uncomfortable like how can he how can he find out about this and

not do everything that he can to help these girls escape and he told no one about this and oh yeah

I was thinking about about there was this journalist I would mention her name but she was with me in

Liberia and I introduced her and she interviewed about 20 of these girls that Landy had helped rescue

and of course they were saying about you know the way in which Landy coordinated everything

and then she writes this article in the financial times and she's talking about Landy being a

Liberian diplomat and then she says this story about how there was two Liberian guys in the UAE

and they were getting deported back to Liberia and Landy was like to chicken to go to the police station

to help them out and it's like I was there when you interviewed literally 20 not just one or two

20 girls and you didn't even mention it and it's almost like you realize that so many journalists

even if they didn't make any like factual errors or lies in the article that she wrote

you can make lies by a mission and like people like Landy there's almost like an incentive

from you know the powers that be whatever to portray him as this like raving idiot or this guy that's

just out for himself and for me that's what's or is it that there a lot of journalists can't

get behind somebody journalism in its modern incarnation is about slacking people off

it's not about showing why people are good I mean you look at politics is the same

you never hear the other side of the aisle in a debate go do you know what that's a pretty good idea

I'm not going to just counteract counter you on this I'm actually going to say yeah fair enough

that's a good policy or whatever you know it's always about bringing people down and the press

I used to work in Fleet Street you know and I was in London yesterday and I just it gives me

the shivers now being in a place like London I just think of it as you know just or anyone working

in the mainstream media now like if I accidentally turn on the TV somewhere and in a hotel room

and the news comes on and you look at it and you go because I live in the order to what you would

call the alternative media like same as you it's just like a horrible that side of the aisle where

they're where they're reporting in a mainstream way is so wrong and driven by by like you say they're

not there's not necessarily a search for the truth there's a search for maintaining a narrative

like why wouldn't you want to tell the story like Evlani like you've managed to or you

sounds like you're going to tell a very interesting story about the guy but in you know the

financial times especially the story has to be this is a bad person doing a bad thing

like when do you ever hear I mean I don't read the financial times but I'm going to guess they don't

often glorify people and this is milk this is keens or something like that I don't know no you know

like it's not part of the journalistic you know I'm not as operandi anymore to sort of to sort of

say to be positive about things you know what I mean yeah yeah because there is a positive side to

almost everything you know we've like for example with Landy I was saying earlier about you know

and the the very opening scene of the film and you know Google Soundwell is named researching who he

is and it says you know Interpol of arrested somewhere in landing Abu Dhabi that's that news article

and the news article isn't entirely fake like for example Landy was not arrested by Interpol

in Abu Dhabi clearly because he was still a free man and yet you know Rai the biggest kind of

like you know the equivalent of the BBC in Italy published this article such that everyone that

ever looks up Landy immediately associates with him with Interpol but you realize that was like

totally not true whatsoever and just by publishing that article people's perceptions of him are

entirely changed and so that's kind of what I hope through this film is to actually you know tell

the real story of Landy from the people that knew him and to have him as this archetype of someone

that you know was trying to create these new these new states you know out at sea or you know

and be this inspiration without you know overselling him yes you know him you've known him briefly

you've had a lot of contact with him was he a decent guy is he a nice guy is he or do you think

there's a dark side to him or is this like what why did the financial times paint him as a

so I can tell you very specifically why the financial times paint him as a bad guy which is that

so whilst Landy was out at sea there was all these journeys that would start running these articles

like why is an international fugitive the main advisor to the world's largest carbon credit fund

anything was so Landy worked for this company called Blue Carbon and Blue Carbon is owned by the

raw family in the UAE and they sell carbon credits and I suppose at least publicly it just says

that June Landy helped I give this company you know IT support and anyway so this journalist she's

a climate change reporter and she obviously wants to make you know carbon credits look as silly as

possible so she has you know Landy is helping out this company in some way and she makes

she wants to make carbon credits look very foolish and wants to make Landy look like a fool I mean

even just on the topic of carbon credits I'm not say where they're bad good but I think ultimately

the the idea of them is a positive one which you think there are these nations that are forested

they are you know very very poor that keeping the forests to them just letting them be is there's

no economic incentive to do so whatsoever so the idea with the carbon credit is you say

well this this is you know the lungs of the world in some sense this helps clean the world's air

and we are going to create this you know this token or this asset that means that we value the

economic benefit that carbon credits give obviously the way that it's executed maybe scammy maybe

not whatever but in principle the idea is a good one that's suppose at least what Landy thought is

that this seems quite intuitive we create this thing that means that forests can still stay up

so that was at least by the financial times don't like Landy and for me it's like I I just

respect the energy with which he lives his life it's this energy of always be willing to start over

again you know instead of when the Italian government tries to look the lock you in prison you think

no you know I'm gonna escape I'm gonna move to Dubai I'm gonna step up a new tech company in Dubai

this one crypto teller talked about earlier they can cryptid mobile phones you know I get bored of

that you know I'm friends with all of these people in Africa and why not move out to the sea to me

that's like it's a very romantic way it's a very like energetic way in which to live your life like

he's someone where like just I think the thing that guides him really is adventure and I mean even from

my my own you know with this film there's something like very romantic about you know meeting a guy

like Prince Johnson like he was this time you know Liberian warlord or whatever and for me it's like

it's fun it's like being in a place but other people are afraid to go you know and he's like

strange characters that you meet in in far away lands like it's kind of this this adventure of

spirit is ultimately what creates you know what what for example creates the British Empire

and spreads technology around the world whatever you think about it ultimately you know the industrial

revolution starts in England and it spreads around the world in a major part because of the British

Empire whether you agree with it or not this is the thing that spread civilization for civilization

to spread you know it has to expand of me land he's always he's always his own adventurer and

you know it's hard not to admire someone like that yeah you what you've just said well almost

certainly pissed lots of people off in certain political ways I don't agree or disagree with it

same with carbon credits I think I could probably argue carbon credits from both sides

one that it's terrible and one that it's okay I just see who's involved with carbon credits and

thing yeah doggie I don't I don't really know I don't even there's too many things to care about

in the world these things isn't there yeah you know you can't you can't address all of them

we've been going a very long time but but I think I might start sort of wrapping it up slowly

but I have a good way to wrap things up but go ahead with well I was going to say we we you

you were going to mention how the film was going to yes yes yes yes so maybe was that what you

were thinking as well it was it was okay yeah let's go well let's take a like a 10 second break I'll

grab some water oh okay yeah we'll jump into it would you like more water as well yes of course

I'm I'm going to have to try and keep speaking again because I'm sick of having to

edit things like this this is going to be a very free-flowing unedited at all episode thank you

very much indeed right okay yeah we should have bought I just we should have just bought a

jug in it yeah that would have been the smart move yes so

so I'll tell a story first it's totally disconnected it will seem disconnected but it's actually

entirely related which is that so in Germany in 1248 there was this archbishop that sounds

there's like something that was his name the the you know in the Russian

what's his name Jesus my mind who runs Russia Putin yeah yeah as a Putin move

he did it whole interview with Tucker Carlson did you hear that yeah yeah and he did that

go on start it again sorry so so in 1248 there was this German archbishop called archbishop

I think it was like Konrad von Hofstaten or something like that sure and this archbishop he wanted

to create the largest cathedral in Europe so he these he you know got these architects and they

drew the designs for the cathedral there's going to be this giant you know twin spied church

you found the the best location for it and he laid the cornerstone of the church and anyway

he ran out of funds this project was for Gotham then 600 years later in the 1800s there are

these monks that were going through these archives and they found the designs for the cathedral

and they then you know found this proposed spot they found the cornerstone and then they used

the cornerstone and they built then the largest twin spied cathedral in Europe and is now it is

I think yes the Cologne Cathedral and I believe it's actually the most visited landmark in Germany

in the present day so I mean bear that in mind then with with with how it relates to the end of the film

okay so when I was in Liberia you know investigating Landy's life and finding all that about him

I it's actually another thing that I have to say before this so Landy's plan was that he wanted

to move his floating platform from between Dubai and Iran from there to this place in the Indian

Ocean called the Sair de Marla I don't know if you've heard about it but it's something that Joe

Altham talks about Mitchell talks about is it an area where the the seas it's like an underground sea

mountain exactly it's like a sea mount so off the coast of Madagascar underwater yes and so it's

very shallow it's near the equator and you know when it's very shallow it means it's easy to build

structures there so even if there's giant storms you know you can have these sort of metal things

coming out of the sea or whatever anyway that was where Landy wants to go to and a lot of sea

steaders consider this the best place so whilst I was in Liberia I started having these dreams

and in the dream I was flying above the Sair de Marla and beneath the waves I saw this giant

colossus head of Landy it was about three meters and it was bronze and in the dream

there are these piratical band of men that come out and they're searching for the head

and in the dream when they find it they raise the head up from the depths and they make a full

colossus the colossus of Landy and around the colossus of Landy a city state develops out in the

Sair de Marla and I had this dream multiple times and I'm someone that has very intense vivid dreams

and whenever you have a dream a second time you instantly clock what I've really had this dream

so I had this recurring dream and I was thinking about it last I thought you know what if this dream

is not just a nighttime vision but what if this is a vision of the future what if this is a way

or what if this is going to be the way in which a city develops on the Sair de Marla so I thought

well if this is to happen how could it be it is of course a possibility you can imagine that

you know they could actually make a colossus of Landy there and they could build a city around

him and a lot of great cities around Tiktino the colossus of Rhodes or any city you need to have

these monuments that everyone can identify with you know Landy has this great pioneer that he

died trying to create a city state here but maybe we continue his legacy just as there was Wolf

Hilbert's they wanted to make a floating city in the Sair de Marla Wolf Hilbert's died the idea

passes to Joe the idea passes to Landy this idea of a city state in the Sair de Marla has is passed

from person to person to person and I hope that it will continue on so I thought about this and I

thought well if this was to be real how could it be real and I realized that what is my role then

in the dream what I have to do so I realized well it's quite obvious what my role is my role is

I have to make a three meter bronze colossus head of Landy and so it is at first you know I

tried to get a very difficult a fundraise for such a thing and I got these French sculptors

to make a prototype version of it which is 40 centimeters high in bronze and these people

are called a Tilly Mizzou and they are currently trying to build like a giant statue of Prometheus

in the United States and they want it to be larger than the Statue of Liberty so when I walked

into their workshops in Paris I saw this you know giant head that was you know much much taller than

the height of this room I thought well these are the guys to make it so anyway I um

out of bronze yes and so heavy they are about two three tons so they you know they made the

prototype version 40 centimeters in bronze and anyway they were charging a massive amount of

money to make a three meter version they were charging like 200,000 US dollars I tried a lot you

know I tried to try my best to raise that money but it wasn't possible so anyway um so I figured

well I've got this bronze prototype you know I don't have 200,000 dollars and how can I proceed so

anyway I got the head 3d scanned and I figured well like around the world like who are the best

people at making colossal structures the number one people are undoubtedly at North Koreans they

make a lot of colossal all around the world in Africa they've done products in Poland in Germany

and you know maybe I can't get the North Koreans to build this for me but the second best place

is in Thailand because they build giant bronze buddhas all the time so I got the small model of

landy that Autidium azure made it's been very accurately 3d scanned sent to this foundry in Thailand

they've already built the three meter wax model and they're soon going to be cast cast it in I think

around April the 1st is the current road map and I would like to say that so this this bronze head

is going to be larger than any bronze head that was created in antiquity of a real person so in

terms of like the history of the European peoples the largest colossus head ever made of any real

person is Lenin so far the second largest colossus head made of any European person is somewhere

landy the third largest is Constantine the Great who was the the Roman Empire that had the largest

bronze head made so anyway the construction is underway I can show you already what has been done

now if you know I've done a lot of filming what are you going to do with it well no well in the

dream the dream is is that in the side of Marla there are these you know men or maybe women too

that go out to the side of Marla and find this head of landy so well I have to take it to the

side of Marla and the way the film will end is that you will have this shot of this you know three

meter bronze head being lowered into the seas in the side of Marla and laid to rest there

and the hope is that when people see this this is such a powerful image like imagine seeing

this three meter bronze head it's hard to get such a thing out of your mind and my hope is that

one of the viewers may see this and they may think what if it is me you know what if I will raise

this bronze head up from the depths and maybe like I said with the story of Archbishop von Conrad

Hofstadt and whatever he's called maybe this head lies there for you know a few hundred years

maybe it's forgotten but given that the side of Marla is maybe the best place to build a floating

city around the world that even if it's entirely forgotten in the future if people are going to build

a floating city it is likely they will choose the side of Marla and if they do choose the side of Marla

it's likely that they would do a lot of research about the place maybe they might find out about

the you know the legend of landy and they might find out about it and think well isn't there this

bronze head we should go and raise up from the depths or maybe they won't maybe they'll go out to

the side of Marla and they'll do these sonar scans and you know figure out how they should construct

this city and then they'll find wait a minute that's a giant hunk of bronze you know on a sonar

that thing is going to be very very easy to detect so the hope is that perhaps this is this will happen

that like the idea is is that ideas live independently of humans someone can write an idea in a book

and that person dies 600 years later the idea is picked up so this is how I want landy to be remembered

and ultimately if landy is a is maybe landy is a fool and his life will sink into obscurity

that's not for me to decide that is for future humans to decide but maybe they may think the opposite

maybe they'll think this idea of creating a floating city is a good one they'll go to the side of Marla

they will raise them up from the depths and he would then be remembered as this great pioneer

it's not for me to decide but I want to lay the seat I want to lay the keystone of the city in the

side of Marla I want to police the first piece and maybe others will continue I mean it depends how

deep how spirit you spirit you all you want to get about it because you could argue that you're

anchoring the idea in it in a in a different dimension as well who knows what goes on I mean I'm

open to to to to understanding things in a completely different way but I'd probably believe

the intention behind that would be so big that there would be some kind of you know how would you

describe it some kind of energetic version that was all also there how deep is it by the way at the

side of Marla like are you talking like 20 meters so the side of Marla varies greatly in depth

of course I will not say exactly where and the side of Marla is a fairly large area

of course I will not say exactly where it is I don't want anyone to go and you know

steal it or something but anyone you think people would I don't think so I think the value of the

bronze is actually you'd probably you'd pay a lot of fuel to actually get out that I think it

wouldn't really make economic sense to try and salvage it and melt it down but it's only for the

committed you know I'm not so how deep would you really be so depth wise yes so the side of Marla

varies greatly I think the shallowest part of it is I think the shallowest part that I've seen

on on charts is eight meters eight eight some of it though is more like 30 some of it is hundreds of

meters it varies is a great amount because you have these kind of seamounts you know Brett it rises

up maybe I'd put on on one of the shallowest parts but also the deeper it goes the greater the

longevity of it because there's less oxygen in deeper waters and there's lots of protective

measures that we can take like there have been bronze statues that have been found over 2000 years

later in the ocean that have been in great condition so maybe the maybe land you will just live on

in bronze you know for thousands of years I do know the feeling when you're making a documentary

if not knowing how to end it I've never gone down that route that's very funny that's very

interesting like because there isn't an obvious end and I don't know maybe there wasn't an obvious

but now now you know I can imagine the final shot when you're sort of swimming away from

the bronze and it just disappears into the sea and you know underwater that is yeah yeah something

like those lines or something wow so yeah I mean have you told just Jo know about this I

take it yes yeah yeah very much so what does he's probably think about the fact that their

dad's going to be they have a massive head under the sea do they think you're a little bit

yeah I mean also he when did he die I mean he must have read the second 2024 so he's even

probably they're still grieving and stuff yes but ultimately you know land is someone who's been

much maligned by the media he has received very little good publicity in his life and he's

he was just basically living his life outside of that and my film I hope will tell

like the true energetic story of his life and like for me it's not even just about him his life

specifically it's about the energy with which he lived his own life and the intensity with which

he lived it and maybe people see this film maybe it's not sea-standing but it might inspire them

in some other direction so for me it's this it is this great yes way of energy of of ending the film

you I mean you've been shooting for a long time yes it's a pretty long yes it's been going on

well the the film I suppose started probably in October of 2023 which is when I first met landy

so yeah it's been going on for what's two years and a bit and have you sold it no no no no no

I also have pretty much almost entirely retained control of like I own pretty much everything

some of my friends have invested a little bit of money into it but it's just like me and my friends

and where do you imagine I mean I instantly I'm just thinking is it a Netflix documentary or is

it do you want to go turn it into bits well can you do anything bigger than that these days like

we're how do you how what's the biggest a documentary can be these days you know I don't know I

mean I think it's a documentary where it's something quite it's fresh it's not something that you

would see you know it's not you couldn't sit you couldn't you couldn't see oh I've seen that

already you know there's a million films like that one I don't know I don't know how but you have

to make money as well of course of course yeah I mean at least the strategy at the moment is

reaching out to lots of different distributors I'm selling the cuts of the film seeing who is

interested I mean at least the advice that I've been given is that you don't want to sell it

to a distributor before it's done because oftentimes they will then want a lot of creative control

and ultimately then then you're kind of beholden to them and their vision so currently I'm

reaching out to lots of different distributors and when the film is finished then shop around and see

which one will you know the dream the dream of course and I don't know whether this is still the

dream because I don't know how I don't I don't dip my toes into that well anymore but what would

be to finish it get it in some festivals and get it liked in a well-known festival and then sell

it I mean that's the goal but is that still what people do I mean like I just you know like I

was a couple of days ago I was listening to the radio in the car and they said oh who's presenting

at the Oscars this year and I was thinking oh my god do people still do that do people still go

to the Oscars just people do like and I know that's me that's me dropping out of society in a way

and mixing with you know others you know other sections of society but I find all that stuff really

kind of old school now you know and and dying and and all fashioned and you know I don't know

I mean you can easily see something like this as a Netflix doc but do you want it to be just

another one when you click docs on the Netflix and like oh there's this one and this one and this

because there's some great documentaries on there yeah yeah they're really are but but I find

the world a filmmaking that I come from from a long time ago it was far more I don't know I

felt it was for more inspirational than we find now that there are so much stuff there are people

putting out documentaries on YouTube that are pretty good and fun and low budget but but really

intrigued intriguing you know I don't know where I'd position myself anymore that's what it got

out I think yeah I don't like that world you know I suppose for me like the let's say the

films are sort of flawed known watches it whatever like I would consider that a great success like

the places that I've been and the people that I've met and for me the the reason to make the film

is because it's very enjoyable making it of course if it's also I hope of course it's a success

because you know there's lots of other films I want to make after this one and the better this one

is like the easier the next ones will be but it's a bit like with Joe's book for example you know

I read Joe's book and then this whole this whole thing happened in my life you know Rudy the

main engineer behind ocean builders at least Joe told me that Rudy says you know he read Joe's book

you know twice straight away he keeps a physical copy and a copy on his phone at all times and

ideas with with with Joe he writes this book and then a couple of people take action and then that

then actually moves forward the frontier in some way and I hope the same thing with this film

like it's this energetic thing where a couple of people might see it and then actually maybe

lift the bronze head up from the depths and make a floating city or maybe do something else but for

me it's like I'm not not sure what to have sort of coin this maybe it's maybe this is how you

describe it I'm trying to think of a good name for it but maybe it's like the the aristocratic

principle of content creation which is basically that you make a film not for everyone you only make

it for a couple of people even like a couple of individuals but in order to reach those individuals

it has to be very good and a lot of people have to see it so it's this thing if it wants to be

very entertaining in an of its own right but really you make it just for a couple of people like

Rudy Joe in some sense wrote that book for Rudy like Joe in his interviews he said you know when

I wrote this book I dreamed that a marine engineer would come along and make all my dreams come true

and he says something like a god and his infinite sense of humor gave me a really good cock and in

some sense you know Joe the book the book was very popular lots of people read it great reviews

and all the rest of it but the reason to write it was that Rudy made ocean builders that was really

the reason it doesn't really matter if a million people read your book ultimately ah they read a

good book they move on to something else but if like if your writings or the things that you

create actually inspire a city state like perhaps that could happen with this podcast maybe that

is like that to me would be the ultimate goal if I was running this podcast at least of like what

it could turn into it's entertainment but it also means something wider than itself it has this

ability to actually affect the course of civilization in some way like for example you know with

ocean builders they're hoping to um help with oxagon which is this floating city in Saudi Arabia

where they're building this industrial city where like half of it is on land and half of it is in

the ocean and ocean builders are hoping that you know they might be able to help out with the

construction of this and you think of well Joe's book then could have led and or helped develop

oxagon in Saudi Arabia and who knows what that will ah will go on to do so it's this idea of ideas

living independent of us and we are just vessels to help propagate them and someone like Joe has

ultimately spread these ideas to people that have the energy to actually you know develop them

so no I I would agree with that actually I it's nicely articulated I've never thought of it

necessarily like that but I'd I've I mean the in the the reason to talk about this podcast the

reason to do this was never to make a lot of money I don't think I've ever been driven by money

I've been driven by a couple of things one is that the enjoyment of the process

but like you said and the other is that I know something that I think is beneficial and I want

other people to know about it and that drives that's a very strong driving force but it's it's true

that that there is obviously an unfortunate tension between that idea and making a living though

which is annoying and I know Joe has it obviously because Joe would love a million dollars

to to get the the sort of like to to be able to ensure c-steads you know what's the called not

the flagging system they he wants to create a flagging registry no he wants to create a registry

yeah yeah basically and that's going to cost a lot of money but you're right maybe someone listens

to this and goes you know it's it's a very it's a funny thing because it's a very small world

the world of c-steading and and the government the world of living together the world of people

experimenting with governance as well is a very small world I know that now because I I've

I've realized what it is I came into this world from a very specific place which was you know

free private cities really teetish scables ideas about you know that was what and now and

having been here for a few years now I realized that the fun thing to think about is governance

which it just seems like such an unsexy idea when you're when you you know when you don't know

anything about it but when you thought thinking about it humans are massing together and living

together is really fascinating and how to do it well is something that most people just don't

think about and especially people all you know in the west in general they just think okay we've

got a system and it works and this is how we do and often many times they're living quiet

desperation in their life living in it and not and not realizing that they could possibly even

think of an alternative you know so so yeah I'm with you on that one I think I might I might commit

that one to to my lexicon and to my memory that yeah yeah maybe the whole point of a 10 year period

of your life was just to trigger one or two people of course I even one person that's actually

much more than you can expect in some sense if someone actually acts on it then it's so

ly worth it yeah so you're right but yeah I feel like really governance is like the most perhaps

the most important thing of all because it is how humans interface with each other and you think

of like throughout human history or even right now so many people are like so like badly placed

like they haven't met the right people they weren't able to do like like unlock their potential

and cities can at their peak totally unlock what humanity is capable of but it was a big part of

genius is you know interacting with so many different people and this like mixing of ideas and

like in the Renaissance or even like for example I think in Athens the the largest population

Athens ever got I think was 400,000 people and you think of like the output of 400,000 people

has been such that like we you know continue to study all their philosophers to this day like you

don't actually need a great amount of people but with the right people and like interacting in the

right way it can inspire humanity for you know millennia to come so really creating that is

is perhaps the most important thing yeah Joe's a big advocate of that Joe really does believe that

by creating free places on the frontier that's what that's what you're doing you're bringing

human potential together because by its nature frontier seekers of the frontier are out there

people on the whole and when you put them all together it's quite chaotic but you you basically

unlock more potential than you could ever do I feel like the internet did that as well I really do

feel like the internet has kickstarted that I mean almost everyone I know now and who I interact

with I met through the internet you know and you know there's very much part of the idea structure

of you know future places and it is you know using networks to bring people together I think you

know we have in our world we have two very much two sides that one who's the very network focused

and one who's very sort of physical world focused and I think where we sit and where most people

should start moving towards is that place in the middle because I think they're really both part

of it you know they really are but we do need the physical places and who knows yeah I mean I

think or I would say almost certainly there will be a floating city in Saidamala at some point

in history because of what we know and because of the fact that meme exists and that floating cities

will exist therefore eventually they'll look for a frontier like Saidamala why not so so I would

say you know whether or not people will use your head as a dive site or whether they'll raise it

up who knows it doesn't matter it's not for us to decide or to yeah yeah but when I don't like

you say for all you know you're you'll be creating a such a strong it'd be like a ceremony with

deep kind of spiritual connotations that you'll never know about but they'll be ripples that

sort of like flow through reality that you know might have an you know they'll have an effect

that you can't see who knows but but yeah great story great story yeah says in the Bhagavad Gita

you're entitled to your actions never to its fruits all you can do is act yes yeah so but how

you get from that to let's stick a massive let's stick a massive iron bronze head in the middle

of the Indian Ocean I don't know that's the seas to the world mate yeah there's disease anywhere

it's full of crazy people on the edges anyway no it's great to meet great to meet you

thanks thanks for inviting me down here I it's a great story I it's now yeah I can't believe

Joe's never mentioned he probably has mentioned this you know landed to me before I just probably

didn't commit it to memory but also what's exciting about land is that you know of course there are

these big publications that have sort of start to be interested in his story but he's still

basically unknown even in the sea-steading city-states micro nations world he's basically unknown

but I hope that soon it's like uh there's this floss fiery-like old Thomas Carlisle he says if a man

was great while living he becomes ten times greater when dead right so I hope that's what

that's what I seek to do with landy okay is there a timescale on when people might be able to see

the film well I mean there was I do have a website the Legend of Landy.com and people can see

some segments from the film on there yeah if any almost invest in the film or be a part of it

I'll help you with forwards you know that's uh are you I mean have you got enough money to finish it

or do you need more rounds of you know well I think that it seems like with the film obviously

there's always more money that you want to raise and you never quite get the amount that you want

but so far I've always been able to get enough to keep moving and it seems like really and especially

with the head for example you tell us to people and they rise and clears open they think this guy's

an idiot but I'm like and now I have it you know I have well I have the prototype I have the real

thing they're going to be casting it in a couple of weeks and people will realize all of a sudden

this guy is actually serious like this is not a joke this is actually it is happening all right so

so all right legends of landy.com that's the place to go Oswald thanks thanks a lot

I'm going to yeah I follow with a great interest now and like I say I'm a massive C-steining

convert this is just another arrow in the quiver of or you know of the stories around it and I

think Joe would as Joe would say himself it's like the narratives the stories in C-steed

C-steining are some of the most important parts of it because they are what inspire people

in the frontier they've got very little concrete not literally but they've got very little

concrete evidence to say you know this is what we want C-steining to be because it's a very

crazy thought I know cruise ships are a really good way to explain it but I think what

me personally what I imagine are floating cities and and they don't look like cruise ships

they they might model their governance on a cruise ship but they're they're a lot they're

very different to that they're very a futuristic incredible amazing places and and they will

exist 100 present I and I think you're probably be part of that story hopefully so thanks thanks

for having me and yeah let's maybe years time or certainly when the film comes out let's let's

do another one absolutely I look forward to it all right you made it to the end of the show so

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