In Prospera, Brotopians cheer democratic decay and listen to a racist
The Liberty Acceleration Summit 2026, wrapping up today in the micro-mini “startup city” of Prospera, located on an island off the coast of Honduras, was clearly intended as a celebratory affair, a fact made abundantly clear by the garish and intrusive confetti animation on the event’s website, which will not stop looping and that you cannot scroll away from. Aside from the confetti, another hint as to the intended tone of the event is that the first full day of the so-called summit was pitched as “LATAM Liberty Day … We celebrate the recent victories for freedom in LATAM.”
Which is a little weird, given that there really haven’t been a lot of recent victories for freedom in Latin America and the Caribbean, at least not since Lula won the election in Brazil in 2022. Indeed, the 2026 Democracy Report from the respected Swedish V-Dem Institute notes that a “democratic weakening” is taking place in the region.
As for Honduras itself, it’s not exactly what you’d call the healthiest of democracies. Its last election in 2025 was marred by what some observers gingerly called a “scent of fraud,” including reported voter intimidation by the MS-13 gang and some rather crude and obvious election meddling by one Donald J. Trump, who threatened to cut off much-needed foreign aid if the presidential candidate he supported, the right-wing Nasry Asfura, didn’t win. Asfura was ultimately declared the winner in what some called an “electoral coup,” and Trump commemorated the occasion by pardoning convicted narcotrafficker and former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández.
So what exactly were the Brotopians assembled at the Liberty Acceleration Summit celebrating on “LATAM Liberty Day?” Asfura’s possibly illegitimate victory, of course. The new guy has enthusiastically embraced the ZEDE zone law that originally enabled Prospera to form as a privately governed micro-jurisdiction carved out of Honduran territory, where the laws (and taxes) of the country largely don't apply. His victory was essentially a reprieve for Prospera after four years under the hostile administration of President Xiomara Castro, who regarded the ZEDE law (which was declared unconstitutional in 2024) as a threat to Honduran sovereignty foisted on the country by the deeply corrupt previous administration, which in fact it was. The new guy can’t just make the law constitutional again, but he’s clearly on Prospera’s side. “This is a special year,” the Infinita City Times newsletter wrote, “the first time in 4 years, we don't feel under an existential threat anymore.”
In case you’re wondering, Infinita City, like Prospera, isn’t actually a city. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but one fan has described it as a "’layer 2 network state’ built within Prospera’s structure.” As far as I can tell, that means it doesn’t exist in the physical world. But it does have its own newsletter!
Infinita City was also the sponsor of something called the Infinite Games, a collection of athletic and decidedly non-athletic contests that began in February and that is wrapping up with, well, this conference we’re talking about, even though the conference is neither infinite nor a game. (I wrote a post in February about the apparent highlight of the Infinite Games, the then-upcoming Central American Electric-Knife Fights Championship and Cyberpunk Rave. The event apparently took place about a week ago, but I haven’t found anything on its predictably gaudy website revealing who won and if anyone got an eye poked out.)
Anyway, aside from celebrating the ascendence of Honduras' possibly illegitimate president, what else were the Liberty Accelerationists doing at the summit? Looking at the schedule, it appears they spent most of their time sitting inside a dome that basically looks like a giant upside-down colander with a plastic garbage bag draped over it listening to talks by people mostly unfamous outside the narrow world of hardcore Brotopians enamored with the idea of starting up their own tiny societies. The second full day of the summit was devoted to “Layer 2 Discussions: Communities, Industry, and Technology Clusters,” and if you understand what that means you probably should have gone to the conference I guess.
In addition to a “Surprise VIP Guest” who was evidently unveiled Friday afternoon (I have no idea who it was), there were a couple of big names giving presentations at the conference, and by “big names” I mean what might be regarded by most people as “medium to small names, if they count as names at all.”
Basically, these are people you might have heard of if you spend a lot of time online: Tim Urban, a blogger known for extremely long posts on eccentrically scientificish topics featuring little drawings, and Crémieux, a blogger known for being a eugenicist and racist who uses dubious science to try to prove that Black people are dumb. The title of his talk was “Legal Changes for US Biotech Acceleration,” a creepy enough topic, especially when addressed by this particular dude, but one presumably of great interest to those drawn to Prospera by its lack of regulations on medical procedures and/or biotech research.
I don't know why exactly Urban wanted to attend this weird and exceedingly wonky event, but I would guess it’s because he's got more than a few Brotopian-adjacent beliefs, like what seems to be a pretty enthusiastic fascination with cryogenics. (In one typically lengthy post he suggested that those who go into that deep freeze when they die very well might wake up in a future that's "very, very rad.") I’m not quite sure what he was thinking when he agreed to appear on a panel with a "scientific" racist, a choice that renders the title of his blog (Wait But Why?) more than a little ironic. Maybe he’ll do a post about it.
Speaking of posts, I’m about done with this one. Yesterday was the event’s “BioHub Startups Demo Day,” and I can only imagine what sort of Island of Dr. Moreau shit these people have been cooking up.
The whole thing wraps up today with a half-marathon, followed by yoga, then a closing ceremony. There will be cocktails. I’m not sure about confetti.
