Zoë Schiffer: Right. I love how you said that. Yeah, basically, if you want to potentially try and curry favor with Trump, you buy into one of these schemes, and maybe you’ll get invited to a fancy crypto dinner, which has happened before. Maybe you get something else. But even just the optics here are pretty suspect.
Jake Lahut: Yeah. And in a little side item we had in my Interloop Newsletter this week, we had some new data on the somewhat stunning lack of enforcement from the Trump administration across the tech sector, but crypto in particular had pretty much everyone who had been facing any kind of legal action from the Biden administration, having their enforcement actions either dropped completely or paused. And in one instance, we’re looking at the maybe first ever pardoning of a company from one of these things. So you don’t need to just pony up the money for these things and expect a legislative win, you can just get the heat pulled off of you on the regulatory front.
Zoë Schiffer: Right. So our third story, I’m really waiting for one that’s not incredibly depressing, but right now we’re going all the way to Arkansas where our colleague, David Gilbert, reported that a group of Americans are building a “whites-only community,” which they call Return to the Land. The group believes that white people and Western culture are facing extinction because of an influx of immigrants and minorities. And according to the group’s founder, access to the community is open only to people of white European ancestry who share common views on things like segregation, abortion, and gender identity. Return to the Land’s president shared their intellectual inspiration with David, the reporter, saying that they were partly inspired by venture capitalist and the son of immigrant parents, Balaji Srevenesin, and his book, The Network State, which promotes the idea of a digital-first community of people with shared values, with the aim of gaining a degree of sovereignty and autonomy.
Jake Lahut: And look, not just America, long history of a bunch of wacky well-intentioned or just downright weird utopias, but this one, a little different, because you’re having the sovereignty to be racist. But in all seriousness, Zoë, how is any of this legal?
Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I mean, that is the real question. So the whole premise goes back to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prevents housing discrimination based on race or religion, but Return to the Land claims that the structure of the community is more akin to a private member’s association. And so far local authorities seem to agree. Arkansas’ attorney general, Tim Griffin, told WIRED that his office has found nothing illegal about the community. Surprise, surprise.
Jake Lahut: Yeah, it’s like Erlich Bachman’s incubator from Silicon Valley, but for white supremacy and racism.
Zoë Schiffer: Exactly. Exactly. OK, one more before we take a break. This one is about how the US is racing to build a nuclear reactor on the moon. WIRED contributor Becky Ferreira recently reported that NASA is fast-tracking a plan to build a nuclear reactor on the moon by 2030 under a new directive from the agency’s interim administrator, Sean Duffy.
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