
Ladonia: An Illegally Created Nation Where Creativity Rules - wikiburner
http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/02/18/ladonia_in_sweden_is_a_micronation_built_around_nimis_a_driftwood_sculpture.html
======
ivanca
Such a moronic title: all nations are created illegally, if you believe
otherwise show me the paperwork of the USA territory, signed by all previous
residents (native Americans)... and no, their graves do not count as a
signature under any legal definition.

~~~
sp332
Not nearly "all" nations are created illegally. Try the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, for example. And what about the Algonquin Nation, were they created
illegally?

~~~
my_username_is_
While you do offer good counterexamples, these are more the exception than the
rule

~~~
protomyth
"All" only requires one counter example. People should really say something
other than "all" unless they really mean "all".

~~~
ivanca
Your brain should not work as a compiler, when everything must be 100%
strictly correct on the language syntax to be considered valid.

~~~
protomyth
People shouldn't use absolutes when they don't mean an absolute. It is not
about 100% strictness, its about understanding what someone is saying. The
"STOP" sign actually means stop, not maybe (that's "YIELD"). In other words,
don't get pissy when you use absolute proclamations and others call you on it.

------
dijit
I had considered the possibility of purchasing an island and having actual
people living and working with me.

a bunch of my friends on IRC were very keen on the idea, although I don't
suspect they know what burden it would entail.

yes, we'd be able to set up our own privacy policies and, yes we can have
super fast internet, lay our own fiber and infrastructure of that nature could
be created.

however, agriculture, the bureaucratic hoops we'd have to jump through to
successfully secede and the general hard work and labour that would have to go
in, I believe, is unaccounted for.

this is a cool concept, and micronations are a nice idea, I just wish I could
find a plot of land that's not owned, I'd definitely put a lot of hard work
into getting out of my country.

~~~
the_watcher
How do you lay your own fiber and actually get connectivity? I've always
wanted to try and take complete control of my internet, but as I understand
it, the most I could do is last mile.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Actually you can, if you choose to, work out with a metropolitan area to put
fiber between any two points, working with states to get it between states is
more work and really needs a small staff to keep track of all the action items
(you'll meet a lot of politicians). There are some dusty workable rules laid
over from the AT&T breakup in the US that require some access rights.

The last time I priced it out (I was depressed about my choices) it was about
$125K to get a fiber between my house and the nearest peering point (PAIX,
which is slightly closer than MAE-West). That was about $10K per mile. Once
you get there you need to find an IP transit provider to hook up with. Lots
more choices than 'cable' or 'dsl' though :-)

------
stevesearer
I might be reading this story incorrectly, but it seems like Ladonia is just a
normal piece of property which is owned by artists who issue "citizenship".

Is there some other quality I am missing that separates it from any other
piece of property someone owns, creates a website for, and calls a
micronation?

~~~
adisbladis
Not really.. It's just as much of a country as my apartment is.

The artist in question has also had lots of media attention for his work
depicting Muhammed (the prophet):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks#Muhammad_drawings_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks#Muhammad_drawings_controversy)
The guy is a racist nutjob.

~~~
jere
He's a racist nutjob for drawing "Muhammad as a roundabout dog"? Or is there
something else?

~~~
mrkickling
If acting like a racist makes you a racist, then yes he is a racist. Some
people would just call him a troll though.

~~~
sitkack
A troll in Sweden? Say it isn't so.

~~~
jere
Ha!

------
owenversteeg
Does anyone else hate how the horizontal scrollbars make you want to scroll
left (with your arrow keys) and then it turns out that this is the command to
go to another article?

~~~
drdeca
Probably, yes.

------
donretag
At first, I thought it was a nation created by those that speak Ladin, which
would not be surprising considering the autonomous stature of the region.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladin_language)

~~~
davidw
They actually don't have much of an incentive to form their own country - they
get piles of money from Italy and Austria as well.

Indeed, Sud Tirol is often cited as a good example of how to handle a
linguistic/cultural minority, which mostly involves the aforementioned piles
of money, and a lot of freedom to use their own language. In the Ladin
speaking area, almost all the signs, for instance, are in
Ladin/Italian/German. In the German speaking area, they're in German and
Italian.

------
supersystem
"Goaded, Vilks ignored the announcement and decided to take control of the
area and _secede from Sweden_ "

The whole secession would be somewhat more believable if the police protection
of Vilks didn't costs the Swedish tax payers about a million USD per year.

------
lcasela
We need more mirconations.

~~~
Natsu
Given that apparently all it takes is for someone to "declare" an unrecognized
micronation, I hereby declare one particular square micron in international
waters, known only to me, as the world's new smallest unrecognized
micronation: Nanotopia. Our motto will be "never found, never conquered." We
allow dual-citizenship so long as you don't tell anybody.

~~~
bpicolo
Picostan would like to formally declare war against Nanotopia.

~~~
Natsu
Good luck finding us! :) Even if you comb through the entire great Pacific
garbage patch, we'll still elude you!

~~~
bpicolo
If you can't be found we might as well have already won the war, no?

~~~
Natsu
We secretly annexed Picostan before the war. Unless you destroyed yourself as
well, we're still here! Or maybe there... I can't remember :)

------
marc0
I consider it an enormously antiquated idea to bind nations to a piece of
land. We should try to arrive at a more abstract definition. And yes, of such
nations we need many more.

~~~
zem
you might enjoy doctorow's "eastern standard tribe", which, while not one of
his better books, had some nice ideas. the premise was that the kind of people
who spent large amounts of their time hanging out online would coalesce into
tribes based around timezones, and that the timezone you were physically
living in would not necessarily correspond to the tribe you belonged to and
arranged your waking hours to match.

