Frequently Asked Questions
Legal aspects
Location
Fundamentals
Other
What kind of legal structure are you using for the city? 
Aleph Citadel will be developed on land held by a non profit organization in compliance and formed under Argentinian jurisdiction. Aleph Ranch, Aleph Meat, Aleph Security and every other Aleph business will each have its own for profit entity also in compliance and formed under Argentinian jurisdiction.
Do you plan to sell plots of land to users (residents)?
No. The entirety of the land will always be held by Aleph Foundation, a non profit organization created exclusively for the purpose of holding the land and adding value to it while preserving the local ecosystem.
Users may celebrate different kinds of lease contracts with the City Operator which is a for profit entity hired and controlled by the “Aleph Foundation” board of directors.
Users that want to permanently reside in the city may celebrate a ninety nine year lease contract. This will give them permanent and exclusive access to their own private property plot or building. Users will have possession of their property but the ownership will always be held by “Aleph Foundation”.
The contract will also include the right to use common areas like roads, parks, brick and mortar retail businesses, multipurpose rooms, hunting and fishing areas and plenty of other services provided by the citadel.
What guarantees does the user have that the Citadel Operator and the Aleph Foundation will fulfill their part of the contract?
Aleph Citadel will have a contract with an arbitration clause for each user. This solution is inspired by the writings of Titus Gebel in his book Free Private Cities and summarized in this fragment of the whitepaper:
“In the event of conflicts with the Operator, each party is entitled to appeal to independent (arbitration) courts that are not part of the Operator’s organization (independent arbitration). (...) The services Operators provide encompass internal and external security, a predefined legal and regulatory framework and an independent dispute resolution system. Interested individuals and companies enter into a Citizens’ Contract, paying a fixed yearly fee for these services instead of taxes. Within that framework, a “spontaneous order” can develop which emerges from the voluntary activities of the citizens. The Operator cannot later unilaterally change a Citizens’ Contract without the permission of the citizen concerned. Disputes between citizens and the Operator are heard before external arbitration tribunals, as is already customary in international commercial law. If the Operator ignores arbitral awards or abuses its power, customers will eventually leave and the Operator will face the risk of bankruptcy.”
Why Argentina? Don’t they have a local currency that has an inflation rate above 60% annually?
Argentina indeed has one of the world’s highest inflation rates and it even had episodes of hyperinflation. For the Aleph Citadel users this is a feature, not a bug.
Every time the ARS looses it’s value it means that any other currency provides higher value purchasing inside the south american country, even inside Aleph Citadel. This continually creates and enhances an optimum context for physical persons and business entities spending in ARS while earning in a harder currency. Since the ARS is one of the softest currency in the world, as long as the user earns in any foreign currency, he will be enjoying the positive aspects of the ARS devaluation. This basically means that given the same amount of offshore currency, as time passes, the resident will accumulate higher purchasing power.
Where exactly is it located?
We´ll share the precise location after the land has been purchased.
However we can inform that it´ll be located in the North-west region of the Argentinian Patagonia in a place with the following advantages: huge land plot for optimum privacy, sovereignty and scaling, excellent location for many kinds of agricultural and meat production systems, nearby an international airport and a big city with plenty of services, but with a big enough buffer zone distance for autonomy. With huge fresh water reservoirs and prepper logistics set in place specially planned to avoid the worst outcomes in case shit hits the fan, like disruption of supply chains. The location is also completely outside of range from land-based nuclear missiles and Argentina has factually never participated in a war against other country.
You referred to Aleph Citadel as a “Free Private City”. What makes it “free”? Will it have any specific benefits over public cities or versus ordinary private gatted communities?
There are multiple possible ways to build an FPC or Citadel. One way to do it is following these steps in this particular order:
1. Find a suitable hosting state and a desired piece of land.
2. Lobby the hosting state and evaluate the land.
3. Obtain from the hosting state some legal benefit for the specific land.
4. Purchase the land then develop.
The main advantage of this model is that it´ll provide optimum legal security without risking the capital needed to purchase the land. These legal assurances can come in form of administratives acts such as decree, law ratified by the executive power or even a constitutional reform (like Honduras).
A big disadvantage of this technique, is that it requires a lot of time and man hours doing democratic politics lobby in order to achieve completion of the task.
“One criteria is to go to places where laws are good.
Another criteria is to go to places where laws are very
bad but nobody cares and nobody enforces them.” Giacomo Zucco
On the other hand, in Aleph Citadel we´ve decided to make a different approach. We are currently executing the following steps in this particular order:
1. Find a suitable hosting state and a desired piece of land.
2. Evaluate and purchase the land.
3. Develop the land and start operations.
4. Lobby the state for legal benefits.
The main advantage of this model is that it allows us to move forward and get into production earlier in order to to start operating sooner. We´ve decided to do it this way because in Argentina this approach is particularly useful. The Argentinian government(s) absolutely tolerates most of illegal development as long as they don’t initiate force on third parties. This particularly applies to urban development projects. And after the residence solution has been in production, the Government usually recognizes its advantages and in order to protect the users and owners rights it changes the regulation (or its interpretation of the regulation) providing thus a fully compliant legal framework for the project to adapt to. This usually occurs after at least a couple of years and as a result of a timing-efficient lobby done by the users or land owners.
As the saying goes: “It’s better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission”. Well, in Argentina you don’t even need to ask for forgiveness.
The main disadvantage of this model is that on the worst case scenario, the project does not end up owning any specific legal freedom benefits and it wouldn't have any legal-freedom-aggregated-value. The project would end up being just an ordinary fully compliant private gatted community.
Even in this case the outcome would still be positive due to the broad and major benefits of factual freedom enjoyed in Argentina’s rural areas.
“Anyway, I asked myself, "Where is the best place to live, in order to enjoy life to the max, be freest, and enjoy the highest standard of living with the least amount of aggravation?" I looked at all the countries around the world, their pluses and minuses, and came to the conclusion that Argentina offers the best risk/reward and cost/benefit ratios of any country on the planet at this time.” Doug Casey
Key points: Argentina is -factually- extremely free, specially in rural areas. These current freedom benefits may not be strictly compliant with local laws, but nonetheless, they can be fully enjoyed without any real personal risk. This is happens due to a lack of enforcement and a passive acceptance by the Government. On top of that, in due time, this tacit acceptance can even be used as a case to lobby for legal reforms in order to achieve a legal change that leads to the hosting state up to even embrace the proposed FPC model.
Is Aleph only for bitcoiners?
Yes. Aleph Citadel focuses on the creation of a local bitcoin community. We believe that there´s a huge added value in allocating your meat space close to neighbors that share your same fundamentals views and practices of the Bitcoin ethos.
Our objective is to create a community of freedom loving people composed by cypherpunks, libertarians, agorists, voluntarists, crypto-anarchists and like minded free thinkers individuals.
Also, all services provided by Aleph can only be paid in bitcoin. Needless to say, users may interact amongst each other in whatever currency they prefer.
Is there a bibliography that underpins the fundamentals of the project?
Yes. The following texts are a cornerstone for the metaphysical framework, the ethical development and the economic principles of Aleph Citadel.
1. “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand.
2. “Capitalism, the unknown ideal” by Ayn Rand.
3. “For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto” by Rothbard.
4. “Cypherpunk Manifesto” by Eric Hughes.
5. “Democracy: the god that failed” H.H. Hoppe.
6. “The Sovereign individual” by Davidson-Rees Mogg.
7. “Free private cities. Making governments compete for you” by Titus Gebel.
8. “The bullish case for bitcoin” by Vijay Boyapati.
9. “The Bitcoin Standard” by Saifedean Ammous.
10. “The Fiat Standard” by Saifedean Ammous.
Will the Citadel operator or land owner hold a monopoly for providing services inside the city?
No. Not even for dispute resolution nor the provision of security. The builders of Aleph believe in the insurmountable superiority of freedom and capitalism. Consequently we will promote competence amongst service providers as a way to increase efficiency and quality of services while also achieving a reduction of prices. Thus benefiting the owner of the Citadel, its Operator and residential users.
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