Anglofuturism

• Britain's Shadow Empire? How Crown Dependencies Move $3 Trillion and Support a Million UK Jobs

  James Kingston works in the digital asset industry and is the author of Profitable Peripherals: Maximising the potential of British CDOTs. He came aboard the KC3 to explain why the Cayman Islands, Jersey, and Britain’s 17 overseas territories aren’t tax havens draining the exchequer—they’re innovation labs pumping foreign capital into British banks and employing British lawyers to service Chinese deals.James, Tom, and Calum on:* Why the narrative that CDOTs are a “shadow empire for British finance” draining tax revenue is measurably wrong—Jersey alone supports a million UK jobs annually through £1.4 trillion of intermediated capital, and 68% of deposits in Jersey banks flow back to Britain despite only 29% coming from the UK,* The comparative advantage problem: 70% of the world’s hedge funds are domiciled in the Cayman Islands ($2.7 trillion, more than the US), and 66% of British Virgin Islands assets concern Greater China deals—meaning British lawyers in London tax revenue from Shenzhen transactions they’d never otherwise access,* Why these jurisdictions succeeded where hundreds of other offshore centres failed: international investors trust the common law system and know that if something goes wrong, they can ultimately rely on London—but if Britain ever seized the money (as one MP proposed to fund the NHS), the entire edifice would collapse overnight,* The innovation case: Jersey passed data trust laws, the Isle of Man is releasing Data Asset Foundation legislation, and the Cayman Islands created legal structures for DAOs—Britain should partner with CDOTs as regulatory sandboxes for tech rather than just finance, creating British jobs in data stewardship and AI development,* Why the “finance curse” criticism—that Britain’s best minds waste their lives writing tax-efficient contracts rather than founding energy startups—is the most compelling argument against CDOTs, but also why abandoning comparative advantage in pinstripes would be economically illiterate,* The security question: can Britain actually defend these territories in a multipolar world, or should we follow Philip Cunliffe’s argument that claiming places you can’t defend is a fiction? James says giving things up willy-nilly (looking at you, Chagos) isn’t the answer—economic activity strengthens claims, like the East India Company did,* The vassalisation problem: Britain spent decades being completely open to the world, but CDOTs are really nodes in a US financial imperium—British tech stacks run on American platforms, and conflating US interests with British interests means we’ve forgotten to ask what independent leverage looks like,* James’s 50-year vision: British spaceships launched from Ascension Island, Jersey-domiciled mining outfits in the Oort Cloud, interstellar cargo ships flagged with the Isle of Man, and Britain remaining in the top tier of nations with trillion-dollar companies built here rather than accepting managed decline as a “normal European country.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.anglofuturism.co/subscribe

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• PVC Castle Windows, ARIA's Golden Age, and Matt Clifford for PM?

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.anglofuturism.coDon’t forget to sign up for November’s Anglofuturism meet-up in London. Check the blog for more information.After being featured in both a Hope Not Hate hatchet job and a New Statesman meditation on “British hüzün,” Tom and Calum defend their vision against critics who keep mistaking them for nostalgic romantics when they just want Britain to build factories again. Plus: why the first castle built in Britain for a century looks like a multi-storey car park, ARIA’s remarkable success at funding cutting-edge science, and Matt Clifford’s case that Britain simply needs to be wealthy again.Tom and Calum on:* Why every critic keeps describing them as Young England romantics wandering gothic landscapes when they actually just want factories—as Rian Whitton put it, they don’t want Blake’s New Jerusalem, they want the dark satanic mills (ideally both),* The castle problem: Britain’s first castle in 100 years has been built and it’s absolutely hideous—a Grand Designs disaster with PVC windows that cost £7 million, proving you cannot trust architects or educated elites to have your interests at heart,* ARIA’s golden period: why Britain’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency is successfully funding AI scientists, programmable plants, and self-driving labs whilst selecting genuinely brilliant people—plus Calum’s application to build biological automation robots that could enable runaway technological progress,* The inevitable NASA-style bureaucratic drift that will eventually destroy ARIA, and why you just have to start new institutions every generation rather than trying to reform sclerotic ones that have lost their edge,* Matt Clifford’s speech at the LFG conference arguing Britain simply needs to be rich again—citing Bradford as once the wealthiest city in the world with a town hall like the Natural History Museum, now a symbol of decades of managed decline and why this message resonated so powerfully,* Why the British right is more right-wing than American Trumpers on national identity (81% vs 65% worry about losing it through immigration) but simultaneously more left-wing on state involvement—the “hang the paedos, fund the NHS” coalition that Reform represents,* The death of noblesse oblige and why modern meritocratic elites are more dangerous than hereditary aristocrats—when status comes from beliefs rather than bloodlines, you get luxury beliefs and educated ignoramuses who haven’t done the reading outside their narrow expertise,* Why people viscerally hate inequality and billionaires now despite billionaires living basically the same lives as us—but in 20 years when life extension and neural modulation are available first to the wealthy, humanity will genuinely bifurcate and make current debates look like child’s play,* Dutch Bato-futurism: the next Dutch PM is promising 10 new cities including one raised from the sea (£20 billion, 60,000 homes), Orbex successfully simulating a rocket launch in Scotland, and China drilling 3km deep into Antarctic ice whilst Britain maps the bedrock then publishes it for everyone,* The Zack Polanski problem: why Britain is producing its own version of Mamdani-style socialist politics, and whether the sovereign individual thesis about elites escaping nations was wrong about the direction of travel in the 21st century.

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• The British Company Putting Solar Panels in Space

  Don’t forget to sign up for November’s Anglofuturism meet-up in London. Check the blog for more information.Tom and Calum visit Space Solar at Harwell to meet co-founder and co-CEO Sam Adlen, who’s attempting to solve Britain’s energy crisis by putting massive solar arrays in geostationary orbit and beaming the power down as microwaves. No new physics required—just the unglamorous work of becoming the Toyota of space infrastructure.In the episode:* Why space-based solar delivers 13 times more energy than ground panels and provides baseload power 24/7, making it economically competitive with terrestrial solar even at today’s launch costs,* The technical solution: kilometere-scale satellites made of hundreds of thousands of coffee table-sized modules that beam power down using phase conjugation, with no moving parts and power density a quarter of midday sun (safe enough that birds won’t cook),* How Space Solar’s system works like a “giant interconnector in space”—instantly switching beams between countries to balance grids, support renewables when wind dies, and redirect power where it’s needed, potentially saving over a billion pounds annually in UK energy system costs,* Why they’re not trying to invent new physics but rather optimise industrial process—the challenge is manufacturing a million modules, perfecting logistics, and automating assembly in space using robotics that construct truss structures in orbit,* Britain’s fatal flaw: brilliant at innovation, terrible at scaling, with orders of magnitude less investment going into space than AI or fusion despite space being “bigger than AI” and strategically critical as the new waterways for global power,* The regulatory reality: UK space regulators have been “superb” and energised, even on grid connections that normally take 15 years—the real bottleneck is financing early-stage infrastructure rather than venture capital’s preference for low-capex software,* Sam’s vision for 2075: Britain as a leader in space infrastructure, power no longer a constraint, and a generation with genuine abundance ahead—but only if we move now, because “there’s no second mover role” when barriers to entry spike after first movers climb the cost curve,* Why Starship’s success is the step change moment for space: 24 launches in 24 hours transforms everything from orbital data centers to asteroid mining, and Britain needs to commit two orders of magnitude more investment immediately or watch others colonise the economic high ground. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.anglofuturism.co/subscribe

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• Pingu Nationalism, Hope Not Hate, and British Space Lasers

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.anglofuturism.coAfter being featured in a Hope Not Hate report linking Robert Jenrick to Anglofuturism, Tom and Calum reflect on their newfound infamy while developing their theory that Pingu represents English settler colonialism, discussing plans to rebuild Britain’s castles, and making the case for British domination of space.Tom and Calum on:* Their appearance in a Hope Not Hate exposé as “the most intellectual vision” of Anglofuturism, despite the organisation’s history of libel cases and treating any immigration scepticism as fascism,* The Straussian reading of Pingu: why the show is clearly about English settlement of Antarctica, with Pingu as a third-generation settler family complete with nuclear family structure and grandparents—”indomitable, curious, restless, resourceful,”* The Pendragon Foundation’s plan to rebuild Britain’s crumbling castles as living cultural centres rather than preserved ruins, learning from French château restoration and Japanese craft traditions that maintain skills through continuous building,* Why buildings must evolve rather than be frozen in amber—the challenge isn’t preservation but having the confidence that new additions enhance rather than damage, avoiding both museum-ification and CBeebies-style vandalism,* Boris Johnson’s continued defence of mass immigration despite acknowledging integration has failed, and why his generation of Tories remains traumatised by the “nasty party” narrative and temperamentally incapable of restriction,* How cultural narratives around immigration and integration have shifted over generations, and why the smartphone age presents challenges for assimilation,* Why no financial incentive can solve Britain’s birth rate crisis when market logic has made children economically irrational, and the grim possibility that medical technology is amplifying fertility problems,* Britain’s new orbital defence sensors against Russian laser attacks, and why now is the moment for some bloody-minded figure to champion British domination of space warfare before the opportunity passes—defending satellites today, commanding the high ground tomorrow.With additional audio from Calum’s appearance on Hugo Rifkind’s Times Radio show and an excellent YouTube clip.

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• Curtis Yarvin's Plan for Britain

  Curtis Yarvin steps aboard the KC-3 to argue that Britain should exploit America’s imperial exhaustion to become the new leader of the West, starting with dismantling the cathedral of unaccountable bureaucrats that has replaced genuine sovereignty. It’s a path that runs through Oxbridge, extraterritorial Chinese Oakland, and possibly some Ayahuasca for Elon Musk.Tom, Calum, and Curtis on:* Why the Deliveroo economy is more dehumanizing than Victorian servitude - with social distance replacing the personal bonds that once connected masters and servants,* How Elizabeth I’s delegation to the Cecils created Britain’s first “deep state” of Platonic guardians, leading directly to today’s unaccountable oligarchy of Sir Humphrey Applebys,* The pornography of democratic power: why voting makes you feel sovereign when you’re actually just a consumer demanding better customer service from an autocracy that pretends to care about your opinions,* Why gain-of-function research is like coming home to find your ten-year-old setting fire to the kitchen curtains “for science” - and how experts’ conflict of interest makes them create the crises they’re paid to solve,* Napoleon’s maxim that “the crown of the Western world is in the gutter” - why Britain can simply pick it up with its sword now that American imperial energy has dissipated and the State Department can’t stop you,* The case for neo-colonialism as win-win: reverse extraterritoriality in West Oakland with Chinese police in white gloves, reclaiming Jamaica and Ceylon’s tropical highlands, and why Africa needs to be “regoverned” before it can thrive. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.anglofuturism.co/subscribe

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