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Comment by m0llusk | Hacker News Reader

The controversy started when actual properties started to be bought and used as part of this plan. Prospera operations are not subject to Honduran laws or taxes. Instead of enabling the locals to prosper they have been pushing them off their land. What was supposed to be egalitarian and empowering has turned out in practice to be just another ugly example of colonialism.

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But the properties were bought and everything was done in legal agreement with the government, no? Do you have any sources for the claim that they are "pushing them off their land?" I kept semi up to date with the project and news around it until a few months ago and I don't remember ever seeing any substantiated claims about that, although from articles and things like this it is obvious that not everyone is happy about the situation.

The claims seem to be similar to what we're facing with NIMBYism in San Francisco, which often seems to be based in Xenophobia.

It would be one thing if they were destroying a several hundred year old city but that doesn't seem like its the case.

I would recommend spending more time in thousands of year old rainforest islands with some of the most pristine coral in the world. That's not xenophobia, it looks like they're dropping a crappy american city on that and making it clearly less inviting to the local's ability to afford living there than anything else I've seen in a while like this.

Americans love to do stuff on islands like this which wrecks the coral, they won't stop flushing toilet paper or other stuff like washing all their cosmetics and stearyl alcohol soaps which wreck everything in every reef near where people settle bringing these things. It'll go from some of the world's most pristine intact scenery to trash in no time.

It's not a san francisco backyard bruh

That is ridiculous and deeply offensive. I hope you simply aren't familiar with the facts here. (It so, here is a starting point to learn more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honduras-landrights-garif...)

It is not "NIMBYism" when people complain that land which they own is sold without their consent. When those people are a poor ethnic group with indigenous history on the land that is being taken away, often with force, to be sold to rich people of another ethnicity, we have moved so far away from ”NIMBYism" that we passed all the way through "gentrification" and are starting to approach "ethnic cleansing".

> But the properties were bought and everything was done in legal agreement with the government, no?

The same could be said of when the US forced out indigenous people off of their lands. A government pretending their theft is legal doesn't make that theft OK.

Here's one source that talks about how the Garifuna people have been treated: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honduras-landrights-garif...

So eminent domain type things are being used?

Imagine you live in Chicago, and the federal government just decided that businesses that are based in Milwaukee don't have to pay their employees federal minimum wage.

ok, so then don't work for Milwaukee based businesses, seems fairly straightforward.

So what does Chicago look like after all the jobs move to MKE?

Even bigger as everyone from Milwaukee flees for higher wages.

Prospera's minimum wage is higher than the Honduran national minimum wage.

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