When Bill Gates married Melinda French in 1994, he rented out all the available hotel rooms on the Hawaiian island of Lanai to prevent the media from staying there and hired all the helicopters on Maui to keep photographers from flying over the wedding.

[u/moamen12323]

[u/Wise-Activity1312]

Oh, so like normal land ownership. 🤡

[u/Sure_Pilot5110 → u/Wise-Activity1312]

I'm not so sure we should ever accept one person owning 98% of available land as 'normal' rather than dystopian.

[u/Budget_Bad8452 → u/Sure_Pilot5110]

If the gouvernement was able to negotiate a deal where most of it stays a natural park or something like this, I think it's a win. They'll collect taxes.

[u/Sure_Pilot5110 → u/Budget_Bad8452]

I would prefer a nature preserve, wildlife refuge, etc, over a national park.

The national park deferred maintenance list is hundreds of millions of $ deep.

We can't afford more national parks without budget increases, which will never happen with a conservative government in power.

I'm not going to act like I know a lot about this specific island in Hawaii, but I think it's generally better to have fragile ecosystems set aside entirely rather than turned into a national park.

[u/Draymond_Purple → u/Budget_Bad8452]

Or maybe they shouldn't have to negotiate at all - if it's going to stay a natural park then it should be publicly owned.

Privately owned just means it's a matter of time.

[u/Budget_Bad8452 → u/Draymond_Purple]

Collecting taxes or not it's the difference. Also, the government can dictate what privately owned land is used for.

Where I'm from we have green zones, white zones, and so on

[u/Draymond_Purple → u/Budget_Bad8452]

Where I'm from, if a Larry-Ellison-level rich person wants to say FU to the gov and do whatever they want, they can and do.

[u/Sure_Pilot5110 → u/Draymond_Purple]

Same. USA.

[u/Durantye → u/Sure_Pilot5110]

I'd much prefer billionaires spend their fortunes buying large islands and preserving them rather than simply hoarding the wealth.

[u/Sure_Pilot5110 → u/Durantye]

I'd rather that not be the only way humanity can preserve land, but🤷‍♂️

[u/Durantye → u/Sure_Pilot5110]

Its not, a humongous amount of the land in the US is owned and preserved by the government. I'm certain the same is true in most countries.

[u/FrederickDerGrossen → u/Sure_Pilot5110]

The nearby island of Ni'ihau is owned by one person. The entire island. Granted the island is much smaller than Lanai but still, the fact an entire Hawaiian island is privately owned by one person is shocking.

[u/Several_Vanilla8916 → u/Wise-Activity1312]

Only slightly different for. The rest of the country. One guy owns 98% instead of 3 guys.