Seasteading: tech leaders' plans for floating city trouble French Polynesians

As a Peter Thiel-funded group moves to build a colony in a local lagoon, residents fear wealthy Americans just want to use their home to avoid taxes

A futuristic plan to build a floating techno-libertarian city in a French Polynesian lagoon has left some local residents worried they could be the next unsuspecting inhabitants of a peaceful planet in a science-fiction movie.

"It reminds me of the innocent Ewoks of the moon of Endor who saw in the Galactic Empire a providential manna," said Tahitian TV host Alexandre Taliercio. "They let them build what they wanted on earth and in orbit, but that's not to say that the Empire shared the blueprints of the Death Star with them."