A Country Funded by an Insurance Company

A riddle: What has four walls, can’t move, but be in three different countries?

Photo by Merakist on Unsplash

This was one of my first posts on Substack. Now that Born Without Borders has a readership beyond my mom, I’m confident we can discuss the benefits and drawbacks of an internet country.

The more people join, the more ideas we’ll have to create a bureaucratic immigration system that’s less archaic, racist, and slug-like.

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A riddle: What has four walls, can’t move, but be in three different countries?

A house in Chernivtsi.

Half of my partner’s family is from Chernivtsi. Her grandmother’s home was part of Romania, The Soviet Union, and Ukraine, which gave her the right to request Romanian citizenship. Even though there is crippling racism towards Romanians in Spain and throughout Europe, it was still better for my partner to try and obtain her Romanian passport than to live with her Ukrainian one.

All she had to do was learn Romanian, pay for four lawyers (two from Romania, one from Ukraine, and one from Ukraine who became Romanian), fly to Bucharest and the consulate in Ukraine two times, and spend five years emailing back and forth with Romanian bureaucrats in Spain.

The original checklist included an official translation of her birth certificate, Spanish residency, and an invitation letter for the Romanian oath. However, they didn’t like the official translation (exact reasons still unknown), and by the time they told her they didn’t like the translation, several months had passed, and her residency card had expired.

So, she had to start the whole process over again. But this was nothing compared to her mother, who, after going through a similar process, had her citizenship certificate ripped in front of her and everyone else there to give their oath. It turned out the bureaucrat didn’t find her dialect Romanian enough.

By dating a Ukrainian, I saw how systemic racism not only oppresses people of colour but those born in the “wrong” country as well. As a Ukrainian without a solid income, she’s been living a bureaucratic nightmare for the past five years. The Spanish funcionario’s work schedule—or lack of one—definitely played a role, but not as much as her birthplace.

When my common-law partner (pareja de hecho) got rejected from entering Canada to meet her in-laws on holiday, I was livid. How could they reject a woman who speaks six languages, has three college diplomas, and has never committed a crime? It turned out she didn’t make enough money—but that was no longer a problem once the war broke out. For Ukrainians without an income to be treated like EU citizens without an income, they had to get their homeland destroyed first. Only then were the Visa Stampers of Canada willing to let her into the country of “the strong and free.”

I’ve had some bureaucratic issues as well, but privileged white boy ones like finding a notary in Spain who isn’t going to rip me off, what to do with my bank accounts in Canada and worst of all, dealing with Cita Previa de Extranjería.

To get an appointment for NIE (similar to a social security number), my partner and I needed to spend several hours a day refreshing the government-run page in the hope of a cita (appointment) opening up. After three months, I finally got one, but it was during my work hours. Since I was self-employed, it meant I lost half my earnings that day. I also hired a lawyer to ensure all the paperwork was in order. But, of course, he wasn’t aware of an ambiguous rule. Apparently, my insurance company needed to be from Spain. So, I had to start the process all over again.

At the time, I was using SafetyWing—health insurance for expats. Now, I don’t blame SafetyWing. Their customer service has been fast, friendly, professional, and helpful—the exact opposite of the bureaucracy in Spain. When I was forced to purchase private local health insurance instead, I actually missed my old insurance company—I know, said nobody ever.

Thanks to Ali Abdaal, an ex-doctor turned YouTuber and podcaster, I discovered Lauren Razavi from

Global Natives

. Coincidentally, Lauren’s the Special Projects Director of SafetyWing (which worked out perfectly for this narrative), where she leads Plumia with the mission to build a nomad internet country.

I’m still unsure where I stand on an internet country funded by an insurance company. If it were any other insurance company, I’d find it downright dystopian and stay the fuck away. However, these are a few of their mission statements and values:

• A global layer that works with nations to support free movement and equal opportunities for all.

• A borderless world in which people have the right to move freely and pursue opportunities, no matter where they are born or live.

• Everyone should have the right and access to the resources, services, information they need without personal, racial, or location-based discrimination.

• Many problems facing humanity can only be solved at the global level. We believe that connecting local communities with global solutions is the best way to establish foundational infrastructures for modern life.

It's also important to know that Plumia is a nonprofit foundation and open-source community. "SafetyWing is currently Plumia’s fiscal host and sole funder, though we operate independently as an open-source project. That means any funds we generate are reinvested in Plumia, and our work is usually released under creative commons."

Plumia seems transparent about its goals, funding, mission, and collaborations. Through their blog, you can find various articles from people worldwide figuring out how to create an internet country and borderless community ethically yet pragmatically. The fact that their roadmap is in point form might excite those hoping to become part of the discussion and solution, as there seems to be a lot of room for growth and opportunity.

Now, if you’re a lucky bastard privileged enough to have a passport from a Schengen State like me, you might be thinking, who needs an internet country? The world just needs to follow our example. Well, maybe the results from the discussions within the Plumia community will spread more borderless policies.

Private enterprises may often act in self-interest, but when they have a mission many people support, they put pressure on government bodies—bureaucracy might be a pain in the ass, but it’s also why we experience many of the freedoms and privileges we have today. If you work in bureaucracy and have any insight into this, please reach out.

You might also be thinking that a borderless country is all well and good for first-world expats who want an easier way to fuck off to a third-world country to find themselves and Instagram cheap yoga sessions, but what about the people who are looking to escape oppressive regimes and put food on the table?

Razavi is open and honest about Western nomads wreaking the benefits of living in a cheap country while driving up prices for locals but paying taxes elsewhere. Through reading the articles on Plumia, you’ll see they are working hard to find ethical solutions to a globalized world. So far, the solution seems to allow people into a country based on their income and job title rather than where they’re born. That still might not seem fair for people like my partner who never got the opportunity to find a high-paying job due to systemic racism, war, and bureaucracy, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

In a world where countries can change names and houses can change countries, an online country that provides an easier and fairer bureaucratic process seems realistic to me. People have no control over where they’re born, but giving them control over where they can live might give them control over what they can achieve.

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