This paper examines an ideology I call techno-colonialism. I argue that techno-colonialism represents an attempt to selectively reproduce settler colonial practices adjusted to twenty-first century realities. This argument has implications for contemporary settler colonialism, the radical right, and climate change politics. In what follows, I discuss the techno-colonial doctrines of Nick Land, Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, and Patri Friedman. These figures articulate a political theory about exploiting new technologies to escape the state and found new societies. To explore techno-colonial ideology, I focus on Seasteading—the practice of creating floating city-states to colonize the ocean––as an attempted realization of techno-colonial ideals. As I claim, techno-colonialism attempts to humanize the politics of settlement. But I argue that techno-colonialism's ambitions fail, and techno-colonialism fails to create a harmless politics of settlement. I conclude that we should be attentive to the relations of political and economic power in which such exit projects are embedded. Moreover, this paper also promotes our understanding of climate change and the radical right's politics. While scholars most naturally associate the radical right with climate change denialism, the techno-colonists illustrate another possibility. They welcome catastrophe, and see rising-sea levels as an opportunity to start society afresh.

During the 1990s, Paleoconservatives and radical libertarians joined forces to form a fleeting alliance: the Paleolibertarian coalition. This study’s distinctive contribution is that it examines the Paleolibertarian collaboration as a failed attempt at coalition building and draws out broader implications for understanding the radical right. The Paleolibertarian coalition brought together competing agendas, and the coalition included critics of capitalism (the Paleoconservatives) and proponents of unleashing the market (the radical libertarians). What united Paleoconservatives and radical libertarians in the first place, and what broader lessons can be drawn from the coalition’s failure? As I claim, the Paleoconservatives and radical libertarians endorsed parallel views – they yearned for an organic order and local control – but for distinct reasons. Ultimately, the two factions disagreed on the preconditions for social order, particularly about the necessity of state intervention. Examining the coalition’s contradictions promotes our understanding of the doctrine’s peculiar sociology and also how Paleolibertarianism shaped successor ideologies on the radical right. I discuss how the Alt-Right intellectual Richard Spencer absorbed Paleolibertarianism’s lessons. This paper lays the groundwork for further research into the Alt-Right, and how the Paleolibertarian coalition formed the precedent for an ideology embracing an ethno-state.