Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by squiggleblaz 2429 days ago
> There really isn't one, but six people seceeding their house is not going to be a minimally viable country for very obvious reasons. When you secede, you lose a lot of benefits, including economic, military, etc, protection from neighboring states.

I don't think that's really the right reason for saying a house isn't valid. Catalonia is a well defined, self-governing region of Spain. That means the Spaniards have already admitted that they're basically a sensible territory for being an independent state.

You could probably argue, in a case like the US, that New York isn't a valid territory for independence since it was created a long time ago prior to much settlement in the area - but the self government isn't revokable under the US constitution.

Catalonia has no such problem, since its autonomy is a relatively recent gift and is constantly revokable, so the fact that the Spanish haven't done it is proof that they think it's reasonable.

Even then, you still have places like Monaco and San Marino, which are very small. It's hard to argue they're minimally viable countries, just places history forgot, but they are independent.