Donald Trump has inspired laughs, jeers, disbelief, and outrage, by proposing that the U.S. buy Greenland. Nobody quite knows what to think of the president-elects proposal. Trump isnt the only person who wants to buy the Danish territory, however. Those in the technobro-iverse have previously expressed interest in purchasing the land mass and using it for their own dystopian purposes. I went to Greenland to try to buy it, Dryden Brown tweeted in November. Brown, 28, is the CEO of a company called Praxis, which is part of a broader movement known as the Network State. I recently wrote about the Network Staters, who say they want to create a host of privately funded, crypto-friendly countries all around the world. Zealots of this ideology believe theyre building the future, but critics of the movement see it as little more than a bizarre neo-colonial effort to lay claim to existing countries, re-write their legal frameworks, and extract all the wealth and resources from them. Brown actually did travel to Greenland last year to talk to local officials about potentially buying the territory. He was promptly met with ridicule. Greenlandic independence requires approval by the Danish parliament and a change of our constitution, politician Rasmus Jarlov recently tweeted. I can guarantee you that there is no way we would approve independence so that you could buy Greenland.Now, however, Brown is all jazzed up about Trumps proposal and seems to even be taking credit for it. Following a recent post from Trump on Truth Social about buying Greenland, the X account belonging to Praxis retweeted the post, commenting merely: According to plan. Not long afterward, Brown tweeted: Praxis would like to support Greenlands development by coordinating talent, companies, and capital to help secure the Arctic, extract critical resources, terraform the land with advanced technology to make it more habitable, and build a mythical city in the North.A key figure in the success of both the Network State movement and Donald Trump has been the shadowy tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Pronomos Capital, the venture capital firm that has been responsible for financing much of the movements special projects (including Praxis), is financially supported by Thiel. A number of Thiel associates are also deeply intertwined with the movement, including Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of Thiels defense contractor Palantir, and Michael Gibson, the former vice president of grants at the Thiel Foundation, who currently serves as an advisor at Pronomos. At the same time, Thiel has also been a notable benefactor to Trumps political career, having helped bankroll his 2016 presidential campaign. Even more weirdly, it would appear that Trump has named a Thiel associate, Ken Howery, as ambassador to Denmark, which would put him in a prime position to influence a Greenland dealwere one to actually materialize. So whats going on here? Is the recent announcement by Trump somehow tied to Brown and his Thiel-backed project? Or is Praxis merely using Trumps proposal as an advertising opportunity for its own floundering utopia? As is ever the case with Trump, its a little difficult to separate the truth from the bullshit.One things for sure: Browns recent comments about Greenland really only reaffirm the idea that Network Staters are modern-day colonialists. In multiple posts, he speaks openly about the desire to exploit the territory for Western gain. In one recent missive, the young entrepreneur wrote: Its huge, but only has 50k ppl, rich with natural resources: uranium, gold, oil, and more, and is a critical defense asset in the Arctic. In other posts, Brown talked about using Greenland to practice terraforming so that when it comes time to build a society on Mars, America will be ready.