Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the Destination Thailand Visa, Digital Nomads and sort of immigrants. What are we talking about here? I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Foreigners and Thai law: the changing Pattaya scenario. Quoting directly: "The DTV," that's the Destination Thailand Visa, "on the other hand is mainly aimed at digital nomads working for overseas-based companies. The early signs are that the main market will be Americans and Europeans who are not tied down in their employment to an office or base."

The question I'm posing in this and I'm not trying to get in a big debate; I'm really not trying to denigrate or downplay digital nomads. It is fine, that is neat, great. It is definitely a project of peak globalism or a byproduct I should say of sort of peak globalism. I'm not convinced this is actually a demography that is going to have sustainable returns in terms of trying to target them as far as bringing them into Thailand. Then the other side of it is, there are in my opinion sort of unforeseen downsides to all of this by dint of the fact that you are basically letting people live somewhere without really assimilating, basically. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but look I'm an immigrant; I came over to Thailand. I lived here, I have worked here and then I eventually naturalized and became a Thai; that's an Immigrant, that's immigration. There's a guy Matt Smith who does Doug Casey's take on YouTube with him and I urge those who are watching these videos, go check out that channel; interesting stuff. Doug Casey is always a smart guy but Matt Smith his co-host brought up something really important at one point and he said "the whole digital nomad lifestyle is a bit of a misnomer; it's a bit of a red herring because you're not really living, you are sort of living just in airports and hotels and you don't really take any roots to where you're going." Again I view this again as a byproduct of peak globalism if you will and I think that the world is changing a lot. And I'm not convinced that this digital nomadism is a sustainable way of maintaining one's lifestyle or one's ability to make a living in the long term for a variety of different reasons, but the question posed is “are they good for Thailand?” I would say yes but with regard to the DTV, and I think we are ultimately going to find this to be the case when we start seeing Immigration actually having a hand in dealing with these Destination Thailand Visas, it's supposed to be for 5 years and according to the PR blitz by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - who will have nothing to do with extensions or dealing with Border runners - it will be Immigration who has made no comment as of the time of this video on that type of Visa, it will be them who ultimately, Immigration I mean, who ultimately will make the determination regarding whether or not somebody will be allowed to remain in Thailand or whether or not they will be allowed to come and go using Border Run or again remain in Thailand using an extension. And they have not commented on it at all and from my experience, Immigration is not wine and roses, sweetness and light when it comes to dealing with things like extensions or somebody living in Thailand without any real ties here; they have no roots. They are sort of just here.

Now again if you're trying to bump up tourism numbers or bump up foreign exchange, I get allowing folks in in short period intervals. But again and I'm not claiming to know this, this is conjecture on a certain part, but Immigration again has not commented on this and I expect they will probably likely have a similar paradigm when they are dealing with the ongoing extensions of these Destination Thailand Visas here in the Kingdom of Thailand.