New Country for Old Libertarians: Seasteading Institute

lukep

lukep

He Hath Arisen
Sep 18, 2010
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So the Founder of Paypal, Peter Thiel, a well known Libertarian and all-around rich bastard has just put up some big cash to get the Seasteading Institute up and running.

Their goal: To make new land and new forms of government offshore on oil-rig-like platforms in International waters.

Seasteading Institute

One of many designs for a seastead:
seasteading-institute-design-competition.jpg



Thiel suggests these islands may be instrumental in “experimenting with new ideas for government.” One theory implements libertarian ideals such as no welfare, no minimum wage, looser building codes, and fewer weapons restrictions. Another more capitalistic approach called Appletopia, has a corporation starting the country as a business where the more popular it becomes the more valuable the real estate.

These micro-countries built on oil rig-like platforms will be moveable, diesel-powered 12,000 ton structures. Each structure may house up to 270 residents, and they are planned to link together into a massive web. Thiel plans to launch a flotilla office park off the coast of San Francisco next year and predicts full settlement of the first island in 2019. He and the Seasteading Institute aim to have 10 million floating residents by 2050.
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Awesome (but long) article on it:

The Billionaire King of Techtopia: Critical Eye : Details


My 2 concerns: Pollution & Piracy.

They'd better bring some bigass guns to fend off the pirates, and also, how much waste is that thing going to dump into the open sea every year? The paths that cruise ships frequent in the Caribbean, for instance, is a desolate wasteland because all our waste in the frequently-used paths have killed pretty much all coral life and more in their paths.

Otherwise I fucking love the concept and would want to live on one myself once they show they are stable.

Can you imagine how much money will be going through these things? Their national currency could be Bitcoins for that matter!
 


^You wasted your 1k post to say a single word? Hmm. Go make a boob thread before you get neg repped dude!

Anywho, that article I linked to above is a must read for any self-respecting libertarian.

I had no idea Thiel was so into it... And he's gay too, so that plus the whole facebook thing makes him a really mixed, interesting guy, somewhat insane sounding but still pretty cool:

Thiel put forth his views on the subject in a 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, in which he flatly declared, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." He went on: "The great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms," with the critical question being "how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country."

Until a libertarian colony can be established in outer space—Thiel is bullish on that idea, too, though he thinks the technology needs at least a half-century to develop—seasteading will have to suffice. "[It's] not just possible, or desirable," he said in an address at the 2009 Seasteading Institute Conference, "but actually necessary."
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Do you guys ascribe to the notion that we can totally escape politics one day?
 
Cool concept, I can finally run monkey knife fighting events without any issue.

Unless they hire a private army / sea patrol 24/7, I could see "countries" like this getting raided every 2nd day by yarrr matey pirates.

And even if they do fend off the silly pirates what's stopping the USA/Russia/China/Uzbekistan/Fiji from dropping drones on they ass just because they can?

edit: just realized I parroted stuff written above by previous posters.
 
kingscotty38 said:
Unless they hire a private army / sea patrol 24/7, I could see "countries" like this getting raided every 2nd day by yarrr matey pirates.

And even if they do fend off the silly pirates what's stopping the USA/Russia/China/Uzbekistan/Fiji from dropping drones on they ass just because they can?
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No Yarr Matey pirates could take one of these things with all the gun-toting libertarians aboard; It would take some serious munitions like well-armed torpedoes or rockets to combat any one platform... And the plan is to have thousands.

As for the foriegn country threat; after reading about Sealand (thanks Andrew for that) I see now how this is going to progress: for many years while this thing is small and not creating a big profit, it will be IGNORED by all other countries.

Only once they have grown large enough and profitable enough will there be any reason for anyone to take a seastead (or flotilla of many connected seasteads) seriously.

That's a day they need to plan on in advance... Especially if money laundering becomes an industry on one/them.

I believe if they use Bitcoin and keep the laundering of nationalized currencies at a minimum they can avoid that for decades.
 
But back to the question at hand: Does anyone here believe that we can totally escape politics one day? Floating continents or otherwise?
 
So what's a one bedroom on one of these babies going to cost me? I'm assuming around $4 million, if not more? Can't see them being cheap.
 
lukep said:
But back to the question at hand: Does anyone here believe that we can totally escape politics one day? Floating continents or otherwise?
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Escape politics? Never. Floating houses in the ocean are stupid. One bad storm and they're all fucked. You see how much damage a hurricane does to shit on the land? A floating house would get fucking raped.

Back to politics though, unless you live in a completely sustainable environment by yourself in the middle of nowhere you're going to have to live in a community. And communities always have leaders. And leaders are always somewhat corrupt.

Why not build houses on the ocean floor or on the moon if you're looking to get away from shit. You build a house on the ocean and I'm gonna drive golf balls at your windows so I can say I shelled another country and because it's hilarious.
 
lukep said:
But back to the question at hand: Does anyone here believe that we can totally escape politics one day? Floating continents or otherwise?
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I think any time you get a bunch of people together you're going to end up with disagreements over how to run things, rules and laws, resource access and management etc. Politics is pretty much inevitable.

This looks like it'd be an interesting experiment though and worth learning from, if nothing else.
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
So what's a one bedroom on one of these babies going to cost me? I'm assuming around $4 million, if not more? Can't see them being cheap.
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Well Aboard the World their 1 Bedroom residences go for something like that price (Perhaps a bit more) but they are so luxurious that it's not fair at all to make the comparison.

Meanwhile, if you select an apartment that has a mini-gun bolted to your deck and agree to defend the stead against pirates they might knock a few bucks off your rent... ;)
 
I was looking at this last week. I'm all for it and I'm definitely an anarchist/libertarian, but there are a number of issues I'd be wary of. I guess it makes me a little uncomfortable because the plan is to use cruise ships in the beginning, and to me, cruise ships are the ultimate symbol of wasteful debauchery.

More importantly, I hope there is a fresh stream of females being brought on board, otherwise it might become a very undesirable place to live.
 
joevis said:
Floating houses in the ocean are stupid. One bad storm and they're all fucked. You see how much damage a hurricane does to shit on the land? A floating house would get fucking raped.
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This ain't a 15-foot yacht, you know. Big waves don't even tilt it at all when they're that size... And they're too far offshore for a tsunami's wave to exist. So just make sure your house's shutters are shut and you'll be fine thu any storm on one.

joevis said:
Back to politics though, unless you live in a completely sustainable environment by yourself in the middle of nowhere you're going to have to live in a community. And communities always have leaders. And leaders are always somewhat corrupt.
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I think true libertarians can be without leaders... It would be like one company handles real estate, one company handles security, one company handles the justice and another the water and another the electricity, etc... Why have an actual government other than just to say its' sovereign?


joevis said:
Why not build houses on the ocean floor or on the moon if you're looking to get away from shit. You build a house on the ocean and I'm gonna drive golf balls at your windows so I can say I shelled another country and because it's hilarious.
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This isn't about getting away from 'shit,' it's about being free of repressive governments.

Anyway, if you want to drive your cute little boat up close enough to a seastead to drive golfballs at it, I'm quite sure your craft is going down under heavy fire before you can get your nine iron out. :1bluewinky:
 
This is such a bad idea it's unreal. They cost to live there will be astronomical. They will either have to grow all their fruits and vegetables on the floating shit city or have to park so close to the shore that they might as well live on the land.

Nobody sane will ever purchase one of these and abandon land to live on a ticking time bomb. The population will be made up of actors, rock stars and other useless rich people like rappers and painters.

What happens when the doctor and the guy that runs the water recycling machine get into a bar fight and kill each other in the middle of a storm. You're all fucked. Then you're gonna call up the "repressive governments" and ask for help.

This is a worse idea than Jurassic Park.
 
Yeah, gotta admit, I don't particularly like the idea either. It'd be like living on a nicer version of an offshore oil platform, at about 4000% of the cost of living on land. Who the fuck would decide that's a good idea? Then there's problems with supply chains, natural disasters, wars breaking out, pirates lobbing RPGs at you, cost of living increases by probably 3000%+, life turns into an shitty, isolated existence where you're bored out of your mind within 2 weeks, and many more.

That, and just the basic concept itself is flawed. Throw 300 people onto an offshore rig, say "this is how we're going to live", and then say, "look, we have no government!". Sounds like the citizens will be guinea pigs even moreso than they already are on land.
 
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