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Colonize a new country of citizens that still believe in common sense, rational thought, and intelligent discourse.

That's already a thing.

Or you could wait for the BFR and move to Mars.

Tada: it's a micronation... in space!

Of course it's unrealistic armchair-libertarian drivel: the magnetosphere is a harsh mistress, after all.

What's interesting about this development is that it isn't a nearly-entirely American endeavour, which is often the case with such ambitions; Asgardia seems to be Russian and the AIRC supporting it is Viennese. I suspect we'll see a lot more anti-authoritarian behaviour from Europeans in the coming years as a) the EU weakens, b) the Internet transmits political memes that were previously comparatively contained by media limitations like talk radio and poor English literacy, and c) people already exposed to (b) come of age.

The much more feasible version of "let's get off the Earth so we can get away from our countries' laws" is called seasteading, and generally involves a platform in international waters. There's one clear non-Libertarian, non-American example of seasteading (Sealand, UK) which is fairly old and unusually successful by micronation standards. These days, however, the idea is generally associated with these guys, who have been funded by Peter Thiel. They, unquestionably, are primarily concerned with ways to dodge regulation. Without a realistic means of building such a gigantic physical presence, though, they certainly aren't going to be doing much of that; at best they'd end up creating their own passports that no one would accept.

Floating nuclear power plant technology will resolve this issue long before it even becomes a problem; there are already prototypes in production. There are far more pressing issues brought about by rising sea levels... All the more reason to join the Seasteading movement and be among the first to migrate to a floating city!

Shimizu Corporation intersects with Dr. Criswell in another way that I just discovered today after searching for his more recent patents.

We've got to attract technological civilization's population away from natural ecosystems into idealized artificial environments such as Shimizu Corporation's design for what it calls the "Green Float". You can house the entire population of civilization in beach-front property on the boundary of a tropical rain forest where people can swim, fish, hunt and gather recreationally, as well as access the height of urban lifestyle. From there space habitats are likely to emerge so that the natural propensity of these "cells" to replicate endlessly needn't destroy Earth's biosphere. Interestingly, I came up with a geometry that looks very similar to that years ago, with the Solar Updraft Tower Algae Biosphere proforma and, over the subsequent years, I found a floating photobioreactor technology that requires little more than 2 layers of polyfilm that has demonstrated production per cost figures far in excess of what I projected in that proforma. Before I ran across Shimizu Corp's Green Float I had further refined the idea based on the Atmospheric Vortex Engine, which, like Shimizu's "Green Float", is ideally sited in the equatorial doldrums and could make use of the central tower of the Green Float. I posted some preliminary thoughts over at the Seastead Institute's blog.

A key problem I attempted to address in my preliminary thoughts was the early market for energy from the Atmospheric Vortex Engines that would form the nuclei for Shimizu's Green Floats. A big problem was the fact that the electric power markets are thousands of miles away from the floating AVEs even if you could build on the order of a terawatt of oceanic power transmission lines thousands of miles long. Early markets are critical for attracting capital -- the lack of which renders such grandiose ideas "non-starters".

I had thought it would be very nice to have a microwave transmission technology that could dynamically switch the power distribution to achieve the holy grail of "dispatchable" power generation for peak loads, but wasn't aware, until just now, that Dr. Criswell's recent revision of his patent serves precisely that purpose.

(As noted in my previous posts, I am a libertarian gradualist who is perfectly fine siding with Republicans in this election, but, to make things more interesting, in this post I will defend the long-term libertarian ideal.)

Libertarianism is just a slightly less honest version of anarchism.

Libertarianism (which in USA'ian usage means pure free market capitalism) has nothing to do with anarchism. The only connection between the two is that Murray Rothbard (possibly as a joke) used the term Anarcho-Capitalism, where the a-word is used as a descriptive qualifier for purity of capitalism: no involuntary monopolies of any kind (ex. no hierarchy in jurisdiction of fully independent polycentric courts). That does not equate it to the common definition of "anarchism" - a chickpea is not a chicken!

A free market capitalist society unavoidably involves the emergence of hierarchies - firstly within families on the basis of Parents' Rights, and then on the basis of voluntary association in the many areas of human endeavor where hierarchical organization may constitute an advantage.

People would find it in their interest to form voluntary groups on the basis of contractual agreement, ranging in size from a family to a neighborhood association to an alliance of charter cities established for a common purpose (ex. common infrastructure). Very few people would choose to exist without contractually-established institutions of any kind.

The political sentiments are pretty much the same...

The political sentiments are almost polar opposites. Anarchists are brain-damaged emotionalist idiots trying to get back at their parents for grounding them. They even make their Marxist pals seem rational in comparison! Free market capitalists like von Mises, Hayek, Karl Popper, Rothbard, Hoppe, Rand, the Friedmans (etc, etc, etc) are brilliant economists and philosophers. Gaining an understanding of free market capitalism requires many years of diligent study. Gaining an understanding of anarchism requires a death-metal CD and huffing some paint thinner.

...and both are equally untenable...

So let me get this straight... A world with 200 sovereign governments that we have today is perfectly tenable, but if governments become fragmented into smaller and smaller sovereign entities that people are free to choose between then at some point it becomes untenable? At what point does that happen? Switzerland and Liechtenstein can decide on matters of jurisdiction based on geographic borders, but several Liechtenstein-sized (or smaller) neighborhoods / city-states cannot?

...but the libertarians wrap theirs up with ideals about private property to pretend they aren't just a bunch of crazies.

OK, fine, we're a bunch of crazies. The reason why free market economics works so well (i.e. the well-demonstrated causal relationship from economic freedom to growth) is... crazy juice! The reason why free market economists (ex) were so accurate in predicting this current economic crisis is... more crazy juice! Etc.

So, if we're just a bunch of crazies, with our silly econometrics and non-aggression principles and all that, then why not permit things like seasteading (without the threat of Uncle Sam sending in the navy) or private land secession (without Uncle Sam restricting access and trade)? Why do you need to tax and otherwise enslave a bunch of crazies? Why not just let us free?

Anyone who believes fundamentally that everything ought to be private falls into one of two categories. People who believe that when everything turns pri

Which boils down to "those with land have rights, those without have none."

If everything is privately owned, then existing requires you be on someone's private property. If you don't own it, then you can be kicked off it, and on to someone else's private land you "violently" trespassed onto. If you don't own land, you go to jail for initiating violence by living.

There is more to property than just land. Rights begin with your ownership of yourself: your life, your body, your mind, your skills, your time, your reputation, etc. The vast majority of people are able to use these assets in a free market to make a living, including living space to rent or eventually buy. Not all real estate owners in a free market are hostile to their renters or buyers (which would be rather bad for business and their reputation), and of course there can be non-profit living establishments, voluntary communes, charity housing projects (made crime-free with enough security cameras), etc.

As technology advances, the cost of living space relative to income should go way down, which would especially be the case without government's artificial raising of construction / maintenance costs through taxes and regulation. Cheaper transportation and telecommunication, along with more open borders, means people can move further in search of a perfect home that they can afford. Just imagine what advances in technology (cheap energy, new materials, robotics, water desalination, irrigation of deserts, etc) could do to the cost of building a house in the coming decades! (And don't even get me started on outlook further into the future - seasteading, someday space stations, etc.)

And people don't just fall out of the sky on random bits of other people's property when they begin their lives: most parents plan for their children's well-being. This becomes increasingly so as a culture becomes more civilized and fewer children are unplanned, so parents have their children later in life, with more funds available to raise them. The Internet and FLOSS / free content culture can do great things to lower the costs of education down to zero, which means anyone who is willing can learn a high-tech trade to get a good job to pull their economic weight.

--libman

Surface seasteading, on the other hand, seems to be very promising in spite of the fact that nobody has really been successful at doing that with 21st Century technology.

They've been successfully doing it since ancient times. The current very successful model is seasteading by ship with occasional stops in specialized structures called docks and harbors.

While a few people do seem to live their lives almost permanently aboard ship, they really are transportation devices to get you from one place to another and not a place where civilizations form and act independently.

There really is a difference between a ship and an island or city. There is also the difference between a spaceship and a settlement in space as well, even though you can build a city in the middle of the ocean just as much as you can build a city in some random spot in space.

I think it could be argued that if you are going to try and build the L-5 colony, why not at least at first try to build a "colony" in the Sargasso Sea? Unlike claims about people trying to "settle" Antarctica before trying Mars (or in the above discussion Ceres), there really aren't any significant international treaties that are stopping a group of folks building a whole bunch of barges and other relatively stable vessels and building a city in what could arguably be a pretty nice place to live (as temperate as the Bahamas, plenty of access to food and even fresh water (if you collect rain), and far enough away from other locations on the Earth that you can in theory flip the bird to other governments and start your own if you care. Unlike a micronation like Sealand, there is also room to expand and grow so in theory you could have a large enough population for a viable community as well.

There are limited locations where such a sea community could legitimately be established, but many of the same issues that will eventually need to be addressed for space colonization certainly could be applied from efforts at such "seasteading" efforts.

The only real ancient example of seasteading is with the people who lived on Lake Titicaca, where a society exists with children being born "at sea" is normal instead of a very rare exception, and for those children along with hundreds of other children to spend their lives on floating platforms as a way of life where they reasonably expect to have their own children also live that way. It does require some technology in order to make that happen even in the case of the , but it doesn't need to be very sophisticated.

If you can show a similar kind of group existing today to the Uru people but using cruise ships or something like that, I love to know about it. There is a group at seasteading.org which has a bunch of dreamers hoping some day to do a thing like this. It is worth looking at, but there certainly are challenges to the idea.

Finally something factual.

There are a lot of ignorant comments in this thread. This isn't about oppressing anyone or making people poor - it's about freeing people and letting them be productive.

The fact that so many people find the idea horrifying explains quite well why the idea is necessary. The United States used to be known for innovation and industry, now it appears to be protectionist and stuck in its ways. That's not just a bad thing for the United States, it's a bad thing for humanity.

Also see the Seasteading website. http://seasteading.org/

http://www.seasteading.org/about-seasteading/frequently-asked-questions#pirates

no overrarching formal authority that is going to prevent Libertopia

You'd still have to fight for it just to start. Going to Somalia would have you competing against the people already there, and anyone else that wants to barge in. Plus some people would like to do this without taking someone's current country away from them. (Not that Somalia would be a big loss, but still.)

Also, I think people are misinterpreting what they're trying to do. This isn't to make "Libertopia". (Though it sounds like they certainly wouldn't mind that.) They want to enable *experiments* with government. If you want experiments, you want a plan that allows for multiple running at once, without having to wreak havoc on people that don't want to be your test dummies.

Although, I admit that a society with "99%" of it's laws and courts removed, no law enforcement agencies, no paid defense, no tax collection, no regulatory bodies, no government facilities, etc. looks strangely similar to anarchy to me. I get these ideas from the post I replied to elsewhere.

People disagree on what, exactly, libertarianism is. A few *very* different visions get lumped together. (I guess we need to start using more specific terms...) To me, the libertarian philosophy means that everyone gets the right to do whatever they want, so long as they don't interfere with others. My idea of a libertarian government would be one that seeks to prevent people from violating each others' rights, and that's it.

Some things that I think help prevent others from violating rights:
military
police (especially detectives)
courts
written laws
tax collection (since the rest of it isn't coming for free)

In my version of a libertarian society, smoking in public wouldn't be allowed, because that causes harm/risk to people that didn't consent to that risk. Others think that it means being able to do whatever drug they want, anywhere they want. While I think those people have serious problems, to me, it ultimately comes down to being able to make choices, including choosing what system of law you're in.
In my "ideal" world, it would be easier to move to another place in order to live under more favorable laws. Being able to move more easily is especially important for experimental governments. *If* anything is going to work for that, modular floating buildings might be what makes it work.

The point is, people have different ideas on how things might be made better, but often there are effects that aren't foreseen. What do we do? Try them on an existing country, making people be part of an experiment when some/many of them think it's crazy? Ignore these ideas, missing out on what might have been a major advancement?

Island building has problems, too, but they're only imposed upon whoever *decides* to risk it.

I don't have anything to do with the Seasteading Institute, but if you want to understand them, read their FAQs:
http://seasteading.org/about-seasteading/frequently-asked-questions

One of my favorite statements - "Your rule-of-law is only as valid as your ability to enforce it at the end of a sharp stick."

This seems to apply here as well. If you intend to declare independence/autonomy, you need to be completely self-sufficient. And honestly, I don't think the US or British Navy is the big threat here. A drug cartel would looove easy pickin's like this. They have "navies" with submarines too.

At the end of the day, TSI's business plan is crap. They have -zero- resources with which to trade. Confinementless aquaculture? Whoops, the delishus fishus seem to have swam off. Damn. Children of the Sea orphanage? "What investment has the highest return of all? It's the human mind. " Profitable only if you harvest *all* the internal organs, not just the brain.

They've been working on this at http://www.seasteading.org/ for several years now. Cities in the sea, and being able to move your "Seastead" from one city to another if you don't like living there.

http://www.seasteading.org/

Idea's been around for a while. The main issue is that it takes some major bucks to get a project like this off the ground so it'll likely remain among the list of intriguing ideas nobody's been able to finance like intercontinental bridges, beanstalks, arcologies, and such.

"Elon Musk made a fortune with PayPal and could easily have retired to a private island."

Well, close. Paypal cofounder Peter Thiel's a board member, don't know about any involvement by Elon Musk.

Only when Starbucks reaches the ocean will seasteading finally become a reality. That might be a ways off, though.

Everybody knows how this one turns out.

Only when Starbucks reaches the ocean will seasteading finally become a reality. That might be a ways off, though.

(but where is there free land to found a colony of non-stoopids?)

The ocean.

I didn't comment on Anarcho-Capitalism, I commented on the scenario given by the post I answered to.

So you've made baseless assumptions without even following the links I've deliberately embedded in my text (and not just for mere reader convenience - hyperlinks are becoming an essential part of the modern literary format that cannot be separated from the text itself)...

Of course I'm just a Slashdot troll with a -1 "karma", but in a serious, substantive, and logical debate the bad "karma" would be on you.

In the scenario there was clearly a monopoly of violence (or, more exactly, an oligopoly). It just wasn't the state, but the big corporations.

Would you pay taxes to Shell Oil without getting anything you value in return? Would you send your kids to a school where they were expected to pledge allegiance to WalMart or learned WalMart's biased version of history? Would you go fight a foreign war for FailBlog.org? Would you shop at a pharmacy that abducted your neighbor for using herbal remedies they don't approve of? Would you let the currency in your wallet be inflated by Chuck E Cheese's? Most people obviously would not!

In a sufficiently advanced society of rational economic actors, Natural Laws of order emerge generatively, as they do in all other evolutionary systems. That doesn't mean people become perfect, but crime simply does not pay, because any one entity that violates the Non-Aggression Principle will quickly find the rest of the world uniting against it! Only the governments can still get away with a sufficient level of neo-religious brainwashing in order to convince the world that they have a "divine right" to initiate force!

Furthermore, the vast majority of centralized corporate power that exists today comes from the government and wouldn't exist in a free society: subsides, many of the "limited liability protections", implicit "intellectual property rights" (which is what this conversation was originally about), environmental loopholes through which the government actually shields polluters from their market liabilities, regulations that help established businesses raise barrier to entry against their competition, corruption, etc, etc, etc. Read about it.

Corporations are nothing more than voluntary agreements between human beings - it's governments that are the problem.

I didn't say anything about your right or non-right to opt out. Indeed, I'm not in a position to give or take from you any right; most probably I don't even live in the same country as you do. I said what I though about the scenario given by the post I responded to, which I considered a horror scenario. That's all I did. If you are offended by that, that's just your problem. Just think about it your way: I don't have a contract with you to not say anything which may offend you, so why do you want to take that right away from me?

I was pointing out the context of our argument - I respect your freedom to live in a society of your choice (some flavor of statism), but you don't respect my right to live in a society of my choice (minarchism / Anarcho-Capitalism). You may not be the person who will call an air-strike against my seastead or throw me in prison for tax resistance, but you are nonetheless a willing part of the system that will.

(Signed: Alex Libman's sock-puppet.)

Have you ever considered RTFM'ing up on an issue before asking the obvious questions that every introductory text (or audio-book) on Anarcho-Capitalism would clearly answer? Here's one example of an endless debate on this issue... I'm not asking for anyone's approval and blessing, just my own liberation and all the consequences it would bring!

Anarcho-Capitalists like me clearly believe that the greatest tyranny in a society comes from a monopoly on violence (aka government), and that decentralization would lead to an emergence of "checks and balances" that keep private power from ever approaching the level of tyranny governments exercise today. You of course are free to disagree - I respect your right to subscribe to a government if you so choose. So why not respect my right to opt out - especially if it's on my own privately owned land, seastead, or space-station (someday)?

No one wants to "force people to be free"! We just want the freedom to put our money where our mouth is and experiment, and we believe that our ideas would lead to better economic growth, attract top brains and investment capital, and pretty soon the more socialist governments will simply run out of competent people to tax. If we are wrong, then what do you have to lose?

(Signed: Alex Libman's sock-puppet.)

So how's all that "hope" and "change" working out for you?

Republicans and Democrats are two advertising campaigns for the same rotten statist / semi-socialist product. They actually like to take turns - one hand (or iron fist) washes the other. The diapers change, but the source of the poo remains.

Third party politics are a bit better. Dropping out of the corrupt system entirely with movements like Seasteading and the Free State Project is best. Tax resistance -- if you have the balls -- can also play a very effective part in getting your voice heard.

"Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes." -- Alexander Haig

(Signed: Alex Libman's sock-puppet.)

the choice isn't really a choice when more and more neighborhoods enact these stupid things. The net result is the same kind of least common demoninator expectation that the socialism you're complaining about brings.

There is a very important difference, and that difference is individual consent. It makes the difference between acceptable human relationships and tyranny, as it does between lovemaking and rape!

A homeowners' association exists on the basis of a contract - you explicitly promised to abide by its rules (including procedures for how new rules get established), which was probably a part of your choice to buy a specific piece of property, because its previous owner was contractually obligated to only sell to people who accept the same neighborhood rules s\he accepted. That is the only level on which democracy can be the least bit functional - widening the boat even to the level of a small New England town-hall meeting makes it less consensual, and calling a homogenizing empire of 300+ million a "democracy" is a complete and total joke. No one can be a "representative" for someone without individual consent, and it's pretty darn hard to accurately represent the interests of even 2 people at the same time!

A world ruled by neighborhood associations and other voluntary institutions (an Anarcho-Capitalist idea of an ideal society) is a world where if you don't like the local rules you can simply move elsewhere, or even start your own principality if you so choose. (The fundamental Natural Laws based on the Non-Aggression Principle of course being the only universal.) A world ruled by government is a tyranny from which there is no escape! Governments have spread themselves by force over every square inch of land on this planet, and even the hopes of building libertarian nations on open sea or even outer space are not credible only because everyone knows the U.S. / U.N. Navy will blow us to smithereens before we ever become a legitimate competitor!

Centralized government stifles the very forces of emergence / social evolution that have created the human civilization, just as biological evolution created us as a species! Competition for brains and investment capital is what keeps government power in check - the more competition, the more freedom and economic growth. As technology inevitably continues to progress, humanity faces a fork in its potential destiny - it will either exit the 21st century in full embrace of free market capitalism, or under a tyrannical world government monopoly from which there is no escape!

I picture cruse ships in international waters for online porn and gambling eventually

These guys have a better architecture for what you propose:

http://seasteading.org/

The thing about Cruise ships, is that they are not a good place to keep valuable permanent assets, like your financial data. One Rogue Wave, and they are potentially toast, and all of your secrets are subject to salvage laws in international waters. Not good. But Spar Buoys of sufficient size are immune to all wave action, due to simple geometry -- the part in contact with the water sits vertically, and has a very small cross section to wave motion.

What has eroded can be restored, unless the capable decide to split for a nirvana that doesn't exist.

If it doesn't exist, then we shall create it!

Writing in from McMurdo Station, I should note that the actual sites that are currently manned are not especially good for freedom, as they follow the laws of the respective nations that have established them. The Antarctic Treaty is likewise becoming more and more restrictive. The great advantage is that there are many places where there is no one whatsoever, so that with sufficient technology and resources, a freedom-loving group might be able to establish their own community. On the other hand, there has been some serious interest in seasteading lately, by Patri Friedman and others. http://seasteading.org/

There's no where free left on land. It's time to colonise and move on to the High Seas.

Where's Kevin Costner when we really need him?

Over Here

Try the Seasteading Institute.

or this?

Climate change happens.

Nothing being proposed by anyone will make a significant dent in it as far as CO2 levels in the next couple decades.

So why not just adapt?

From something I wrote here:
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/183fed4ee1411253?hl=en

People are regularly relocated for big things like hydroelectric dams, as
happened near where I live now, or small things like a new bridge over the
lake about to be built and needing land for an access path where a few
houses now sit. It's a messy social process, and I'm not necessarily for dam
building (there are many horror stories obviously, of natives displaced
without even any compensation), but it has happened and people have tried
(and perhaps failed) to come up with approaches towards relocation with some
sense of fairness. What's going on with rising sea levels connected to CO2
pollution can thus perhaps be thought of in those terms. It's a complex
issue; the notion of any sort of private or even public land ownership is
always problematical if one considers ethical ambiguities related to
histories of invasion and various first comers claiming special rights (why
should primacy be the highest deciding factor?). One always has to make
assumptions in talking about what is fair (including, sadly, the assumption
of what role threat and intimidation and violence plays in all that). There
are lots of ways to think about the fairness of climate change from CO2
pollution (again, see the book, "Policy Paradox: The Art of Political
Decision Making" for general ideas). What is unfair about the current
situation is these people losing their beach front property (and related
livelihoods) are paying the highest costs for the benefits of CO2 pollution
which are mostly going to other people. But, the process is effectively
irreversible in the near future. Short of some very radical plans which may
have other unforeseen side effects (dumping freighters of iron powder in the
oceans to create algae blooms which then sink?), these low lying lands will
disappear under any politically likely approach to CO2 reduction. So, rather
than emphasize slowing climate change, I think it is more important to talk
about dealing fairly with climate change (whatever "fair" means to different
people) and advancing our culture to the point where it can do what needs to
be done to give everyone an abundant life despite climate change.

But, as with reparations for other past misdeeds by large societies
(slavery, mountaintop removal, groundwater pollution, desecration of sacred
spaces, etc.), it's not clear to me how the mix should go between direct
reparations to the people involved (or their descendants, like for slavery)
or if this should instead spur us as a society towards more general social
investments that benefit everybody (like creating a general and cheap
technology to build new land in the ocean like Eric Hunting mentioned in
"Re: Land and Capital; Invention and Automation"). Probably some mix of both
would be fairest, but unfortunately often now under current economic and
political ideologies we have neither reparations nor broad public investment
in open and sustainable technology to any great degree. :-( But, we may see
that change eventually, especially as the globe generally gets wealthier and
various sustainable industrial activities get easier. ...

Let's use [someone's] figure of $1000 per square meter for artificial land on the
ocean. Even if maybe these people may someday do it for less:
http://seasteading.org/
If people need, say, 1000 square meters of ocean front land per person to be
happy and grow most of their own food near the tropics (given the ocean as a
playground too), then that's a mi

or the high seas where there are no laws.

Some people are looking into the living on the seas idea. They've got some good ideas and plans but they're quite expensive ideas. If it pans out I will join them as soon as it becomes reasonable for me to do so, based on whether I think I can earn a living out there.

Just a small note:

Sea Steading is a real idea.. http://seasteading.org/ (run by Patri Friedman, grandson of Milton Friedman) and as early as *last year* Montana threatened to secede.

WHEREAS, when the Court determines in Heller whether or not the Second Amendment secures an individual right, the Court will establish precedent that will affect the State of Montana and the political rights of the citizens of Montana;

WHEREAS, when Montana entered into statehood in 1889, that entrance was accomplished by a contract between Montana and the several states, a contract known as The Compact With The United States (Compact), found today as Article I of the Montana Constitution;

WHEREAS, with authority from Congress acting as agent for the several states, President Benjamin Harrison approved the Montana Constitution in 1889, which secured the right of "any person" to bear arms, clearly intended as an individual right and an individual right deemed consistent then with the Second Amendment by the parties to the contract; ............
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the undersigned members of the 60th Montana Legislature as follows:

1. That any form of "collective rights" holding by the Court in Heller will offend the Compact; and .........
4. Montana reserves all usual rights and remedies under historic contract law if its Compact should be violated by any "collective rights" holding in Heller.

Holey crap, way to go Montana!

http://www.seasteading.org/

Although there's still some rules in maritime law. But spacesteading isn't practical yet.

Look into "seasteading," eg. here. Although the idea of "building an island" as alluded to below is still impractically expensive, there's some possibility of building a smaller structure or (as I think yet more practical) getting together something like a subsistence farm on a very basic ocean-going raft.

As for other means of resisting oppression, check out these guys (whose resources even include a computer game) and the book On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict here. Networking and communication are part of the way to oppose unjust laws, and in the West there's still enough freedom that they're a low-risk way to get involved.

Lets go to the frontier!!! :-)

I hear that people are working on this already: http://www.seasteading.org/

People are always ranting about patent abuse over here, now Google is filing a patent on basically "computing on a ship" and nobody's screaming about it????

This is a good _idea_, but that's it! It's not a patenteable invention.

As a person interested in seasteading I am quite concerned over paying royalties to Google over running a server in my future home.

Oh, so you know WHEN it will be too late to reverse climate change? Share it with us please.

And trillions to be made destroying the environment? Who would make that profit, exactly? The Seasteading Institute? You lost me there. :-)

They're working on that already.

Baby steps are always easier. I find it pretty sad that we put people on the moon 40 years ago with slide rules, explosions, and brains and haven't been back.

It's called Seasteading.

Seasteading would be a very complex endeavour but the bases you are referring to are more or less covered. A pretty detailed description can be found at the SeaSteading book.

Seasteading could be a very interesting social experiment, especially to anyone with libertarian leanings.