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Paypal Founder Helping Build Artificial Island Nations
MadMartigan2001 writes with a pretty crazy article on a project involving floating libertarian paradises. From the article: "PayPal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters. Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties."
This idea has been tried several times and it always ends the same way (with fail). Think about it, if it were really that easy to declare your own country with its own laws, every asshole with a sea-worthy boat would be proclaiming his own little kingdom. Idiots who believe you can do this are the same morons who think that you can murder someone in international waters and not face prosecution or that you can get out of paying taxes by sending a letter to the IRS stating that you refuse to recognize their authority (ask Wesley Snipes if that shit works).
The only real way to establish your own country is to get the people of an existing country to elect you dictator or to stage a coup overthrowing the existing leader (or at least seize a portion of their existing territory). And even then, your rule is only as stable as your ability to defend it (from both internal and external threats).
So if you plan on setting up your own little kingdom on some old oil rig just off the U.S. coast (or coast of any country) and doing whatever you want, you had better damn sure be ready to defend yourself when the Navy shows up in a big, heavily armed ship looking to introduce you to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the concept of Universal Jurisdiction. And if it's the U.S. Navy, you're probably going to need a *lot* of firepower on your little oil rig, Your Majesty.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I chose... Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.
Make billions. Build islands out of awesome tech stuff.
Next step?
Build mothership!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
and what is the hurrcan plan?
to what end? Make trade even more abusively exploitive of labor than it already is?
It will be interesting the first time a band of pirates (the killing and looting kind, not the sharing kind) storms one of these 'sovereign nations'. I'm guessing they will develop a sudden affection for the country with the nearest naval vessel who can save their bacon.
You know what would come in real handy?!
A barge with a nuclear reactor to provide electricity!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Quarantining rabid libertarians out in the middle of the ocean? Where can I send my contribution to this marvelous project?
1.25 million is pocket change, to get something like this rolling would take hundreds of millions.
Thanks for the thoughts, but $1M is almost enough for toilet paper for one day (not that that isn't extremely important, but you need many more zeros Pete).
... tech billionaires used their cash to say, help find a cure for malaria, instead of telling kids not to get an education, and this latest anti-societal rant?
For a paltry $1.25M, a random Rich Guy bought his name in the press, which he will use to stay in the limelight for a little bit. He will then trade on this temporary fame during the launch of his next business venture and keep his Wikipedia entry from being deleted.
Come on... $1.25M? Nobody's building any kind of large-ish sea-worthy vessel for that kind of money, much less a floating office building, data center, residences, etc.
Also, unless he builds it in international waters too (using money he has yet to allocate), how is he going to manage to get it through territorial waters into international waters to begin with? No national authority is going to let a vessel of any size sail out of the dock without registration with an actual country. It doesn't have to be registered in the country it's built in, but it's got to be registered somewhere.
So their gated communities with their private security services aren't enough for these fuckers. Now they want to live in their private countries.
What a waste! There should be a tax on anti-social behavior.
Free Manning, jail Obama.
Old Hungarian joke:
- Where do you work?
- At the Ministry of Naval Affairs.
- Are you kidding, we don't even have a seashore!
- Hey, we got a Ministry of Public Welfare too.
and send the bill
...is Kevin Costner when you need him?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
It may not be the US, but I'm guessing someone will bite on this.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
By its very nature, be it libertarianism, objectivism, or even polygamy, cannot exist on it own and isolated from the larger society, as it is inherently parasitic. There is much it is incapable of addressing (such as welfare), so it deals with it by simply removing the "problem" from their faux society. So if they do manage to get this off the ground, expect to see a constant flow of people both coming and going just to maintain the untenable ideals of their utopian society.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
This is just another tax dodge by someone with too much money. We are heading towards a Phillip K. Dick type world filled with corporate anarchy and the pace is accelerating by the day.
After all the unilateral shit we've dealt with from paypal, are we surprised to see their founder try to become his own nation?
After all the times we've heard about paypal indefinitely freezing funds without a court order or automatically refunding the buyer in any ebay dispute, this doesn't surpise me; after all the times we've heard them claim they're not a bank and therefore not subject to finance laws (all while holding deposits, issuing debit cards, offering money market accounts, etc.) we should have been surprised if their founder didn't try some hare-brained libertarian scheme to achieve personal sovereignty.
They've been able to grow rich in large part because of the infrastructure of developed countries, but they're too dishonest to want to help pay for it.
I love this idea, but the implementation would have to be more like a ship flotilla to be of any real use.
Take several large ships and tie them together in a way so none of them will drag each other down if one sinks. Anchor every Xth ship so it doesn't go too far.
The economic incentive to do so is is actually fairly high, half way between Japan and North America, square in the middle of the pacific. Run all new ocean fibre cables via the floating island location. Attract everyone who wants to run internet infrastructure without censorship. Also effectively free bandwidth.
Anyone who wants to be a part of the country, brings their own 1000sq ft ship or better. Like the ISS, except available to anyone. Break the laws, you board your ship and get cut loose. Ships out in the pacific simply glide over tsunami's and bad weather, but what really needs to be done is to run electricity generation that take the power out of tidal forces.
The idea is actually fairly sound, but I think it would be a lot more expensive to do. It would make more logical sense to go drill a hole in the bottom of the ocean to generate a volcano, or a series of them to protect from storms, and provide anchoring points.
I seem to remember that after Sealand, the rules were changed so that artificial islands cannot any more legally claim nation status.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Thiel such a cheap bastard, he might be deluded by these oil company paid global warming science denial specialists.
Global climate change is gonna make all weather more extreme. That includes hurricanes/typhoons. Anyone who think they are going to ride out global warming charged weather is a fool.
There might be some options later on sea floor where weather isn't an issue. That's another century of tech advancement away.
Thiel and his delusional pals better be careful what they wish for. They might get it.
Libertarians, they're always good for a laugh... While the specifics are the exact opposite, the level of practicality is right up there with Trotskyites.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Basically, there are two ways to be a sovereign nation:
1) Get international recognition as such. You get the UN members to recognize you as a sovereign nation and support your rights to that end, and you are good for the most part.
2) Have enough guns that nobody can question your sovereignty. If you have a powerful enough military, it doesn't matter what other nations want to say, you are sovereign by the fact that they won't do anything about it.
If you have both of those things, then you are really golden.
However that's it, those are all you have. You either get the big boys to say "Yep you are your own nation," or you have the ability to force it.
You might notice history has worked this way. The US is a sovereign nation because it was able to become so via arms. They said "We aren't subject to Crown law anymore." The Crown disagreed with that and a war was fought, the US won, that made them sovereign. Was shit the British could do at that point, they had been defeated.
The southern US states are not a sovereign nation for the same reason. They declared their sovereignty and left the union to become the Confederate States. The US decided that no, that wasn't ok, union membership was permanent once given, and a war was fought. The Confederate States lost, so they weren't sovereign, they had to be a part of the US again.
It would be a helluva a lot cheaper just to move to New Hampshire. Free State Project
Links
L. Bob Rife sails again!
>>Come on... $1.25M? Nobody's building any kind of large-ish sea-worthy vessel for that kind of money, much less a floating office building, data center, residences, etc.
It'll buy you an in at the Sultanate of Kinakuta. Then you just need to find a large stash of hidden Japanese gold from WWII, and you're all set.
If you'd read his business plan, you'd have seen all that.
Firstly, Sealand is now within the territorial waters of the U.K. So technically they aren't independent the moment the U.K. decides to bother with declaring jurisdiction over this loon. (They gave it up when territorial waters only extended out three miles, but there is nothing preventing them from changing their minds.)
His "protection" from the U.K. government is about as complete as if I declare myself king of SirWiredia while sitting here at my desk. If fact, I do so right now! Does that count as a "success"? The U.S. really won't care up until the point where I do something that changes their mind, like trying to state that my counterfeit Benjamins are in fact the Legal Tender of SirWiredia. I will then learn very quickly how tenuous sovereignty can be in the presence of a more powerful foe. No nation has forcefully brought him into their fold because there is no point in doing so. He isn't currently causing trouble for anyone, so why bother?
He's probably avoiding U.K. taxes, but there is little danger of legions of people following his example. If this were the case, the U.K. would probably swiftly point out that he has likely failed to renounce his U.K. citizenship in the proper fashion. (In the U.S. anyway, you must do so in front of a U.S. consul while in foreign territory, and the U.S. doesn't have to accept; which they likely wouldn't if you were behind on your taxes.)
You are correct that navies are unlikely to enforce tax laws of random landlocked nations. However, any money that would be subject to tax laws is going to have to flow through somewhere if you want to actually spend it, and the tax laws can be enforced then through the regular methods.
so long as other nations recognize your claim, which they don't have to, and you possess forces to defend your claim from others, which is unlikely.
I visited a place like that a couple of times. It was called Rapture. It didn't work out so well.
Anyone who founds a company dedicated to spying for the CIA and NSA can't be too libertarian.
Dog is my co-pilot.
MadMartigan2001 writes with a pretty crazy article on a project involving floating libertarian paradises.
Slashdot should really start an editorial page so the editors don't feel the need to stamp their opinion into news articles.
If you declare your floating object to be an independent nation, then it isn't actually part of international waters any more. You now have "territory" surrounded by territorial waters. Which it then becomes your sole responsibility to defend, or make arrangements to have somebody else defend. Just like the U.S. has no obligation under international law (or custom) to prevent a land invasion of Joe Random Country, the Navy would be perfectly justified in sitting back and eating popcorn while somebody in an armed vessel decides they want to take over your shiny floating "Nation."
I expect that Sealand would meet such a fate if it had anything worth stealing (it was actually invaded and taken over for a little while, and the British pointedly didn't lift a finger.)
The Seasteading Institute's Patri Friedman says the group plans to launch an office park off the San Francisco coast next year, with the first full-time settlements following seven years later.
Like that's going to work.
People have talked about building artificial islands and setting up their own sovereign states. There are areas of the Caribbean where the ocean is so shallow that this is feasible, and there are plenty of submerged and semi-submerged islands around the world. With enough money, barges, and rock, building an island is possible.
But, under current international law, that doesn't yield sovereignty. The Law of the Sea treaty reads "a naturally formed area of land, which is above water at high tide". Nor can countries expand their territory by building artificial islands. (One of Japan's key boundaries is defined by an island that's worn down to the size of a small bedroom. A protective breakwater has been built around it at great expense.)
If do-it-yourself sovereignty were going to work, the oil industry, which puts up many offshore structures, some of which are actual islands, would have done it years ago.
I just hope they aren't expecting to be rescued by the US Navy when their shoddily constructed oil derrick made with substandard parts and slave labor collapses.
Bioshock 4, Peter Thiel style.
In all seriousness, if you are willing to spend enough construct floating cities, why not just buy a small island nation who's population is fleeing anyway? You can keep the remaining population as I image most of them are fishermen. And, I would imagine keeping experienced food gatherers around would come in handy. As an added bonus, you would have actual land you could grow traditional crops on as well, feasible materials extraction, permanently connected infrastructure, etc...
As a minus, though, you are kind of stuck in place if any disasters show up (typhoons, earthquakes, volcanoes, the hostile military of an authoritarian nation with tiny dicked leaders....)
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
What happens when some tries to start a nation on mars? Or the moon?
Getting all the libertarians to move out of the country would be the best thing to happen in America since the fall of the robber barons. I'm all for it! Just don't come asking for aid and the use of our military when things start to get tough.
Why would they not "[have] to support a ridiculous number of government services?" Somebody is going to have to pay for fuel, maintenance, staffing, ongoing capital costs, etc.
And why would I, enlightened Libertarian individual, go to all the expense to purchase, maintain, and man, a full missile emplacement all by my lonesome if the whole vessel is going to benefit? I'm just going to give away all that collective defense for free? Or do I threaten to blow off the parts of the platform that don't agree to pay for the missiles I spent to protect the facility from a previous attack?
Yeah, THAT's going to end well.
You can live this way today if you want. Move to Somalia, and you can do whatever you like, including establishing Libertopia, unfettered by any sort of recognized authority, once you leave the tiny bit of territory "controlled" by the "central government." Let me know how you like it.
The law around this is clear. Any vessel in international waters is governed by the laws of the nation which flag it flies. A nation is defined when the other nations in the UN accepts it as a nation. So, in order to be a sovereign nation, there has to be an acceptance in the UN that this is in fact a nation. If something has no flag in international waters, it is not considered the property of any nation unless a nation makes a claim to it. If somebody goes into international waters and declares itself a sovereign nation, and the nation where it came from don't accept this, this will be governed by some arcane laws about piracy. That would mean that the nation of origin has international law on its side if it decides to attack it. Other countries might also gain that right by proxy. These are laws that has not been so much discussed. Lawyers won't touch these laws with a 10-foot pole because they are international and hypothetic. That means the interpretation of these laws can vary a great deal.
No, he won't get any love from /., the big government propaganda machine, even though the idea of creating more competition in space of governments is a good idea on this planet, which has been dominated by large, monopoly corporation friendly monstrosities, that follow the same principles of print money for their 'economies' while producing little of anything except new regulations that nibble at personal freedoms day in and day out.
No, 1.25 Million isn't enough to build little ocean countries, yes it's still an interesting idea. Why is when it's insane government spending on wars and 'stimulus', then it's all fine and good business, but when it's a person trying something new, it's because that is an insane individual?
You can't handle the truth.
Let's assume the nations of the world, out of the goodness of their hearts, decide to ignore your offshore entity. It's still not going to work because such an entity is going to be intrinsically politically unstable.
The first thing is that the artificial nation is going to have a very small population. Probably the closest analog we could name would be intentional communities, or communes. They generally don't last very long -- certainly not as long as a nation. Most fail in a year or two, a few go on for a few decades, especially if they're anchored by a charismatic religious or quasi-religious leader.
But this enterprise has the earmarks of the less successful ventures. You get a lot of people who feel malcontent in regular society, enough to give up on it entirely. Highly *motivated* and *opinionated* people. And you're going to put them all together in a tiny structure in the middle of the ocean where they can't get away from each other. Well, they could stay in their little apartments all day and avoid each other, but you can't build a working society with misanthropes who never want to see other human beings. And even if you structure your society so people more or less never deal with each other, you still are going to have disputes. And I assume these will have at least some kind of elected government, and people will disagree with each other.
And it won't matter how uniform these people seem to be when you put them into this bottle; human perception of difference expands or contracts to fit whatever differences there are. In the pressure-cooker atmosphere on these things, what to outsiders seem like hair-splitting differences between these irascible, opinionated, not very sociable people will take on the appearance of cosmic gulfs. In a libertarian state, one of the few functions of the police is to keep people from murdering each other. They'll have their hands full in this one.
But let's throw all that out, and assume all the psychological and sociological factors just work out. It's *still* a politically unstable entity because it has two factors which combine to make it a congenial target for authoritarian takeover, either from within or without: tiny population and substantial cash flow. Nobody is going to move to the middle of the ocean in order to be poor, so it follows that substantial resources are going to be flowing into and out of these places, or stored in the place. Anybody who can subdue the population can declare a new government, seize those assets. Then being in control of their own *state*, they have lots of options at that point. They could execute the people outside the clique as criminals. If the assets controlled by the state are productive, they might opt to skim the proceeds to keep the inhabitants under the iron heel -- provided they had any value. Or they just transfer all the assets to a stable country and leave.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The law of probability says that at some point one disgruntled citizen will do the same, of their own volition. In fact, I would say that this is a fundamental limitation of a "libertarian" society. It's lifetime is determined by the probability of one crazy person using "their" personal property to cause catastrophic damage to everyone else. (Argue all you want that that one person isn't a true libertarian, since he interacted with his neighbours, but it won't stop you from being dead.)
I don't think any of those efforts can be taken seriously unless the "island nation" reaches the size of a small European nation.
If you want to be generous, that's a minimum of a few thousand people and a few square kilometers. That's a bit bigger than an off shore oil drilling rig, I think.
If these guys want total lawlessness, free access to guns and zero government services, shouldn't they just move to Somalia? Isn't that the ultimate libertarian paradise? Or is the problem that other "libertarians" are there already? I know this sounds like a troll (ok, it is to some extent) but I'm genuinely curious why this isn't seriously being considered. If a bunch of milky libertarians really did move there and defended a chunk of territory, Somalia might actually be the one place in the world that would benefit from their arrival.
The first time a storm hits their rig and things go bad they'll be begging the U.S. to come rescue them. And who will pay for those emergency national guard helicopter transports? The American taxpayer.
Further proof really smart people can be idiots. Every now and then it would be nice if one of these .com billionaires just said "thanks". I don't care if you never donate a dime to charity, at least acknowledge how lucky you have been instead of always pouting you don't have more.
Think we could do it right this time?
This reminds me of the old saying; "Buy real estate, God isn't making any more of it."
Take the Red Pill.
...called Bioshock?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioShock
Building a extraterrestrial/space based colony would work better, you've got nobody to bother you out there. The startup costs would be huge, but assuming you bring enough poor people along as a peasant class you'd basically rule as kings. I'd suggest a mars colony as a good place to start. You've got lots of resources, the gravity is close enough, you've got (low) air pressure, and enough sunlight to be useful.
What a bunch of self righteous whiners posting here today. Like it really matters one bit to you who builds an island or not. Get a grip, children.
Didn't Andrew Ryan try this?
Something about a wealthy entrepreneur constructing a libertarian paradise unhampered by the laws of government or moral responsibilities...
But then again, Rapture was UNDER the water, while this city is ABOVE the water.
Totally different circumstances then.
But no-one has mentioned Bioshock yet.
Just two days ago, my country held elections and the winner was, for the second time, the most populist, corrupt, hypocritical and inept leader you could imagine.
I just can't understand the sheer stupidity of my people, and I always dream of moving away to a place where these fools can't reach me and I could only gather with people with similar thoughts and values than I.
Thinking about it seriously, I can come up with a thousand reasons why this would be unreal and unpractical, but it's a nice dream...
What about defense? Will my buddies and I have to create, support and train our own army? That would require some hefty taxes...
What about quality health care? Will I have to shove my libertarian values up my arse If I suddenly discover a tumor, and fly to the nearest oppressive nation for a check?
And what about if all of a sudden, my buddy next door, the one who I thought was a smart guy, turns out to be a little Hitler? Should I move to another libertarian paradise?
Well, lets keep on dreaming...
Think about it: 100,000 years ago humans were free to walk on the beach and catch fish to eat. They could also be attacked by the next tribe of canibals looking for food. Everything comes at a price.
How long before some cult leader acquires a fission device or three and declares a tiny country inside some other country based on your second premise? Charles Stross describes a world where anyone has the tech to make one, so that bad hair days can turn into glass wastelands, but doesn't address what slightly more rational actors might do with the power to snuff out cities.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
If I had the money, I would find a nice plot of land in some distant paradise with few inhabitants, throw all my cash there, become the "Benevolent Dictator for Life", invite all my friends (with cash, off course) and voila! You don't need to build any platform, nor any complex engineer.
Just get some good Club-Med architects, a few barmen who know how to prepare a good pina colada, and one or two (thousand) beauties with their bikinis.
All the rest, will come alone.
Just make sure to write down your conditions to allow people to become citizens, for example, no communists (of course!), no religious fanatics, etc, etc...
Only cool, relaxed and nice people.
As you can imagine, this would be a fiscal paradise as well, because you don't want to go through all this hassle just to end up working, do you?
I wouldn't build railroads or subways, because we would need wide roads for our ferraris and masseratis, and chick parking lots. ;-)
There will be some "social" policies as well, we are not simple capitalist pigs!
For example, we would train the sons of the local fishermen to become good buttlers (with british accent). And their daughters to become good and complacient maids
I have a bunch of good ideas... let me think a little bit and I'll come back later.
You can participate too! This is open-source!
Yeah, say what you will about Bill Gates, but at least he's using his money for realistic philantropic efforts, not this egotistical libretardian bullshit.
He's actually using my money, and yours - if you're a US citizen. You see he never paid capital gains tax on all those tens of billions of dollars worth of MSFT he gave to his foundation. So, out of every $1 his foundation spends, $0.20 is "avoided tax". That's one of the reason I get quite irate when Bill Jr & Bill Sr get on their soap box about how my taxed through the wazoo dollars should be subject to estate tax if and when I pass it on to my kids.
I don't want to subsidize Bill Gates Nobel Prize.
(I've paid quite enough for Obama's too.)
http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and, uh, capsize.
I believe in the Seasteading concept so much, I joined the foundation and took it over, along with Thiel's $1.25 million. Now, it's time to go purchase the national Ferrari and take First Lady Halle Berry out to dinner.
The problem is that there isn't a line item labeled "waste and fraud" in the various budgets for the various departments.
If there was, it would be easy to eliminate it.
As it is, one man's "governmental waste" is another man's "necessary government function".
The people telling the government to reduce oil business regulations ... were the same people complaining that the government did not do enough to prevent the BP oil rig disaster.
Everyone wants less government ... until they need the services provided by the government.
I'm not sure, but isn't maritime rescue more the domain of the Coast Guard than the Navy? Although, if they've renounced U.S. citizenship, maybe the jurisdiction changes, not sure.
I'll say that. In order for the people in the Tea Party to have a valid point, they cannot WILLINGLY BENEFIT from the programs they publicly oppose.
You should look at that statement more closely.
So they are not opposed to CERTAIN people benefiting from the government programs.
It's just when the WRONG people benefit that they have a problem.
No. The problem is that they're complaining about CERTAIN OTHER PEOPLE using the programs while THEY THEMSELVES benefit from those programs.
They want the BENEFITS (as evidenced by them voluntarily applying for those benefits and using them) but they don't want to pay the taxes if CERTAIN OTHER PEOPLE will also get the benefits.
As soon as you have enough assets to become at all interesting economically, you make yourself a target for piracy. Think the drug cartels or mafia will protect you? History suggests otherwise; they'll just use you & hang you out to dry.
And trying to say "we can defend ourselves" means little, if anything. Think a few guns are going to be successful? History has repeatedly shown otherwise.
The kicker is as soon as you have any appreciable level of heavy arms, you can (and will) be declared a pirate yourself (or a haven for pirates), and a nation can claim universal jurisdiction and eliminate you.
Most importantly of all: It doesn't matter how much firepower you have on your little oil rig. It's still trivial to sink it or reduce it to rubble.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Um, you do realize that the Post Office subcontracts their Express Mail and Priority Mail business to FedEx? So pretty much by definition it can't be faster to send something from the post office than via FedEx.
(It might be cheaper if they're passing along some sort of volume discount and/or accepting a lower service priority level than the FedEx default. But faster seems unlikely.)
quote:"In 2001, FedEx Express signed a 7-year contract to transport Express Mail and Priority Mail for the United States Postal Service. This contract allowed FedEx to place drop boxes at every USPS post office. In 2007, the contract was extended until September 2013. USPS continues to be the largest customer of FedEx Express."
I play Nerd-Folk!
Why... yes... I have an extremely over-priced salvaged oil platform I'd be happy to sell you....
*inserts monocle*
Just one problem: I'm afraid, not all the libertarians will just move there deliberately...
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!
Somalia is not a viable option due to war and famine, of course.
But there is Vanuatu:
- small government (military doubles as police, all 800 of them)
- no income taxes
- happy population (comprised of 90% subsistence farmers)
- great weather
Of course, there's no market for the highly specialised skills that libertarians (read: almost all white males with niche skills) have. And on one of the islands they still have a cargo cult. But it ticks all the boxes for the libertarian ideal land - one they can carve out for themselves, and pay for their own roads and sanitation and airports if they so choose.
So, libertarians, there's a tropical paradise waiting for you. Put your money where your mouth is and move there.
Should I make a joke about Rapture or SeaBluthton here?
Three options:
(1) locate in a part of the ocean that doesn't get hurricanes
(2) be somewhat mobile, and move/drift out of the area during hurricane season.
(3) Build sturdy enough to survive hurricanes.
I'm pretty sure (1) and (2) are the current plan. For instance, the latest venture involves being off the coast of northern California; that area doesn't get hurricanes.
I play Nerd-Folk!
We'll go ahead and say the big boys won't care, they don't have to worry about the US, UK, China, and so on. You are still fucked. Even fairly minor nations have some real military hardware. Take Iran. They have 4 frigates, 40ish missile boats, a could Kilo class subs and so on. You know those billionaire super yachts? A well equipped military frigate costs as much. They run in the realm of $200-750 million to build and $5-10 million a year to operate.
So even if you think the big boys will leave you alone, if you don't want some smaller but aggressive country taking you over because you have a bunch of money, you'll need a non-trivial military and that costs non-trivial money. Consider that Iran spends $9 billion a year on military. then of course also consider it would be more if you are paying mercenaries to be your forces, not relying on conscription.
Only way to get along with no military would be to have the big boys be willing to come to your defense, and of course if the idea is to avoid their taxes how likely is that?
Funny enough, these floating communities designed to be outside any country were predicted back in 1971 by Poul Anderson in The Byworlder.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
The Vatican has been working on real plans to go out on the ocean... For Real. I do not however know how far along they are. They were waiting for a good Energy Source to use out there. I gave it to them => http://tinyurl.com/superpage007 and before that one last week this one last December 10 went online 45-second video "Ocean Energy" => http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apQTwE9daXs
Libertarian nations at sea seeking to be rid of outside influence? I think we all know where this ends up. That's right: creepy little girls with glowing red eyes who are protected by walking Black & Decker tool sets gone all sorts of wrong.
these are existing billionaires planning this. Also, our society is allowing the super rich to hoard an amount of wealth and power they haven't seen since the old Monarchies. So, yeah, Sealand didn't work. But that doesn't mean the new Ultra rich won't make work.
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The Idea is great (Just the floating county part), but not under the monetary system. People have and will die, and suffer, to pay for and build these floating countries. A dictatorship will always fail as long as there are free thinking people in the world. Most of us know or have a gut feeling as to how the world should be, and it’s not under the current system. Imagine that most people worked, and that Industries/Trades and services operated 24hrs none stop, using clean energy. We would only have to work short shifts 3-4 hrs - more or less depending on your needs or desires. Then we don’t get paid for that work! Instead society supplies what we need at to highest of quality based on realistic needs and wants. That is only a very basic outline of how a Resource Based Economy implies. This is not communism or any other ------ism In this new world, governments will be elected, ” By the People for the People”. Our governments will be run by people that care for and act upon our needs/ wellbeing /prosperity/ development and education - towards a peaceful and Advanced world, without War/Hunger/Suffering/Corruption/Most Crime (all that is related with money), and I’m sure that your imagination, can think up countless more positive possibility’s under this premise.
Everyone needs to look at the massive movement towards a "Resource Based Economy". That is trying to free us all, from the burden of this “Capitalist Monetary System”. A monetary system that best resembles “Paid Slavery - Tyranny and Subservience to our Dictatorship Governments” Which are blatantly controlled by the Corporate EliteDon’t be blinded by this false economy! And stop being a slave to the Elite Rich. In “A Resource Based Economy” the Human experience (LIFE) will be substantial, and without an associated Monetary Value or cost. We are all much, more than we are right now. Visit “A World Without Money” to find out more. http://utopiaaworldwithoutmoney.blogspot.com/
I don't Get Theil. He is a lifelong libertarian who supported Ron Paul in the last Presidential election, but he's a steering committee member of an organization (The Bilderberg Group- a yearly secret conference of government hacks and their friends to figure out how to most efficiently be evil bastards to make sure libertarians can't thrive each year) that hates and seeks to destroy libertarians. . . Is he there to try to inject his views?
I mean. . .I think this idea is freaking awesome. It reminds me of the libertarians who ran pirate radio stations off the coast of England, including the very interesting case of Sealand. . . But the group he goes to is one of the biggest threats to anyone who would do exactly what he's donating money to do. . . *scratches head* Is Peter Theil schizophrenic? ;)
In a purely libertarian society beyond the rule of law and with no weapons restrictions, it wouldn't even be illegall
I don't think you have a very good understanding of what libertarianism really is.
Libertarian society != lawlessness.
It WOULD be against the law because you are destroying property that is NOT yours.
You are correct about the no weapons limitations, free individuals have no need for a nanny state limiting their right to self defense.
Does anyone else get the feeling that this is just leading up to one giant tax-evasion scheme?
"If I just put all my money on this island in international waters, how can they tax me?"
No? Just me?
I think most of u are missing the point:
isnt this an ideal platform for investors and rich people to do what they ever wanted, outside the law? say certain types of research, tax 'evasion', trading, banking, entertainment...
if you get the right influential people involved, it will just be (unofficially) supported by a bigger country and your problems are gone...
why'd they do it? well, it gives them nice denability of being involved in all those dirty things they want to do...
the problem with this is only that such support might not work over time, as we see in Lietchenstein, Luxemburg or even Switzerland, where suddenly the EU is clamping down on 'too liberal' banking
This isn't so he can live there - it's so PayPal can be based there, and thus escape any form of regulation or pesky laws that might impinge on their ability to sell your financial information, or withhold your funds at their whim.
Republic of China was actually the original member of the UN, before the People's Republic replaced it. And until Nixon's visit to China, they were the US ally, while Beijing was an ally of the Soviets. So Taiwan't example is that of an original country - China - being territoriality reduced to just the island of Taiwan/Formosa. That's very different from digging up an island, settling a bunch of people there, and declaring it independent.
But as a Libertarian, I love the idea, and am glad Peter Thiel and this institute is backing it. Have an island in the mid Atlantic or mid Pacific where Libertarians can settle and happily live. I know it may sound ironic, but have immigration laws restricting citizenship to people who profess Libertarian ideology, and ban any changes to those principles in law. So things like the right to freedom of expression, right to bear arms, right to property et al would be constitutionally protected, and un-amendable. Anybody who doesn't like it would be @ liberty to leave. Only time people would go to jail is actual crimes, like robbery, assault, murder, and the death sentence would be actually awarded in such cases - no taxpayer funding for jail inmates. Also, no taxpayer funded goodies, be it social security, medicare or any of that stuff. You want any of it - pay for it yourself.
And contrary to what too many people think, the US is not going to be interested in conquering such a country. If it had such imperial designs, there are a lot of countries that could historically have been conquered. Having an island in the middle of nowhere makes it somewhat unappealing for conquest by any hegemonic power, and such a country could, if it wished, have a military like the Swiss army, and maintain a policy of total neutrality in foreign policy. Put it in the middle of nowhere, and even countries like Russia, China, Emirates, Europe, et al won't be interested.
And since its tax policies would be business friendly, don't be surprised to see a lot of companies incorporate there, particularly those who register in St Kitts, or Bermuda, or such other places. Also, the US is not a signatory to the Law of the Sea, which defines ownership of such property, so just build it in international waters that are nowhere near the territorial waters of any country, and nobody will bother. In fact, aren't there enough empty enough Pacific islands where an arrangement could be made w/ native populations to set up precisely this, and offer the same deals to them?
They want: "no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons".
I'm sure they could simply buy Somalia for a couple million and have all that and more!
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
I didn't say that Libertarianism was anarchy. What I DID say is that if a bunch of Libertarians are more than welcome to establish an enclave in Somalia. There is no overrarching formal authority that is going to prevent Libertopia from setting up whatever sort of government they choose within whatever territory they choose to claim. They can set up anything from RichDictatorTopia, to the African Socialist Republic, to everything in between and carry out whatever social experiments they wish.
(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.)
Being libertarians, I would hope they wouldn't expect anyone to come help them when the hurricanes and pirates come to visit.
I love how pretty much everyone on slashdot is completely dismissive of the ideas of the seasteading institute, and libertarianism in general. Or thinks that what both of those groups are after is some Mad Max future utopia of guns, drugs, and mp3s.
The whole idea of Seasteading is to provide competitive pressures between governments, the same as we have between companies - or as we used to have between states before people decided it would be a great idea to elevate every issue to a national level (OMG, repealing Roe V. Wade would ban abortion!!!). The initial idea, mentioned in TFA, is to put an off-shore zone near San Francisco - and no, it wouldn't have it's own sovereignty, but would be a sea vessel under the flag of some convenient nation that agrees to it - for example, you could set up an offshore hospital flying the flag of any of the countries people are currently going to for medical tourism. Direct competitive pressure to the medical laws of California, to the benefit of the people of San Francisco.
You can already do that, no cumbersome floating city necessary. The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and I think the Isle of Man, all act as very well-developed, civilized places to register shell corporations for tax avoidance purposes. As an added bonus, you can stash your money there too, and be able to get money into and out of it with ease. No bank is likely to set up any kind of money transfer arrangements with Libertopia.
You can also do the same thing (set up a whole web of impenetrable shell companies) in the U.S. (Wyoming, Delaware, and I think South Dakota) all provide reasonably priced corporate registration services with little documentation required. Unless you are doing something really large and.or evil, that'll do when trying to avoid government scrutiny.
This is a little disconcerting, no? Only that if he just founded paypal and is no longer associated with paypal, that would be good. Otherwise, it is not hard to see where this will end up. China will own paypal, and we will all be screwed that much sooner.
The Sealand invasion, the hostage taking, and the subsequent dawn raid and recapture were comedic stunts. Read about Sealand with a smirk and you won't go far wrong - except that yes, they really were declared to be out of the jurisdiction of British courts by a British judge.
It was called "Lord of the Flies".
If visionaries listen to the doomsayers on this site, airplane would not be invented and moonlanding would not happen. It very strange to see people cheering SpaceX while at the same time criticizing equally grand project like the artificial island, what gives? They're both billionaire's pet projects, they're both exploration projects that could lead to significant advance in terms of science and technology. Do you really think Musk is going to Mars just for sightseeing? Or we can have moonbase or colony on Mars without building a self-sufficient colony here on earth first?
I for one would like to see a self-sufficient artificial island to be built, the more the better. Laws are meant to be broken by the advance of science and technology, if you limit your dream by law, we would still be in the stone age.
So.. what do they plan to do to generate an income?
http://www.seasteading.org/about-seasteading/frequently-asked-questions#pirates