Seasteading again?

[Cathulhu]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -Francisco.

So you can pay to live in a place without laws or cops. Bring guns. Lots of guns.

[Pottapaug1938]

Not only that, at least some of the guns should be of fairly large caliber, and their emplacements well fortified. Foreign warships tend to have guns and missiles that can, if need be, make short work of any new "seastead".

[Judge Roy Bean]

At last, moveable off-shore havens for billionaires.

[Unidyne]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/sil ... 40896.html

Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands

(clipped from article)

Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine.
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. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."
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Sorta like Sealand, but with a much bigger budget.

You know, the Somali pirates are just gonna LOVE this!

[Doktor Avalanche]

Mostly the reason why I refuse to take Libertarians seriously is that there are other political ideologies and religious movements that have fought and died for their beliefs.

Libertarians haven't.

This is going to flop miserably but it would be interesting to watch them try.

[Cathulhu]

This is the exact article I put up under the heading "Seasteading, again?" a day ago--moderators, would you be so kind as to merge them?

[fortinbras]

With respect, Cat, your link in the first message was not particularly specific.

[Cathulhu]

Sorry, Fort, I just thought the eggs should go in one basket. No critique implied.

[fortinbras]

Sorry, Cat, your link (in the first message) no longer works to the artificial island scheme.

The notion of these artificial islands is more like a hoseboat with multiple apartments or an ocean liner stuck on a sandbar. Since it's artificial it cannot have any local productivity; no soil, no mining, no livestock. Except perhaps for some local fish, there will be nothing to eat or drink or wear or fiddle with, except what is shipped in, at a considerable markup. Effectively the residents become inmates dependent on the commissary for all their wants. Millionaires will move to this island and eventually their millions will be in the pockets of the fellow running this island.

[Dr. Caligari]

Something like this was the plot of a Thomas Perry novel called "Island."

[Cathulhu]

I always wanted to be a pirate captain--but I'll tell the population I'm a caterer, and charge prices for food that make a pirate look like a piker. Yo ho ho!

[notorial dissent]

Effectively the residents become inmates ...

I think that is a very good analogy when it comes right down to it. Although I am not sure but what they should be inmates for other and simpler reasons. Apparently the concept of sustainability is a foreign concept to this crowd, along with common sense, and basic economics.

[Lambkin]

Sorry, Cat, your link (in the first message) no longer works to the artificial island scheme.

This works for me...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... cisco.html

[Lambkin]

I love how the article describes Seasteading as living according to "Libertarian ideals". Sounds more like the ideals of the super-rich. How much money does one need to be a libertarian anyway?

[Brandybuck]

Mostly the reason why I refuse to take Libertarians seriously is that there are other political ideologies and religious movements that have fought and died for their beliefs.

Libertarians haven't.

This is going to flop miserably but it would be interesting to watch them try.

This is conceptually no different from the other political ideologies and religious movements in the past, who left Europe for a lawless frontier continent. The sea is just the next frontier.

I know Patri Friedman, and while I disagree with some of his stuff, he is not some crazed madmen who managed to connive a gullible billionaire out of some funding. His seasteading project is a very long term venture, on the order of fifty years at the earliest. His current work is on the feasability of seasteading, the engineering required, etc. As well as the legal issues.

For example, how do you avoid Somali pirates? First, don't drop anchor off the coast of Somalia! Second you register with a nation to fly their flag. You don't need to be armed, in the same way that cargo ships are not armed. You may have pirates close into Somalia or Indonesia, but you won't have them 201 miles off of California. The biggest obstacle is not pirates, but governments deciding to take over.

[Lambkin]

You may have pirates close into Somalia or Indonesia, but you won't have them 201 miles off of California. The biggest obstacle is not pirates, but governments deciding to take over.

There is piracy in Latin America and the Caribbean, although 200 miles off-shore would not be where they usually feed. But if you had a permanently parked enclave of rich people off the coast of California, beyond the reach of quick assistance from law enforcement, I think there is a chance you would attract criminals. (However, I would bet an off-shore enclave of rich libertarians would own guns, if only because they can.)

[Pottapaug1938]

You might also have a pirate ship sailing up to the Floating Paradise and sending a message that, unless the boats that it's about to send over to the FP are returned filled to the gunwales with money, jewelry, precious metals and anything else of significant value, some surface-to-surface missiles will turn the Floating Paradise into the Davy Jones Locker Paradise.

[notorial dissent]

This is conceptually no different from the other political ideologies and religious movements in the past, who left Europe for a lawless frontier continent. The sea is just the next frontier.
Oh, in what reality is that? The reality is that most if not all of those so called Utopian communities either simply failed or else failed spectacularly. Just what are these so called Seasteading communities supposed to be doing to support themselves? I have seen nothing to date to indicate this, and as they are now constituted, they are unsustainable, whether for the short term or the long term,
I know Patri Friedman, and while I disagree with some of his stuff, he is not some crazed madmen who managed to connive a gullible billionaire out of some funding. His seasteading project is a very long term venture, on the order of fifty years at the earliest. His current work is on the feasability of seasteading, the engineering required, etc. As well as the legal issues.
Long term or short term, there is no sustain ability here.
For example, how do you avoid Somali pirates? First, don't drop anchor off the coast of Somalia! Second you register with a nation to fly their flag. You don't need to be armed, in the same way that cargo ships are not armed. You may have pirates close into Somalia or Indonesia, but you won't have them 201 miles off of California. The biggest obstacle is not pirates, but governments deciding to take over.
This is just plain nonsense, you put something like that out in the water, and it will attract just such an action, particularly if it is infested with the rich and stupid.

They have already done this by the way, it is called I believe, Worldship, and it is for all intents and purposes a floating country since the ship itself is too big to dock anywhere. The price tag for admittance, however, is rather steep.

[Doktor Avalanche]

I always wanted to be a pirate captain--but I'll tell the population I'm a caterer, and charge prices for food that make a pirate look like a piker. Yo ho ho!

I can get you some good staff from Somalia.

[Doktor Avalanche]

For example, how do you avoid Somali pirates? First, don't drop anchor off the coast of Somalia! Second you register with a nation to fly their flag. You don't need to be armed, in the same way that cargo ships are not armed. You may have pirates close into Somalia or Indonesia, but you won't have them 201 miles off of California. The biggest obstacle is not pirates, but governments deciding to take over.

Wow...where do I start?

First of all, Somali pirates have raided as far out as the Indian Ocean off the southern coast of India.

Secondly, it doesn't matter what flag you fly they're still gonna hit it - that's why they're called pirates.