Paypal Founder Peter Thiel Invests to Create Floating Micro-Countries
inhabitat.com
inhabitat.com
Basically this guy is keeping it close to San Francisco so that he can earn him money here and suck it over to his amusement park.
If he really believed in "libertarianism" he would just do it without the money and see how he can prosper then. But alas, the super rich are not like everyone else.
You really think you can do better, Mr. Rich Guy? Then put your money where your mouth is, and move your family there. Live there. Don't go to any of the so-called "socialist hells"; try to survive on your little parcel of paradise and see how long it lasts.
(and yes I realize I'll get it for this too)
I'm really fine with people living in the woods like the Unabomber and giving it a shot. Or even New Hampshire becoming a libertarian state, why not, go for it and see what happens.
But don't put a lot of money behind something and call it an "experiment" that we can actually apply in the real world.
Such a project would necessarily take a large amount of resources, regardless of the intentions behind it. In practical terms, that means money. I don't see why that's strange.
Now if you think it's just going to be an amusement park, that's a separate issue. I agree that there's at least a significant risk of that. It would be a waste of a good idea.
One should respond to arguments Thiel is actually making, if he is making an argument at all. He thinks it’s an interesting idea. If it turns out to be stupid, great.
Nobody does things “for ideology”. People do things they think are correct or useful or interesting, not for straw-man “ism”s. Is the criticism that he is insufficiently ideological?
Attacking "libertarianism" or "the super rich" is kind of childish - everyone is entitled to the wealth they earn (if they do so honestly) and their own political views.
Do you really think Thiel would have made less money in a less socialist version of the US?
For you the Randists and anti-Randists, and techo-utopians, feast your ideals on the great Adam Curtis' latest social hackumentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2j3BhL47c
Edit: Of course, nobody would actually be living in these places other than system admins. All the available space would be stuffed with servers to run the above services.
Like a piece of software, over hundreds of iterations and modifications, assuming the developers are good, a state can become pretty good - powerful enough to give its users what they want, but not monolithic and overburdened with features.
Features we need: environmental regulations, food safety, building codes, healthcare.
Of course, you can tell you've got feature-creep when your state starts building stealth bombers.
The trouble with these "micro-states" is they're starting from scratch. For the first hundred years or so, you'll be able to buy toys that can kill your kids, you'll have buildings that randomly explode, and a broken/nonexistent healthcare system.
Fortunately for the sane, we don't need to risk our families' lives and wellbeing in an unproven, buggy state. Mature, well-tested states are available!
I think people living on something like this would illustrate that there is no such thing as a non-nanny state. We're a democracy, and we have an elected government that creates laws that govern us by our decree for the good of society on the whole. (This is obviously simplified, and ignores corruption, which is fine because that cannot be removed from any system, including the proposed one for this topic).
Those living together as a social community would find that they would need to adopt thousands upon thousands of rules that community members have to abide by or face consequences (anarchy being the alternative). They will find that what they are emulating is our democracy, just on a smaller scale. Sure, they may make different rules on a range of issues, but they will, and must, make rules all the same. And they will go beyond the theoretical brain exercises that Libertarians often substitute for law, -revolving around property law as the main focus. The only reason people will feel more free from the law is because there will be fewer of them, -it would be function of the extremely tiny size of the population itself.
What is "non" Agressive war is always defined by who holds the biggest gun.
In August of 1978, a number of Dutch men came to Sealand in the employ of a German businessman. They were there to discuss business dealings with Sealand. While Roy was away in Britain, these men kidnapped Prince Roy's son Michael, and took Sealand by force. Soon after, Roy recaptured the island with a group of his own men and held the attackers as prisoners of war.
I really like the idea of ocean-going governmental experiments. Let's have socialist experiments and parecon experiments while we're at it. They really need to be sovereign, or they're just big cruise ships. They need to have complete ownership of the platforms, which almost means they need to be donated.
Obviously sinking is a big risk. Make sure there are well-drilled emergency procedures, and that the links between platforms are such that one sinking will not bring down any others. And keep lifeboats and dual citizenship, so if it goes south you'll have somewhere to go when they pick you out of the ocean.
I suspect that even if the first few iterations of this idea suck and/or are used for crass commercial purposes, it will likely get ironed out eventually. I think seagoing countries could be an important part of the future someday.
Agreed.
>They really need to be sovereign, or they're just big cruise ships. They need to have complete ownership of the platforms, which almost means they need to be donated.
No it doesn't. They can be sold, either as real estate or to groups of people who want to administrate them.
>Obviously sinking is a big risk. Make sure there are well-drilled emergency procedures, and that the links between platforms are such that one sinking will not bring down any others. And keep lifeboats and dual citizenship, so if it goes south you'll have somewhere to go when they pick you out of the ocean.
Obviously the people moving there should educate themselves on whether the platforms are resilient to turbulent weather. They can bring their own safety equipment (lifeboats, etc.) or perhaps the owner/seller of the platform will include it as part of the rental/sale arrangement. These aren't hard problems to solve without some kind of centralized paternalist entity. Maintaining dual citizenship seems like it could be a good idea - potentially high benefit (if it doesn't work out or you don't like it) for low cost (unless your country requires you to pay income tax on money not earned there).
That's part of the idea. Existing governments are too big and stodgy, too slow to change. This is like having a "startup sector" for the governing industry, a place where new ideas can be tried out. If it works, people who want to live under the new rules will have a place to go. If the new ideas work extremely well, the old land-based governments will eventually adopt some of them too.
> They really need to be sovereign, or they're just big cruise ships.
The first ones will likely be flagged vessels, as cruise ships are. (There's still a lot of room for jurisdictional arbitrage - you can pick the nation that gives you the most freedom with respect to whatever metrics you care about.)
And of course there used to be pirate radio offshore from the uk beaming pop music, bypassing government broadcast regulations.
So there have been other uses...
have some kind of contract with tugs, lifeboats, helicopter rescue, etc. You could set up some sort of insurance system for citizens/inhabitants to cover those contract retainers.
Hell, you might even end up contracting it out to the Coast Guard if they meet your needs and are close enough to count.
Then again, maybe they'll just end up in a nice tax shelter and use their political/financial connections to assure protection from the United States.