Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands

Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands


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."

"There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible," Thiel said at a Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009, according to Details. (His first donation was in 2008, for $500,000.) "That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."

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.

Thiel made news earlier this year for putting a portion of his $1.5 billion fortune into an initiative to encourage entrepreneurs to skip college.

Another Silicon Valley titan, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced in June that he would be funding the "Clock of the Long Now." The clock is designed to keep ticking for 10,000 years, and will be built in a mountain in west Texas.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout...artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html

John Gault, is that you? The progressives will not take this escape attempt lightly.

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The problem here is that even if it gets off the ground it will merely be a resort/retreat for the wealthy, it won't be a 'real' economy in the sense that everyone who buys into it will be wealthy and will make their money in the U.S. or elsewhere and so won't be living on the island.

 

Great. Now we can watch Rapture fail in real life, not just in Bioshock.

 

I'm not much of a water guy, but I hope these folks prosper. It has all the sex appeal a pioneer could ask for. They would only have to live there 6 months of the years to avoid most land based taxes. I can see all kinds of benefits to it.

The idea of not having to pay for lazy people who expect cradle to grave handouts is enough to seriously consider it.

 

And you know this how?

It would have to have its own economy and sure, it would have to financially interact with the world, but what country doesn't?

 

There is a difference between a resort and a country. One consists of holiday homes, the other homes. In the same vein there is a difference between a tax haven and an economy.

 

Finally a country who will have a higher trade deficit than the US!

I personally wouldn't want to live on a platform that I know would get destroy from Mother Nature. I see this becoming like Bioshock and Brink combine. I wish them luck.

 

I think you have put your finger on it.

Conservatives may laugh at the idea as being impractical.

But libs are the real control freaks in our society and they will see it as a direct threat to their world vision.

 

I agree there is a difference.

Florida comes to mind because many live 6 months there and the rest of the time in their tax hungry state of origin. So yes, it could be a tax haven. But does that really make FL any less of a State within a country?

It would be mandatory to have an economy within e Seastead. Food, fuel, communications, parts, shipping, services, etc. The place has to take care of itself and that drives an economy. Plus, how many advances in science have limitations that could be avoided by such a country. Cloning, stem cell, whatever. Talk about adding to an economy. They would be a haven for filling a niche. And because of their environment they would make advances for all of society.

Home is where your hat is they say.

 

Nope. I say, have at it. I just think that it will end up as a holiday resort that will fade away but still attract a few nostalgic Randys.

 

Ships know how to avoid most problems. Who knows, maybe they pass a law that requires you have a safety submersible?

 

Food, fuel etc. is required for any resort.

There may be an opportunity for research but I still can't see it being anything more than a few workers being flown in.

I can imagine a company town but if it ever got that big with people living there for generations (rather than flying visits) I would be surprised.

 

A "safety submersible"?

How will this not become a wealthy-only retreat again? How many poor people do you know that can afford their own "safety submersible"?

 

Too bad there aren't huge floating artificial islands of oceanic Liberalism. But then again, I guess that wouldn't work out very well. They'd just organize themselves into a bunch of screaming protest groups to drive each other nuts each day, throw their money away on non-oceanic trinkets like mountain bikes and farm tractors, compulsively steal each others belongs, protecting the behavior as a matter of island law, then spend the bikes and tractors and other useless "capital" on sensitivity training classes geared toward teaching people what to say, and more importantly not say, to mermaids, eels, and other alternate life-forms.

 

I don't know. If its not in their Constitution, they wouldn't. Utopia visions like these usually failed because people will do things others don't want. People are creatures who want more and more.

My other question, where are they going to put all their crap? Into the ocean and pollute it some more? They going to over fish the oceans like the Japanese so there is no fish left for me?! There is so many variables and factors they need to put in, they cannot just go right away with this. That would be idiotic and crazy. But I wish them luck. When they want to come back, they must do it the legal way.

 

LMAO at more right wing fantasy!!!!

Well I do wish the best of this endeavor, but this oversimplification of building codes, gun ownership on a limited sized area with all the residents knowing each other is a pipe dream. For one, I don't think it is very wise to loosen building codes on a platform out at sea, think about those oil platforms that failed and the associated lose of life. Two, gun ownership. are for real, how much individual security will one need on an isolated platform, personal ingress and egress cannot be concealed.

Now let's look at the legal sense. One this organization will have to be outside territorial waters, otherwise a treaty subject to US control will need to be set. Then, you will have international security concerns; that will be very expensive, think about taxes for that.

Worse of all, food and water, you will to produce both, otherwise the cost of living on a steel deck will become quite harsh.

 

Externalities are a major problem and would require a complicated court system which presumably would be private. Of course a private court system raises massive problems. Which competing court does one use? How can a company be sued in a court that is owned by its mother company? How does one appeal?

 

LOL, I wonder how they are going to defend themselves without a military. This should be good.

 

It would be like the judge who was sentenced to 28 years at Federal Prison for taking bribes from Private Jails to send kids with minor offenses. Granted our society is "Corrupted", doesn't mean we should just stop trying to fix it. We should work together for a common goal on fixing the system we have in place now.

 

I can't see anyone planning to invade but I would imagine the idea of the islanders would be the citizen militia. All in all, what would be the point in taking over a holiday resort?

Nowadays the traditional landgrab has been replaced by a more subtle influence. For example, China won't invade the U.S. but it will certainly begin to exercise more economic power in the coming years in the same fashion that the U.S. has exercised economic across the globe.

 

Everyone will just have to hire their own mercenaries. Yep no way that could lead to a coup or anything.

 

ORLY?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy

All that wealth concentrated in a small place with no military. Yeah, that wont attract pirates at all.

 

Does this mean that libertarians will leave the US when this happens?

 

How effective would a citizen militia be against a missile boat or a sub? You know anyone who can shoot down an anti-ship missile with a M-4?

 

Ah now, there is a difference between invasion and piracy. I thought you meant a state invading.

Piracy is an interesting matter. It depends on where the islands are located. If they are close to the U.S. then the U.S. will defend them (mainly because they are rich people from predominantly America).

If they are far from America then it depends on how far away they are from countries that could host pirates.

All in all, the American navy and the British before that control the sea-lanes in order to help trade. Wealthy people know this well and so will find the idea of each trader protecting themselves laughable. A frigate with every convoy.