• You may find search is unavailable for a little while. Trying to fix a problem.

Seasteading

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
29,710
Location
Yokohama, Japan
Is "seasteading" the way to achieve a libertarian utopia?
Seasteading

This is a video of a talk on "seasteading" at the libertarian Cato Institute.
The featured speaker is Patri Friedman, grandson of Milton Friedman.

I loled. :newlol
 
Living on a floating platform in the middle of the ocean doesn't sound like any sort of utopia to me.
 
linusrichard said:
Okay. Living with assorted Randian supermen on a floating platform in the middle of the ocean doesn't sound like any sort of utopia to me.
Click to expand...
Me either, but it does sound like the makings of a reality TV show I might actually watch. In the same why I might watch a train wreck or car accident.
 
DavidJames said:
Me either, but it does sound like the makings of a reality TV show I might actually watch. In the same why I might watch a train wreck or car accident.
Click to expand...

I'd tune it to see who gets voted off the platform and, when they do, does the person get pushed off the platform into the sea?

I think this show would have a lot of potential!
 
Alt+F4 said:
I'd tune it to see who gets voted off the platform and, when they do, does the person get pushed off the platform into the sea?

I think this show would have a lot of potential!
Click to expand...

cool i love shark docus :D
 
Alt+F4 said:
I'd tune it to see who gets voted off the platform and, when they do, does the person get pushed off the platform into the sea?
Click to expand...
No, that would be an inappropriate initiation of force. In fact, I'm not sure they would even vote. I suspect each week one of them would, using natural law of course, recognize they were the weak link and hurl themselves off the platform.
 
DavidJames said:
No, that would be an inappropriate initiation of force. In fact, I'm not sure they would even vote. I suspect each week one of them would, using natural law of course, recognize they were the weak link and hurl themselves off the platform.
Click to expand...


Or the ones voted out would Mutiny......


Just another Dumbutt LIbertarian idea..
 
Puppycow said:
Is "seasteading" the way to achieve a libertarian utopia?
Seasteading

This is a video of a talk on "seasteading" at the libertarian Cato Institute.
The featured speaker is Patri Friedman, grandson of Milton Friedman.

I loled. :newlol
Click to expand...

Sad to see the Cato Insitute going down the kook path. They were the voice of halfway realistic libertarians, but they seem to be losing it.
 
I found it a pretty interesting video :)

thanks for posting it
 
God, that article is a perfect example of how blind belief in an ideology can make you stupid.
 
I don't see what makes this idea so off-the-wall. Patri Friedman is right: in order to change any government on any speck of land you need to either win a war or an election. Neither is particularly easy, what with not having sufficient guns for the former and the prospect of the latter isn't realistic when you're proposing to cut a bunch of pandering programs that buy votes. In short, there's no land left to try your new system of government.

If they are really convinced they have the superior method of governance, and can defeat the technological obstacles to seasteading, what the hell do you really care if they do it? People like dudalb seem to hate libertarians anyway, so he should be glad at least some of them would leave.
 
FlamingMoe said:
I don't see what makes this idea so off-the-wall. Patri Friedman is right: in order to change any government on any speck of land you need to either win a war or an election. Neither is particularly easy, what with not having sufficient guns for the former and the prospect of the latter isn't realistic when you're proposing to cut a bunch of pandering programs that buy votes. In short, there's no land left to try your new system of government.

If they are really convinced they have the superior method of governance, and can defeat the technological obstacles to seasteading, what the hell do you really care if they do it? People like dudalb seem to hate libertarians anyway, so he should be glad at least some of them would leave.
Click to expand...

You seem to be suggesting that because we think it's idiotic, we think they shouldn't try it and that we should change our minds on both issues.

I think it's a silly silly silly idea, but it would be cool to watch it crash and burn. Maybe they can partially fund themselves through setting it up as reality tv.
 
Maybe the anarchist sort of libertarians should move to Somalia instead? No government there. (The "official" government controls about 3 blocks in Mogadishu, or so I hear).
 
Puppycow said:
Maybe the anarchist sort of libertarians should move to Somalia instead? No government there. (The "official" government controls about 3 blocks in Mogadishu, or so I hear).
Click to expand...

Anarchy and libertarianism are not the same thing. Try again.
 
FlamingMoe said:
I don't see what makes this idea so off-the-wall. Patri Friedman is right: in order to change any government on any speck of land you need to either win a war or an election. Neither is particularly easy, what with not having sufficient guns for the former and the prospect of the latter isn't realistic when you're proposing to cut a bunch of pandering programs that buy votes. In short, there's no land left to try your new system of government.

If they are really convinced they have the superior method of governance, and can defeat the technological obstacles to seasteading, what the hell do you really care if they do it? People like dudalb seem to hate libertarians anyway, so he should be glad at least some of them would leave.
Click to expand...

They are perfectly welcome to try it as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't even mind if they let them have a small part of Wyoming or something to try it. Of course they would be freeriding on the US for some things like national defense but then so do the Amish. I kind of like that the Amish exist. I think I wouldn't want to be one, but I respect them.
 
quixotecoyote said:
You seem to be suggesting that because we think it's idiotic, we think they shouldn't try it and that we should change our minds on both issues.

I think it's a silly silly silly idea, but it would be cool to watch it crash and burn. Maybe they can partially fund themselves through setting it up as reality tv.
Click to expand...
I do think you should change your mind regarding the idea's "idiocy." If a group of people wanted to start a new society with their preferred system of government, do you have a better idea how to go about doing it?
 
FlamingMoe said:
Anarchy and libertarianism are not the same thing. Try again.
Click to expand...

Wiki entry on Patri Friedman

Patri Friedman (born July 29, 1976 in Blacksburg, Virginia) is an anarchist advocate of rapid incremental progress towards increasing human freedom by creating new countries that can experiment with alternative social structures. His preferred method is seasteading, to construct and inhabit floating communities on the open sea: "The point is not just to create one political system or type of system, but to make a turnkey product for creating new countries, so that lots of different groups will try lots of different things, and we can all learn from it."[1]
Click to expand...
 
FlamingMoe said:
If they are really convinced they have the superior method of governance, and can defeat the technological obstacles to seasteading, what the hell do you really care if they do it? People like dudalb seem to hate libertarians anyway, so he should be glad at least some of them would leave.
Click to expand...

No, it's cool. Either they'll be proved wrong or I will, I guess. And either of those is a good outcome as far as I'm concerned.

Hey, and if the surface of the ocean doesn't work, there's always other possibilities.
 
drkitten said:
No, but a lot of the people who don't realize that libertarian utopias are unachievable think it is.
Click to expand...

They're unachievable because politicians gain power by violating libertarian, or founding father principles.

You don't gain power by stripping it away from yourself, after all.
 
FlamingMoe said:
I do think you should change your mind regarding the idea's "idiocy." If a group of people wanted to start a new society with their preferred system of government, do you have a better idea how to go about doing it?
Click to expand...

Win an election. If you can't get enough people behind your stupid idea to win an election, you aren't going to be able to get enough people behind your stupid idea to support a society.

By definition.
 
drkitten said:
Win an election. If you can't get enough people behind your stupid idea to win an election, you aren't going to be able to get enough people behind your stupid idea to support a society.

By definition.
Click to expand...

he? thats not true at all.......
 
drkitten said:
Win an election. If you can't get enough people behind your stupid idea to win an election, you aren't going to be able to get enough people behind your stupid idea to support a society.

By definition.
Click to expand...

That seems a bit of a fallacy. Just because you don't have enough people as a percentage of a total population to advance your views does not mean that you don't have the actual raw numbers to populate a town, or a city, or a province, or whatever, with people who want to live under "your rules".

That said, it's still a pretty daft idea.

Postscriptum: Just noticed Dictator Cheney's rather more succinct post than mine and would like to echo it.
 
Great, when I try to start a seasteading thread it gets ignored, and then someone starts one while this forum is in my penalty box for mod rudeness. So I'm gonna bend my own rules and pop in to say:

Go seasteading! My #1 long-term hope. Wooooooooooo!

OK, *POOF*, now I'm gone again. Peace out.
 
Ziggurat said:
No, it's a way to attract pirates. And no, I'm not kidding.
Click to expand...

I'm more worried about the possibility of secret experiments with stem cells creating a race of horrifically mutated superbeings with fantastic powers. Maybe we could call them Minglers? These Minglers would soon become an army to the man who held the stem cell drug known as Steve which can only be defeated by sending in an army of our best silent protagonists armed with the best steam-punk enhanced weaponry we can find in the 1950's.
 
I'll admit, I haven't read anything or even looked at the link. Apologies if this idea has been done to death:

A giant ice berg, like one of the Rhode Island size ones, is used as a temporary form to build a floating city. The work would have to move quickly. A landing strip would need to be carved so cargo could be brought in. The berg would be shaped with heat, and covered with appropriate garbage, less dense than water. More cover on that, to accomodate eventual vegetation. A bottom layer of calcium carbonate would be induced with electric current after the ice was gone. Floating island.
 
Puppycow said:
Wiki entry on Patri Friedman
Click to expand...

So Patri Friedman may be an anarchist. This has what do do with libertarianism? (Keeping in mind, of course, the fact that the libertarian Cato Institute often invites speakers of varied ideologies to present interesting topics for discussion and the precise ideology of any one of their presenters is not in any way indicative of how libertarians think about a system of government.)
 
Alex Libman said:
Great, when I try to start a seasteading thread it gets ignored, and then someone starts one while this forum is in my penalty box for mod rudeness. So I'm gonna bend my own rules and pop in to say:

Go seasteading! My #1 long-term hope. Wooooooooooo!

OK, *POOF*, now I'm gone again. Peace out.
Click to expand...

Wow, Alex really thinks anybody is going to impressed by his immature, silly antics?
 
Kthulhut Fhtagn said:
I'm more worried about the possibility of secret experiments with stem cells creating a race of horrifically mutated superbeings with fantastic powers. Maybe we could call them Minglers? These Minglers would soon become an army to the man who held the stem cell drug known as Steve which can only be defeated by sending in an army of our best silent protagonists armed with the best steam-punk enhanced weaponry we can find in the 1950's.
Click to expand...

I'm worried they will make a movie about it starring Kevin Costner as a mutant searching the globe for a tree to pee against...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom