Seasteading

[Puppycow]

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).

 

[FlamingMoe]

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).

Anarchy and libertarianism are not the same thing. Try again.

 

[Puppycow]

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.

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.

 

[FlamingMoe]

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.

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?

 

[Puppycow]

Anarchy and libertarianism are not the same thing. Try again.

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]

 

[linusrichard]

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.

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.

 

[Beerina]

No, but a lot of the people who don't realize that libertarian utopias are unachievable think it is.

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.

 

[drkitten]

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?

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.

 

[DC]

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.

he? thats not true at all.......

 

[Locutus]

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.

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.

 

[joobz]

No man is an Island, unless he's a libertarian.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Living on a floating platform in the middle of the ocean doesn't sound like any sort of utopia to me.

What if they have a Krusty Burger?

 

[Alex Libman]

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.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

No, it's a way to attract pirates. And no, I'm not kidding.

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.

 

[quarky]

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.

 

[FlamingMoe]

Wiki entry on Patri Friedman

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.)

 

[Bikewer]

Didn't the Scientologists try this?

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Didn't the Scientologists try this?

Couldn't get the Boeing 757 spacecraft to work.

 

[dudalb]

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.

Wow, Alex really thinks anybody is going to impressed by his immature, silly antics?

 

[gdnp]

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'm worried they will make a movie about it starring Kevin Costner as a mutant searching the globe for a tree to pee against...