A libertarian seasteading project

[ddstory]

Most of you have probably heard about this already. Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal and one of the first investors in Facebook, has invested one and a quarter million dollars in the Seasteading Institute company, which funds a project by one Patri Friedman, a former engineer at Google. The project is to build the perfect libertarian utopia on

Comments

[terminator44]

Meh. As soon as they legalize marijuana they'll be getting a visit from the Navy SEALS.

[peristaltor]

No kidding. The most adventurous drug user I've ever met was a Seal. He used his diplomatic attache case to smuggle the really adventurous stuff from South America. Adrenacrone? Damn.

[anfalicious]

Adrenachrome is a) legal and b) any hallucinogenic effects seem to be mostly a product of Hunter S. Thompson's mind :P

What you really want to be doing is going to China and getting some of the 2CXXs.

[squidb0i]

If the recession hadn't happened and I was still comfortably cashy, I'd totally donate to this, if only to get the inevitable failure out of the way somewhere other than here.

[abomvubuso]

Couldn't they just use some old oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico like those guys in Sealand did?

Oh wait.

[stewstewstewdio]

Couldn't they just use some old oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico

I was going to recommend the same thing. One of the problems with this whole thing is that there will not be a natural resource or method of sustainable production. The only way they would be able to have an economy is to exploit the economy of another country, which would make them subject to the rules they so abhor. I kind of like my idea better.

[politikitty]

I'm trying to find the first article I saw referencing the project. It painted it in a much different light, and one that's probably more likely to succeed.

As a libertarian utopia? Destined to fail. But as a way to provide good jobs for smart foreigners who don't have a job market and provide affordable and competent workers for start-ups who struggle with the existing limitations in getting an HB1 visa? Brilliant, and sure to add a lot of good in the world.

[sealwhiskers]

Well, I'm not going to speculate if this is going to be a failure or not, since it is important to remember that libertarianism is

[omnot]

Interesting perspective.

What if this Libertarian Utopia was not permitted to expel individuals who did not perform to the expected standard, but had to maintain and support them like any other nation? I bet that would play havoc with their attempts to prove "superiority".

[sealwhiskers]

While I would love to see that paragraph written in the rules somewhere, it really goes against all that libertarianism stands for.

Supposedly, according to libertarian thinking, the completely unregulated free market will make for such incredibly competitive prices that any old bum could afford it. And...for those incredibly malfunctioning individuals who still couldn't afford free market prices, all needs would be covered by lottery money or charity.

...and if charity and lottery money still couldn't cover the needs of malfunctioning individuals, city upkeep, disaster prevention and all those other numerous things which makes a society, well, I guess some unwanted factors would just have to disappear from pontoon heaven, right? I'm sure they just moved elsewhere of their own free will!

Anything except uttering the dirty word. psst ...taxes

[omnot]

I do note that the plans for such Libertarian Utopias inevitably require that the participants/citizens have rather a lot of money. I suspect that once their money or productivity is gone, they will be deported. So I expect it would become a machine for processing rich deluded people into poor disillusioned people.