I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.
Funny how these guys can only afford these things from their profits in "nanny states."
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 have a strange view of libertarianism if you think he would need to build his floating city without money to be truly following it. I thought libertarianism is about the right to do whatever you want with your money?
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.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. I came here to say the same thing. These people will do all this song-and-dance of making a "libertarian utopia", but still keep their money in dollars; their house on Sea Cliff; their kids in US universities.
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.
Of course I was downvoted, everyones' startup is going to be bought by Google and we'll all be rich! Woo hoo!
(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.
You can invest in flying cars without ever flying one. You invest because you believe in the idea, and that some people (not necessarily yourself) might benefit from it.
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.
I find “these guys” arguments are perfectly unenlightening — though some prefer the phrasing “those people”.
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?
You are exactly right. This type of argument is called "ad hominem" (translation, appropriately, is "to the man"), and is the basis of many fallacies and Republican/Democrat debates.
You'd still have to bank in other currencies, and you'd have to put your money in the markets of major economies, on which you would have to pay taxes. And you're not getting rid of social welfare like minimum wage, you're getting rid of the society. Is that what libertarians really are, at heart, merely anti-social?
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
Floating countries for rich people. Products: Gambling licenses. Dual citizenships. Offshore banking (tax havens.) What am I missing?
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.
Medical tourism is a biggie. Offer an assortment of the best treatments that have been approved by any government on earth. Thus, rich US tourists can take a 1-hour boat ride to get treatments they'd otherwise have to travel to Germany for and vice-versa. (Especially useful if the condition you're treating makes air travel dangerous!) More flexible immigration, licensing, and liability laws means you can use doctors and equipment from, say, India and cut the price of the procedure in half.
I love the "libertarian" basis for it as well - loose building codes, few weapons restrictions - just what you need in an experimental floating structure thousands of miles from help!
I thought that was an odd thing for the article to focus on, too. When I think of something like this being libertarian, a far different picture emerges, like being free from the nanny-state and its attempts to infiltrate my life.
I guess I prefer to think of a state as being like a piece of software. It starts out as kind of a kludge, doesn't do much, and what it does is like a blunt instrument (capital punishment, debtor's prisons and so on).
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!
>a far different picture emerges, like being free from the nanny-state and its attempts to infiltrate my life.
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.
They will probably fly a flag of convenience. No state actor (well, maybe North Korea) will attack what is basically a cruise ship. Pirates might be a problem.
But then they will be subject to the flag's laws, which seems to be something they don't want. Breaking off, once they've flown a flag would be difficult.
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.
Peter Thiel could afford an Apache, an F-16, some small gun boats and a bunch of mercenaries. He could probably even afford a nuke if he could get away with it.
That's horrible the us and eu countries must be going before the Hague then for the Libian bombings. Oh wait that's right they write the rules so it does not apply to them just to governments with less military might.
What is "non" Agressive war is always defined by who holds the biggest gun.
I think you'll need several of them linked together before you get any useful testbed for government. Most systems of government can work at small scale. They don't break until you get lots of people. The whole thing should also wind up being more stable socially.
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.
>Most systems of government can work at small scale.
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.)
>I think you'll need several of them linked together before you get any useful testbed for government. Most systems of government can work at small scale. They don't break until you get lots of people. The whole thing should also wind up being more stable socially.
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).
I guess the new government will need som starting funding anyway, and buying platforms may as well be part of the startup expenses. And yes, citizen self-education will be very important.
I think one point has been ignored so far - this will be a really boring place to live compared to an average city. Can you imagine being stuck on a boat or a tiny island for years? That sounds like punishment to me.
It looks like their financial model revolves around skirting regulations. The example they give is "medical tourism". But it's basically going to be floating casinos and brothels, right?
The risk-reward isn't there for pirates. Seasteads will likely be well-armed, populated, far from Somalia and other pirate operating areas, and lack the large material payload of a cargo ship or oil-tanker.
Valid point, but if I am rich enough to be living on an isolated island micro-country, and will fetch a healthy enough ransom for pirates to snatch me, I am also investing a fair amount of resources into my own defense. Think small arms, ample security systems, security guards, etc.
You don't need to board the thing to take it ransom. Just need to have a credible threat of doing serious damage. "You have 5 minutes to wire $x into our bank account or your little country gets sunk."
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.
This is a great test of Libertarian ideology. Personally, I suspect they'll quickly find out that those 'excessive' US taxes are paying for layer upon layer of security and infrastructure that is critical to the expansion of their wealth. Perhaps, though, their superior free-market will develop compact, cost-effective means of defense.
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.
