Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands

Started by garbon, August 16, 2011, 12:02:55 PM

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garbon

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silicon-valley-billionaire-funding-creation-artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html

QuotePay 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.

:lol:
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Valmy

I was wondering what 'artificial' meant and then suddenly realized they were literal islands.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

LaCroix


DGuller

I like that approach.  We get to ship the libertarians off to some hellhole far away from us, and we'll get them to actually do it voluntarily all on their own.  :)

Crazy_Ivan80


Valmy

I am not even sure how that would work.  Each person is going to live on fish alone?
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

garbon

Quote from: Valmy on August 16, 2011, 12:32:15 PM
I am not even sure how that would work.  Each person is going to live on fish alone?

Well they are starting off with an ambitious - office park! :lol:
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Tamas

I call dibs on forming an armed gang on one of these and taking it over.

anarcho-capitalism (which I guess is closest to Raynd-ish dreams) is a direction, not a goal.

MadImmortalMan

"Stability is destabilizing." --Hyman Minsky

"Complacency can be a self-denying prophecy."
"We have nothing to fear but lack of fear itself." --Larry Summers

Grinning_Colossus

Quis futuit ipsos fututores?

Valmy

Quote from: garbon on August 16, 2011, 12:53:43 PM
Quote from: Valmy on August 16, 2011, 12:32:15 PM
I am not even sure how that would work.  Each person is going to live on fish alone?

Well they are starting off with an ambitious - office park! :lol:

The big plan is to import every necessity of life while exporting clerical services?
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

starbright

The only way this works is if they inadvertently create a small, socialist utopia.

Neil

I do not hate you, nor do I love you, but you are made out of atoms which I can use for something else.

HVC

Quote from: starbright on August 16, 2011, 01:12:38 PM
The only way this works is if they inadvertently create a small, socialist utopia.
that'll work until someone finds a pretty shell that someone else wants. REplace shell with woman/food/whatever fits your fancy.
Being lazy is bad; unless you still get what you want, then it's called "patience".
Hubris must be punished. Severely.