Please tell me this is spoof:
Pay 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.”
When I think of building a permanent floating city in the middle of the ocean, I know the first thing that comes my mind is really loosening up building standards.
Can we go ahead and set free-market prices for rescue costs?
(via email)
Steve
There’s some precedent for this, and enough material for a movie: Principality of Sealand
ellie
I would like to be the first to say, Bon Voyage loons!
zzyzx
No spoof. That idea has been around for decades and yet – somehow – people prefer to live in our non-Libertopia land countries.
Liberal Sandlapper
A fool and his money…
me
“…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.”
―Andrew Ryan
aisce
cool. when do we get to the part where we can buy plasmids out of vending machines?
a man chooses, a slave obeys.
Bruce S
“Looser building codes” on a floating city ? Good luck with that.
Didn’t Kevin Costner make a movie about this?
Keith G
I want Nick Gillespie as their live-in president. Bon voyage Nicky.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m sorry, but it’s pretty obvious that while the voting booth has plenty of not very bright people, they have enough smarts to reject libertarian bullshit like this.
The good thing is, it’s separating dumbfucks like Thiel from their money.
The Bobs
I wonder if it ever occurs to these guys that their businesses are totally dependent on the internet, which was not created by the magic hand of the free market.
aisce
darn, me beat me to it.
Linda Featheringill
A floating city/state, out in the middle of the ocean, with loose building codes and easy weapon regulations?
LOL! Go for it, dudes!
Hunter Gathers
I’m pretty sure that the Invisible Hand would judge such costs as not cost effective, and let the Island Of Misfit Glibertarians sink into the ocean.
Han's Big Snark Solo
Yeah, I think this is a great idea.
I would suggest, however, that whoever it is that issues Darwin Awards may need to institute a new group award.
Dave
Simple question for these sea-faring blokes: How ya gonna eat?
PeakVT
Requiring marine-grade fittings is TYRANNY, I tells ya.
Thoughtcrime
This comment: https://balloon-juice.com/2011/08/16/the-best-democracy-money-can-buy/#comment-2729023 is even more appropriate here.
Suffern ACE
I thought this was old news from a few years ago. Isn’t he the guy who is investing in immortality as well.
Tonal Crow
Why do they need to do this? There’s already a country with no government, no taxes, an anything-goes bidness environment, nearly universal belief in God, and plenteous firearms, all with hardly a liberal to be found. It’s called “Somalia”.
Comrade Javamanphil
Dear Somali pirates, enclosed please find a map to your wildest dreams…
j low
Waterworld lives!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Invest another $174M and Thiel can make Waterworld.
Alwhite
why go out to sea? simply move to Somolia which is already a libertarian paradise without the salt water.
bemused
I think Jack Welch in his book floated something almost identical to this using a ship instead and move around to what ever country had the lowest tax rates and cheapest labor.
bobbo
Isn’t a petri dish where you grow diseases?
Slugger
If rich people build autonomous islands in the middle of the sea, me and my Somalian crew will be all over it.
Danton
Somalia on stilts!
The Ancient Randonneur
Has the Invisible Hand been taking swimming lessons?
SFAW
Instead of wasting all the money on developing the technology, etc., why don’t they just find a way to set Somalia adrift? It’s a Libertarian paradise after all, isn’t it?
If Somalia is NFG (too many darkies for his/their taste), they could always create their own Galt’s Gulch. I know just the place! The lat/long are:
37° 45′ 0″ N / 140° 28′ 0″ E
As the saying goes: Go Galt already, will you?
The rest of us have real work to do, and clearing out you loonies will remove another barrier to our making real progress.
lacp
A community at sea “free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place?” That didn’t pan out so well for Blackbeard, did it?
quannlace
In other words, people not voting the way they think they should.
Can we interest the Tea Partiers in these floating burgs as well?
Margarita
QFT.
Citizen Alan
Too many others have already made funnier jokes than I can come up with, so I’ll ask a serious question — How the fuck is it possible to play Bio-Shock, which is set in the aftermath of the collapse of a libertarian “utopia,” and think “yeah, we should totally do that… but better!”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Hunter Gathers:
The wonderful world of political economy even has a handy term for this sort of thing: Sunk Costs
Come to think of it, Sunk Costs really should be name of their “country”.
Suffern ACE
@Han’s Big Snark Solo: How can you have loose building codes on the water? Don’t you need “stronger” building codes when you’re building on an unstable platform? Or do you let your numb nut neighbor sink your city?
trollhattan
Then I’m building a libertarian submarine and then
extortingusing free market principles to determine the value of my not sinking the floating libertarian cities.Anybody who has endured an overachieving homeowners’ association will understand what life aboard a libertarian boat will quickly become. Only better armed.
quannlace
Meet the new Hole In The Wall gang.
beltane
Ship of fools, on a cruel sea….
Do these people not realize that the cry of “every man for himself” only applies when the ship is sinking? I guess when you have a ship where everyone is captain the sinking scenario tends to play out sooner than expected.
jaime
Dude’s played too much BioShock.
Ken
@bemused: I think Jack Welch in his book floated something almost identical to this using a ship instead and move around to what ever country had the lowest tax rates and cheapest labor.
I’m obviously missing some nuance of this genius plan. Why would the labor rates in the country where you dock matter? Is this ship going to be a floating factory, taking on workers every time it makes port?
tBone
Mock Thiel all you want – I’m behind him 100%. I’ve been saying for years that we need a Golgafrincham B Ark.
Alex S.
A nation that consists of billionaires only…
Morbo
Build it off the coast of Puntland. Come on guys, you know that’s the best place for it.
Thoughtcrime
Here’s one of their board meetings:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW9-llaIS-g
Mattminus
If they got this off teh ground (pun completely intended), how long do you think it would be before harems of 3rd world child brides became a libertarian value?
dmsilev
For the first six months, anyway. After that, the invisible hand of the free market will decide that running the bilge pumps is an unnecessary collectivist expense and it will become the latest nucleation spot for a new coral reef.
acallidryas
I think this is a fantastic idea, and if it gets built I will donate money to help with transportation costs for those who wish to settle there. In fact, we should all help these libertarians live out their dreams far, far away from us.
4tehlulz
I’m sure that, as a matter of principle, they will reject any assistance from the Coast Guard when one of their floating paradises goes Titanic.
NonyNony
Yeah. Guys like this have been threatening to “Go Galt” to their floating former oil-rig now “libertarian paradise” country for at least a couple of decades. I remember libertarian dopes on the Internet floating these ideas back in the days of Usenet.
The only thing shocking to me is that, outside of Sealand, nobody’s actually tried it yet. I think when they figure out that slavery will still probably be frowned upon by the rest of the world governments, the economics of the whole thing start to look a bit bad. After all, someone still needs to clean the toilets and tend to the hydroponic gardens and the algae tanks. And it isn’t like these guys are proposing a Utopian Commune where it’s all “from each according to his ability” and all that.
Mary
Haven’t the scientologists already tried this?
joeyess
Nope. It’s real. I read about this 3 or 4 years ago. He’s dead serious.
Waterworld!! With SMOKERS!!
demz taters
They could just follow L. Ron Hubbard’s Sea Org model.
Edit: Oops Mary beat me to it!
jacy
Think of all the job creation for pirates!
I think it’s a win/win.
YellowDog
And what will be the basis for their economies? Fishing? Oil? Billionaire welfare? This should end well. Unless everyone is rich, what happens when the have-less want more from the have-more? With no restrictions on weapons, perhaps the economies will be based on piracy. There you have it–Somalia on a raft.
Nethead Jay
Oh yeah, Peter Thiel has been a true believer libertarian for a long time. Same with the idea of the seaborne unbound-by-pesky-laws freedom paradise/fiefdom.
Dennis SGMM
Libertarians are the only group in the world who would build their own island in order to re-enact Lord of the Flies.
TooManyJens
They’re going to have any restrictions on weapons? Statists! Jackbooted thugs want to take away your nuclear warheads!
Jay in Oregon
Wait, I thought liberals were supposed to be the cloistered, ivory-tower elites who have no understanding of how the real world works?
I’m reminded of the scene in Young Frankenstein where Frederick says “Whatever you do, do not let me out. If I scream, if I beg, do not let me out.” Of course, we all know what happens once he gets in there and the monster wakes up. (I wish I could find that clip!)
So what happens to the people who can’t make it in Sealibertopia? Do they have to have a return ticket prepaid? Are they fed to the sharks? Turned into Soylent Green?
joeyess
Thiel’s Atoll.
Alwhite
@tBone:
I used to think that too but remember what happened to Golgafrincham once they were rid of the useless 3rd.
Nemesis
Typical claptrap from 50 year old billionaires who posses the cognitive abilities of 12 year olds.
Glibertarianism is dismissed for a reason. Its childish.
ant
@Thoughtcrime:
lol
The Dangerman
Let’s ask Governor Daniels and some folks in and around Indianapolis what they think of loose building standards (or, in the case of the stage in question, NO standards).
andy
This brings to mind a great essay China Mieville wrote about this very subject (his own novel, Scar, was set on a floating city, though it was no Libertarian water park):
Derf
They can get Johnson to be the president of the floating country. Hopefully he can take Greenwald and Cole with him.
danimal
Who’s going to apply to be Police Chief in this libertarian utopia? Everyone’s packing, laws are minimal to non-existent and nobody wants governmental interference. Should work out well.
Actually, this is a better idea than the “let’s all move to a lightly populated state and take it over” libertarian strategy that’s been promoted the past few years. Because there are still sane New Hampsherites and Wyomians (sp?).
Jay in Oregon
@YellowDog:
http://www.angryflower.com/atlass.gif
(Ooh, there’s another one! http://www.angryflower.com/murgal.html)
FlipYrWhig
Same premise, really, as James O’Keefe’s Dildo Catamaran.
Martin
So, subsistance-level earners with ready access to firearms on a floating deathtrap? Honestly, how is this different from Somalia in any way?
PeakVT
Also, too, Uncle Sam has already claims authority over the high seas:
Jules
This is a brilliant example of nature culling the herd.
Dongo
Hey, it worked out pretty darned well in BioShock!
srv
Can’t we just give them all South Carolina and be done with it?
Rove and Pete Wehner come to the defense of Bernanke.
And Perry wants Predator drones for Texas. Yeehaa.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Perhaps President Obama would consider selling some of the U.S. black site infrastructure and technology, which he and his administration have been busily perfecting since transferring ownership from George W. Bush, as franchises in lieu of a national jobs program in order to raise revenue and pay down the deficit.
.
.
Jacob Beizer
Would you kindly follow through on your threat and move the fuck away from this country to build your steampunk wet dream? The rest of us will be just fine without you.
FlipYrWhig
@joeyess:
And rather a raging atoll at that.
Sad_Dem
As Mary and demz taters have already pointed out, this idea has been tried by the late demented cult leader, L. Ron Hubbard. He had a fleet, and everywhere it docked, it wore out its welcome, because he couldn’t resist interfering with local governments. Also, it was a libertarian paradise for him but more like slavery for everyone else.
The idea didn’t work out too well for Homer Simpson, either.
Joe Max
This is such an UNlibertarian idea.
Obviously, the ones living on it will have made their money (to pay their way into the libertarian utopia) in the various land-based countries they came from. The nation of “Libertardvania” will have very little to offer in international trade. A small fishing industry, perhaps, possibly ore extraction (including sea salt), but what exactly are these Galtian supermen supposed to PRODUCE that would support them in the manner in which they are accustomed? Tourism, I suppose, but that’s not producing anything. They’ll have to buy on the international market almost everything to support life.
What they’ve got there is nothing more than a permanently anchored casino ship that allows the tourists to drink, snort cocaine and walk around with loaded handguns. What could possibly go wrong?
(Hmmm, lemme think… a major storm knocks all their systems out and they revert to cannibalism?)
jesdynf
There’s a reason that the guy who came up with PayPal doesn’t like none of that gubmint regulation. PayPal will /flee/ any country that dares regulate it like a bank.
Portzrebie Ersatz
Vessels on the high seas “free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place”.
Libertarian paradise means you can steal, murder and rape whenever you want. And be stolen from, murdered and raped whenever someone stronger than you wants.
Sounds like Darfur on the high seas.
But didn’t they used to call people who actually did this sort of thing in a maritime setting, ‘pirates’?
scarshapedstar
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
And am I not entitled to see Nick Gillespie shambling around in a Big Daddy suit while Dana Loesch skips up to corpses and drains them of their precious bodily fluids?
me
@Dongo: Yeah, everyone died (or became a mindless monster).
Stefan
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.”
Umm, no need to take to the seas, as such a magical wonderland already exists.
It’s called Somalia.
joeyess
I picture The Fonzi of Freedom as more of a Furry, with Dana chasing him with a whip.
jibeaux
I assume parents would be able to choose not to vaccinate their children on these paradises lost. Good thing there will be an ocean between my younguns and Galtopia.
MarkJ
You guys are all missing the point on Somalia. Yes, it is libertarian. And, yes, life there is miserable. But that’s because dark skinned people are applying libertarian principles there.
If you got a bunch of white people together who applied those the same libertarian principles, the outcome would be different. It would be paradise on earth.
HG Hay
China Mieville wrote a really excellent piece on libertarian utopias a few years back. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/floating_utopias/
The Raven
I think you’ve earned “croak of the day,” John.
“PayPal will /flee/ any country that dares regulate it like a bank.”
Actually, no, they haven’t.
Floating islands have to be among the places least suited to libertarian governance.
Sentient Puddle
The problem with Rapture? Clearly it should have been built above water. Duh.
Stefan
“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.”
Because if there’s one thing you want out in the middle of the ocean when the 100 foot high waves start to hit your structure, it’s looser building codes.
Stefan
Damn, now that I keep reading I see that other commenters got here ahead of me….
YellowDog
@Jay in Oregon:
Excellent.
Someone will have to clean the toilets, which means a demand for cheap imported labor (because rich people don’t do that unless they are at the Betty Ford Clinic). Wait, someone explain how this is new and improved.
fuzed
Hopefully they partially finance by running reality TV. Lord of Flies part duex( the Angry Adult Years)?
Laura
One way to alter the gene pool.
Tim in SF
I swear to god, this is straight out of Bioshock.
bottyguy
“no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.”
Isn’t that Texas?
eyelessgame
I am just *loving* “petri dishes”.
Hey, I’d consider investing in this scheme if it would get some libertarians moved out of this country.
jlredford
There already is such a venture, the condo cruise ship “The World”, run by ResidenSea:
http://www.aboardtheworld.com/
164 units, 664 feet long, launched in 2002. It continually travels the ocean, going from Scandanavia to Antarctica and back. The units go for $800K to $7M. It took 4 years to sell them all, but new ones come on the market now and then. Travel itineraries are set by the owners.
Nobody else seems to have been able to make this work though (http://www.miamiherald.com/2008/09/14/683588/tough-times-for-condos-at-sea.html), so maybe there are a limited number of roving zillionaires.
Arclite
One would think the money would be better spent taking over the government of a small country like some Caribbean island by electing sympathetic candidates, then implementing libertarian policies that way. You could essentially buy governmental positions in some of these smaller countries, and wouldn’t have to worry about actually building a floating landmass. It would take some time, but eventually you’d have the exact laws you wanted.
D-Chance.
Maybe these guys can be hired to do the insulation…
Last year, Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced the city had won a coveted $20 million federal grant to invest in weatherization. The unglamorous work of insulating crawl spaces and attics had emerged as a silver bullet in a bleak economy – able to create jobs and shrink carbon footprint – and the announcement came with great fanfare.
McGinn had joined Vice President Joe Biden in the White House to make it. It came on the eve of Earth Day. It had heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods.
But more than a year later, Seattle’s numbers are lackluster. As of last week, only three homes had been retrofitted and just 14 new jobs have emerged from the program. Many of the jobs are administrative…
Your Obamacovery at work… heh.
TooManyJens
@FlipYrWhig:
You owe me a new keyboard.
artem1s
@tBone:
damn, beat me to it!
dedc79
George Carlin had a far superior idea
karen marie
Aren’t people who live like this generally referred to as pirates?
fuzed
@Tim in SF: Can Fiction sue Reality for copyright? Nevermind, the Sealanders can claim fair use in that it will be much more humorous, therefore only partly derivative.
Ella in New Mexico
@MarkJ:
Exactly. This new place would be more like a tiny Cayman Islands, without THEIR black people.
AnnaN
Hahahahahaha. Oh my – I would pay Comcast extra to watch the pirate raids on those floating islands via satellite.
Villago Delenda Est
Of all the libertarian assholes I hate, the IT ones I hate the most.
The evil state CREATED the fucking internet. This vile piece of shit wouldn’t have his millions without the government forcing the issue on computers talking over phone lines, which Ma Bell said couldn’t possibly happen, ever.
Paul in KY
@Comrade Javamanphil: That’s what I was thinking. If the ‘country’ is not recognized by any pre-existing country & is in international waters to boot, can’t anyone with enough firepower take it over & it wouldn’t actually be a crime (as defined by Law of the Sea & UN, etc.)?
Nethead Jay
@HG Hay: Yup, he really nails it in that piece
ruemara
The staggering amount of wealth that it takes to LARP Rapture. And absolutely zero brain power.
Suffern ACE
@Arclite: Yep. You might actually need to buy that “country that is recognized by all the great powers and the UN” status. That might be a helpful thing to have, especially if your alternative is a country that can be sunk with a few cruise missiles.
Judas Escargot
More funny: An offshore oil rig like Deepwater Horizon, the closest thing to this that’s actually been built, cost $350-700 million to construct. So you’re talking, what, maybe $1.5-3.0 BILLION to build a habitat like the one described?
So, $1.25 million isn’t even one percent of what you’d need.
LongHairedWeirdo
I’d love to see this happen. I suspect that it will become a totalitarian state that would want to attack dictatorships because they hate people living under normal tyrannies for their freedoms. But I could be wrong – it could be completely dysfunctional and result in many deaths. Or… well.
Or, they could surprise me. But I don’t think they will.
If they did, i think it would be like private schools. Private schools don’t do better because private beats public; private schools do better because they don’t have to deal with a student they don’t want to deal with.
bemused
@Ken:
I couldn’t quite remember exactly what he said but he said this years ago, “Ideally you’d have every plant you own on a barge” ready to move if any national government tried to impos restraints on the factories’ operations, or if workers demanded better wages and working conditions.
Kirk Spencer
I want to see what happens to their libertarian principles when the first tropical storm (or its equivalent) rolls through the nation.
Mark
Peter Thiel: “I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years” http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/the-education-of-a-libertarian/
He’s the asswipe who wrote this:
“Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.”
He should go DIAF on his island where there’s no publicly-funded fire department to save him.
cleek
Seamolia!
numbskull
@bemused: But how is that any different than the current floating pleasure palaces that grace Monaco (pun intended) and other luxury ports?
Mumbly_joe
This reminds me of the “Republic of Minerva“, a attempt at the same thing in the South Pacific, in the 70’s.
What happened? They were run off by the Tongan Army, which annexed the Minerva reefs. Well, huh: guess government is good for something, after all.
lovable liberal
The Galtians don’t actually have to live on their glorified barges. They just need tax-free citizenship, like a corporate Cayman Islands mailbox for their persons.
trollhattan
@Judas Escargot:
I could totally do it on the cheap. Buy a well-used North Korean container ship, stack it with used containers and sell them to the
rubesPatriots–top layer costs the most.Bon Voyage from the Looters!
Sloegin
It’s the Poly-Sci equivalent of CosPlay with water wings.
EvolutionaryDesign
@me: Coincidentally, I am playing Bioshock right now. This philosophy works marvelously! Any chance Thiel is developing Plasmids with these looser weapon restrictions?
EvolutionaryDesign
@aisce: Beat me to it by a mile!
PurpleGirl
@Suffern ACE: Probably wants to prove that because of enlightened self-interest the builders would make their own codes stricter and tighter. (Yeah, right; I know of a bridge I could sell them.)
Cain
@Linda Featheringill:
even better, no banking rules.. it would be a pirate heaven!
Basically, waterworld meets mad max! What could possibly go wrong?!
In the end though, you know what would happen right? RIAA and MPAA will have to shut down all these cities because of mp3 piracy.
PurpleGirl
@4tehlulz: No, not goes Titanic but gets a visit from a tsunami.
cyntax
Hey, I thought Snowcrash was a great read, but isn’t this taking it a little far?
...now I try to be amused
Bitch-front property.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Mr. Floating Libertarian Paradise, meet Mr. Harpoon ASM (brought to you by the looters & moochers of the statist US MIC).
MattR
@bemused: There was a company called Sea-Code that tried to do outsourcing of computer programming to a bunch of Indian and Russian techies living on a cruise ship in international waters just off the California coast so they could avoid US labor and tax laws. Thankfully, they went out of business.
Morbo
@Thoughtcrime: Too small; this would call for a Harpoon.
On the other hand, with looser building codes it might do the trick…
MattR
@Cain:
The Pirate Bay actually tried to buy Sealand a few years ago in an attempt to get away from RIAA, MPAA, etc.
ericblair
OH pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease do this. I’ve got a 55-gallon drum of popcorn kernels on order. Hell, they could even balance their budget by selling TV rights to this farce.
This will be the Bizarro equivalent of the 60’s commune, where peace and freedom turn into micromanaging police state with multiple warring factions in about three weeks. Until the pirates or North Koreans pop in to scoop up a bunch of underprotected rich people to ransom them off.
Ryanayr
Umm, a bunch of billionaires and millionaires located, in high density, in the middle of the sea, at a fixed location?
Good luck with pirates.
Uncle Ebeneezer
I don’t know who dreams more of this, the libertardians or we looters. Let’s just make sure we charge them a very steep price if they want to use any part of our constitution as a template.
Rihilism
I say go for it, Galtian Overlords. Then we just need to get some sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads…
RSA
So if your investments go bad, you’re destitute and stuck in the middle of the ocean? I guess you head to the soylent processing center.
EvolutionaryDesign
@scarshapedstar: WIN
AnotherBruce
I give it a Friedman unit before the whole thing reverts to cannibalism.
TooManyJens
@Mark:
We hippies look at a philosophy that mostly appeals to the already-privileged in society and see a problem with the philosophy. Thiel looks at it and sees a problem with the less-privileged.
Cain
@MattR:
Those guys have a long reach.. you’ll never have a pure libertarian paradise without eliminating those guys!
Carl Nyberg
Who will want to live there?
1. People avoiding taxes.
2. Criminals (corporate criminals and others) seeking to avoid law enforcement.
3. People who provide services to groups #1 and #2.
No one wants to live in a libertarian society unless s/he is in the top 1/3 of the economic system, preferably in the top 5%.
These experiments might work because the laborers have the option of leaving, which provides leverage when negotiating.
Jay in Oregon
@YellowDog:
No minimum-wage laws! That’s how it’s new and improved.
Oh, you mean for the menial laborers? Yeah, not so much…
dj spellchecka
this sounds like part of the plot of a recent dc comics graphic novel called “first wave.”
ps
if everyone on the island is really into respecting personal property, there shouldn’t be any thieves…so why the guns…
Carl Nyberg
But it will be fun to call “bullshit” on American libertarians.
“If you think libertarianism is such a great idea, why don’t you go live there for a couple years.”
Jay in Oregon
@ericblair:
George Carlin beat you to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmJ2snsLxWw
Ken
@The Raven:
I think space would be worse, despite Heinlein. Charles Stross probably has a more accurate picture; in his novel Iron Sunrise some people are transported to a remote asteroid with some basic survival gear. His description of how they survived included the phrase “after the last libertarian tendencies had been stamped out.”
Judas Escargot
@trollhattan:
The Engineer in me presupposes that the future inhabitants are serious about, you know, survival.
But yes, if I were working for these clowns it could be cheaper: “Just strap some inflatable rafts from Walmart together with bungie cords, man! Haven’t you ever read Snow Crash!? That’ll be 50 million dollars, please!”
tBone
@Alwhite:
Well, on the one hand we have a hypothetical disease contracted by unprotected contact with dirty telephones; on the other we have a very real disease contracted by unprotected contact with the Fountainhead. If we can eliminate the latter, the former is worth the risk.
Portzrebie Ersatz
@beltane:
This.
Life on a ship on any non-trivial body of water is the most communal, the greatest antithesis of ‘every man for himself’ I can imagine, except I suppose for life on a space station.
The irony is that the ship as a collective of persons, is, at least while on the voyage, as almost as independent and self-reliant as libtards dream of being. But as a member of the crew of the ship, as an individual, you are utterly dependent on each other, totally reliant on each other for survival.
Life, far from being free and doing what ever the fuck you want whenever you want, is instead regimented and disciplined. Unless you are the captain there is always someone who will tell you what to do and when to do it. It has to be or under stress and in danger the whole enterprise quickly comes undone.
In an inhospitable environment that can kill you in minutes if your ship sinks, you can’t opt out of your responsibilities to the ship and to each other. You and your crewmates take care of the ship and each other, and the ship and your crewmates take care of you.
An ethos and way of life totally un-glibertarian-like. So naturally they want a floating island. Glibtard logic works like that, I suppose.
The whole idea of floating glibertarian islands just cracks me up. And when it sinks, who thought to mandate enough life boats? Pshaw! Intolerable gub’mit! Into the water! Every man for himself! Well, nothing new there.
me
@Ken: Even in “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” no real arguments for individualism are presented. It’s a situation where the isn’t any formal government but everyone has to work together or die. Although it’s still very unrealistic, as Bioshock suggests, crime syndicates would likely run rampant.
Arclite
@Judas Escargot:
Maybe they could save money by building on a sea mount. Then the wouldn’t have to secure the habitat miles under the sea.
AWL
From the article that was linked in yahoo, Thiel and the guys he surrounded himself with in Stanford and at Paypal seem to be your regular, run of the mill BigGovernment conservatives (and not surprisingly he helped fund some of O’Keefe’s stunts). You know, the guys who call themselves ‘libertarian’ because it gives them an excuse to shout the n-word all day long (and not surprisingly he seemed to be quite religious/anti-gay until he got outed).
In other words, a more net-savvy Koch Brother.
elm
@Mattminus: It’ll be a matter of hours. I can’t imagine a woman who would voluntarily go near such a thing.
Morbo
@elm: Nah, there’s definitely at least one.
Ash Can
A bunch of libertarian true believers out in the middle of the ocean, with lax firearms regulations and loose building codes? That’s 100%, investment-grade, 24-karat awesome. Can’t happen soon enough.
Nylund
More than a few have tried to start their own country. One problem is, is that many nefarious types would love to control their own country and make their own laws, be they pirates, the mob, or just evil corporations. Such new countries often get attacked and invaded. The people that start them then beg their home country to protect them. The home country says, “why should we do that if you’re not part of our country?” and the fake-country usually gives in and joins the mother-land once again.
Long story short, to be a country, you need a standing army or the protection of a country that has one and is willing to protect you. Of course, they probably want taxes, rules, laws, and regulations in return, and if you’re an liberatarian, then what’s the point?
In the end, its just too darn hard. Foolish libertarians think they can start something and it’ll be as equally protected and safe as the industrialized country they come from, only to learn that once Uncle Sam no longer has your back, you’re country is most likely just to become a Somalia -esque warzone.
Villago Delenda Est
@Portzrebie Ersatz:
C.S. Forester has Horatio Hornblower waxing poetic about the “ultimate freedom” of the captain of one of His Majesty’s Ships…the perfect freedom. That is purchased at the price of the virtual enslavement of every other human being on the ship.
The libtards all imagine they’ll be the ship captain. Without having had to earn it by being one of the slaves for years.
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
And when they get their Libertarian utopia, can we get S&P to downgrade its debt, too?
DonkeyKong
Can they please name this “idea” the Galtanic. “King of the World” indeed!
The Populist
Holy moly…this sounds like an idea that some twerp named Casey Serin came up with. Only difference, Thiel has the means while Serin ripped off many:
Island Project
In late 2009, Casey briefly engaged in another questionable business venture, when he launched the Island2012 website, located at the following web address: http://www.island2012.com/. The premise of the project was to gather enough ‘investors’ to allow Casey to purchase a tropical island by the end of 2012. The concept was largely derided by the ‘Hater’ community and led to much speculation as to Casey’s ultimate motives. After a brief set of introduction videos explaining the concept, the project (like many of Casey’s previous ventures) eventually lost steam. In early January, Casey removed nearly all the content of the site save for a countdown timer indicating the days left before the end of the year 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_Serin
Judas Escargot
@Arclite:
I was going to suggest that they anchor it to the seafloor with gold ingots. Nice and heavy. Non-corrosive. The preferred base for any libertarian currency or offshore habitat.
It’ll be a few more years before the Somali pirates get their hands on any submarines.
Arclite
@Judas Escargot:
Heh, that had me laughing out loud. Nicely done.
Samara Morgan
Ship of Fools?
i think NOT! Bulgakov’s Cat.
im surprised at Cole…after all, he has a Behemoth of his own, just a white one instead of a black one.
Joel
That’s it. I’m buying Bioshock.
El
This blog is full of leftards who can talk a lot of shit but will remain proles for the rest of their lives. Haha!
Samara Morgan
@Ash Can: can we send Yglesias and Greenwald there?
An Idiot
The founder of Paypal, you say?
I hope this actually happens now, just because of how hilarious it would be to watch Peter Thiel ragequit and try to shut the entire thing down when he realizes that, as a place with no laws, it would naturally also be a place with no laws against porn or what Wikileaks does.
Oh, those silly libertarians. For all their pretty words about “individual liberty,” they sure don’t like freedom of speech a whole lot…
Samara Morgan
@cyntax: its not from Snowcrash, its from Thirteen.
Dave N.
Any guesses who they will be running to for a handout when the inevitable tropical storm wipes them out, and none of them could get insurance because they built on an unstable island with loose building codes?
tones
All the jokes aside, the only thing they could do is gambling, prostitution , and more likely , slavery.
I could be immensely profitable when you look at it like that, but a force of evil unrivaled.
cyntax
@Samara Morgan:
Actually I was thinking of the Rife’s Raft:
Though I haven’t read Thirteen so it might apply as well.
Steven E. McDonald
@bottyguy: That’s not Tejas, that’s Arizona.
Ron
you got that right!
kestral
“They come to Rapture thinking they’re gonna be captains of industry, but they all forget that somebody’s gotta scrub the toilets.”
Yeah, I just quoted an audio diary from the game. It still fits!
Gemina13
I say, let ’em do it. Let them recreate Kowloon Walled City on the seas, complete with five-story mansions that’ll crumble in a stiff breeze, a slave labor force that will one day rise up and cut their masters’ throats before ransacking said mansions and fleeing for parts unknown, and a fouled ecosystem that’ll be too toxic even for the gulls. If Kowloon had one moral, it is that you can create a society anywhere, any time, as long as you’re prepared to deal with the consequences.
Throwin Stones
@Jay in Oregon: One of my favorites.
RIP George.
Samara Morgan
@cyntax: the raft-warriors are not libertarians. they are religio-anarchists and babblers.
Thirteen is amazing. And prescient. We are living in Distributed Jesusland right now.
danimal
@tones:
Well, there’s becoming an international tax haven, but I’m sure that qualifies under one or more of these categories already.
Ruth
Ayn Rand’s neighborhood.
Samara Morgan
no juicers have read the Master and Margarita?
that is disappointing.
W. Kiernan
Oh Hell yes, put all those libertards on an uninspected boat far, far away from shore, in a sea full of sharks. This idea almost perfectly encapsulates the phrase “hoist on his own petard.”
For best results, however, the Coast Guard must be enjoined to perform no life-saving actions until after the drowning morons’s credit cards clear. What, you didn’t carry your credit card with you into the lifeboat? What, you say your cell phone shorted out when you went overboard? Sucks to be you, I guess! Have a nice swim!
sherparick
I have the perfect no Government place for them, right off the coast of Somalia.
MissKG
Neptune Shrugged
Samara Morgan
Man Overboard
SFAW
Instead of attaching it to a sea mount, how about they use a bunch of sky hooks?
Doubtful, if all the drug runners can get them now, it’s won’t be that long before a ransomed tanker gives the Somali pirates enough cash to get their own sub-surface fleet.
But is it really cannibalism if they eat the slaves, rather than each other? I mean, what good is it to have slaves, if you can’t kill, field-dress, and eat them with impunity – or at least with a nice red and some fava beans? And after you run out of slaves, there will be plenty of TeaBaggers who want to come “vacation” on Rand-alls Island. (A little NYC humor, sorry.) And because it’ll be a one-way ticket (“Once you get here, you’ll stay!”), the price will be low, Low, LOW!
I see it as a Win-Win scenario on so many levels. Well, except for the dumb mofos who get eaten, but outside of the tricorn manufacturers, who would
give a shitcare?marginalized for stating documented facts
On the upside, maybe all the Republican libertarians will emigrate to one of these offshore ex-oil platforms.
We can always hope.
DS
Nooooooo don’t do it! Anybody play the game “Bioshock”? Check it out… The whole story is centered around an underwater libertarian city.
Original Lee
@Dennis SGMM: You win the thread, sir.
Matt
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea
The complete UN Convention on the Law of the Sea with all articles, annexes, state parties, accession dates, reservations and objections in one book. Keep it on your desk for quick reference!
http://www.amazon.com/United-Nations-Convention-Law-Sea/dp/1449537197/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277579607&sr=1-2