Bitcoin Forum

So there's this guy named Patri Friedman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patri_Friedman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patri_Friedman)) who came up with this idea called Seasteading. There was an article written about it that's a couple of months old that I just came across today (http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/12/17/166887292/dont-like-the-government-make-your-own-on-international-waters (http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/12/17/166887292/dont-like-the-government-make-your-own-on-international-waters)).

I thought it was all very interesting, and I also thought it would be a great potential platform for the use of various crypto-currency forks. Each Seastead (if they ever actually were created) could create a custom crypto-currency fork for use only on their island. All trade within the island could be done in this currency, with the citizens mining the blockchain on a private intranet accessible only from being on the platform itself. These currencies could be added to an exchange (much like BTC-e) that allow you to trade one coin for another, or that coin for a fiat-based currency. This would in effect create trade deficits. I realize that a country like the US (or other major nation) could easily try and buy up a large portion of the coin to destabilize and/or destroy the faith in the currency, but this could be considered an act of terrorism in that Seastead's constitution, to be brought to the UN in an attempt to get sanctions against the nation in violation, or all trade must be stopped with the country if nothing else.

I guess there's a million ways to look at it that could be good or bad, but I just thought it was a neat idea that definitely could benefit from the use of cryptos. Opinions?

-Moose

An easy way to hedge against that type of financial war would be to just distribute X amount of currency to your citizens. If they push the exchange rate up 100x, that means you can quite easily support your country importing virtually everything (which in the case of seasteading is most likely to be the case anyway) at extremely low prices to you. Needless to say, I dont think this is the route they will take.

I would love to see the project succeed, but have little faith in it doing so.

Patri Friedman's idea has a huge flaw that turned me off and should turn you off as well.

The flaw is that his idea relies on hope, the hope that governments around the world wont see a seastead as something hostile to them and just flat out destroy it. It's the reason why although you'd have more freedom, the idea says that you couldn't trade or own weapons, that you would still have to follow money laundering laws, that you couldn't trade "illicit" goods, ect ect all for the purpose of not pissing of governments so they don't come and destroy it.

Well if I was ever going to make the unbelievable sacrifice and live in the middle of the ocean I damn well want the complete package of freedom otherwise it's just not worth it. And this is the reason I completely abandoned this idea.


Plus I can live in my home, where I am right now, hold my wealth in bitcoins and not give a shit about any financial or tax laws. I'm not saying that I do this (wink wink government agent reading this) but I'm saying I have that option. So I really don't know what more I'd get living on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

That's one of the things I like about the Free State Project (http://freestateproject.org). If they ever tried to cage/arrest all the freestaters they'd have to arrest a significant portion of the state legislature as well as dozens of lesser office holders. There's over a thousand of us here already, and the migration hasn't even officially started; not to mention all the natives we've befriended. Heck, I've been here longer than anti-freestater Cynthia Chase  ;D

Seems everyone, particularly gold bugs who fret a currency collapse, are still tied to this medieval serf mentality of 'where should I go'. It is surprising how people do not seem to comprehend the idea that the idea of America has moved from North America and not to a physical location but to Cipherspace.

Good point. I've been slowly downsizing physical possessions and moving more of my "stuff" to the cloud. I also have a friend who is an avid reader, and who loves e-books because then if anyone tries to seize his possessions he can just erase them and all the value is gone.

If immigration laws werent so retarded I bet thousands of people would move there overnight from around the world.

Agreed.  Creating a new country is not just about having a territory.  It's much more about being able to defend it.

I'd go.  This is pretty cool and goes along with my life goal to buy an island.