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

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.

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/IBqFcdQUvya6SsLIP_f69A--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTMxMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/thelookout/Screen-shot-2011-08-16-at-9.39.48-AM.png

I doubt 99% of the conservative posters here won't be invited to these exclusive "islands". Unless Bitcoin goes up  ;).

I doubt 99% of the conservative posters here won't be invited to these exclusive "islands". Unless Bitcoin goes up .

Through those rose-tinted glasses of yours, you must envision the culture of libertarianism as being headed by an elite and if they get their way -- and in this case, through these islands -- there would be no chance that a man of average means will have their way into this said innovation.

What you fail to realize is that we are not corporatist, elitist nor do we want to dominate or rule people. All we are advocates of is self-reliance and to gain pleasure from dominating our fellow man is only contrary to this founding virtue.

These islands will be open to anybody who can provide sufficient value and that will most likely be anybody who is willing to move to it. A civilization based on only rich elites won't be that fruitful. Somebody has to clean the toilets. Look at the details: They want looser building codes, less barriers to entry. If anything, this is only beneficial to the less fortunate. If they wanted it only for wealthy, high-end structures and such there would be more restriction. If they wanted only big companies and monopolies, there would be a manipulative tax structure. So far, none of that is apparent.

In summary, you're wrong about our philosophy. You're wrong about our motives.

The people who want to rule you and make you poorer are the current statists in the Democratic and Republican parties and they are continuing to succeed in doing just that.

No one rules me Atlas, I just know that this is a huge waist of money when this country is 14 trillion in debt, teachers are getting cut out of class rooms, roads are crumbling, and we are at the brink of collapse because of our inability to pay our own bills, even though we have MORE THAN ENOUGH money it seems to build fake islands in the middle of the ocean.

Seriously do you listen to yourself?

Yet you don't see that all money we throw at these things... On average only 10% of it reaches its destination. You are only addressing symptoms. The problem lies in the whole system itself. It's terribly inefficient and destroys innovation that could of saved lives.

At least out of this abomination, we have a man that can still build something of value even though it doesn't support the scheme you so depend on.

You thrive on whims and mere utility. Others thrive on genuine value because people are valuable. They are not mere utilities for a greater cause but virtuous in their own right.

Sure it's a huge waste of money but it's not tax money.

everal decades

You're trying to diagnose the symptoms.  Throwing more money at the problems hasn't worked in the past several decades, what makes you think it will work now?  The system has to change. 

Also, picky grammar note:  it's "waste" not "waist".  :)

From the interview in Details:


Only $1.25 million? It buys a few years of studies and modeling at best. Might as well believe that he's going to build a libertarian space elevator out of Legos.

Our? We? Talk for yourself, you wimp!

Let them build their libertarian islands. Then one week in, let them realise that they aren't some magical superhero from an Ayn Rand novel and that they need hired help to take care of them, and then laugh as that hired help kills them all after being sick of being taken advantage of by smug, spoiled libertarian billionaires.

Sorry to nitpick on such a minor point, but everyone in Galt's Gulch worked. There was no one sitting on his/her backside.

Seasteading is an attempt to enable competitive government. If seasteads become cheap enough(including the cost to defend them), then all sorts of societies could have their own seasteads, not just libertarians. You might have theocracies, meritocracies, kingdoms, aristocracies, technocracies, family rule, seasteads founded upon philosophical principles like utilitarianism, objectivism, even variants in democracy that might be impossible to pull off in a mature modern democracy, like score voting or condorcet voting or futarchy.

The first large seastead might not be a libertopia in any sense. There might be some very nervous investors seeking back their money. It will most probably be a for-profit multi-tenant property, with many defined rules.

Anyone here play the Bioshock games? For anyone who hasn't, the premise is very similar to this: rich guy founds a free-market paradise out in international waters and chaos ensues. Story and artwork were very well done I thought.

The laugh harder when their rig goes down in a storm and they call the Coast Guard for help.  :D

No, just call FEMA. That really worked out well for New Orleans. Oh wait, I forgot, you're one of those idiots that thinks the government has your best interests at heart and can never fuck up.

Yeah, it sure was free considering Andrew Ryan restricted trade outside of Rapture and people were driven insane by bad drugs.

Ah, I was beginning to think nobody here had heard of the series.

Totally irrelevant to what I said.

If they can't afford to insure from disaster, they can't afford to start an island. It's a god damn stupid point. Governments aren't the only ones who can provide disaster relief.

So they have to hire a 24/7 operational rescue service?  And since no one else would need a service like that, they'll be the only customer.  So that new service can charge them pretty much whatever it wants.


This island keeps getting more and more expensive.

No, you lack imagination. There are independent contractors out there. Hospital helicopters, ship crews, the works. These kinds of services are hired privately all the time. You don't need one company. You make something in-house.

Really?  Can you link me to the website of a contractor that does sea rescues in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?

For a small fee but I would rather contract it myself.

The fact is there are various companies with fleets of helicopters. In time of disaster, all you have to do hire out on-call qualified personnel and rent one of the helicopters. It's not hard unless you're lazy and you want somebody to do it all for you which is only to be expected from a statist drone.

Suppose for a moment that you have a "starter" seastead, Seatopia, of several platforms and 2000 people that is independent from any existing government. How is Seatopia going to remain independent? You're not included in any existing intergovernmental agreements, treaties, or trade organizations. That means that any nation that doesn't like your experiment can impose punitive restrictions on trade with Seatopia at trivial cost to its domestic economy but very significant costs to Seatopia.

The Seasteading Institute offers this naïve explanation as to why it won't happen:


By the same logic, the United States does not and can not impose punitive restrictions on trade with Cuba or Iran. Theory says it doesn't happen because it would be economically undesirable. The theory needs some work.

So you can't give me the names of any companies that do mid-Pacific rescues?  You can rent a helicopter for sight seeing no problem.  I'm just interested in seeing what companies have the resources to rescue an entire community thousands of miles out at sea.

Let me spell it out for you:

-The services and people we need exist.

-I hire them out and bring them together.

-Rescue happens.

People don't hire other companies for these sorts of these things. They essentially start their own.

LOL  That's classic.  Because the economic bolstering of doing business with a community of a couple thousand people (at most) definitely outweighs the advantage of simply blockading food from the community and then seizing all the assets.

You're just not intelligent enough to see the connection.

I have heard it argued that the impact of American trade restrictions on Cuba is quite small, since trade has a marginal value. I.e. Trade with the first country is very valuable, trade with the 50th country isn't so important.

Considering how many economists seem to dismiss the power of punitive trade restrictions, that makes me very suspicious about your claim that it could have significant costs. At least unless it involves several countries (such as a UN agreement).

Anyone stupid enough to move there would be a case for the Darwin Award.
http://cache.ohinternet.com/images/b/be/Ackbar.jpg

There's a lot of assets to gain from invading Switzerland too, it doesn't stop small countries from existing. What if the couple of thousand people pay taxes for defense, making the cost of invasion outweigh the assets?

The question of whether these artificial islands will get invaded seems to me to depend on:
1. The economies of scale in defense. Which I'm unsure about.
2. The political cost of invasion. America could invade Canada pretty easily, and probably profit from seizing it's assets, but it wouldn't be politically popular. Perhaps there could be a similar relationship if people, including both the general population and rich billionaires, are supportive of these islands off the coast of the US.

The fact that there isn't an obvious answer makes the experiment all the more interesting.

One society I'd love to see tried would be one based on The Machinery of Freedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinery_of_Freedom), were the author goes through several thought experiments about how privatized law enforcement firms could replace government police and defense. The PDF is available online if you haven't heard of it.

I know most libertarians here would not take the free market that far. But it is still worth testing. Though a possible flaw is that what works for a few thousand people might not work for a society of millions.

Sour grapes.

Switzerland is a mountainous, land-locked country of almost 8 MILLION people that is plenty capable of defending itself and also capable of sustaining itself.

How you think you can compare that to an oil rig of maybe 1,000 people sitting in the middle of the ocean and relying on importation of... everything... is mind boggling.  These people would be, in quite a literal sense, sitting ducks.

It was off the top of my head, there's many smaller countries, have a look at this list: http://geography.about.com/cs/countries/a/smallcountries.htm

My argument is that a large power, whether the US, France, Germany, etc, all the have the military power to steal their assets. But that doesn't mean it's always politically feasible or worth the cost.

I don't have enough military expertise to argue for Switzerland specifically, so I'd rather do it for a small country where there's obviously not much chance of a successful defense. Consider one of the islands with roughly 10000 people on it.

I don't think you understand the irony of this situation.  These people on this totally dependent platform want to be independent.  This is a group of "rugged individuals" trying to get away from some evil system and social contracts, by starting a massively interdependent society that's going to have to run like clockwork for everyone to stay alive - it'll be FAR less free than any current society.  Then to top it all off, they want to be free from all international laws and such... but international law is still the only thing preventing them from getting blown out of the water or having their platform taken over, because the attacking force would see international prosecution/blow-back.

It's the ultimate fail and ultimate irony.  Individuals that want isolation banding together to form the most interdependent society created since the last biodome experiment, and the most externally dependent society ever to exist.


Do you know what these platforms really are?  They're tax free zones for the very wealthy, nothing more.

Monaco...



Seriously though, you have never been to any island communities, have you? Go spend some time in Bocas del Toro or Tahiti or the Cooks or any other archipelago and tell me an island of super-rich 'elites' is not fruitful. It's called contract labor...They drive into the hills from the ghettos in the flats.

YOUR philosophy is not OUR philosophy is not libertarian philosophy. Learn where you stand in the world, homie.

As far as defending and protecting a sovereign sea-state, again, contract labor. Believe it or not, most of the United States is not protected by public fire services. Most small municipalities contract with larger communities to sponge off their infrastructure. The same goes for police. Hell, I live in Los Angeles and there are parts of this city that are protected by private fire and police companies.

See this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

If you have a sovereign sea-bound nation, you will need to have yourself some mercenaries when they storm your castle and hold your son hostage. Sealand if fucking awesome.

It's a social experiment. Whether it's less free or not is a subjective judgement. Are property rights freedom or less freedom? Is removing welfare really freedom if someone starves because of it? I am not asking for a reply to that question, I'm pointing out how the difficulty of defining 'freedom' is a debate which had gone on for at least a century, and which is continuing over the internet as I write this. It's not something you can state as an fact. Plenty of people will see them as 'free' even if you don't. And some people will support them irrespective of whether their free or not, because it's also possible to be a libertarian in a purely utilitarian or materialistic sense.

I have not heard of the creators wanting to be free of international law. The article doesn't mention it. International law is a way of resolving defense and contracts, something that is quite important. But international law does not have a tax authority. It doesn't forbid the use of drugs or have a minimum wage, i.e. the things they want to avoid.

In fact the purpose of these islands seems to be a method to test new types of societies, libertarian ones in particular. It is not an attempt for people to exclude themselves from humanity, which you seem to imply.

When did 'international law' come to exist? What is it? Who wrote it?

Various voluntary agreements. I'm including things like private arbitration. My understanding is that (other then a few recent developments) most international trade contracts are not enforced by government courts, but work on a reputation system through private agencies.

This is kind of cool on paper, but they are going to need a real army if they are outside of american waters.
Pirates are no joke, and I can only imagine new types of pirates mobbin on this type of "investment".
that means they will no doubt have to be authoritarian in some manner.
so it will more than likely just be a military installation controlled by the US military.

I'm not trying to be a dick, I am just pointing out that the concept of 'international law' is just what you said, a voluntary set of standards. It really offers nothing in the way of protections. Where was 'international law' for all those poor bastards in Guantanamo Bay?


Seriously, read up on Sealand. http://www.sealandgov.org/

It is a friggin' cool story, complete with mercenaries and hostile takeovers of the sovereign nation by opposing governments as well as private armies. It ain't easy being the king.

You are talking about a governmental response under a Republican Conservative President Bush. You can't say the response was anywhere near as inadequate when the oil spill happened under Obama. Fema was there almost immediately and the spill was cleaned promptly. Obama did a fabulous job for a first term President, but all we heard was crickets...

The oil spill wouldn't of happened in the first place if we held the oil companies completely accountable to disaster bills instead of bailing them out with tax payer money.

They wouldn't be able to afford to make these mistakes.

The point is that the government isn't magical. It's capable of making mistakes and since it doesn't go bankrupt when it does make mistakes it has less incentive to prevent them in the first place compared to a private company in a free market.

fuck you

For that to have any meaningful effect on a small nation you would need every country on earth to put sanctions on seatopia. Good luck convincing Cuba not to trade with them. Even if 100% sanctions were to happen, they never work. How's that embargo on Mexican Heroin going?


hahahahahahahaha!!!  ;D Keep the jokes coming, Ayeyo

Likewise, the "free market" is not magical, cannot magically solve all problems, and has a clear-as-day history of being very fallible.

I gather that the debate went, summed up:

1. The people would be hypocritical to want to be independent, while at the same time using international law to stop themselves getting blown up.
2. I reply that their purpose is to test new types of society, not to avoid the rest of humanity, meaning they can still take part in international law.
3. You point out, I think correctly, that international law isn't how they would defend themselves anyway.

I think that Mexico could be embargoed/blockaded quite effectively and cheaply if it were a few oil platforms in the middle of international waters instead of a large nation sharing thousands of miles of border with the US. I am assuming that Seatopia is going to offer legalized/deregulated services not found elsewhere, since A) they have little else in terms of comparative advantage for the domestic economy and B) if other nations offered what Seatopia does, people would just go there instead of to a platform in the middle of international waters. If Seatopia dares to live the libertarian dream -- no legal restrictions on weapons, drugs, gambling, prostitution, or private banking, and zero tax rates for everybody -- that's plenty of incentive for the IRS, DEA, and DHS (and most other nations' tax systems, drug enforcement, and counter-terrorism agencies) to shut down Seatopia.

Let's try not confuse 'embargo' and 'blockade'. Wikipedia says:

"Embargoes are similar to economic sanctions and are generally considered legal barriers to trade, not to be confused with blockades, which are often considered to be acts of war."

I would argue for example that an embargo would not work, but that a blockade would. I would guess that GideonGono thinks the same.

By the way check out the seasteading FAQ: http://seasteading.org/about-seasteading/frequently-asked-questions#freedom_without_interference

It's very detailed and goes over several of questions raised in this thread, including things like piracy.

My question is, in this modern era, why should a nation-state try to grab a floating platform?

For the nearest countries, the seastead  or seasteads will be a source of income in terms of trans-shipment, rental for inventories stored, consumers of products, remittance from contract labour(maybe).

The way I look at it, atleast in the initial times, most of the "assets" of the seastead will be intellectual in nature with the money being some variant of bitcoin. After the invention of bitcoin, it is really stupid for a seastead community to maintain its wealth in gold or anything that can be seized. There will be some fuel, food and medicine stocks, but they won't be valuable enough to raid a community for. There will be a small power plant, again, not major enough to raid for and easily sabotagable.

Raids to take over the place and raids to shut down the place are different types of actions as far as seasteaders are concerned.

I think i demonstrated why raids to take over the "wealth" of the place will be unproductive.

Raids to shut down the place - Now, that is a threat of a different category altogether. Early seasteads cannot afford to bring this upon themselves. Thye cannot fight modern nations. Later seasteads - as seasteads grow in reputation and people become more aware of them, there is a greater and greater chance that people will know someone who bought from there, someone who sold something there. The relationships increase. This acts as the first buffer. There are calls to shut down tax havens, but they have not caught on yet.

The second buffer will be increased defence preparedness, which will increase the expected casualty rate of the attacking forces, hopefully enough to tip the scale over to the "not attcking" decision.

As someone already mentioned, the amount of illegal activities going on there would be more than reason enough.  Couple that with the fact that platform is 100% dependent on imports and that it is absolutely helpless to attacks, and it won't last long.

Illegal by your country's law, but what kind of a nation pays real money and resources to go and impose their law on foreign lands? And especially in this era where imperialism is pretty much frowned upon by the majority of international opinion? Only the USA will have the ability to do it and you would have to tilt the public opinion greatly.

The seasteaders are pretty sure that they will be controlling activities that can act as a magnet for attacks, like exporting drugs to countries where they are illegal and research into mass destruction weapons.   That is basic common sense.

Umm... have you kept up with the news for like the past... ever?  The US and NATO invade and/or fire missiles at nations on the daily, simply because they don't like the government policies in those nations.  Familiarize yourself with the military intervention history of the US.  Do you remember the Panama invasion?  How about the Bay of Pigs?  Lebanon?  Somalia?  Nicaragua?  Does Iraq ring a couple dozen bells?  How about Bosnia?  Have you heard what's going on in Afghanistan?


You think that won't also happen to a defenseless oil rig whose MAIN businesses will be things like illegal drugs, illegal weapons, tax havens, sex trade, child pornography, etc.