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http://bestplaces.nydailynews.com/voyeur/internet-billionaire-donates-125-million-create-libertarian-islands

This idea has been around for a long time.  If it becomes a reality, I might just hop on board so to speak.

I thought it had been ruled that countries can't claim human built land as their territory, only natural land

Only $1.25 million?  Thats not enough to buy a house with a decent garden in London let alone to create a free state.  This guy should pony up enough to at least make his idea possible.

I assume that's inaccurate considering how many years Patri Friedman has been trying this, but I don't know enough about law to check. But for a practical aversion of that, have a look at Sealand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand).

For those interested in this, I suggest reading the detailed and well-written FAQ here: http://seasteading.org/about-seasteading/frequently-asked-questions

this is going to be crazy when its done..

Crazy good place to hide from taxes and bang child prostitutes, but otherwise (if it even gets started) it'll just be a disaster that ends in chaos just like every biodome trial... ever.

I hope they build it off the coast of Somalia. I don't want my tax money spent to defend it.

I wondered how long it will take for a thread like this to surface!

One of the better ideas around

http://www.new-utopia.org/

just a pity it is taking so long.

Perhaps you should of read the link I posted? Have a look at this quote below:

We don’t think our libertarian supporters expect to create a perfect libertarian paradise where they can do whatever they want without any interference. They are simply looking for a significant improvement over the territorial status quo. To see how large a gain this might be, try the following thought experiment: Look at all the states currently in existence and consider how a libertarian might hand select the best available policies from among them to create a new, single set of institutions.

For example, there are countries in Europe (Switzerland, The Netherlands and Portugal) with fairly lax drug laws (social freedom). There are economic havens (Luxembourg, Bahamas) with very low tax rates (economic freedom). None are perfect from a libertarian perspective. The drug-tolerant countries tend to be left-leaning states with high taxes. The tax havens tend to be more right-wing and socially restrictive. Libertarians feel the combination of these two types of freedoms is worth striving for, even if either is restricted to the maximum level currently tolerated by any of the powers-that-be. Such a state would be far more libertarian than any currently in existence without pushing the legal envelope or creating any radically new policies.

In practice, some libertarians think they can achieve even more freedom than this. Countries really do have a great deal of leeway in their internal affairs, after all. A libertarian seastead should easily be able to have no zoning laws or building codes, low taxes, no import/export tariffs, few restrictions on weapons, local consumption of drugs, no minimum wage, no legislated work week, no coerced welfare system, no eminent domain and many other items from a laundry list of common libertarian policies.

Sure, there are definite limitations. Actions seen as a serious threat to the security of other nations ought not be tolerated, such as letting terrorists launder money, exporting drugs to countries where they are illegal, or researching or building weapons of mass destruction, particularly with nuclear capabilities.

Why not? Isn't the ability to experiment with new governments and societies a very useful thing? They state repeatedly on the website that this isn't restricted to libertarianism. So I assume various forms of socialism could be tested aswell. The only criteria is that people should always be allowed to leave.

It seems to me that there's a lot to learn here, what ever your political views are.

Which isn't really the goal of the project. From the website:

"Many similar ventures failed because they expected billions to materialize out of thin air. Our ideas for seastead financing are far more realistic. The basic idea is to proceed in self-financing, incremental steps."

I didnt think you were right due to  sealand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand) but I guess you are (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_island#Political_status)

but the japanese may have found a way around that somewhat (http://www.physorg.com/news65185336.html)

They might be able to drill one of the support holes for that much.   :D

Unless they are officially chartered as a member of my country, then the answer is no. Sovereignty has a price, if you don't pay it, then you don't deserve to be free.

There is a very cheap way to remain free: Just offer a secure and trustworthy way to store funds anonymously to the politicians and corporatists of the rest of the countries.

I think your jumping to conclusions by assuming there isn't a price. There is a price here: the useful information gained from experimenting with various untested societies.

I don't think the seasteaders are asking for US defense, but I still think it would be worth the money even if they did.

I do understand that the money is being spent on research, but I'll wait for the peer reviewed articles before I would consider this anywhere near useful as a scientific experiment.

To be honest, it wouldn't cost anything extra for the US to defend a seasteading community off its coast.  All it has to do is announce that the community is under its protection.  No country is going to attack the US or any protectorate of it with its current military capabilities.  As far as pirates, the community is on its own.  They can hire private defense contractors, or simply chip in to fortify their city.  Any city over a certain size that has an armed populace would be too much risk for any but the most brazen and well armed pirates.  Besides, when was the last time you heard of pirates making raids off the US coast?

Yes I know the coast guard runs patrols and therefore would be protecting the seasteading community, but I'm arguing that the marginal cost is zero or negligible.  They are already protecting the US coast and would probably not have to make any extra patrols.  But even if they did the cost of extra patrols is so much smaller than other US military expenditures (Iraq, Afghanistan) it seems stupid to quibble about it.

The irony in that situation would be unbearable.  Rugged, independent individuals leeching protection off an evil government they pay no taxes to.  :D

It wouldn't be parasitic if the US gained a lot of value from guarding the community; however, it would defeat a lot of its intention in being a sovereign entity.

If you bother having a read of the FAQ, the project makes no mentions of morals (good and evil) and isn't even anti-government, though it's mostly libertarians interested in it right now. They want to test all sorts of societies, including socialist ones, but even most libertarians want a government.

Something I would like to see to tried is direct-democracy, e-democracy specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-democracy

My bottom line point is that it really doesn't matter who is doing it, it's a totally idiotic idea.  You can't pretend you're testing these systems of government in some controlled conditions just because you're in the middle of the ocean.  In fact, it's not even good conditions for that type of experiment.  It's not even ok conditions.  In actuality, I can't think of a worse set of conditions to use to test governmental systems under.  A platform at sea is TOTALLY dependent on the outside world and will house such a small community that the literal survival of the society will completely depend on each and every individual.

Look up the many biodome experiments if you want to see the success rate (0%, just FYI) of this type of thing.

You are right about the community being too small. 200 good individuals (the initial raft) could probably make the worst kinds of governments still work. But this is supposed to be a long-term project, the idea to have governments (eventually) act like corporations, with market forces selecting for them. So if you don't like your government you could detach your property and go somewhere else. Under that system, seasteads will start to stick together under particularly effective/uncorrupt systems and we'll start to see city states of few thousand people.

Unless you get surrounded by a ring of corrupt seasteds that endup getting absorbed by one evil empire, and then they start growing innards till you not have anywhere to go but you can't stay either...

Like with the evolution of living species, the evolution of states favors the ones that are good enough for the moment, but not necessarily perfect. At at some point(s) remaining imperfect costs less than changing for the better.

I can't make the same connection with evolution so you so might need to clarify it a bit, as I assume others will have the same problem. Perhaps you could provide an example of a real-world geno/phenotype with this property?

That doesn't change anything.  A few thousand people still results in ultimate reliance on one another.  If this society is supposed to be self-sustaining, you'd at least one person from every imaginable profession.  With a couple thousand people, that's about all you're going to get is 1-2 people from each profession.  That means everyone needs to execute their job flawlessly.  If a couple people miss a beat, the survival of the entire society is at risk.

It isn't supposed to be self-substaining (as I've had to repeat several times). They want to trade with other countries, most goods will still be imported even with a few thousand people. I will put that in bold text if I have to say that again!

He is a troll, dont bother.

You aren't understanding what I'm saying.

You need a controlled environment to do an experiment.  You need an isolated environment to do a political experiment.  This idea is as unisolated as can possibly be because it is 100% dependent on help from the outside.  They will have to import damn near everything.  That's NOT a realistic society, so the experiment is a failure from the get go.

Where did you come up with that idea?

Then I guess AyeYo would be happy to agree that you can't test Free Market economics in a society with government stimuli such as taxation along with other entities.

Economists often rely on "natural experiments", since it it almost impossible to persuade a representative sample of humans to change their entire lives in order to generate data.

In these hypothetical cases, many models will be applied to interpret the data generated.  The societies do not exist in isolation to answer someone's question.

While I would not currently choose to live in one of these societies, I see no large involuntary human cost to their activities and a great deal of potential gain.  Even if the next 1000 artificial societies fail, we'll have access to a great deal of information regarding how not to order societies.  It's difficult to imagine anyone opposing their activities without malicious intent.

There's no such thing as a free market.  Markets don't just happen, they are created through laws and regulations.  So, yes, it's impossible to test free market economics, period.

What do they do with the human wastes, particularly sewerage?

Any specific rules, codes on that I wonder?

Do you think people want to walk on streets of filth? Hell yes there will be sewage because people will want it.

So straight into the ocean?, treated?, one company?, competing sewage networks?, etc?

What rules/codes I wonder? Who says what goes?

Human desire.

Do you have the audacity to put money towards a company that dumps your waste directly into an ocean? The people will say what goes with their dollar.

Without wanting to rub your nose in it, so to speak, you haven't offered any specific details how these messy intricacies get sorted out in such confined quarters as an offshore floating rig. Have you ever worked on one?

That's the thing: no one individual could plan this out. It would be a coalition of many desires and projects. Can you really say it's impossible to achieve a result? One could argue its impossible to predict one.

Who deciphered the intracities of the web today when it was first started? Nobody planned this all out. People built the individual parts as they willed and this is what we have today: a vast collection of information cataloged by competing searching engines. That wasn't predicted nor planned beforehand.

I can't offer a complete solution but I can theorize. What you can't do is say it can't happen because we don't know. As history has shown, man has built in the face of all adversity without central planners.

Without wanting to get into a shit-fight, I see you have stuck steadfastly to platitudes and generalities. Theorising is wonderful but it doesn't get rid of shit; ask your local authority who deals with the stuff you flush down the toilet.

Moving sewage around and disposing of it hygienically for 2-3000 confined people is an engineering problem in this day and age, unless you have some masterful new technology that does away with the nastiness magically?? Questions remain as to who pays for it and how do you collect the expenses equitably? How do you police it if someone chooses to opt out and save a few bitcoins by just chucking shit out the porthole?

We'll use this sticky problem as a test case "example solution" for your general solution offered above, if you are the type of Libertarian that is game to roll your sleeves up and get shit done.

Cruise ships can hold several thousand people, it seems to have the same issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_ship_pollution_in_the_United_States

Which would make me a prefer a floating city with sewage regulation, due to the public choice problem behind it. My understanding is that modern septic tanks get rid of exess water, leaving only solid waste behind to be pumped every few years. So not everywhere will need a waste treatment plant. The first seasteads are going to ship it back to shore.

Remember the idea is to make government itself a marketable good with open competition. Which means central planning can still be selected for (by the migration of people) if it's done well. Libertarians will generally expect the winners of it to be similar to their views, but there's nothing stated in the rules that it's true.

I'm unsure why socialists or traditional anarchists are not as interested.

Just sell your shit as fuel

I think it's much more likely that your tax money will be spent to attack it.

Yes, please. =p

A powerful nation can come in and conquer these tiny island nations because they could never pack enough military to fight off a much larger nation like China or even North Korea.

rofl NK is going to stage an attack off the US coast? you must be up out your mind.



Anyway, does anyone here have objections - in principle - to people seceding in such a way if they pay for their own way?

Oh yes, you'd better believe it.  They will paddle their bathtubs over to the US coast and then throw rocks at the coast guard.

Actually, they probably can't afford bathtubs.

Yes.  In fact, your post demonstrates why I object to it.  I don't want people paying no taxes to be afforded protection by the US or any other nation.  I don't want a colony of pedophiles and druggies to be living freely off the coast of my country.

Can you expand on how my post "demonstrates" why you object to it? I'm dense or something. I don't get it.

By the clause "if they pay for their own way" I meant to exclude the possibility of the US contributing protection. Either the colony did it themselves or it didn't happen.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Well if a libertarian island starts having laws the US doesn't like, then they won't defend it.  If the island abolishes all those sex laws like age of consent, age of pornography, age of prostitution, etc. then the USA will let it be invaded.  Also if it becomes a haven for drugs and software piracy, they'll let it be invaded.

They might even send a team or two of their own

I have a hard time believing that a country that was so scared of communism spreading close to its borders would let any foreign power invade a colony THAT close off US shores. No way.

The US would not "let" it be invaded simply because they'd be the invaders ;)

This island will be a protectorate of the USA and so it can't have libertarian laws that upset society too much.  Obviously it won't legalize rape or murder, but it might you know:
* If your neighbor's dog barks nonstop, you can shoot the dog in self defense
* Gets rid of copyright and patent laws
* No laws of sexual pruditry
* All the US bills named with Orwellian doublespeak (e.g. Patriotic Act, Clear Skies Act, Healthy Forests Act) will be officiall referred to by honest names.

Etc.

That kind of thing would make people in the US to complain and the freedoms would be taken away.

I think I'll ask a similar question instead: does anyone here have objections to secession from the state? If the state's territory is not being lost? If taxpayers bear no brunt? Etc. etc.

Obviously this relates to the thread topic, but right now I'm more interested in the principle behind seasteading than I am in objections to possible cases.

Has anyone written a fictional story about what it would be like to live on a libertarian island that was intentionally built that way? I'm having a difficult time with understanding how it would work. After the headache Ayn Rand left me, I would hope that this idea has improved in the last several decades.

Some "author" - not sure if he's a hack or not - is apparently writing one right now. I recall him saying it'll be "even-handed" but we know how such claims go. He wrote about the Seasteading idea on his blog, too. I'll try to look it up.

Also I think someone wrote a book about island countries. Not having any luck remembering the author or title name, though, so hopefully it all comes back to me.

"Lord of the Flies" - William Golding

Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle?

The one I'm thinking of was a "how to" guide lol

I sympathize with the Rand headache.  I only made it about half-way through Atlas Shrugged before the dramatic, long-winded prose, and idealistic two-dimensional characters defeated me.  Withur We (http://www.withurwe.com/) might be what you are looking for.  I believe it's the author's first book and the writing seemed a little stilted to me at the beginning but I think it improves throughout the book.  Libertarianism and Austrian economics are littered throughout the book, but the story is interesting and I thought the anarchic society was handled even-handedly.  I don't want to say much more because I don't want to spoil the story.  It's a novel with a definite ideological bias but it's pretty good reading.

so the billionaire cares enough about this idea to donate less than 0.1% of his gains from society to it?

You speak as if society did not gain from his idea. Do you hold this sentiment or am I reading too much into your question?

gained? what about net gain? a billionaire's effect on the economy skews production priorities a lot. So in production, market forces lead society as a whole to cease production of needed items and produce more luxuries. With less competition for goods afforded and needed by ordinary people cost of living goes up.

The net loss is shared by billions to cater for a billionaire. no thanks.

Does Bioshock count?

Maybe Gulliver's Travels?

Psychic mutants and Lilliputians are just as believable as a Libertarian society.

Really, the best custom-tailored make-believe world where libertarianism totally works is... Atlas Shrugged.

Sadly, this is probably true.

Oh wait, there's 4chan's /b/.  Well back when /b/ was good.

at least the guy on sealand had weapons
what's to stop anybody from seizing millionaire ideologue refuge island? last time i checked history, independent countries with no defence or intl treaties end up getting fucked. i don't see why anything would change now. hey somali 'fisherman'.. go seize this place and plant a Puntland flag.