Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands

[RandyFolds]

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.

[FlipPro]

call the Coast Guard for help

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.

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...

[Anonymous]

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.

[NghtRppr]

call the Coast Guard for help

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.

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 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.

[ElectricMucus]

Anyone stupid enough to move there would be a case for the Darwin Award.

Sour grapes.

fuck you

[GideonGono]

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.

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?

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.

hahahahahahahaha!!!  Keep the jokes coming, Ayeyo

[AyeYo]

call the Coast Guard for help

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.

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 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.

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

[J180]

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.

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.

[ansible adams]

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.

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?

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.

[J180]

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.

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?

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.

[J180]

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.

[blogospheroid]

Similarly, seasteads will trade extensively with land-based businesses. The people who profit from those relationships will encourage their government not to interfere and drive away the seastead’s business.

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.

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.

[AyeYo]

Similarly, seasteads will trade extensively with land-based businesses. The people who profit from those relationships will encourage their government not to interfere and drive away the seastead’s business.

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.

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

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.

[blogospheroid]

Similarly, seasteads will trade extensively with land-based businesses. The people who profit from those relationships will encourage their government not to interfere and drive away the seastead’s business.

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.

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

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.

[AyeYo]

Similarly, seasteads will trade extensively with land-based businesses. The people who profit from those relationships will encourage their government not to interfere and drive away the seastead’s business.

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.

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

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?

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.