I haven't spent very much time on Reddit at all. But, so far, what I've read in relation to the Reddit Island project makes me think Bitcoin may not be the best fit for what the majority of its participants seem to envision. I'm not really happy to say that, mind you; it just is what it is.
Unfortunately, this is the real world and so money has to be involved somewhere - primarily in the purchase and access to the island. Money on the island wouldn't be a problem - again I envisage an idealist society where money wouldn't be necessary.
http://www.reddit.com/r/redditisland/comments/uh3f2/heres_what_i_think_is_best_easiest_and_most/This seems to be a fairly typical sentiment, and, from what I have gathered of the demographic, likely a 100% serious one. And, that's fine as an ideal. No one can argue with that.
But, reality is not utopia. Pitching in $4000 with a few thousand other forum-goers doesn't buy a spot for you to live on a tropical island. Sorry, but it just doesn't. That's pretty much the reason I didn't bother going this route with the
Bitcoin Island project. I'm not going to be responsible for stripping an island of all it's vegetation and then killing off all nearby ocean life with a cloud of human waste, let alone burying thousands of dead hipsters afterwards. Not that it would realistically get that far, anyways, as thousands of broke people scouring the oceans for enough seafood to sustain themselves without gasoline or motorboats would be doomed to pretty much immediate failure.
Eschewing McMansions and processed foods is one thing. Surviving without something as basic as
money and large-scale agriculture is something else. Doing so on less than an acre, surrounded by thousands of others attempting the same, in a relatively hostile climate, is suicide.
I say this as a member of a family which owns and operates an eco tourism resort in the Cayo District of Belize. And as an individual who has lived and worked in the tropics, has worked in the hospitality business in this exact scenario.
As an original Reddit Island Survey taker and interested party, the reason I quit following this project were the idealistic notions a seeming majority of users harbored.
http://www.reddit.com/r/redditisland/comments/uhaty/realism_for_reddit_island/That having been said, there is obviously a lot of enthusiasm for what they have going so far. As for the possibility of convergence, I can't really say since I'm still digesting their ideas. I'd be interested to know how many of these people are serious enough to drop more like $30,000 on this plan; and then, after that, how well they could handle living with either the evils of truly free market capitalism or some serious collectivism and central planning. Because that's closer to what it would take to support thousands of internet nerds on a tropical island in perpetuity.
