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> Why the fear of opt-in competition? Nobody is forcing anyone to move to these places. What they are is an opportunity to try out new governance modes. It's a

> Why the fear of opt-in competition? Nobody is forcing anyone to move to these places. What they are is an opportunity to try out new governance modes. It's a governance mode that was heavily used throughout the European colonial period and it resulted in the rape and theft of the local populations and underclasses of all the nations involved. When you put things in the proper historical context, the hostility is rather well-reasoned.

nsxwolf 7y ago
Weren't there always native populations involved in these cases? That isn't the case with seasteading. For now you have to assent to the idea and immigrate.
- klyrs 7y ago
  > For now you have to assent to the idea and immigrate. Unless you're a victim of human trafficking. Or, for example, read up on how scientologists use their cruise ship [1]. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/03/world/scientology-cruise-ship/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/03/world/scientology-cruise-ship...
  - darawk 7y ago
    So...your concern is that seasteading will promote human trafficking?
    - klyrs 7y ago
      I'm saying it's a risk, and directly responding to the notion that "for now" emigration is at-will.
      - darawk 7y ago
        Human trafficking is a risk in any scenario, though. It's unclear why that's a salient issue here.
        klyrs 7y ago
        It's salient because seasteads are relatively lawless and, like Alcatraz or a cruise ship, difficult to flee without assistance.
        solveit 7y ago
        I'm glad you brought up cruise ships because, as you say, they are difficult to flee, and they have indeed been embroiled in human trafficking. Few people think that this means that cruise ships are inherently a bad idea; it just means that they should be done well. Why do you think seasteading can't be done well?
- arrosenberg 7y ago
  Local populations AND the underclass. It's not like the entire population of the United Kingdom benefited from the largess of the Empire — the benefits accrued to the wealthy and the Monarchy. What happens when you move there and some local strongman with the most weapons decides he needs slaves? Government exists because the majority of people got tired of being hassled by warlords, and they got banded together to create and enforce laws they could all abide by or one warlord was able to create a stable coalition for a time by taking responsibility for the justice of the land. Why would anyone in their right mind, other than a warlord-wannabe billionaire, assent to this idea?
  - darawk 7y ago
    > Why would anyone in their right mind, other than a warlord-wannabe billionaire, assent to this idea? Maybe they won't. You are, in a certain sense, assenting to it right now. Websites have exactly this governance model. Hacker News is run by a king. We all choose to spend time here anyway, because he does a good job responding to our needs. A lot of things work this way, in fact. When you go to a restaurant, you don't get to vote on the menu. You order what's there, but you choose which restaurants you patronize. There is no, in principle, reason that the same cannot be applied to where you choose to live. The primary difference is the transaction costs of relocation and the cost of mistakes. It's easy to go to a different restaurant if you don't like the menu. It's less easy to move. But some people are willing to make that tradeoff for more efficient governance.
    - arrosenberg 7y ago
      It seems to me that the primary difference is your ability to reverse course once you have relocated if you aren't the guy at the absolute top. Rather, it's not the switching cost going in, so much as the switching cost going out - it's the same problem you'd face joining Scientology. The original question I responded to is "why the fear of opt-in competition to the current model of governance?" The answer is that meaning of "efficient" can vary widely depending on who wields power. At our current evolutionary state communalism works up to about 150 people. Beyond that, you need a higher level of government, and historically that means some form of authoritarian government. Since this idea is being proposed by tech-funded billionaires, I can apply a filter to history to glean some insight as to what happens when a group of wealthy sociopaths are given absolute rule over a state. Since I value popularly elected, republican forms of government and free markets empowered by organized labor, I would naturally oppose an experiment that will very obviously lead to more autocracy, servitude, and exploitation by billionaires seeking to bestow feudal fiefs on themselves.
BurningFrog 7y ago
ReallY? Can you list a few historical cities founded under a similar model that had the awful results you claim?
dtwest 7y ago
Since you're talking about proper historical context, it should be mentioned that none of the "nations" you speak of of were nation states in the modern sense. Many of the local populations were experiencing theft from their local warlords or kings or emperors before the Europeans came. Human history is full of people abusing power, it certainly wasn't first introduced by the Europeans, and it isn't unique to colonial style oppression.
grey-area 7y ago
The same could be said of any governance model, including democracy, tyranny, monarchy etc. Perhaps the problem is humans, not a particular system of government.
whowhatwhy 7y ago
yea damned humans will rape the mermaids

nsxwolf 7y ago

Weren't there always native populations involved in these cases? That isn't the case with seasteading. For now you have to assent to the idea and immigrate.

klyrs 7y ago
> For now you have to assent to the idea and immigrate. Unless you're a victim of human trafficking. Or, for example, read up on how scientologists use their cruise ship [1]. [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/03/world/scientology-cruise-ship/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/03/world/scientology-cruise-ship...
- darawk 7y ago
  So...your concern is that seasteading will promote human trafficking?
  - klyrs 7y ago
    I'm saying it's a risk, and directly responding to the notion that "for now" emigration is at-will.
    - darawk 7y ago
      Human trafficking is a risk in any scenario, though. It's unclear why that's a salient issue here.
      - klyrs 7y ago
        It's salient because seasteads are relatively lawless and, like Alcatraz or a cruise ship, difficult to flee without assistance.
        solveit 7y ago
        I'm glad you brought up cruise ships because, as you say, they are difficult to flee, and they have indeed been embroiled in human trafficking. Few people think that this means that cruise ships are inherently a bad idea; it just means that they should be done well. Why do you think seasteading can't be done well?
arrosenberg 7y ago
Local populations AND the underclass. It's not like the entire population of the United Kingdom benefited from the largess of the Empire — the benefits accrued to the wealthy and the Monarchy. What happens when you move there and some local strongman with the most weapons decides he needs slaves? Government exists because the majority of people got tired of being hassled by warlords, and they got banded together to create and enforce laws they could all abide by or one warlord was able to create a stable coalition for a time by taking responsibility for the justice of the land. Why would anyone in their right mind, other than a warlord-wannabe billionaire, assent to this idea?
- darawk 7y ago
  > Why would anyone in their right mind, other than a warlord-wannabe billionaire, assent to this idea? Maybe they won't. You are, in a certain sense, assenting to it right now. Websites have exactly this governance model. Hacker News is run by a king. We all choose to spend time here anyway, because he does a good job responding to our needs. A lot of things work this way, in fact. When you go to a restaurant, you don't get to vote on the menu. You order what's there, but you choose which restaurants you patronize. There is no, in principle, reason that the same cannot be applied to where you choose to live. The primary difference is the transaction costs of relocation and the cost of mistakes. It's easy to go to a different restaurant if you don't like the menu. It's less easy to move. But some people are willing to make that tradeoff for more efficient governance.
  - arrosenberg 7y ago
    It seems to me that the primary difference is your ability to reverse course once you have relocated if you aren't the guy at the absolute top. Rather, it's not the switching cost going in, so much as the switching cost going out - it's the same problem you'd face joining Scientology. The original question I responded to is "why the fear of opt-in competition to the current model of governance?" The answer is that meaning of "efficient" can vary widely depending on who wields power. At our current evolutionary state communalism works up to about 150 people. Beyond that, you need a higher level of government, and historically that means some form of authoritarian government. Since this idea is being proposed by tech-funded billionaires, I can apply a filter to history to glean some insight as to what happens when a group of wealthy sociopaths are given absolute rule over a state. Since I value popularly elected, republican forms of government and free markets empowered by organized labor, I would naturally oppose an experiment that will very obviously lead to more autocracy, servitude, and exploitation by billionaires seeking to bestow feudal fiefs on themselves.

BurningFrog 7y ago

ReallY? Can you list a few historical cities founded under a similar model that had the awful results you claim?

dtwest 7y ago

Since you're talking about proper historical context, it should be mentioned that none of the "nations" you speak of of were nation states in the modern sense. Many of the local populations were experiencing theft from their local warlords or kings or emperors before the Europeans came. Human history is full of people abusing power, it certainly wasn't first introduced by the Europeans, and it isn't unique to colonial style oppression.

grey-area 7y ago

The same could be said of any governance model, including democracy, tyranny, monarchy etc. Perhaps the problem is humans, not a particular system of government.

whowhatwhy 7y ago

yea damned humans will rape the mermaids