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Seems like this is some kind of political movement to create autonomous floating mini states. Have these people never played BioShock? This is basically the sa

Seems like this is some kind of political movement to create autonomous floating mini states. Have these people never played BioShock? This is basically the same naive libertarian ideas going wild. For such an project to be successful you need to have some serious funding. Why should anyone fund this? Any legitimate industry will have a hard time on the ocean where you have horrible logistics, nearly no access to resources and are miles away from potential clients.At best I could maybe see a niche for some gimmicky tourism. So what would it be used for? Let's be honest: Tax evasion, human trafficking and gambling. It would be way too expensive to live there for normal people. Plus it would more oppressive. You can at least flee from a tyrannical government on land. If you are in the middle of the ocean? Good luck. Though I dig the futurism. As long a they keep larping, good for them. Just hope they don't think it is a good idea in real life.

pochamago 5y ago
There are other laws libertarians would like to circumvent. Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs, civil asset forfeiture spring to mind. Starting a new country on the ocean is a pretty drastic way to fight back, but i can't deny the impulse to opt out when change appears impossible.
- cardanome 5y ago
  > Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs, civil asset forfeiture spring to mind. Just out of interest: What kind of problem do you, personally, have with these that you are considering starting a new country? And isn't it the issue that the rich can already circumvent laws just fine? How is all this going to help the poor who have to stem the main bulk of the tax burden while the rich use loop holes and tax havens? They ware not the ones that are going to live on the ocean.
  - golergka 5y ago
    > How is all this going to help the poor who have to stem the main bulk of the tax burden Are you not aware of libertarian views on said tax burden?
    - klipt 5y ago
      I'm pretty sure the libertarian idea of not paying any property taxes would just lead to rich feudal lords owning everything and everyone else paying them rent. Which is probably worse for everyone else than paying taxes which are at least nominally used for the public good.
      - golergka 5y ago
        I really don't know how not to violate HN's guideline to maintain a kind and openminded discussion when presented with such a straw-man. There's just no way to react to this that would be in any way sincere and not offensive.
      - fighterpilot 5y ago
        Property taxes are viewed as among the least bad types of tax among right-libertarians. And since libertarians believe in some minimal level of taxation to fund the army etc, your comment is inaccurate.
  - cldellow 5y ago
    I'm not the OP, but the three listed things are fairly bland issues by libertarian standards. Occupational licensing: it's gatekeeping that drives up the cost of services, reduces competition and quality. For example, when I dislocated my shoulder, the offsite radiologist who read the X-ray declared that it wasn't dislocated. He was wrong. Luckily for me, the staff at the clinic ignored his diagnosis and reduced it anyway. Over scheduling of drugs: In the US, cannabis is a Schedule I drug at the federal level. This is the same bucket as heroin and the date rape drug. Prosecutors can use (or abuse) prosecutorial discretion to decide who to pursue for cannabis offenses, resulting in unequal outcomes based on your socioeconomic status. As a Canadian, I can be denied entry to the US if I admit having used cannabis. This seems wasteful, and impairs useful things like economic migration or families visiting each other. Civil asset forfeiture: there are perverse incentives here where: (1) the agency seizing the money gets to use it for their operating expenses and (2) the burden of proof rests on the person whose property is seized. There are documented cases of police targeting travellers with out of state plates, knowing that they are unlikely to return to fight their case in court. As someone who takes road trips through the US, this affects me. If you want to stir the libertarian pot, you should talk about child labour, consensual slavery and selling body parts. Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs and civil asset forfeiture aren't that out there, IMO.
- Natsu 5y ago
  > civil asset forfeiture It seems odd to me to trade a small but real risk of this should I decide to carry around large quantities of cash (and/or drugs) for the risk of being robbed by literal pirates with no real recourse unless you're able to fight them off personally.
Uhhrrr 5y ago
> So what would it be used for? Let's be honest: Tax evasion, human trafficking and gambling. I can think of a lot of uses besides those. Prostitution between consenting adults, fun drugs, medical drugs which are tied up by the FDA etc, testing of drones and driverless vehicles, playing lawn darts, and avoiding obsolete regulations come to mind.
- cardanome 5y ago
  > Prostitution between consenting adults There are real world countries that you can visit for this. For some reason, people that promote legalization are never willing to look at countries that have done so. We have this here in Germany and I have to tell you, it is not a success story to say the the least. There is a huge problem with human trafficking. Yes, people always say it will go away if you legalize it. The data says otherwise, it gets in fact worse. All the red light district are also controlled by criminal gangs. They are mostly ignored by the state as long a they "help" with collecting the taxes. And this is what is happening in a strong state with a relative low level of corruption. > fun drugs Again there are enough states that allow them and the list if growing. > medical drugs which are tied up by the FDA Same here. > testing of drones and driverless vehicles Sure you can test them. How else a companies developing them? Sure public roads are regulated, thank god for that. I don't want to die because someone wanted to test his driverless car in production. > playing lawn darts Why can't you in your country? > avoiding obsolete regulations Eh sounds minor and again lot's of countries to choose from already.
  - Uhhrrr 5y ago
    A strong benefit of seasteading is that a small group of people can pick and choose which things they want to be legal. For example, you cite a couple things which are legal in Germany, but homeschooling isn't legal there, nor is vacuuming on Sunday.
    - cardanome 5y ago
      Wanting to homeschool you kids but not being willing to give up easy access to legal prostitution is a very strange hill to die on. I get what you are saying but Libertarians seem to ignore elementary freedoms in favor of picking really weird fights. What elementary freedoms? Not having to starve to death. Not being bankrupted by health care costs. Not having to fear for my live. No having to live in a society where people lack basic education. Enjoying well maintained public roads. Being taking care of when getting old. They have some weird ultra-naive definitions of freedom that only seems to include absence of rules. Like they see not being able to vacuum on a Sunday, not the freedom to enjoy a quiet Sunday. (Well at least I can dream about, it is not as enforced as people here probably believe.) Everything is give and take. Societies thrive when people are willing to compromise.
myfavoritedog 5y ago
You ever notice how “libertarian gone wild” examples are always fiction? Movies, video games, etc... while collectivism gone wild’s real-world failures are everywhere to be seen in even recent history? USSR, China, Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, ... Not that all libertarian ideas are perfect, but when you start building on top of the non-aggression principle, other problems seem so much more manageable.
captn3m0 5y ago
>For such an project to be successful you need to have some serious funding. Why should anyone fund this? <del>Not to support it, but Peter Thiel is a founder of the Seasteading institute[0], so funding shouldn't be a concern.</del> >The Seasteading Institute is a nonprofit organization, based in California. It was founded in 2008 by activist, software engineer and political economic theorist Patri Friedman, grandson of Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, and technology entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist Peter Thiel. Looks like he gave up on it though[1]: >In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Thiel said seasteads are "not quite feasible from an engineering perspective" and "still very far in the future" [0]:https://www.seasteading.org/about/ https://www.seasteading.org/about/ [1]: https://www.businessinsider.in/facebooks-mysterious-hardware-division-is-working-on-tech-to-read-brain-waves-that-could-let-users-send-thoughts-to-each-other/articleshow/56489719.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/facebooks-mysterious-hardware...

pochamago 5y ago

There are other laws libertarians would like to circumvent. Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs, civil asset forfeiture spring to mind. Starting a new country on the ocean is a pretty drastic way to fight back, but i can't deny the impulse to opt out when change appears impossible.

cardanome 5y ago
> Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs, civil asset forfeiture spring to mind. Just out of interest: What kind of problem do you, personally, have with these that you are considering starting a new country? And isn't it the issue that the rich can already circumvent laws just fine? How is all this going to help the poor who have to stem the main bulk of the tax burden while the rich use loop holes and tax havens? They ware not the ones that are going to live on the ocean.
- golergka 5y ago
  > How is all this going to help the poor who have to stem the main bulk of the tax burden Are you not aware of libertarian views on said tax burden?
  - klipt 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure the libertarian idea of not paying any property taxes would just lead to rich feudal lords owning everything and everyone else paying them rent. Which is probably worse for everyone else than paying taxes which are at least nominally used for the public good.
    - golergka 5y ago
      I really don't know how not to violate HN's guideline to maintain a kind and openminded discussion when presented with such a straw-man. There's just no way to react to this that would be in any way sincere and not offensive.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      Property taxes are viewed as among the least bad types of tax among right-libertarians. And since libertarians believe in some minimal level of taxation to fund the army etc, your comment is inaccurate.
- cldellow 5y ago
  I'm not the OP, but the three listed things are fairly bland issues by libertarian standards. Occupational licensing: it's gatekeeping that drives up the cost of services, reduces competition and quality. For example, when I dislocated my shoulder, the offsite radiologist who read the X-ray declared that it wasn't dislocated. He was wrong. Luckily for me, the staff at the clinic ignored his diagnosis and reduced it anyway. Over scheduling of drugs: In the US, cannabis is a Schedule I drug at the federal level. This is the same bucket as heroin and the date rape drug. Prosecutors can use (or abuse) prosecutorial discretion to decide who to pursue for cannabis offenses, resulting in unequal outcomes based on your socioeconomic status. As a Canadian, I can be denied entry to the US if I admit having used cannabis. This seems wasteful, and impairs useful things like economic migration or families visiting each other. Civil asset forfeiture: there are perverse incentives here where: (1) the agency seizing the money gets to use it for their operating expenses and (2) the burden of proof rests on the person whose property is seized. There are documented cases of police targeting travellers with out of state plates, knowing that they are unlikely to return to fight their case in court. As someone who takes road trips through the US, this affects me. If you want to stir the libertarian pot, you should talk about child labour, consensual slavery and selling body parts. Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs and civil asset forfeiture aren't that out there, IMO.
Natsu 5y ago
> civil asset forfeiture It seems odd to me to trade a small but real risk of this should I decide to carry around large quantities of cash (and/or drugs) for the risk of being robbed by literal pirates with no real recourse unless you're able to fight them off personally.

Uhhrrr 5y ago

> So what would it be used for? Let's be honest: Tax evasion, human trafficking and gambling. I can think of a lot of uses besides those. Prostitution between consenting adults, fun drugs, medical drugs which are tied up by the FDA etc, testing of drones and driverless vehicles, playing lawn darts, and avoiding obsolete regulations come to mind.

cardanome 5y ago
> Prostitution between consenting adults There are real world countries that you can visit for this. For some reason, people that promote legalization are never willing to look at countries that have done so. We have this here in Germany and I have to tell you, it is not a success story to say the the least. There is a huge problem with human trafficking. Yes, people always say it will go away if you legalize it. The data says otherwise, it gets in fact worse. All the red light district are also controlled by criminal gangs. They are mostly ignored by the state as long a they "help" with collecting the taxes. And this is what is happening in a strong state with a relative low level of corruption. > fun drugs Again there are enough states that allow them and the list if growing. > medical drugs which are tied up by the FDA Same here. > testing of drones and driverless vehicles Sure you can test them. How else a companies developing them? Sure public roads are regulated, thank god for that. I don't want to die because someone wanted to test his driverless car in production. > playing lawn darts Why can't you in your country? > avoiding obsolete regulations Eh sounds minor and again lot's of countries to choose from already.
- Uhhrrr 5y ago
  A strong benefit of seasteading is that a small group of people can pick and choose which things they want to be legal. For example, you cite a couple things which are legal in Germany, but homeschooling isn't legal there, nor is vacuuming on Sunday.
  - cardanome 5y ago
    Wanting to homeschool you kids but not being willing to give up easy access to legal prostitution is a very strange hill to die on. I get what you are saying but Libertarians seem to ignore elementary freedoms in favor of picking really weird fights. What elementary freedoms? Not having to starve to death. Not being bankrupted by health care costs. Not having to fear for my live. No having to live in a society where people lack basic education. Enjoying well maintained public roads. Being taking care of when getting old. They have some weird ultra-naive definitions of freedom that only seems to include absence of rules. Like they see not being able to vacuum on a Sunday, not the freedom to enjoy a quiet Sunday. (Well at least I can dream about, it is not as enforced as people here probably believe.) Everything is give and take. Societies thrive when people are willing to compromise.

myfavoritedog 5y ago

You ever notice how “libertarian gone wild” examples are always fiction? Movies, video games, etc... while collectivism gone wild’s real-world failures are everywhere to be seen in even recent history? USSR, China, Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, ... Not that all libertarian ideas are perfect, but when you start building on top of the non-aggression principle, other problems seem so much more manageable.

captn3m0 5y ago

>For such an project to be successful you need to have some serious funding. Why should anyone fund this? <del>Not to support it, but Peter Thiel is a founder of the Seasteading institute[0], so funding shouldn't be a concern.</del> >The Seasteading Institute is a nonprofit organization, based in California. It was founded in 2008 by activist, software engineer and political economic theorist Patri Friedman, grandson of Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman, and technology entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist Peter Thiel. Looks like he gave up on it though[1]: >In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Thiel said seasteads are "not quite feasible from an engineering perspective" and "still very far in the future" [0]:https://www.seasteading.org/about/ https://www.seasteading.org/about/ [1]: https://www.businessinsider.in/facebooks-mysterious-hardware-division-is-working-on-tech-to-read-brain-waves-that-could-let-users-send-thoughts-to-each-other/articleshow/56489719.cms https://www.businessinsider.in/facebooks-mysterious-hardware...