4 ms·

> 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

by 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.
    - Uhhrrr 5y ago
      The "elementary freedoms" you list should more properly be considered entitlements. The advantage of the seasteading scheme is that different groups can pick different hills to die on. There are probably people who would like the worst of both the US and Germany: no shopping on Sunday, alcohol only to be bought at state liquor stores, no noise at certain hours, no driving over 55 miles per hour. I think it would be great if they had a floating* island all to themselves. * if it didn't float, that would be fine too
- mwcremer 5y ago
  > Why can't you [play lawn darts] in your country? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts#Safety_and_bans_in_the_U.S._and_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts#Safety_and_bans_in_...
  - grawprog 5y ago
    To be fair, you can still play lawn darts if you have a set. I remember playing with a set of lawn darts, like the real ones with the spikes, with my cousins back in like 2004-2005, nobody came to arrest us.
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      Also Nerf has multiple options for lawn darts on sale that don't have spikes. And no one ever banned horseshoes or bocci which are also the exact same game/sport. They just stopped selling the one particular variant, and not really because they were "banned", but because of the market realities of the low margins for selling only a somewhat fun toy versus the litigation costs and settlement costs from its injuries. If they thought there was big enough demand they'd slap a ton of warnings on it, include an arbitration clause in a jurisdiction friendly to them, and put it back in stores in a heartbeat.
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        You're mostly true. However, they slapped the warnings on the box in 1970. In 1989 they were banned, because kids (like, under 11) kept killing themselves with them.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I imagine it'd be easier to build an indoor simulated lawn then trying to do that on a ship. And, well before the point where a gigantic ocean liner becomes economical - you could always get a custom set of lawn darts crafted for you by any sort of metal working shop or factory. Heck, you can probably get them on Etsy from China.
jeffbee 5y ago
People who seriously propose seasteading do not believe that a central authority has the right to establish the definitions of either "consenting" or "adult".
- Uhhrrr 5y ago
  At least some of them just want to be able to choose a better central (or decentralized) authority.
HWR_14 5y ago
>Prostitution between consenting adults, fun drugs Got to Nevada. It has legal fun drugs, blackjack and hookers. > medical drugs which are tied up by the FDA etc, Oh no, safety reviews. I don't know what "medical drugs" the FDA has stopped, but I do know a lot of snakeoil. > testing of drones and driverless vehicles Testing both in the US is easy. Well, not driverless vehicles on all public roads. But seasteads have no public roads so that still argues in favor of the US (some is better than none). That's without asking how many miles of roads you'll get on your boat. > playing lawn darts Has never been illegal, and (again in the US) are available for sale. There was a period of time when they were illegal because regulations preventing them from being sold to and used by children were ignored for two decades. Probably by well-meaning libertarians. If reasonable regulations keep getting ignored, you should expect harsher ones. > avoiding obsolete regulations come to mind. I'm not aware of that many obsolete regulations. I am aware of many regulations people claim are obsolete because they inconvenience them and they want a competitive advantage.

by Uhhrrr 5y ago

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.
  - Uhhrrr 5y ago
    The "elementary freedoms" you list should more properly be considered entitlements. The advantage of the seasteading scheme is that different groups can pick different hills to die on. There are probably people who would like the worst of both the US and Germany: no shopping on Sunday, alcohol only to be bought at state liquor stores, no noise at certain hours, no driving over 55 miles per hour. I think it would be great if they had a floating* island all to themselves. * if it didn't float, that would be fine too
mwcremer 5y ago
> Why can't you [play lawn darts] in your country? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts#Safety_and_bans_in_the_U.S._and_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts#Safety_and_bans_in_...
- grawprog 5y ago
  To be fair, you can still play lawn darts if you have a set. I remember playing with a set of lawn darts, like the real ones with the spikes, with my cousins back in like 2004-2005, nobody came to arrest us.
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    Also Nerf has multiple options for lawn darts on sale that don't have spikes. And no one ever banned horseshoes or bocci which are also the exact same game/sport. They just stopped selling the one particular variant, and not really because they were "banned", but because of the market realities of the low margins for selling only a somewhat fun toy versus the litigation costs and settlement costs from its injuries. If they thought there was big enough demand they'd slap a ton of warnings on it, include an arbitration clause in a jurisdiction friendly to them, and put it back in stores in a heartbeat.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      You're mostly true. However, they slapped the warnings on the box in 1970. In 1989 they were banned, because kids (like, under 11) kept killing themselves with them.
- munk-a 5y ago
  I imagine it'd be easier to build an indoor simulated lawn then trying to do that on a ship. And, well before the point where a gigantic ocean liner becomes economical - you could always get a custom set of lawn darts crafted for you by any sort of metal working shop or factory. Heck, you can probably get them on Etsy from China.

jeffbee 5y ago

People who seriously propose seasteading do not believe that a central authority has the right to establish the definitions of either "consenting" or "adult".

Uhhrrr 5y ago
At least some of them just want to be able to choose a better central (or decentralized) authority.

HWR_14 5y ago

>Prostitution between consenting adults, fun drugs Got to Nevada. It has legal fun drugs, blackjack and hookers. > medical drugs which are tied up by the FDA etc, Oh no, safety reviews. I don't know what "medical drugs" the FDA has stopped, but I do know a lot of snakeoil. > testing of drones and driverless vehicles Testing both in the US is easy. Well, not driverless vehicles on all public roads. But seasteads have no public roads so that still argues in favor of the US (some is better than none). That's without asking how many miles of roads you'll get on your boat. > playing lawn darts Has never been illegal, and (again in the US) are available for sale. There was a period of time when they were illegal because regulations preventing them from being sold to and used by children were ignored for two decades. Probably by well-meaning libertarians. If reasonable regulations keep getting ignored, you should expect harsher ones. > avoiding obsolete regulations come to mind. I'm not aware of that many obsolete regulations. I am aware of many regulations people claim are obsolete because they inconvenience them and they want a competitive advantage.