The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#31

Post by alonmower » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #23

ouid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the key to sovereignty was mutually assured destruction. You don't need a deep space ship, you just need an ICBM.

That is true as well, but acquiring an ICBM seems rather difficult and once you have one, everyone else tends to treat you as a pariah. If I were building a libertarian paradise, I'd probably opt to avoid the whole issue and just leave the solar system.

I think if you struggle to get an ICBM you're going to have a hard time getting off of the planet let alone out of the solar system

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#32

Post by lisper » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #16

I think this is one of if not the most important issue in the entire world. We currently have two primary forms of government: dictatorship and democracy. Almost everyone prefers democracies. But many, if not most, living in democracies also take major issue with the way their countries are run. The best defense of democracy is Churchill's: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the rest. A framewor…

> We currently have two primary forms of government: dictatorship and democracy.

No, we have a third form: plutocracy.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#33

Post by tener » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #16

I think this is one of if not the most important issue in the entire world. We currently have two primary forms of government: dictatorship and democracy. Almost everyone prefers democracies. But many, if not most, living in democracies also take major issue with the way their countries are run. The best defense of democracy is Churchill's: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the rest. A framewor…

They are after venture backed city states. Funding sovereigns if you have enough money. Government run by corporations will not be pretty. Most likely not a direct dictatorship, but not far.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#34

Post by sudoaza » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #16

I think this is one of if not the most important issue in the entire world. We currently have two primary forms of government: dictatorship and democracy. Almost everyone prefers democracies. But many, if not most, living in democracies also take major issue with the way their countries are run. The best defense of democracy is Churchill's: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the rest. A framewor…

There is no democracy, there's a farce of it. Most people don't get to decide on almost anything, except via direct protest. You get to pick "representatives" from 2 or 3 alternatives. These alternatives are heavily decided by electability that is directly related to funding and the few people do the most of it.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#35

Post by smitty1e » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:31 PM UTC

Down the road, the still hotter thing in Seasteading will be physical security.

Do-it-yourself city-states will be like owning hard metal gold, and for the same reason: once you reach the tipping point of being valuable, you become a target to own/eliminate.

For a more near-fetched, though not precisely analogous example of the this kind of issue, see Deepwater Horizon => https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#36

Post by sovietcattle » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #16

I think this is one of if not the most important issue in the entire world. We currently have two primary forms of government: dictatorship and democracy. Almost everyone prefers democracies. But many, if not most, living in democracies also take major issue with the way their countries are run. The best defense of democracy is Churchill's: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the rest. A framewor…

"democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the rest"

That's until you realize that representative democracy (rule of majority) is effectively an authoritarian system, which is based on the monopoly of force and the monopoly of currency, and which incentivizes politicians with low time preference to spend more money than what they take (by force) through taxes, therefore indebting and impoverishing the whole population progressively.

There's a social organization system that allows for individual freedoms: free markets with no centralized governments. It's not a setup that will be implemented through revolutions, reforms or good will. It's inevitable that we'll get there as the cost of transactions becomes increasingly small (therefore making centralized systems of organization not viable). Refer to the work of Ronald Coase to understand why that is.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#37

Post by burfog » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

theflyinghorse wrote: post #15

mindcrime wrote: post #13

I don't know if they will ever succeed or not, but it sure is heart-warming to see people still pushing these ideas and trying to get something going. Competition is Good Thing and if we can come up with something better than nation-states, then we should. Personally I encourage these guys to keep experimenting, keep iterating, and keep pushing to break the mold. Maybe "government" as we know it today is a just a "fa…

It really does sound like a bunch of wealthy folks (and I don't mean your-town's-surgeon wealthy, I mean billionaire-class-wealthy) want to further remove themselves from laws that govern everybody else. Imagine this - a group of super wealthy bound by no laws of any nation but benefiting from them all. Terrifying.

It sounds something like Little Saint James, U.S. Virgin Islands, but worse. It probably isn't as awful as Jonestown, but the potential is there.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#38

Post by keiferski » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:32 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #30

keiferski wrote: post #17

Obviously it's sci-fi scenario, but the real solution (assuming that you see it as a problem) to overbearing and entrenched government power will probably be self-sustaining space colonies. Experimental governments on Earth are limited by the fact that [large state power] can invade you in a matter of hours for arbitrary reasons, no matter where you on are the planet. Fly off into the deep cosmos, though, and your ch…

> the real solution (assuming that you see it as a problem) to overbearing and entrenched government power will probably be self-sustaining space colonies Why in the world would you think that the politics of self-sustaining space colonies would not devolve into the exact same (dys)functional states (pun intended) as politics here on earth?

Forms of government have varied depending on time, place, access to technology, population, cultural history, and innumerable other factors. Of course self-sustaining space states will have novel forms.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#39

Post by skywhopper » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:33 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #16

I think this is one of if not the most important issue in the entire world. We currently have two primary forms of government: dictatorship and democracy. Almost everyone prefers democracies. But many, if not most, living in democracies also take major issue with the way their countries are run. The best defense of democracy is Churchill's: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the rest. A framewor…

How exactly does seasteading accomplish any such thing? What other means of government are they itching to try exactly? And how do you judge the success or failure of each experiment? How can you possibly eliminate externalities from any such system?

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#40

Post by wpietri » Mon, Dec 23, 2019, 8:34 PM UTC

kauffj wrote: post #16

I think this is one of if not the most important issue in the entire world. We currently have two primary forms of government: dictatorship and democracy. Almost everyone prefers democracies. But many, if not most, living in democracies also take major issue with the way their countries are run. The best defense of democracy is Churchill's: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all the rest. A framewor…

I'll just point out that plenty of people experiment with alternative forms of societal organization. It happens all the time. The Amish have been doing it in the US for centuries. The Mormons have taken a swing at it too, and their fundamentalist offshoot, the FLDS, is still trying. And there are all sort of other intentional communities out there.

As far as I can tell, what most of these experiments show us is things we already know. E.g., the FLDS mainly seems to demonstrate that patriarchy is indeed awful for everybody except the men on top. [1] A lot of the rest seem to show that however people start, it tends toward familiar things, like oligarchy and dictatorship. So unless these folks have taken special care to avoid the problems, I expect that for-profit communities will end up being the city-state version of Away: high-minded language, an always-positive public face, and a lot of abuse and exploitation behind the scenes.

[1] See "Under the Banner of Heaven" for a readable take: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC1R2S/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...