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The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

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Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#101

Post by Matticus_Rex »

nickpinkston wrote: post #75
Matticus_Rex wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So people with money finance research people are doing that advances things they care about, like... checks notes The Kochs' efforts on criminal justice reform? This is the Soros conspiracy theory for lefties.

I doubt you've done the research I have on this, so I'll leave it as an exercise to you and readers here to read my links, critiques of them, and draw your own conclusions. Also, I'm not saying everything Koch's touch is all wrong, but you can usually trace it back to self-interest whether directly or as cover. They do a lot of focus grouping to get from, for instance: "taxes are wrong" --> "don't build expensive pub…

Thanks to my past life working in the libertarian movement, I personally know a lot of the people written about in these conspiracy theories, and have been previously accused of being a paid Koch shill with nefarious motives for expressing my genuine (research-based!) opinions on what I think is best for society. I've met some self-interested people on the establishment Republican lobbying side, but almost none of them were even peripherally connected to the Koch network, and at least the parts of the Koch network I interfaced with didn't like that at all.

Believe we're wrong if you want, but accusing us of bad faith just because you can find some way something might conceivably benefit us is lazy.

I have my disagreements with the Kochtopus, but everyone I know even at the highest levels of those organizations is fiercely ideologically motivated, and the people I know who know the Kochs say that absolutely extends to them (and I haven't seen things that seem to contradict it).

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#102

Post by [deleted] »

SerLava wrote: post #43

Isn't this the plot of BioShock? If this sounds like a dorky joke post, it's not. Isn't this literally motivated by the same neo-fuedal oligarchical narcissism that made the bad guy in BioShock build essentially the same thing as this? Tell me one of these "seasteads" won't get hit by some speedboat pirates and decide OK, we're gonna arm up and hey why not build down? And you know what? No one's gonna say we can't do…

[deleted]

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#103

Post by nsxwolf »

arrosenberg wrote: post #93
darawk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. They might work or they might not. I find the hostility towards people trying new things to be strange and misplaced.

> 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 ra…

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.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#104

Post by xwdv »

SerLava wrote: post #43

Isn't this the plot of BioShock? If this sounds like a dorky joke post, it's not. Isn't this literally motivated by the same neo-fuedal oligarchical narcissism that made the bad guy in BioShock build essentially the same thing as this? Tell me one of these "seasteads" won't get hit by some speedboat pirates and decide OK, we're gonna arm up and hey why not build down? And you know what? No one's gonna say we can't do…

What’s bleak about consensual human experiments? The volunteers who sign up are doing a great service for all mankind. There is so much to learn.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#105

Post by munk-a »

darawk wrote: post #84
SerLava wrote: post #43

Isn't this the plot of BioShock? If this sounds like a dorky joke post, it's not. Isn't this literally motivated by the same neo-fuedal oligarchical narcissism that made the bad guy in BioShock build essentially the same thing as this? Tell me one of these "seasteads" won't get hit by some speedboat pirates and decide OK, we're gonna arm up and hey why not build down? And you know what? No one's gonna say we can't do…

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. They might work or they might not. I find the hostility towards people trying new things to be strange and misplaced.

I'd love to actively prevent people from moving to these places because it'll continue offshoring domestic wealth into tax havens.

Honestly, this is the huge problem of our time - globalization has happened and the concepts of tax laws and taxation of value production haven't properly adapted. The US should be taxing all the value legitimately made in the US - if a designer in the US makes something that is then mass produced in China the value taxes currently only comprehend the physical good value, not the intellectual value of the good - for things like fashionable clothing nearly all of the value is created domestically and the actual material value is inconsequential.

Over time the ability to dodge taxes in this manner has placed unfair downward pressure on countries to lower taxes in an effort to attract the revenue that can be freely moved around and hence we've got spiraling wealth inequality due to insufficient taxation.

People opting out of taxation while reaping the benefit of educated populations (or their personal education) along with security and the laundry list of the benefits of society is simply ethically unacceptable.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#106

Post by patrissimo1976 »

SerLava wrote: post #43

Isn't this the plot of BioShock? If this sounds like a dorky joke post, it's not. Isn't this literally motivated by the same neo-fuedal oligarchical narcissism that made the bad guy in BioShock build essentially the same thing as this? Tell me one of these "seasteads" won't get hit by some speedboat pirates and decide OK, we're gonna arm up and hey why not build down? And you know what? No one's gonna say we can't do…

Just stay in Manchester or whatever, and pay your god damned taxes to the king. Moving to the New World is bleak, bleak stuff.

Just stay on Earth or whatever, and fix your god damned environment. Settling the Solar System - how dare you? Tell me one of those space ships won't get hit by an asteroid.

I mean, heck, the idea of doing a startup of any kind is dangerously transgressive. If you make new things, something bad might happen! And existing companies might lose customers! There will be change! Chaos! Mayhem!

Or - crazy idea here - perhaps we could have the courage to not let the plot of a video game limit our social innovation?

Or, if that's the only metric you have, at least pick the right game - SimCity!

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#107

Post by munk-a »

seibelj wrote: post #99
nickpinkston wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I’m a libertarian and it’s not because people are paying me. It’s from a principled stance that it’s the best and most ethical system of societal organization possible. To name but a few recent victories where libertarians have been both right and well ahead of the curve - drug legalization, criminal justice reform, and school choice. Next will be sex work which I anticipate will be legalized in many places in the US…

Ah, so you're an actual libertarian, not a Libertarian. I tend to agree with libertarian principles but often times they just get co-opted by Libertarians.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#108

Post by p1necone »

munk-a wrote: post #105
darawk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. They might work or they might not. I find the hostility towards people trying new things to be strange and misplaced.

I'd love to actively prevent people from moving to these places because it'll continue offshoring domestic wealth into tax havens. Honestly, this is the huge problem of our time - globalization has happened and the concepts of tax laws and taxation of value production haven't properly adapted. The US should be taxing all the value legitimately made in the US - if a designer in the US makes something that is then mass…

> "nearly all of the value is created domestically and the actual material value is inconsequential."

Only because the laborers are being horrendously underpaid, no? If globalization had really fully happened you wouldn't be able to pay people in china slave labor wages to make your clothes for you.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#109

Post by munk-a »

rtempaccount1 wrote: post #8

Ultimately any country/state needs a variety of services, from utilities like water/sewage/electricity to emergency services like ambulance/fire/police to a military to defend what you've got from other countries. you also need things like roads, telecomms infrastructure and other things that have been built over decades/centuries in established countries. You also need things like a foreign service to liaise with ot…

The way this is (IMO) envisaged to work is that the population would be so extremely wealthy that only a very low proportional tax would be required to sufficiently fund social services - also, you'd sort of opt out of all the less fun parts of being a society. Maybe you'd exile the homeless, criminal and mentally disabled - also you could benefit from industrialization without any of the pollution. Such Utopia!

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#110

Post by munk-a »

p1necone wrote: post #108
munk-a wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to actively prevent people from moving to these places because it'll continue offshoring domestic wealth into tax havens. Honestly, this is the huge problem of our time - globalization has happened and the concepts of tax laws and taxation of value production haven't properly adapted. The US should be taxing all the value legitimately made in the US - if a designer in the US makes something that is then mass…

> "nearly all of the value is created domestically and the actual material value is inconsequential." Only because the laborers are being horrendously underpaid, no? If globalization had really fully happened you wouldn't be able to pay people in china slave labor wages to make your clothes for you.

In the US that labor is so extremely unvalued that it's almost always automated - other countries have such intensely undervalued labour that it can actually compete with automation.

And yea, I think we do have some twisted and perverse version of globalization - rather than bringing the world up we seem to be perpetually exploiting the third world... eventually that might piss of the third world enough that they do something about that but it hasn't happened yet.

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