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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

#201

Post by throwawaybbb »

sgnelson wrote: post #92
arrosenberg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Do I want to create the first venture-backed city-state? Hell yeah” Ahem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies And we all know how well that turned out for the locals.

I like this game. Let's continue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State Nope, there's absolutely nothing that could go wrong here.

Here's one in the US: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Company

The 90% death rate in the first two years is really impressive.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#202

Post by aww_dang »

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…

I find it interesting that a site who's stated mission is "promotion of intellectual curiosity", consistently lacks curiosity about ideas which question the primacy of the state.

In this case, because 'video games'. Perhaps if readers had more curiosity they might be interested to investigate the topic of voluntarism, free-association and economic theory. This is not to say that there is no room to disagree with the aforementioned ideas.

However, I feel disappointed that the most prominent comment here forgoes literacy and logic in lieu of hyperbole while citing the plot of a video game.

Intellectual curiosity indeed.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#203

Post by haroldp »

novok wrote: post #155

" Slytherin sweatshirt" "sipping well water at his mountaintop compound south of San Jose" "He also says, with a straight face , " Next up they're going to say lex luthor bald head and evil villain laugh. ---- The principle has been done before. It's similar to free trade economic zones in other countries, shenzen is one example, or reproducing something like HK or Singapore in other areas of the world.

This is how far I had to scroll for a thoughtful criticism of both the tone of the article and the notion of experimental free city states.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#204

Post by haroldp »

hindsightbias wrote: post #131
snidane wrote: post #96

As long as there will be people born there will be demand for land for it being the necessary condition for life and industrial production. Billionaires now looking for ways to acquire more land? Or to create artificial land on sea? Or to discover new continents or planets with new land? Nothing new under the sun. Guess where all the money acquired from current day monopoly industry ends up in era of zero interest ra…

This is the problem when you have more billionaires than land in Monaco: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/monaco-extension-sea/index...

I was a bit shocked by this:

> For $1 million you can buy just 183 square feet (17 square meters) of prime property, according to the Knight Frank 2017 Wealth Report, compared to 280 square feet (26 square meters) in New York or 323 square feet (30 square meters) in London.

Land in Monaco is more expensive that New York City, but not a LOT more expensive, hah.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#205

Post by patrissimo1976 »

dbspin wrote: post #113
patrissimo1976 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Startups aren't remotely transgressive. They're heavily promoted, financed and supported by virtually every state government and have been for decades (centuries if you count the startups behind colonial enterprises). Settling the solarsystem would be neat. It won't do anything to fix climate changes or overpopulation. It's not even possible in principle, let alone practice to remove significant quantities of people…

Charter cities are, like startups, heavily supported by the partner nation. The models are Dubai & Shenzhen. Instead of being completely funded and operated by the state, the new generation of cities will be public-private partnerships between developers and nations.

A small, incremental degree of privatization. I have no idea where you get "lawless" or "fiefdom". These zones are requested, authorized, regulated, and monitored by a nation. Do you think the 3,000 SEZs in the world are lawless fiefdoms?

This is strangely hyperbolic language for what's basically a new kind of free trade zone. Would make a good movie plot, though, you've got a grand imagination!

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#206

Post by momokoko »

Matticus_Rex wrote: post #101
nickpinkston wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

The slang term is “useful idiots” if you are looking for something to look up and read about.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#207

Post by stale2002 »

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…

> won't get hit by some speedboat pirates and decide OK, we're gonna arm up

No. What will happen is that the authorities will arrest the pirates, or whoever.

All of this is being done within the bounds of the law. So I am not sure why people are bringing up ridiculous hypotheticals.

Special economic zones are not a new thing. And they have worked out fine in many places.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#208

Post by WalterSear »

tener wrote: post #33
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.

Not far? It's fascism without the middleman and a laughable veneer of neoliberal extremism - for legitimacy.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#209

Post by stale2002 »

SerLava wrote: post #161
xwdv wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK now Sea Citizen, you haven't been hitting your production targets... This is the third month you've failed to qualify for the monthly "bonus" scrip. After rent and commissary, I'm afraid that puts you in the red. And I don't have to tell you what that means. There aren't any open positions higher up, and you aren't exactly a top performer. The only way I see you digging out of this is signing up for the Human Init…

Pretty sure the whole point of all of this is that it is voluntary.

People are free to leave, if they don't like living in the special economic zone.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#210

Post by root_axis »

seibelj wrote: post #193
hannasanarion wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, there's a special name for a stateless society where people are allowed to own any amount of any thing and enter into any agreement. It's called "feudalism"

Common trope against libertarians, a super lazy no-thought argument. Feudalism is owning people which is clearly unethical. I'm not against government, I'm pro-freedom with a government that does the minimum possible to ensure a non-coercive society. Liberals take the absolute craziest position and say, "Durr that's what libertarians believe!" Completely ridiculous.

I think it's a decent argument, maybe it doesn't apply to your specific flavor of libertarianism since you believe the state should "ensure a non-coercive society" but the devil is in the details with regard to what one considers coercive.
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