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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

#241

Post by keiferski »

sandoooo wrote: post #231
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…

Let me just remind everybody that Bioshock is a computer game, its plot is fiction, and it constitutes no evidence whatsoever tht a real-life scenario that start the same way would end the same way. Sure, it is obvious when spelt out, but it is less obvious when it is a game of implications.

Agreed. It’s become a bit ridiculous when “but the game/movie/Netflix series showed that it can’t work” becomes an argument that is taken seriously.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#242

Post by keiferski »

clarkmoody wrote: post #177
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.

One would assume that on a site like Hacker News, there would be more imagination and enthusiasm for innovation. Perhaps it's mostly selection bias on articles like this one that brings out the comments we see around us?

Over the last two decades, HN (and hacker culture in general) has shifted from a creator-oriented, anti-authoritarian (both left and right) culture to one supporting the establishment. I suppose that was inevitable - someone has to build the tools of surveillance capitalism at Google and Facebook.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#243

Post by truculent »

patrissimo1976 wrote: post #106
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 b…

> Moving to the New World is bleak, bleak stuff.

I mean... yeah? There was famine and then genocide, then slavery?

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#244

Post by cassandrersen »

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 makes you think the united states doesn't regularly "experiment" on its population

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#245

Post by SerLava »

darawk wrote: post #230
SerLava wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I promise I will do that for you if you tell me you are having trouble differentiating between an organization physically capturing you and locking you in a box, versus an organization deciding which brand of mayonnaise they will bring to your table.

Which organization is physically capturing you and locking you in a box, here?

The unaccountable billionaire rulers of the oceanic fief who went to incredible expense for the sole purpose of escaping democratic accountability.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#246

Post by SerLava »

tim333 wrote: post #239
pasabagi wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if Singapore counts - it's a fascist dictatorship.

Didn't seem very fascist when I was there. The Economist Intelligence Unit has it as a 'flawed democracy', the same category as the US. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index )

The Democracy Index rankings are non-transparent measures by a less than objective organization that places significant weight on a country's openness to multinational corporations.

Singapore specifically is an example people use to illustrate the inherent flaws of the Democracy Index rating system. This is a country with low press freedom, one ruling party that sues the opposition into bankruptcy for "defamation" to prevent any loss of power, and oh, they execute people for carrying drugs.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#247

Post by seibelj »

root_axis wrote: post #210
seibelj wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you truly believe that libertarians, of which there are millions in the US, want to return to a feudal society? This is what you actually think? It’s completely absurd

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#248

Post by antepodius »

munk-a wrote: post #110
p1necone wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

This isn't true. As time goes on, places that were non-developed become more developed. China's already started to outsource its production because people there expect higher wages than they did 10 years ago.

It's a gradient from country to country. Overall, for individuals in absolute terms, things are getting better- although for certain subpopulations in relative terms (e.g. blue collar americans) they've gotten worse.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#249

Post by learc83 »

darawk wrote: post #168
arrosenberg wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that the primary difference is your ability to reverse course once you have relocated if you aren't the guy at the absolute top. Rather, it's not the switching cost going in, so much as the switching cost going out - it's the same problem you'd face joining Scientology. The original question I responded to is "why the fear of opt-in competition to the current model of governance?" The answer is that me…

> It seems to me that the primary difference is your ability to reverse course once you have relocated if you aren't the guy at the absolute top. Rather, it's not the switching cost going in, so much as the switching cost going out - it's the same problem you'd face joining Scientology. Yes, indeed. That is the essential question for Patchwork-based ideologies. However, that is something they actively try to think ab…

Look into the slave labor situation in the Middle East for an example of how people are lured into a voluntary working situation that quickly becomes slavery. Desperate people make poor choices mostly because of information asymmetry.

In addition, the eventual children of the people who moved there won't have made this choice, and the example of history says they won't easily be able to leave.

Re: The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land

#250

Post by OldHand2018 »

edanm wrote: post #224
Alupis wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it's members do. And some of those members aren't afraid of using them, or their Navys, or Air Forces...

You're not wrong, but consider that there are plenty of atrocities, including slavery, happening right now around the world.

Happening in sovereign nations, not on floating platforms in international waters [1].

Items of interest:

Article 88: Reservation of the high seas for peaceful purposes

Article 98: Duty to render assistance

Article 99: Prohibition of the transport of slaves

Article 100: Duty to cooperate in the repression of piracy

Article 101: Definition of piracy

Article 103: Definition of a pirate ship or aircraft

Article 105: Seizure of a pirate ship or aircraft

The law is very clear on the authority of warships to intervene.

[1]https://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unc...

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