And so Bio-Shocks comes more step to reality

[booley]

Hopefully no one has posted this before...

PayPal-founder Peter Thiel was so inspired by Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand's novel about free-market capitalism - that he's trying to make its title a reality.
The Silicon Valley billionaire has funnelled $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute, an organization that aspires to launch a floating colony into international waters, freeing them and like-minded thinkers to live by Libertarian ideals.
Mr Thiel recently told Details magazine that: 'The United States Constitution had things you could do at the beginning that you couldn't do later. So the question is, can you go back to the beginning of things? How do you start over?'
The floating sovereign nations that Thiel imagines would be built on oil-rig-like platforms anchored in areas free of regulation, laws, and moral conventions.
The Seasteading Institute says it will 'give people the freedom to choose the government they want instead of being stuck with the government they get.'
........

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024761/Atlas-Shrugged-Silicon-Valley-billionaire-reveals-plan-launch-floating-start-country-coast-San-Francisco.html

Ok it's not quite Bio-shock. It's above the water for one.

BTW, correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't one of the things the constitution allowed back then that you can't do now... slavery?

[HarleyThomas1002]

I want to see how well this would go.

[stormwarden]

And also correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they SOL if those platforms get hit by a hurricane, or even by high waves, that have been known to completely fuck up oil rigs? Seriously, any reader of the ZSG (Zombie Survival Guide) could poke a hole in this.

[HarleyThomas1002]

But they'll be free from the evil government. Even as they drift in the ocean while they're dead or dying.

[John E]

Aug 14, 2011 23:11:28 GMT -5 HarleyThomas1002 said:

I want to see how well this would go.

Me too. As much as I'm sure that Randian libertarianism wouldn't work, I'm equally curious to see it tried (as long as I'm not involved in the trial).

And besides, a floating city would be kinda bad ass.

Assuming they get this thing going and are truly free of government interference, how long before it becomes a major destination for sex & drug tourism?

[Jodie]

And crime.

[Thejebusfire]

The Silicon Valley billionaire has funnelled $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute, an organization that aspires to launch a floating colony into international waters, freeing them and like-minded thinkers to live by Libertarian ideals.

1.25 million could have feed a lot of people in Somalia.

[HarleyThomas1002]

Yes, but since they didn't get theirs they can fuck off.

[Passerby]

There's a lovely little catch-22 they're going to have to come to terms with. Maintaining a city costs money, a floating city moreso. The cost of the city's upkeep will have to come from somewhere. This must come from A) Taxes, like every other city or B) Private investment.

Libertarians are opposed to taxes on principle, good luck convincing anybody to start paying them with a threat so mild as "this dump will sink and everyone will drown" when they think they can just buy personal floatation devices.

If somebody ponies up their personal cash for the city that makes them the defacto government as they control the city itself. Infrastructure, repairs, utilities, the very ground under everyone's feet becomes rented property that the landlord can kick you off of, probably with a ceremonial plank to walk. They will either demand the authority that comes with having bought the city itself - possibly becoming another George Pullman or Bioshock's Andrew Ryan - or they will end up being charity cases. Authoritarian figures and charity are anethma to Libertarian ideals.

Even if they somehow manage to gather enough people to afford to individually maintain a flotilla of disconnected houses someone will have to enforce boundries or neighbours will encroach upon eachother's property or aggressively expand. City defense is also an issue in international waters, and you can't count on these idiots to band together to fight off a large-scale pirate attack. They'd be picked off one at a time, figuring they can take care of themselves and it's not worth wasting your own stock of RPG's and bullets to save somebody else's skin.

Gainful employment would also be hard to come by out in the middle of nowhere with a 100% import economy. They can't exactly grow vegetables out on the ocean and the only food source on hand will be fish. They'll be competing with commercial expeditions just to pick up dinner. They'll have to go a ways out too, if their method of garbage disposal amounts to dumping their trash directly into the water.

They're doomed, but I imagine they'll find a way to blame someone else for it if they get far enough into their project to fuck up disasterously.

[Napoleon the Clown]

This could prove amusing.

[Admiral Lithp]

I want the pirates ending.

[RavynousHunter]

Foolish Jodie, the only crime is stopping people from making money. [/libertarian]

[Art Vandelay]

Speaking of, I wonder what they intend to do about food. Fish stocks are kinda running low as is.

[RavynousHunter]

*slaps Art* Motherfucking free market! Its the answer to everything. What are you, some kinda commie socialist who wants to see people being able to EAT?! HERESY!

[Art Vandelay]

Here I thought free markets only functioned as a way of distributing resources when there were actual resources available to be distributed. How very silly of me.