Guess who didn't play Bioshock?
polycounter lvl 18
Peter Thiel apparently
On the one hand, there's potential in this. On the other hand, there will be offshore derelicts in 10 years that nobody gives a shit about. Possibly with mutants onboard.
Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine. Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of lat-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."
On the one hand, there's potential in this. On the other hand, there will be offshore derelicts in 10 years that nobody gives a shit about. Possibly with mutants onboard.
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sounds like this Seasteading institute is the same guy.
Cept this dude owns frickin' Paypal. If anyone could get around this issue in the entire world it would be him. For all we know this guy just might want to throw some REALLY epic parties.
http://www.sealandgov.org/
also no micronation has ever been officially recognised by any sovereign government. they always see it as a threat. can't imagine why
The guy is seriously crazy. He created PayPal to become a new global currency. His political views are so incredibly extreme that he attributes giving women and black people the right to vote, to the decline of America. He whole heartily believes in survival of the fittest as economic and social policy and that rules and regulations and social safety nets only hold back the cannibalization of the weaker, err sorry it holds back the stronger from getting stronger.
He fully supports the corporate bailouts but not as a way to save society but as the scheme it was to milk the world for trillions. If you're stupid enough to elect officials that want to save corporations from tanking then you deserve to have your money stolen, even if they lie to you to take it.
The only way he is going to let anyone join him, is if he can hand them a pair of floaties and hunt them down with a speed boat.
You got a source for any of that?
He's the guy who was offering kids 100000 dollars to drop out of school as well as the first major dollar contributors to facebook.
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Either way he doesn't think everyone is equal and that every voice should count for something. It's fine to ignore voices that don't agree with you or are lower down on the food chain. The equality that has been pushed since the 1930's is what's wrong with western civilization...
He also looks back on the decades of abuse and corporate robbery that lead to the great depression as the Good Ol days and wants to go back to the days when anything you could think of was fair game.
Ponzi schemes? every day business.
Pollution? Make sure its unregulated otherwise it cuts into profits.
Rampant unemployment as a result of massive fraud. Cool beans, if you get swindled its your fault don't blame the swindler.
Never help the starving (dust bowl), just let them die off while you continue to rape whatever is left in their wallet by any means necessary.
Yea the good ol days... When rich fuckers could do whatever the hell they wanted and they where above everything.
Time and time again has shown when there is that level of inequality in society, steps are taken to correct it. Often that means people get tired of his antics and hang the rich fucker from a tree while a mob loots his estate. Now we can go back to those days, or we can be socially aware of the world around us and compassionate for our fellow human beings and instead of abusing them to make money we cooperate to make a better more fair society without giant gaps in inequality and violent over throws. But the ball is in their court, they are the true decision makers and job creators. You either vote their way and get rewarded, or you vote against them and get punished, like we have going on now.
Then at the end he laid the foundation for this latest move. http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/the-education-of-a-libertarian/
As a Libertarian myself, I would tend to agree with what he said. But the context is all messed up. For instance, I don't believe that anyone should be allowed to vote, because I don't believe in the political system. So something like women getting the right to vote could (but shouldn't) be seen as a step backwards. The step forward would have been to take away voting rights from men (meaning, everyone), in the Libertarian context.
The increase in welfare he's talking about is mostly New Deal stuff, like say social security. Where, again, the context is crucial. I'm not against Social Security per-se, but the liberty issue of being forced into it. Seems perfectly fair to say that I don't want to pay into social security, and I don't want to ever get any benefit from it. And yet, that's illegal.
It's that kind of stuff.
Yeah, I've read Ayn Rand and her nutty philosophy as well. I actually used to believe in her tripe, now my copy of Atlas Shrugged sits on a bookshelf in my parents basement collecting dust, just where it should be.
First, Somalia is about as far as it gets from a theoretical Libertarian Utopia. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't looked into the history and current affairs of that country.
Second, Ayn Rand is all about Objectivism, and that has nothing to do with Libertarianism. She's all about a powerful government, we're all about no government.
She and Murray Rothbard (who's a central figure in Libertarianism) had plenty of fights, and he even wrote a play called The Brow of Zeus as a satire of Atlas Shrugged, because the ideas in Atlas ran so much against Libertarianism.
Just trying to set the record straight, in case anyone is actually interested.
Trading with other people is a core principle of Libertarianism. That a society (not nation btw) built on a platform at seas would trade with other nations is an added bonus, not a tragedy, to a Libertarian society.
Not sure if serious.
Combat should decide. Two man(or woman) enter one man(or woman) leave.
Some libertarians think that the government should protect its people. How? Who pays for it? Voluntary? Do you only protect those who pay? As in the opt in social safety net? How do you decide quickly who qualifies for protection? Do we mark people, do they carry papers? Do we force them to live in certain unprotected areas? What if people decide to opt in to being protected but don't want to move? Do you force them? How do you handle children in an unprotected society do they suffer unprotected until they are of age to choose? How do they transition from one society to the other?
How about protecting people from abusive assholes who work little kids to death, or deal in underage prostitution?
How about protect people from starving to death? Or is the only protection allowed in the form of tanks and billion dollar bombers?
How about protect the integrity of society by helping people get back on their feet? It seems like a libertarian society would gladly let some people fall, shrug and say "phew glad that wasn't me, I'm glad I don't have to do anything to help"
So then how do decisions get made?
Who makes sure people are behaving morally?
Who decides on the morals, the laws and the punishments?
Who protects the people? How is that protection funded?
Who defines what is a threat and what needs protecting?
I see lynch mobs rolling around doing whatever they want and claiming it lawful, or worse shrugging and saying "oh yea whos gunna make me stop?"
The problem with an opt in system, is that when times are good no one does and when times are bad everyone lines up.
They have zero ability to help in either case. The whole system is much more susceptible to collapse when something catastrophic happens. The deregulation that is central to libertarian thinking, makes catastrophe that much more likely to happen, either in the environment or in the markets.
You hear it all the time "it was the last thing we expected!? It just took everything"
Tornado, flood, medical illness, drunk driver, crazy gunman whatever... shit happens and people who survive need help. I would much rather live in a society that lets those people rebuild their lives and carry on, than sit on the side of the road and rot because they didn't opt in or weren't able to opt in, enough.
There should be one class of citizens, not separate classes where how much you "voluntarily" pay-in determines how you're treated.
I was talking about the wider context than that. The essay was on the Cato Institute, which is a Libertarian site. The target audience is other Libertarians. He doesn't need to say "no one should vote", because as a Libertarian I already (by definition) believe in Anarchy (meaning lack of government, not lack of order). So of course if there's no government, there's no one to vote for, then nobody votes.
No libertarian believes government should protect its people. Because no libertarian believes in a government. That's why all those questions of "How? Who pays?" are moot. The people who believe that are either Constitutional Conservatives, who believe in a limited government, or Ayn Rand followers who believe in Objectivism. Either way, not libertarians.
I'm not here to debate the merits of Libertarian ideology. Nor am do I wish to get into an argument as to who's right. I believe what I believe for the same reason you believe what you believe. That I want a better future to myself and the ones I love. And I don't see that future coming from the hands of government.
I will say though that there's an ocean of Libertarian literature on the subject, that tackles every one of those point. But I do not wish to debate them on Polycount. Just to set the record straight as to what goes on out there.
That problem is only a problem for those that want to benefit on other people's expenses. For a Libertarian, this is more of a moral issue. If someone wants welfare, no matter how noble the intention is, does he have the right to force someone else into that system at gunpoint?
Since we find any and all gun-pointing (or coercion to be more specific) abhorrent, we cannot support a system like Social Security.
The basic problem is that there are people who do not share our disdain for aggression. And they see no problem with forcing us into their system. That's where the conflict comes from. The people who support welfare recognize, as you just did, that without the threat of violence to force people into the system, it would collapse. So they seek to prevent that collapse in any way possible.
Again, I'm not trying to argue in favor of the Libertarian alternative here, nor do I even wish to present it. I just want to express how I see things, and present the wider context of what it all means (to me).
i lol'd
Umm No. HAve you actually read Ayn Rand? She is not about powerful government.. at all.
As far as no government, than you sound less like a libertarian and more like an Anarchist.
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As far as the whole platform. Its already a stacked deck. He and others aren't going to go in and build from scratch. They are going to use the resources of the nations they come from to set themselves up. So they will have nothing to worry about in that Utopia, while those that come with less with unattainable goals of making it, will at be at a disadvantage. They will become the underclass that these establishers prey upon. (Sorta like we saw more of in Bioshock 2)
Ayn Rand is a person. When you say "read Ayn Rand", what I believe you meant is read Atlas Shrugged. Atlas Shrugged is a fictional story that she wrote. Not a Utopian Manifesto. Just to make it clear. Ayn Rand:
Which is an argument in favor of a small powerful government. This is more in line with Constitutional Conservatives.
Murray Rothbard on the other hand:
Which means that since coercion is abhorrent to us, the current state-system cannot be libertarian. Whether it's Anarchist or not is a side question (which he tried to answer as well), but doesn't matter to the point. Which is, the Libertarian opposes the state.
Me personally, I like Tolkein's way of looking at it:
All I have read is Libertarian is for small government. NOT ANY!. You seem to be more a offshoot of Libertarianism than mainstream. As shown here by this article from a former Libertarian thinker. http://mises.org/daily/2801 They do offer a distinction and do believe in limited government.
Also, Objectivism is a philosophical ideal. It is not to be confused with a system of government. Ayn Rand was a Libertarian in her form of government.
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On subject. International waters ehh? They better have good defenses as the first priority. In any case, this is what their society will break down to.
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Private Contractors! We know how much better private armies are compared to state run ones - especially since they are free from the constraints of regulation and morality.
Cheers!
You just linked the exact same article I did in the post above. It's by Murray Rothbard, which is the most significant figure in Libertarianism in the last century. Other than maybe Ludwig von Mises, but he was more purely an economist.
Anyways, the point he makes, and that I make, is that we're not actually Anarchists if you consider the Mad Max whiskered men with bombs definition. By some definitions we are, such as how we oppose The State.
That article is a good read. Personally, I read every word that man ever written. The only person I'm a bigger nerd of is Frazetta
Sorry, but absolutely not. The very term Libertarian Government is a contradiction in terms. She was basically a slut for capitalism, and she did believe in a government. Small, and powerful. She spoke very negatively of government, but then, who doesn't? But at the end of the day, she was against the abolition of the state. She was for a constitution, and for a small powerful state.
Not trying to convince anyone of any philosophy, but it's important to me to let people know that the two are NOT the same. I've been often called an "Atlas Shrugged reader", as an insult of course, just because I'm a Libertarian. In spite of the fact that I disagree with Rand on some major things. I'm talking about her and her philosophy, not necessarily Atlas Shrugged itself. Even the message in Atlas Shrugged doesn't resonate with Libertarians though... So I don't know what else to say.
Objectivism =/= Libertarianism, is the overall point I'm trying to make.
I imagine it's the same feeling liberals get when they're associated with Karl Marx and Communism by Fox News and co.
What do the Big Daddy's believe in? Tea Party, Scientology, Discordianism?
Well, actually, isn't that the theme of the new Bioshock? They built some city in the clouds under the same premise. At least I believe that's what the story was about from the trailer.
It's an example of good story-telling in games if you ask me. I wish more games were like that.
Mass Effect comes to mind too.
Mind Blown...
Bahahaha, beautiful.
So much absurdity in that dudes philosophies.
i don't think this will incite any sort of revolution but it might turn out to be a good first step towards making the ocean more habitable for people.
this is a good practice on how well human can handle future space colonies.
Also, the libertarian platform is a mess:
http://www.lp.org/platform
How are you supposed to support a military to defend your shores if you can't force people to pay taxes? Where does the money come from to support the court system they mention? Who, exactly is going to protect people's rights? it is pretty shaky. You could make up some stuff about private police -- who will police the police? Nobody; which means it is exactly the same as the current system.
Here is why private police forces are a stupid idea: Since markets tend towards oligopoly you will have Coke Police and Pepsi Police and they will be almost exactly the same. They will have you sign some confusing contract, and then they will threaten to sue you if you don't agree to their mandatory price hikes-- which is to say, an organization with a monopoly on violence is the equilibrium that these systems tend towards. This is why there are always governments everywhere you look. It is why there has never been a peaceful libertarian State like the one they all imagine.
What solution do libertarians have for a "tragedy of the commons" type situation where individual's incentives result in bad outcomes: depletion of fishing, damage to the ozone, toxic waste, etc?
I can tell you -- not much. They may talk about some kind of community watch style organization. Again, an organization that's a government in everything but name.
Here is the reality: we already live in the libertarian anarcho-capitalist utopia, and this is what it looks like. You are autonomous, and can pick a different security provider if you want (here is your list of options: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states), I would suggest being at least a multi-millionaire though if you want one of the better ones, since they are not really taking new clients.
In other words: Somalia.
I thought Germany recognized Sealand because Sealand did a bunch of stuff for them and when Sealand got invaded by Russian mafia they sent in some commandos and kicked major ass?
I have heard all of this second hand so maybe it was a bunch of bullshit (most of Sealand does), but it also sounded totally fucking awesome.
Sounds like Snow Crash.
slum makes the best post in this thread
Libertarianism would be a valid idea if people didn't ALWAYS drift into hierarchies BY NATURE. ALWAYS.
The other MAJOR problem, is that as long as humans are genetically similar to how they are now, there will ALWAYS be people who have no problem fucking over everyone else for their own gain, and also happen to have the charisma to pull it off on a large scale. No state police? Well then, I guess you're just gonna be working for Neo Hitler here, because he's got a bunch of guys with guns who like to be lead and work as a group, and you're just trying to live a normal life on your own. Tough shit, human. Only way to fight this is to have the nice people band together for defense against the dicks. I'm sure you can see where that path ends.
If people could be trusted not to be dicks to eachother, and not form hierarchies because of how their brains were structured, it could work. Try again in a million-ish years guys.
This is something I've been thinking about for a while. The amount of political ignorance in the states, and frankly in most countries, enables the idiotic politics we see. People with little concept of their political system or what's going on in it can vote, usually based on lies they've been fed and which they believe because it sounds right to them. I believe voting should not be an inherent right of every citizen, but should be restricted to those who can at least pass a basic civics test, such as that given to new citizens before naturalization, which also includes questions on recent political history. If you can't pass that, you're not fit to take part in the political process.
As for libertarianism, it's a pipe-dream that would consume itself. You can't depend on people's good faith, because people are assholes. A strong government is, was, and always will be necessary for a successful nation.
You wouldn't need to know facts about arguments, as those are two sided, but you should, for example, be able to say what major bills passed, and what those bills are about. That should at least cut down on some of the insane lies spread about different legislations and also serve to educate voters on what is going on.
It would be difficult to make those types of questions fair, and I don't think it should apply to the presidency or congress. Questions about chief justice voting records is fair game, but that much knowledge would really ramp up the difficulty on the test. You want it to be restrictive, but also accessible.
The Libertarian counter to this argument is that "the aggressive and better equipped taking from and harming those who lack the resources to defend themselves" is exactly what the government does. The "protection" they provide, is about the same as the protection the mob provides.
Being taxed to pay for social programs is not the same as being starved to death by Al Shabab, imo.