Billionaire Funds Artificial Libertarian Island

[Starglider]

libertarians are adamant about the importance of the rule of law and a constitution, anarchists are against even these minimal forms of authority. I suspect that these guys are of the latter group.

Oh they're all for the rule of law, they just think it is best achieved with private police and private courts. I have yet to see a sane explanation of how this is supposed to work without degenerating into mercenary warfare.

[Eulogy]

libertarians are adamant about the importance of the rule of law and a constitution, anarchists are against even these minimal forms of authority. I suspect that these guys are of the latter group.

Oh they're all for the rule of law, they just think it is best achieved with private police and private courts. I have yet to see a sane explanation of how this is supposed to work without degenerating into mercenary warfare.

It's either gonig to implode or become a hive of scum and villainy.

When the dust settles, perhaps the island can be repurposed to a more charitable use?

[PeZook]

Oh come on, you people keep thinking it's going to be a huge city. It's not, at most it will have a couple dozen rich guys living in their luxurious mansions/apartments, gloating about how great their country is and how little they need government during their frequent social meetings.

And of course there'll be eighteen hundred single-person "corporate HQs"

[madd0ct0r]

a couple of dozen rich guys and how many staff?

[PeZook]

a couple of dozen rich guys and how many staff?

The staff will obviously not be allowed to leave their assigned quarters, associate in any way or carry weapons

[Broomstick]

Oh they're all for the rule of law, they just think it is best achieved with private police and private courts. I have yet to see a sane explanation of how this is supposed to work without degenerating into mercenary warfare.

It actually sounds a like like feudalism when you put it that way.

[Panzersharkcat]

libertarians are adamant about the importance of the rule of law and a constitution, anarchists are against even these minimal forms of authority. I suspect that these guys are of the latter group.

Oh they're all for the rule of law, they just think it is best achieved with private police and private courts. I have yet to see a sane explanation of how this is supposed to work without degenerating into mercenary warfare.

The argument is that it's much harder to be profitable when you're out engaging in wars if you have to voluntarily acquire money from your customers rather than taxing them.

[Gandalf]

Who owns this land/structure, and if there's little to no government, who protects these property rights?

[Panzersharkcat]

Who owns this land/structure, and if there's little to no government, who protects these property rights?

Property rights would probably emerge from homesteading, or in instance, sea-steading, and various private structures would end up enforcing them via competing private courts and whatnot. I can try to find articles on sea-steading if you want to know. I haven't really looked into this idea myself, given that I prefer to try to pretend that politicians don't exist* and, if I do end up in a political argument, I tend to just leave. Digression is the better part of valor and all that.

*That ends up leading to whacky ideas like universal nuclear disarmament by launching them all at Jupiter and broadcasting the fireworks on cable TV or something. I mean, yeah, Jupiter may have prevented more asteroids from hitting Earth in the past than they would have, but what has it done for us since then?

[Lord Zentei]

libertarians are adamant about the importance of the rule of law and a constitution, anarchists are against even these minimal forms of authority. I suspect that these guys are of the latter group.

Oh they're all for the rule of law, they just think it is best achieved with private police and private courts. I have yet to see a sane explanation of how this is supposed to work without degenerating into mercenary warfare.

That's the anarchist position. Libertarians want minimal government, not no government.

Though granted, the borderline can be fuzzy sometimes. Moreover, the "libertarian" label is increasingly being hijacked by the radical fringe.

[whackadoodle]

Via alternet, circa 2010

Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy--last year, Thiel wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, "Democracy is not the answer." Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It's probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman's grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair--Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O'Keefe's smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.

Apparently, Samsung is the ship's manufacturer.

[madd0ct0r]

maybe I was bit a harsh in previous posts.

there's a few anarchist communes in wales (admittedly hippie liberal, not corporate lassize faire) who have been around for years.
and in that case, with the various eco-building methods (some adopted, some pioneered) they aren't following the building regulations.

[PeZook]

Thing is, the sea isn't land. If you go el cheapo on your construction, the sea has a way of teaching you just how bad an idea it was.

[Mayabird]

Makes me think of Sealand, which had a population of roundabouts 40, who were mostly family to boot, and still managed to have a coup and civil war within ten years.

Assuming this isn't some half-assed pipe dream which is what I actually think it is. Much easier to say "if someone did this everything would be PERFECT" than to actually do the work in making it.

[Soontir C'boath]

Thing is, the sea isn't land. If you go el cheapo on your construction, the sea has a way of teaching you just how bad an idea it was.

I'm sure, or at least I hope, that the foundation and platform will be built to proper specifications, but it'll be the individual housing units that may be built to the lowest quality possible for those who don't have the money (or lose money, and must move out of their "mansion" and into those crap units).

[StarSword]

I don't know whether it'll set on fire, fall over or sink first.
possibly all three, in that order.

Isn't that what happened to Swamp Castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

My bet: five years, tops, before they start getting bored and plotting against each other. From there it degenerates into yet another petty dictatorship that self-destructs in spectacular fashion, and the survivors run crying back to the mainland.

[Broomstick]

Thing is, the sea isn't land. If you go el cheapo on your construction, the sea has a way of teaching you just how bad an idea it was.

I'm sure, or at least I hope, that the foundation and platform will be built to proper specifications, but it'll be the individual housing units that may be built to the lowest quality possible for those who don't have the money (or lose money, and must move out of their "mansion" and into those crap units).

Oh, great - so a big storm comes along and the shanty-town part of the place gets swept into the sea.

Then the guys running the place will just go out and find more desperate people to fill the shit jobs.

Rinse and repeat.

[Darth Wong]

A tiny libertopia might actually work, just as a small-scale commune can work. If it does work, it will just become another idiotic libertarian talking point, with an obvious rebuttal.

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."

because everyone knows building codes are there to make the poor consumer pay more right?

They are there to compensate for the problems of consumer ignorance and producer greed. Hypothetically, if you had consumers who had plenty of money and insisted upon contractors with good track records and construction that met high standards, then such regulation would be unnecessary. A tiny libertopia could conceivably be populated only by such people: when you have a tiny community, you can have the luxury of being very selective with your citizens.

Moreover, they would be able to take advantage of the regulations which exist elsewhere in the world, which is part of the dishonesty of the scheme. Let's say a building contractor screws a consumer on Libertopia: he can't sue him there because Libertopia has no formal legal system or means of forcibly extracting money from the contractor, but he could sue the contractor in the contractor's home state, thus taking advantage of that state's highly developed legal and police system. Even if he doesn't actually do this, the threat of being able to do it is effective leverage against the contractor.

[Zaune]

Hmmm. Now you mention it, I can't help wondering just how far out to sea they propose to build the place. I'm pretty sure it's going to be well beyond the twelve-mile limit if they want to be totally beyonf the reach of the law; navies have the right to board and inspect ships with probable cause up to about a hundred miles, if I remember correctly.

[StarSword]

That raises an interesting question: how do you go about incorporating a nation, legally speaking? (And more to the point, how does a little commune like this get legitimately recognized as such?)

[Lord Zentei]

Going by history, it's pretty much a matter of declaring your independence and hoping that other nations will give you the time of day and recognize you, in particular the nation whose territory you're on (though that's not an issue here). If no one does this, then you're a non-entity, if everyone does, you've succeeded. There are countries which are only recognized by one or some*. I would imagine that a place in the UN would be a boost to credibility, but right-libertarians usually don't like the UN very much.

*Such as North Cyprus being only recognized by Turkey, Kosovo not being recognized by some countries, the Vatican and Israel only having recognized each other recently, Israel not being recognized by some Arab states, etc.

[StarSword]

So, if they can't get international recognition as, say, "The People's Republic of None-of-Your-Damn-Business"*, what happens? Are they still subject to American law despite their best efforts?

(I think that was the conclusion Popular Science came to when they did a bio on the project.)

* Looking for a random country name and a line from NCIS: Los Angeles popped into my head.

[Broomstick]

If they're outside of American territory they're pretty much on their own. If they're outside anyone's territory they better be able to defend themselves, because pretty much any pirate or other interest will see them as fair game.

[Zaune]

If they're outside of American territory they're pretty much on their own. If they're outside anyone's territory they better be able to defend themselves, because pretty much any pirate or other interest will see them as fair game.

That said, if they start buying in serious military hardware they're going to find themselves branded as pirates themselves... and I find it chillingly easy to imagine this turning out to be true if some of them get bored enough.

[Broomstick]

The open seas are anarchy, even today. Sure, there's maritime law... but who's going to enforce it outside national boundaries?