Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands

This sounds pretty awesome to me. Mostly because every time I read some stupid bs that's going on in the US, I think to myself "damn, I wish I could buy an island and start my own country."

Obviously there's a lot of questions/potential problems with this, such as the cost of living on such an island, how it would be run, etc. but with some interest and money, this could be a hell of an experiment. Even if you want to call this anarchy, why does that have to be a bad thing? If say, 100 people lived on one of these islands, and it was pretty self-sufficient, it could be amazing. It all depends on who would live there. Obviously if you have an island inhabited by selfish morons it wouldn't end well... But if everyone on one of those islands managed to get along and help each other out, why would you need laws?

The whole "looser building codes" phrase does make them sound a little shady though. I would assume if you're building an island that you plan to live on, you would make it as safe as possible.

A few years ago, torn by the level of corruption I had witnessed in my short lifetime in this country, I started researching other countries to move to. My results were that here, in the USA, the largest number of my hopes were fulfilled, but it was still quite far from what I sought. I began working on designs for a sort of artificial island to do, basically, the same thing as this guy wants to do. I must say I was excited to read about this, but disappointed at the images. I believe my ideas were alot more "dreamy", so to speak, but addressed issues that would undoubtedly arise from following this design. The only places far enough out in the ocean to do this are ravaged by choppy waves and quite often storms. I see no evidence that this design addresses these issues, and therefore, I think it will be a complete and utter failure. First surge of unexpected weather and everyone out there is left homeless and stranded on the high sea. And where would they get their resources even after completing this "island paradise"? I see no hints of sustainability. This seems like a loosely thought out pipe-dream to me. The conclusion I came to from researching making an artificial island was that it would costs endless billions of dollars and would still have a very very high rate of failure. Sorry if I have offended anyone, I am very new to posting on ATS.

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
reply to post by thisguyrighthere

 

Don't forget the Lagrangian points, there are five of them and they are prime locations, especially L4 and L5, for massive orbital arcological habitats.

I would bet in the next few decades, L4 or L5 is going to be colonized by the ultra wealthy as an orbital data haven and offworld financial center.

I'll bet they won't - moreso now that we've found a trojan asteroid "at" one of Earth's Lagrange points - there's likely to be a heap more and living at those points would be tantamount to asking to be hit by a lot of miscellaneous detritus from eth formation of hte solar system!!

reply to post by SirMike


And if the Government makes it illegal to supply these floating islands what happens?

And if they refuse entry into the US/UK/Where ever what happens?

And if a serious medical emergency arises and you cannot land in the closest country what happens?

I have thought about this many time - but an island - but there are so many ways the whole thing can be either prevented or made impossible/impractical.

Um . . . he's not going to call it Rapture is he? That didn't turn out well.

Originally posted by randomname
no guns restrictions, no laws, no police, unlimited booze and drugs. save yourself a fortune and move to somalia.

You're kidding right? Somalia is Islamic fundimentalist.
If you are white, gun-owning and having drugs and a beer you'll go down quicker than John Wayne's safety catch!

reply to post by SirMike



Sounds sorta like Waterworld to me........ A little more than a million dollars doesn't sound like much to me, no offense. Can't buy much of a country for that.

Originally posted by pavil
reply to post by SirMike

 

Sounds sorta like Waterworld to me........ A little more than a million dollars doesn't sound like much to me, no offense. Can't buy much of a country for that.

Besieged by smokers !!!



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I was reading through some of topics covered in a sea-steading forum - ..... many interesting contributions - some individuals proposals were incredibly detailed.

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Patri Friedman, founder of The Seasteading Institute, which believes that governments could be far more diverse and innovative. Currently, there is no open space for political experimentation, which is why we work every day towards opening the oceans as the next frontier for human civilization. Ocean cities will function as "startup countries", competing to find the political and social systems of the future. Current projects include research into engineering, law, business models, and locations, as well as building a global movement of seasteaders, all directed towards the audacious goal of seeing the first seasteads this decade. www.seasteading.org

reply to post by SirMike
Oh! I love it. Like the last chapter of Atlas Shrugged. They can work for each other, and pay each other in gold. But really, in the book, they built that community in the Rockies themselves, not by a hand out from a billionaire!

I could never figure out how gold would actually be worth more than paper in an isolated community.

I think I know where this ends.

The idea sounds good in theory.
A clean slate the start out from. New chance at building a system of law and order, an economic system, health care, education, etc. I don't agree on the lack of minimum wage or any kind of welfare safety net. It's an opportunity to build better systems, not digress backward.

A colony like this could be self-sustainable to a certain degree by harnessing vertical farming and fishing. For power, use a combination of wind, solar, and hydro energy. Make the majority of transportation by elevated railway or some kind of modern trolley system like China is developing.

However, the majority of goods would still have to imported, creating dependence on foreign countries and allowing their influence on the new country's activities and policies. Whoever is chosen to govern would need be stalwart against ANY kind of corruption, but since history has tendency to repeat itself, this kind of libertarian island utopia would certainly fall prey to exploitation just like every other society on Earth.

Just musing