Seasteading?

Yes - right next door to FSP, 200+ miles east of Rockingham

7 (9.1%)

Yes - an artificial seastead in warmer waters farther south of NH

12 (15.6%)

Yes - Free Isand Project on existing island around the Caribbean

13 (16.9%)

Yes - join Seasteading Institute's efforts in San Fransisco

5 (6.5%)

Yes - a specialized FOC cruise ship (ex)

6 (7.8%)

Yes - can't we just use Lindsey as a flotation device?

11 (14.3%)

Yes - something else

4 (5.2%)

No - it would divert efforts from better ideas

6 (7.8%)

No - terrible idea

7 (9.1%)

No - other

6 (7.8%)

Total Members Voted: 22

[Ecolitan]

you can't own half a ship.

Sure you can, pirates did it.  Heinlein was a Navy man, he was indoctrinated in that 'ship must be a dictatorship' stuff.

[Jetfire]

Live Free or Drown: Floating Utopias on the Cheap

Thats pretty cool they gotta bunch of pics and such. I'm about an hour away from where there gonna hold there conference. I might just check it out.

[sillyperson]

Patri Friedman, Executive Director of The Seasteading Institute, will be at the Liberty Forum. Why not come hear what he has to say, and ask him directly if he's insane?

http://freestateproject.org/libertyforum

[Jetfire]

I wanna go to the liberty forum but I dont think i'll get to. I should have the vacation time and money to go to porcfest when that comes around though

[Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)]

As far as I'm concerned it would be a great idea.  But there's no way in hell it could function without a government.  Obviously it would be a voluntary one, but there's no way you could have an governmentless society on a ship.  I could see the anarchy aspect working a hell of a lot better on an island where no central agencies are needed to maintain your habitat, but on a ship?  You HAVE to pay rent for a variety of resources and whoever you pay rent to is the defacto State.

[fatcat]

Ever read Citizen of the Galaxy by Heinlein?  Seasteading reminds me of that confederation of space merchants.  They have the ultimate freedom to travel throughout the galaxy, but are total slaves to their culture.  It sounds like a great idea, but the only way you could really make it work is with a dictatorship (i.e. the owner of the ship), you can't own half a ship.

Why a dictatorship? Whats wrong with ownership?

Guy X owns a ship/floating city, you sign a contract, you move there, you don't like it, you get off. The only bad thing that could happen is if the owner went power crazy and started breaking contract laws, but it would be nigh on impossible for a private owner to become rich/powerful enough to abuse his position if his whole appeal was libertarian living. Everyone would have guns, no one would be paying him taxes, just rent. If the ship owner tried to abuse his position as owner, it would be the shortest dictatorship in history.

In my mind privately owned societies solve alot of problems that exist with "communal" ownership on land.

If things like roads and justice, are served on a voluntary, contractual basis, then theres no real issue of whether its right or objectively defined. You agreed to it so its A-okay.

Free market competition among private microcosms would do a hell of alot to prevent such abuses. If you're building land at sea, or in space, on the moon or whatever, it takes an awful lot of money, and there aren't many/any natural resources to take advantage of, so you're entire business would revolve around not fucking people over and attracting people to buy land/rent from you.

[anarchir]

As far as I'm concerned it would be a great idea.  But there's no way in hell it could function without a government.  Obviously it would be a voluntary one, but there's no way you could have an governmentless society on a ship.  I could see the anarchy aspect working a hell of a lot better on an island where no central agencies are needed to maintain your habitat, but on a ship?  You HAVE to pay rent for a variety of resources and whoever you pay rent to is the defacto State.

Old pirate ships were a direct democracy. Everyone voted on everything and everyone voted on the captain, quartermaster, etc. and could call a vote whenever they wanted. The captain was not a dictator, he only was in charge during battles, and unlike in the U.S.'s "war on terror", ships only battled each other when they got close to each other and started shooting.
I agree with what fatcat said, it is basically just like any piece of land, that moves.

[BonerJoe]

CRAZY FOOLS.

That's all.

[anarchir]

Too bad it would cost hundreds of thousands per platform.
That's way over my budget.

[SamR]

Passenger ships due for decommission can hold up to 2000 passengers plus about 700 crew members. Run as a flag of convenience, you could actually make money off the thing running passengers, cargo, and packages to and from different ports around the Gulf of Mexico. Something that makes money can succeed even if it fails some political goal

[MacFall]

you can't own half a ship.

Sure you can, pirates did it.  Heinlein was a Navy man, he was indoctrinated in that 'ship must be a dictatorship' stuff.

Yeah, that always bothered me about him

[Alex Libman]

Sealand survives because it is covered with a five-inch gun. Sovereignty comes from the ability to ensure its survival. We just need us some guns

That's the spirit! 

[...] not to mention that there is the HMS and USS fleets that can/could will/would...sink your project...

This line of defeatist thinking among libertarians is getting its own meme, like: OMG, TWU  (They'll Waco Us)!  Get your panties out of a wad!  They'll never Waco us.  We're too pretty to Waco!  Seriously!

OK, not me personally, but we're gonna have all sorts of cool high-profile people involved and all sorts of Internet exposure, maybe even some live sex shows steaming out to the world.  No one cares about a bunch of bible-thumpers, sure, but if they take us off-air there'll be riots! 

Looks like a godawful place to live. I bet it smells like whore vagina.

OK, so you've had a bad experience smelling a whore's vagina once and now you're out to ruin the entire profession.  Why would you presume all whores are like that?!  You're a despicable gyno-olfactophobiac bigot, that's why!  You and Scott should form a two-man commune on a small asteroid where your hate will not hurt anyone ever again! 

In fact, in a free society, with more women competing for our whoring money (especially mine), only the most qualified women with the most pleasant-smelling, freshest vaginas would be whores - and they would certainly spend more money on vagina maintenance than your average housewife, that's for sure!

When you insult whore's vaginas you insult everything that I stand for: human dignity, liberty, free enterprise, and the capacity of science to restore and rejuvenate any vagina that is in need of a tune up, by god, if there's a will there's a way!

You disappoint me, BonerJoe.  I'm editing you out as the flotation device in the gag option on this thread.  I figure Lindsey is the next most floaty person on this forum.  If I'm wrong, somebody please let me know.

(J/K)

[...]  and ocean air destroys just about everything that is cool, like electronics.

Ah, so that's why Cisco makes all them analog routers for cruise ships and aircraft carriers... 

[...] Maybe something on the Great Lakes? Manitou Island is nice.

The Great Lakes and all islands therein, beautiful as they might be, are all divvied up between the U.S. and Canadian EEZ's, which sorta defeats the purpose of the whole "let's get away from oppressive governments" endeavor.

[...]  I'll just buy enough dirt and make my own island. [...]

There have been some recent inventions (ex. aluminum, stainless steel, and various space-age alloys) that are more cost-effective than dirt in supporting a plate over the ocean surface.  Dirt does have its charms though - one can certainly sprinkle it on top of the plate for decorative reasons if one chooses, maybe some grass as well.  Hmmm, if we could get 18 of those plates close together, it would be one heck of a golf course! 

Hurricanes and storms?

Cops and taxes?

[...] total slaves to their culture.

Um, you're the Jew who supports Israel, right?

[...] you can't own half a ship.

Anything that can be owned can be shared.  This concept can be called a trust, a family, a corporation, etc.  It can even apply to guardianship of a human being (i.e. child or a mental patient) or control over one's own body (i.e. conjoined twins).

Patri Friedman, Executive Director of The Seasteading Institute, will be at the Liberty Forum. Why not come hear what he has to say, and ask him directly if he's insane? http://freestateproject.org/libertyforum

Sadly I can't make it.  Awesome idea for everyone else though!  Patri Friedman really is the #1 idea man for libertarian seasteading nowadays!  You can listen to his past talks here, here, here, and many other places I am sure.  Here's a vid:

[youtube=425,350]vira_9sKYkg[/youtube]

Plus he's the son of David D. Friedman and grandson of Rose and Milton Friedman - that's as close to royalty as a libertarian can get! 

[Ecolitan]

You disappoint me, BonerJoe.  I'm editing you out as the flotation device in the gag option on this thread.  I figure Lindsey is the next most floaty person on this forum.  If I'm wrong, somebody please let me know.

I nominate balloon guy.

[Jetfire]

I wish I could make it to the liberty forum  =/   Ah well I have to settle with porcfest

[SamR]

Maybe your better off just finding a sparsely populated island somewhere in the Caribbean and overthrowing the government. There are a bunch of people in the Florida Keys that aren't part of the US. MSM just doesn't report the fact that there's an island you can drive to easily that is separate from Uncle Sam.