Libertarian Utopia - Peter Thiel's Microstate

It goes like this: Friedman wants to establish new sovereign nations built on oil-rig-type platforms anchored in international waters—free from the regulation, laws, and moral suasion of any landlocked country. They'd be small city-states at first, although the aim is to have tens of millions of seasteading residents by 2050. Architectural plans for a prototype involve a movable, diesel-powered, 12,000-ton structure with room for 270 residents, with the idea that dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of these could be linked together. Friedman hopes to launch a flotilla of offices off the San Francisco coast next year; full-time settlement, he predicts, will follow in about seven years; and full diplomatic recognition by the United Nations, well, that'll take some lawyers and time.

"The ultimate goal," Friedman says, "is to open a frontier for experimenting with new ideas for government." This translates into the founding of ideologically oriented micro-states on the high seas, 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.

It's a vivid, wild-eyed dream—think Burning Man as reimagined by Ayn Rand's John Galt and steered out to sea by Captain Nemo—but Friedman and Thiel, aware of the long and tragicomic history of failed libertarian utopias, believe that entrepreneurial zeal sets this scheme apart. One potential model is something Friedman calls Appletopia: A corporation, such as Apple, "starts a country as a business. The more desirable the country, the more valuable the real estate," Friedman says. When I ask if this wouldn't amount to a shareholder dictatorship, he doesn't flinch. "The way most dictatorships work now, they're enforced on people who aren't allowed to leave." Appletopia, or any seasteading colony, would entail a more benevolent variety of dictatorship, similar to your cell-phone contract: You don't like it, you leave. Citizenship as free agency, you might say. Or as Ken Howery, one of Thiel's partners at the Founders Fund, puts it, "It's almost like there's a cartel of governments, and this is a way to force governments to compete in a free-market way."

Thiel put forth his views on the subject in a 2009 essay for the Cato Institute, in which he flatly declared, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." He went on: "The great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms," with the critical question being "how to escape not via politics but beyond it. Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country."

Bioshock.

Anyway, I like the idea, but they really need to use nuclear power plants. Diesel would tie them down. I'm sure Russia would be willing to sell them the one that is almost finished that is under legal dispute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7...tube_gdata

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org...08114.html

EDIT: I know how to fix this.

Would you kindly switch to nuclear power?

Dunno how long before they are viable, but I have heard about so called 'neighborhood nuclear reactors', that are very small and can power local areas. Would these be appropriate for a micro state?

EDIT: Also, for a such a state, UN recognition should be meaningless.

As for me, I'm not convinced that libertarianism is an appropriate or feasible starting point for a state.

Sure, the toshiba 4S (10 MWe), and the Hyperion power unit would both be good for this (25 MWe). A 4S runs for 30 years without refueling, and the Hyperion runs 10 years. The NuScale and mPower reactors would require frequent refueling (Every or every other year). In this unregulated state, I would pursue molten salt reactors, as they can run almost indefinitely on small amounts of material with no fuel fabrication(though they require a somewhat complex chemical process). If the platform was VERY power hungry a TerraPower type TWR could be appropriate. This could run for 40 years or more on a single load of fuel with no reprocessing. The most recent documents have the TWR at 1200 MW thermal and ~500 MWe.

None of these designs can be deployed before 2020. I would say the Toshiba 4S would have the best shot and is the most appropriately sized.

EDIT: Also, for a such a state, UN recognition should be meaningless.

That would actually be a great proving ground for the safety of neighborhood scale reactors.



So despite the libertarian philosophy's affection for the concept of the sovereignty of the individual, and the desirability of totally open borders (which an island state has the luxury of embracing)... the people responsible for bringing this idea into being will face the basic realities of politics and the state of nature. I'm sure these people expect the US to defend them in the event of some hostile action by a foreign power. Notice they're only wanting to go 200 miles off the coast of the US. BUT... the longer term strategy is to have a number of these island nations all over the world... and getting the UN to recognize the sovereignty of these places is important if they are going to be able to exist w/o a navy, for example.

Kind of reminds me of how the USA used to be.

In practice, this island (like all such 'loose government' places) will end up playing host to all sorts of wanted criminals - mafia, cartel, former spies/double agents, arms smugglers, etc., some celebrities (and slavish labor from poor countries). No normal person would pay to live among such morons.

The beauty of the natural world is that you get to live among morons for free.

If they want a proper libertarian experiment, they should set up 200 miles east of somalia or off the coast in some place in south east asia. I don't see any libertarian state being able to put up any reasonable self defense unless they bring in slave labor or mercs. Libertarian ideals tend to fall apart when people live in close quarters or have to cooperate.

Setting up so close to the US is just leeching off protect of the US military.



And this....

Are you talking about libertarianism or anarchy?