Billionaire Building Artificial Islands For Libertarians

[Pearl]

This is hilarious, and hard to believe to be true:

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 law-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."
"There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible," Thiel said at a Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009, according to Details. (His first donation was in 2008, for $500,000.) "That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."

The Seasteading Institute's Patri Friedman says the group plans to launch an office park off the San Francisco coast next year, with the first full-time settlements following seven years later.

Silicon Valley billionaire funding creation of artificial libertarian islands | The Lookout - Yahoo! News

As laughable as this is, I got the feeling while reading the article that this won't be the last time someone tries to create a community dedicated to their political beliefs in this way.

 

[deep]

a picture is worth ......
a few words.

 

[kramwest1]

When I become a pirate, I know where I'm heading first.


I think this is just the natural next step in the world of the ultra rich. If we don't get a handle on this from a legal and tax standpoint, we are headed for a world of James Bond-style billionaires living untouchable lives while the rest of us struggle.
(We already might be there anyway.)

 

[BVS]

I've been saying we need one of these for the tea party for awhile now. They can be a gun toting, regulation free, no tax theocracy. Their wet dream.

 

[lemonfly]

Peter Thiel must be a big fan of Waterwold. Joking aside, floating communities where almost 'anything goes' will certainly appeal to some alpha types who are keen to break from the the laws and restrictions of their government. It's a batshit insane idea, but also an interesting social experiment.

 

[financeguy]

Peter Thiel was the first guy to predict the financial crisis in language that made sense to me personally. Just by virtue of that, I have respect for the dude - not necessarily saying I approve or dispporve of what he's doing with this project - but there was a time I had a quote from Thiel as my sig on a forum somewhere or other.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

I've been saying we need one of these for the tea party for awhile now. They can be a gun toting, regulation free, no tax theocracy. Their wet dream.

May as well dispose of all their maps so they don't manage to return to the mainland.

 

[kramwest1]

I've been saying we need one of these for the tea party for awhile now. They can be a gun toting, regulation free, no tax theocracy. Their wet dream.

May as well dispose of all their maps so they don't manage to return to the mainland.

The irony of a Libertarian paradise that couldn't exist without GPS. Thanks U.S. government!