Libertarian Islands

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http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/sil ... 40896.html

Sounds like a sinkhole for money.

All of these Island Nation proposals are bogus? Why. Not enough critical mass. One needs a sufficiently large population with a distribution of know how and skills to function as a self sustaining society. These Island Nations are too large to be insane asylums and too small to be republics.

ruveyn

I've followed the Seastead concept for some time as I think self-sufficient technologies and resource managing techniques could be developed from it that could be applicable in future communities in space. In addition to studying whether Libertarian micro-societies (or micro-societies in general, not necessarily Libertarian experiments) can exist. In the past I would say it was much more difficult but I think in the 21st century we could see the first of them appear. Whether they are capable of achieving their goals remains to be seen, but I wish them the best

[quote="Oodain"

unless they concede the fact that they will still be relying on the world around them, then they oly need to maintain a net benefit to others to remain in existence.[/quote]

These Libertarian Island Paradises will have to trade with thug regimes in order survive. That sounds passing strange.

ruveyn

I like it.

I'm watching

There is probably some uninhabitated island somewhere where they could take up residence. Problem is, all of the islands are claimed by some entity.

Wait a minute. I'm just now thinking about that old Dr. Doolittle movie. Isn't there an island somewhere that is riding on the back of a giant snail? Maybe they could just find that snail.

I'm torn between oil rig style platforms or very large ships, both have advantages and liabilities. A decommed aircraft carrier a la Snowcrash would be ideal, especially if it's CWIS could be reactivated to discourage pirates and the like, while aircraft could be used for trading and resupply. CNC machine tools could provide a manufacturing capability, while there is more than enough surface area on deck for greenhouses and hydroponic farming. I always imagined using a business model similar to the international waters cruises of the prohibition era, using shuttle vessels to ferry customers out to the main ship or platform to purchase goods that were not legal on the mainland, wherever that might be. Theses days that might not even be necessary, offering secure net hosting services to poker sites and the like via satellite might be a more viable option for obtaining capital.

My immediate thought is that these things will be basically pirate havens for whalers and tuna fleets who want to over-harvest pelagic resources beyond the reach of international agreements.

wouldn't even have to be meth labs; plenty of legal products produce extremly toxic by-products in their manufacturing process.

One thing I can see right now that's a problem. Putting aside all the possible problems of the libertarians themselves, well, the nation would have to conform to societal laws of other countries to some degree. IE, if they made giant floating meth labs, the US would just declare war, wait, no they wouldn't, we haven't done that since WWII, so they'd... do military action against said country. Hell, even without meth labs or crazy stuff like that, surrounding countries would just go to war with said country for fun.

It's gonna happen, I think. It's bound to. But, I think their big issue will be that. They'll be bothered by others, either because they're being sorta dicks (giant meth labs) or just for fun by other countries. The problem with arming yourself seriously with a small country like that, you'll basically get invaded for being heavily armed and having missiles or fighter jets and the like. People will consider it antisocial to be such a small country with the amount of weaponry needed to adequately defend itself from nations wanting to invade it, and that'll be a catch 22 for them to get invaded. Oh, and nations could just embargo a small island easily, just run 2-3 big ships up to it and you're screwed.

The only way I can foresee the security questions being solved would be forming alliances with other countries that are on land, then you lose independence, though.

So that's what I see is the bigger issue, not so much how nice or not nice a libertarian society would be. In my opinion, a libertarian society is going to have it's ups and downs, just like a socialist, capitalist, leftist, conservative, etc, place will. But, the fact is, all those places exist on this earth because people decided that was what they wanted out of a government. So it'd be the same situation in a libertarian society. Other thing, too, US started out super libertarian...and got to the way things are now. I can't see why these nations wouldn't just eventually follow suit.

Oh well, I'm skeptically supportive of the idea, I do wish to see it pan out in my lifetime, and probably will see it happen.