A bit lighter fare. You know, there is already society with less laws, looser building codes,l no minimum wage, and more guns. It is called Mexico. I jest. Not really. How a person like this gets to be a billionaire is beyond me. However, his Utopian society will be platforms off the San Francisco coast where 200 and some odd people live with less building codes, no minimum wage, and more guns. Let's rip that apart a bit, shall we? For starters the weather off the San Francisco coast (*)(*)(*)(*)ing sucks. It is foggy and cold. Um, I would not like to live in a floating colony where one of the main appeals is less strict building codes. That just seems silly. Less gun laws? Why? There is nothing to hunt out there. You are living with only 240 people to start with. isn't everyone supposed ot be happy? No minimum wage? What industry is anyone possibly going to have out there where the pay woudl be anythign near minimum wage? But you go folks. I can't understand why anyone would think poorly of real libertarians because of these nutballs. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ry-coast-San-Francisco.html?ito=feeds-newsxml PayPal-founder Peter Thiel was so inspired by Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand's novel about free-market capitalism - that he's trying to make its title a reality. The Silicon Valley billionaire has funnelled $1.25million to the Seasteading Institute, an organisation that aspires to launch a floating colony into international waters, freeing them and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals. Mr Thiel recently told Details magazine: 'The United States Constitution had things you could do at the beginning that you couldn't do later. So the question is, can you go back to the beginning of things? How do you start over?' The floating sovereign nations that Mr Thiel imagines would be built on oil-rig-like platforms anchored in areas free of regulation, laws, and moral conventions. The Seasteading Institute says it will 'give people the freedom to choose the government they want instead of being stuck with the government they get'. Mr Theil, the venture capitalist who famously helped Facebook expand beyond the Harvard campus, called Seasteading an 'open frontier for experimenting with new ideas for government'. After making his first investment in the project in 2008, Mr Thiel said: 'Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public sector models around the world. 'Were at a fascinating juncture: the nature of government is about to change at a very fundamental level.' Mr Thiel and his colleagues say their ocean state would have no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons. Aiming to have tens of millions of residents by 2050, the Seasteading Institute says architectural plans for a prototype involve a movable, diesel-powered structure with room for 270 residents. The long-term plan would be to have dozens and eventually hundreds of the platforms linked together. Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer who is working on the project told Details that they hope to launch a flotilla of offices off the San Francisco coast next year. 'Big ideas start as weird ideas,' Mr Friedman said. He predicted that full-time settlement will follow in about seven years. But while some Ayn Rand acolytes may think the idea is brilliant, it's not without its critics. Margaret Crawford, an expert on urban planning and a professor of architecture at Berkeley, told Details: 'it's a silly idea without any urban-planning implications whatsoever.' Mr Thiel told an audience at the Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009 that: 'There are quite a lot of people who think it's not possible. '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'
I thought biodomes and communes were the realm of hippie liberals. This is a rather stupid idea.....I see a few logistical problems...it will be comical to see how it turns out.
Interesting, well if it works good for him, and if it doesn't (which is more probable)...then no loss. A society with one belief does not make a democratic system. What would it be then...a dictatorship? Monarchy? Etc?? We only have ourselves to blame. Peter Tiel owns like 49% of facebook.....
Already a long thread on this... Anyways, there is another guy like this lol. The man who started Domino`s Pizza is a far rightist that wants to build a white marble city in Florida that follows the bibles laws and is ruled by a theocratic government. He even has a model of it i his backyard lol.
I like the idea of new, independent nations based on ideals rather than accidents of history. I hope the concept works.
I will have to wonder one thing. Does this mean a real life Bioshock? If so, look out for the splicers. They're crazy.
Andrew Ryan runs Paypal. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbI7gxxbYpo"]Andrew Ryan (Bioshock) speaks out against altruism - YouTube[/ame]
You shouldn't be taking advice from a guy who makes highly addictive drugs that ruin your DNA. Or a crazy libertarian. Which ever one comes first.
