Libertarian Floating Island Will Have Own Govt, Cryptocurrency, 300 Houses

[appalachiablue]

If you're struggling to do business or just live under your country's administration, a movement of philanthropists, academics and investors is working on a very sci-fi alternative.

Nathalie Mezza-Garcia is a political scientist turned "seavangelesse" — her term for an evangelist in favor of living off the grid — and on the ocean. Mezza-Garcia spoke with CNBC's Matthew Taylor about what she sees as the trouble with governments, and why she believes tech startups should head to Tahiti.
This seavangelesse is a researcher for the Blue Frontiers and Seasteading Institute's highly anticipated Floating Island Project. The project is a pilot program in partnership with the government of French Polynesia, which will see 300 homes built on an island that runs under its own governance, using a cryptocurrency called Varyon.

"Once we can see how this first island works, we will have a proof of concept to plan for islands to house climate refugees," she said. The project is funded through philanthropic donations via the Seasteading Institute and Blue Frontiers, which sells tokens of the cryptocurrency Varyon. The pilot island is expected to be completed by 2022 and cost up to $50 million.

"There is significance to this project being trialed in the Polynesian Islands. This is the region where land is resting on coral and will disappear with rising sea levels," Mezza-Garcia said. As well as offering a home for the displaced, the self-contained islands are designed to function as business centers that are beyond the influence of government regulation.

"This means there is stability, outside of fluctuating geopolitical influences, trade issues and currency fluctuations — it's the perfect incubator," she said. It's also an attractive alternative, Mezza-Garcia said, for those disenchanted by the government of the day.
It's an unapologetically libertarian concept: Governments under the Floating Island scheme would exist only as service providers, according to Mezza Garcia, and the "floating communities" could self-govern...

Read More: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/floating-island-will-have-own-government-cryptocurrency-300-houses/ar-AAxsyA1?li=BBnb7Kz

[sandensea]

1. They'll be at each others' throats within weeks.

Most libertarians seem to have a hard time understanding that their liberties end where your rights begin.

[Dave Starsky]

5. I seem to recall that was more or less central to the plot...

Of the videogame Bioshock.

[sandensea]

6. And, in a way, of Lord of the Flies as well.

Most libertarians I've known are pretty much like overgrown children - Republicans even more so.

[spinbaby]

13. That's what immediately came to mind

They’ll go feral in no time.

[Squinch]

53. There's something about the phrase, "They'll go feral in no time" that strikes

me as very funny.

Maybe because I work with little kids in schools. Because they do that all the time.

But you're absolutely right.

[appalachiablue]

48. How many of this ilk even know what the book/film LoTF is about..

[DonCoquixote]

17. yep

and let's not forget Bioshock infinite where the Xtians expanded it to become a haven for religious zealots and Bigots.



You know Pence and Devos are hungry for that

[Dave Starsky]

18. Absolutely. Both of those games are masterpieces.

And teach lessons you will never forget.

I remember being so blown away by Infinite when I finished it, that I couldn't stop thinking about it for weeks.

[Hortensis]

26. Lol. How are subpoenas delivered?

[Bettie]

14. Nah, it will be at least six months before they

are done "recruiting" slaves for their little fiefdoms.

Because you know, since these are very wealthy people they are not going to do their own housework or cooking and they are certainly not willing to pay people for it either if there is no law telling them they must.

[eleny]

28. y first reaction was actually to shake my head and chuckle

But when the words came they mirrored your thoughts exactly. Kumbaya won't last long enough for a community picnic.

[Initech]

44. Oh it'll be a colossal shit show.

I say kick back, grab a bucket of popcorn and a beer and enjoy it!

[haele]

2. Bets on how long until such an island turns into a Game of Thrones?

Battle of the Celebrity Billionaire Egos for who gets to be the dictator.

Without strict adherence to a strong set of rules and economic/legal regulations, self-governance always ends in the tears of those who don't manage to finagle their way into the governing tyrant's clique in fairly short order.

I'll give it two years before the majority of the stakeholders start to bail.

Haele

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

3. You beat me to it.

I was going to say let's have a pool on how long it will be until they are killing and eating each other.

[The Polack MSgt]

4. Ok, how exactly do they plan

to build housing for 300 people on an ocean going vessel for $167,000 each. Get real...

I live on the prairie.

Out here, land is cheap.

It's already relatively weather proof and doesn't need to be made buoyant and $167K gets you a 2 bedroom 1 and a half bath house in a crappy neighborhood.

I call Bullshit

[Blue_true]

7. People that have their heads in the clouds don't realize.

That their heads are in reality shoved up their asses.

The planners are likely making all types of unrealistic assumptions as they plan this thing. I agree with what some have said, self governance does not work. Disputes will come up, how will they be settled? Do people that have goods charge what they want? If not, why not, there is nothing to regulate them.

[dalton99a]

8. Self-government is still government

Idiots

[Aristus]

9. It's a recipe for failure.

These Ayn Rand-types all want to be the John Gault-style boss, and none of them wants to any of the actual work.

I give it a month...

[sandensea]

11. Reminds me of someone.

[SCantiGOP]

10. Part of the libertarian philosophy

is to avoid any alliances with other countries, nothing but mutually-beneficial trade.
So, if they did establish some wealth in their little society, they would be subject to invasion and occupation by any military power like.............say Fiji, Nauru (population 11,000), even the Swiss guards of the Vatican could overrun their 300 home nation. Hell, they might find themselves occupied by a rogue group of the Rhode Island National Guard.

[exboyfil]

30. That was my first thought

Even the equivalent of Somali pirates could be a threat.

Their labor force will eventually devolve into slaves, and someone could just arm them or they could get numerous enough.

[underpants]

34. The RING don't play

[hunter]

12. Someone among them is running a great scam.

Let the games begin.

[NightWatcher]

15. I've got a boat. Think they'll create a socialist army or police force?

Let's go get em.

[DonCoquixote]

16. Great , it's the live action Bioshock

Google it if you do not know the reference.

[Blue_Tires]

19. First of all, these libertarian bros have been talking that pipe dream for decades

Secondly, it's already been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

[superpatriotman]

20. Let me know when a group of Libertines Gets a Floating Island

Then we can talk about having some fun!

[Downtown Hound]

21. This will end well. Snort.

[NickB79]

22. Hope they don't forget the robot labor force!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

33. Ha, beat me to it! Was just going to post that one.

Perfect.

[MicaelS]

23. Can anyone say "High Value Target"? n/t

[Retrograde]

24. Them again?

The Seasteading guys pop up every few years with the same spiel. They're good at getting press, not so good at actually implementing their ideas.

[DavidDvorkin]

25. If it gets hit by a giant wave

The market will take care of it.

[madinmaryland]

41. Heh!! A Giant Blue Wave no less!!

[DavidDvorkin]

43. Right!

[brooklynite]

27. See: Republic of Minerva

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/republic-of-minerva

[FSogol]

29. LOL, Didn't some libertarians try that recently in Peru or Chile? That never ends well.

[FSogol]

31. LOL, last time: Atlas Mugged: How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart

Two years after Galt's Gulch Chile was founded, the utopian project is mired in personal and legal conflicts and investors now claim that the guy in charge is a sociopath and a con man.

t was a good idea, in theory anyway. The plan was to form a sustainable community made up of people who believed in capitalism, limited government, and self-reliance. The site was already picked out: 11,000 acres of fertile land nestled in the valleys of the Chilean Andes, just an hour's drive away from the capital of Santiago, to the east, and the Pacific Ocean, to the west. Residents could make money growing and exporting organic produce while enjoying Chile's low taxes and temperate climate. This was no crackpot scheme to establish a micronation on a platform floating in the middle of the ocean (a common libertarian dream)—this was a serious attempt to build a refuge where free marketers and anarcho-capitalists could hole up and wait for the world's fiat currencies to collapse. They called it "Galt's Gulch Chile" (GGC), naming it for the fictional place where the world's competent capitalists flee to in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

The project was conceived in 2012 by four men: John Cobin, an American expat living in Chile who once ran unsuccessfully for Congress in South Carolina; Jeff Berwick, the globe-trotting founder of the Dollar Vigilante, a financial newsletter that preaches the coming end of the current monetary system; Cobin's Chilean partner; and Ken Johnson, a roving entrepreneur whose previous investment projects included real estate, wind turbines, and "water ionizers," pseudoscientific gizmos that are advertised as being able to slow aging.

That initial group quickly fell apart, though today the principals disagree on why. Now, two years after its founding, the would-be paradise is ensnared in a set of personal conflicts, mainly centered on Johnson. Instead of living in a picturesque valley selling Galt's Gulch–branded juice, the libertarian founders are accusing one another of being drunks, liars, and sociopaths. GGC's would-be inhabitants have called Johnson a "weirdo," a "pathological liar," "insane," a "scammer," and other, similar things. Some shareholders are pursuing legal action in an effort to remove him from the project, a drastic measure for antigovernment types to take. Johnson, who remains the manager of the trust that controls the land, claims all the allegations against him are false. So what happened?

more at

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bn53b3/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10

[appalachiablue]

36. +1 Good failed example.

[FSogol]

37. Libertarian Utopias are fairy tales for selfish people. Kick ass societies come from people working

together.

[appalachiablue]

38. Well said. Won't hustlers & selfish Greedheads ever stop this fantasy.

They must be oblivious to the many folly experiments, some not so long ago. Never mind!

[smirkymonkey]

32. I give it a year before they all start looting each other's property and

shooting trespassers. This will not end well. Getting hundreds of selfish assholes together attempting to create and maintain a civilized society will prove to be next to impossible.

[underpants]

35. These things go in stages

First Target was the utopia every suburban mom seeked, then it was Publix, then it was Wegmans.

[DeminPennswoods]

39. Hope they all read "Lord of the Flies"

first because that's about how their libertarian paradise will turn out.

[appalachiablue]

49. Pitcairn Island, example of a remote island refugee community not going well.

Dramatized & romanticized in the famous film 'Mutiny on the Bounty' the true story of rugged 18th c. British navy mutineers led by officer Christian Fletcher who settled on the beautiful French Polynesian island. Christian's descendants remain there today. The original small group was affected, within a couple decades by violence, alcoholism, disease & isolation.
In the 2000s, Pitcairn's population was only 50 people with many cases of of sex abuse of children and incest. Modernization is taking place there, but nothing like most popular tourist paradises.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands

I read LoTF years ago and saw the first film, quite a story of human behavior in very desperate circumstances.

[lame54]

40. something will happen and they will make a rule...

and another one
and another one
and so on...

libertarianism is a joke of a concept and is no way sustainable

[Snake Plissken]

42. When the pirates land to rape and pillage, they'll be wondering why the United States Military

or any other military isn't coming to save them .

[XRubicon]

45. and no fire department...

what could go wrong?

[appalachiablue]

46. These people are visionaries! very rich ones. The Practical stuff, eh, later...

The Market Always Takes Care of Itself! LOL..

[XRubicon]

47. They will each pay for the road they use

and not an inch more.

[appalachiablue]

50. Sounds right, with plenty of 'fences make good neighbors.'

I'm thinking now of Lord of the Flies, and Pitcairn Island in #49 up thread. No happy Margaritavilles for sure!

[applegrove]

51. Worked out so well for Pitcairn.

[Garrett78]

52. Even if this turns out as envisioned - and it won't - it wouldn't work to scale up.

Even 300 (you have to figure there will be more than 1 person, on average, living in each house) is double Dunbar's Number.

No comparison can be made between a self-contained island of 300-1000 people and a sprawling nation (on a continent of nations) of 325,000,000.

[scarletlib]

54. So a few questions

Last edited Sat May 19, 2018, 07:49 AM - Edit history (1)

Who will unclog t
heir fancy toilets, haul away their garbage & sewage, keep all systems running properly? Not their fancy butlers and maids.