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Mister Bates posted:It's worth noting that exactly three seasteads have actually been built over the years and they were all hilarious disasters. One was literally a big pile of sand dumped on top of a coral reef in the 70s, and it has since eroded away to nothing. One was a casino/resort/brothel built on a disused oil platform in the Mediterranean, and it was seized by the Italian government after about two weeks. That's the best thing. They want a seagoing community where appetites for cocaine, trafficked sex workers and unregulated profit can be fulfilled without answering to any law. What they don't realize is that this community already exists and it's called "rich people with yachts."
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Jun 8, 2014 19:31
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Buried alive posted:What are the technical details on how it sank? If they managed to set sail in the first place it seems like it has to be more complex than, 'lol, concrete boat.' quote:The boat was launched into the Hudson River at high tide, but when the tide went out, the boat was left lying on its side in the mud. A kerosene lantern broke in the process and started a fire, but the damage was limited by the inflammable cement structure. The boat was righted and sent down river. It appears that the Atlanteans took a few liberties with the ship’s design to make it more suitable for their purposes. For example, a (concrete) deckhouse was added. This made the vessel extremely top-heavy. All gear was stripped from the ship except what was needed to make it operable, and replaced with ballast. It still almost capsized from superstructure icing while crossing the mouth of New York harbor. Then it broke a propeller shaft off South Carolina, and finally limped into the Bahamas. There it stayed until it sank in a hurricane.
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Jun 8, 2014 19:31
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Buried alive posted:What are the technical details on how it sank? If they managed to set sail in the first place it seems like it has to be more complex than, 'lol, concrete boat.' Hit by a hurriicane. Somehow they hadn't planned for a hurricane hit despite planning to moor it in the middle of the most common hurricane area for the north atlantic area.
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Jun 8, 2014 19:43
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Kiwi Ghost Chips posted:Didn't a tiny country nearby invade it and take it over without any resistance? Yep, they were 'invaded' by Tonga. The original reef had been considered Tongan territory and the surrounding waters were economically important to the country's fishing industry, and they quickly got irritated at the hundred or so random white people squatting on a mound of sand in the middle of prime fishing territory, trying to claim it as territorial waters and demanding that the Tongan fishermen pay them for the right to fish there. The people on the island talked big about fighting to the death to defend their homestead against the evil and oppressive Tongan government. The Tongans then sent about twenty unarmed soldiers in dress uniform backed by a military band, and the libertarians all packed up and went home, grumbling about the evils of state coercion. Buried alive posted:What are the technical details on how it sank? If they managed to set sail in the first place it seems like it has to be more complex than, 'lol, concrete boat.' They hadn't thought to take storms into account. It very nearly capsized in the relatively calm waters of the Hudson, and got caught in a tropical storm after reaching the Bahamas; it never stood a chance in those seas and went to the bottom almost immediately. e: Beaten like an indentured servant at Galt's Gulch.
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Jun 8, 2014 20:43
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I should also note that building large ships with concrete actually works very well, albeit costing more to build and requiring more engine power to push them around, like it's not like their design would have worked better if done in standard metal. Their design was just terrible all around for stability.
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Jun 8, 2014 20:47
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Mister Bates posted:Yep, they were 'invaded' by Tonga. The original reef had been considered Tongan territory and the surrounding waters were economically important to the country's fishing industry, and they quickly got irritated at the hundred or so random white people squatting on a mound of sand in the middle of prime fishing territory, trying to claim it as territorial waters and demanding that the Tongan fishermen pay them for the right to fish there. The people on the island talked big about fighting to the death to defend their homestead against the evil and oppressive Tongan government. The Tongans then sent about twenty unarmed soldiers in dress uniform backed by a military band, and the libertarians all packed up and went home, grumbling about the evils of state coercion.
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Jun 8, 2014 20:58
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Nessus posted:So is the theory with "homesteading" that you can just build a house on any land that isn't being actively cultivated and now magically it's yours because you settled it? I remember people being all "bar bar we should homestead people on the federal lands in the West," never mind that - even leaving aside the question of national monuments, ecology, etc - there's no loving water there, as if it was some magical solution, that if you just give someone a scrap of godforsaken land they will become a stout yeoman farmer growing crops and making a living. It's like if British policy included regular proposals for the establishment of new monasteries. Yeah, that was pretty much their entire reasoning. They figured that since the land was technically new, nobody owned it, and they could just put a house down on it and say 'this land is now legally mine because I say so.' They didn't think it through much further than that - it was, again, literally a pile of loving sand in the middle of the South Pacific, with absolutely no vegetation or wildlife or soil or fresh water or...loving anything. And then around a hundred well-off American suburbanites with no understanding of how to survive in a wilderness environment of any kind plopped themselves down on what amounted to a patch of unlivable wasteland. The plan, as far as I can tell, was basically to support the anarcho-capitalist utopia by charging fishermen to fish in the surrounding water and then use the resulting money to import the necessities of life.
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Jun 8, 2014 21:12
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Mister Bates posted:Yeah, that was pretty much their entire reasoning. They figured that since the land was technically new, nobody owned it, and they could just put a house down on it and say 'this land is now legally mine because I say so.' They didn't think it through much further than that - it was, again, literally a pile of loving sand in the middle of the South Pacific, with absolutely no vegetation or wildlife or soil or fresh water or...loving anything. And then around a hundred well-off American suburbanites with no understanding of how to survive in a wilderness environment of any kind plopped themselves down on what amounted to a patch of unlivable wasteland. The plan, as far as I can tell, was basically to support the anarcho-capitalist utopia by charging fishermen to fish in the surrounding water and then use the resulting money to import the necessities of life. Libertarianism.txt
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Jun 8, 2014 22:16
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Mister Bates posted:Yeah, that was pretty much their entire reasoning. They figured that since the land was technically new, nobody owned it, and they could just put a house down on it and say 'this land is now legally mine because I say so.' They didn't think it through much further than that - it was, again, literally a pile of loving sand in the middle of the South Pacific, with absolutely no vegetation or wildlife or soil or fresh water or...loving anything. And then around a hundred well-off American suburbanites with no understanding of how to survive in a wilderness environment of any kind plopped themselves down on what amounted to a patch of unlivable wasteland. The plan, as far as I can tell, was basically to support the anarcho-capitalist utopia by charging fishermen to fish in the surrounding water and then use the resulting money to import the necessities of life.
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Jun 8, 2014 22:43
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Nessus posted:And presumably they would have attacked those fishermen to keep them away? Sounds like pirates to me. I don't know, that sounds insulting to pirates.
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Jun 8, 2014 23:06
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Mister Bates posted:Yeah, that was pretty much their entire reasoning. They figured that since the land was technically new, nobody owned it, and they could just put a house down on it and say 'this land is now legally mine because I say so.' They didn't think it through much further than that - it was, again, literally a pile of loving sand in the middle of the South Pacific, with absolutely no vegetation or wildlife or soil or fresh water or...loving anything. And then around a hundred well-off American suburbanites with no understanding of how to survive in a wilderness environment of any kind plopped themselves down on what amounted to a patch of unlivable wasteland. The plan, as far as I can tell, was basically to support the anarcho-capitalist utopia by charging fishermen to fish in the surrounding water and then use the resulting money to import the necessities of life. Wait, does homesteading not apply to water somehow? I thought the whole point is that if you're making use of something, then basically you own it. Did these guys just not parse that the water they were dumping their sand in was being used? Did it not occur to them? How did they rectify that?
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Jun 8, 2014 23:32
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This picture should explain exactly how Libertarians decided those mixing their labor with the reefs to create wealth somehow "didn't count" as having a pre-existing property interest there.
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Jun 8, 2014 23:36
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Mister Bates posted:Yeah, that was pretty much their entire reasoning. They figured that since the land was technically new, nobody owned it, and they could just put a house down on it and say 'this land is now legally mine because I say so.' They didn't think it through much further than that - it was, again, literally a pile of loving sand in the middle of the South Pacific, with absolutely no vegetation or wildlife or soil or fresh water or...loving anything. And then around a hundred well-off American suburbanites with no understanding of how to survive in a wilderness environment of any kind plopped themselves down on what amounted to a patch of unlivable wasteland. The plan, as far as I can tell, was basically to support the anarcho-capitalist utopia by charging fishermen to fish in the surrounding water and then use the resulting money to import the necessities of life. KomradeX posted:Libertarianism.txt
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Jun 8, 2014 23:40
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Buried alive posted:Wait, does homesteading not apply to water somehow? I thought the whole point is that if you're making use of something, then basically you own it. Homesteading doesn't even apply to land, dude. Except when a sovereign government explicitly authorizes it for a certain area. If you do it outside that context, then you can be evicted from the land very easily.
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Jun 8, 2014 23:44
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Nintendo Kid posted:Homesteading doesn't even apply to land, dude. Except when a sovereign government explicitly authorizes it for a certain area. I think he was asking if homesteading does not apply to water within the insane libratoryian ideology, I mean, the water was already in use by the fishermen, so how is it not already homesteaded?
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Jun 8, 2014 23:52
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AVeryLargeRadish posted:I think he was asking if homesteading does not apply to water within the insane libratoryian ideology, I mean, the water was already in use by the fishermen, so how is it not already homesteaded? Oh that's simple they weren't white.
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Jun 8, 2014 23:56
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Libertarianism is a fake toy ideology for stupid babies. It requires a fundamental misunderstanding of how "PROPERTY!" ( ) even works and where wealth actually comes from. Note that very few of their sainted captains of industry are so confused.* The ideology of the ruling class is just vanilla liberalism, but ancap sure is handy for mobilizing frustrated middle-class whites into the war against the working class. *I cannot tell if the Kochs are cynical or not. 
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Jun 8, 2014 23:57
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Buried alive posted:Wait, does homesteading not apply to water somehow? I thought the whole point is that if you're making use of something, then basically you own it. Did these guys just not parse that the water they were dumping their sand in was being used? Did it not occur to them? How did they rectify that? Their logic was that, technically, no one was using the land itself, and that was all that counted. Libertarianism and its variants are basically ideologies built entirely out of technicalities - indentured servitude technically isn't slavery, paying rent and protection money to a private defense agency technically isn't taxation, a vast corporate entity exercising sole policing authority over an area of controlled territory technically isn't a government, etc. Nintendo Kid posted:Oh that's simple they weren't white. Also this. I'm not sure if the people in question were Objectivists or not, but Rand herself was notoriously racist and defended the genocide of Native Americans as an inherently just and moral act.
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Jun 9, 2014 01:46
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Mister Bates posted:Their logic was that, technically, no one was using the land itself, and that was all that counted. Libertarianism and its variants are basically ideologies built entirely out of technicalities - indentured servitude technically isn't slavery, paying rent and protection money to a private defense agency technically isn't taxation, a vast corporate entity exercising sole policing authority over an area of controlled territory technically isn't a government, etc. But...but then how could they have the right to charge people fishing in the waters, since it's only the land itself that counted and the Libertarians weren't setting up homesteads on the water. Ngghgh!
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Jun 9, 2014 01:47
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I strongly suspect that a lot of them believed that, in lieu of a state, the full power of human innovation would be unleashed, and power plants, desalination plants, fertilizer plants, farms, heavy and rare earth material mines, factories and a horde of propertyless proles would materialize in very short order. 
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Jun 9, 2014 01:56
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Is there any more information on the Republic of Minerva/Tonga thing? I always thought it was never any kind of principled experiment, and was just some Vegas real-estate tycoon who blundered forward with some absurd project that was obviously doomed regardless of ideology. Like a libertarian version of hippie communes or whatever.
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Jun 9, 2014 03:33
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LogisticEarth posted:Is there any more information on the Republic of Minerva/Tonga thing? I always thought it was never any kind of principled experiment, and was just some Vegas real-estate tycoon who blundered forward with some absurd project that was obviously doomed regardless of ideology. Like a libertarian version of hippie communes or whatever. First, here's an account of a man who was with the Tongan forces that ousted the Minerva people: http://www.queenoftheisles.com/HTML/Republic%20of%20Minerva.html These are some interviews and articles about the tycoon who was the head of the project: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/10/oliver.htm http://newint.org/features/1981/07/01/phoenix/
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Jun 9, 2014 03:40
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Nintendo Kid posted:First, here's an account of a man who was with the Tongan forces that ousted the Minerva people: http://www.queenoftheisles.com/HTML/Republic%20of%20Minerva.html Thanks. Although not too much information about what flavor of libertarianism they were going after, it just seemed like a general anti-government shtick. Also didn't see anything about fishing extortion. Unless I missed it the only time that's mentioned is when Tonga used fishing rights as a justification to claim sovereignty over the reefs. I've read some other plans to set up "economic freedom cities" or something in receptive third-world countries. Basically asking for a section of land to build a new libertarian city-state. Slightly more feasible, slightly less Bioshocky.
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Jun 9, 2014 04:01
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I believe Nicaragua was the one that was about to explicitly allow it. It turned out that the proponents of the scheme couldn't find any major companies willing to participate and invest, and thus the plans got canceled. Anyway, I think some libraries out there might have archives of the newsletters and such that the Minerva people sent out when they were preparing to build their land, but I haven't the faintest clue how to search for that.
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Jun 9, 2014 04:22
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LogisticEarth posted:I've read some other plans to set up "economic freedom cities" or something in receptive third-world countries. Basically asking for a section of land to build a new libertarian city-state. Slightly more feasible, slightly less Bioshocky. This is probably less feasible than trying to build a commune on a sandbar in the south pacific. A land-based libertarian city-state would have to deal with problems like maintaining its borders against the political and military machinations of its competitors (including the supposedly benevolent host country), in addition to silly statist problems like immigration, free riders, water rights, the business cycle, etc. etc. Why go to all that trouble when you can just buy the political process right here at home? Typical Pubbie fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Jun 9, 2014 |
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Jun 9, 2014 04:22
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Typical Pubbie posted:This is probably less feasible than trying to build a commune on a sandbar in the south pacific. A land-based libertarian city-state would have to deal with problems like maintaining its borders against the political and military machinations of its competitors (including the supposedly benevolent host country), in addition to silly statist problems like immigration, free riders, water rights, the business cycle, etc. etc.
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Jun 9, 2014 07:45
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Nintendo Kid posted:I believe Nicaragua was the one that was about to explicitly allow it. It turned out that the proponents of the scheme couldn't find any major companies willing to participate and invest, and thus the plans got canceled. What do you mean companies did not want to sign up to build an entire cities worth of infrastructure, in an area with few educated workers, away from clustered feeder/supply industries, near areas with known druglord warfare, no guarantee of safety due to no military/police, no harbor for cheap shipping, in a country that doesn't speak English. Why, who wouldn't want to take them up on that offer?! It sounds like pure  to me.
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Jun 9, 2014 08:51
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Aren't their actual "business friendly" places like that already? With names like "Free Trade Zones" or "Economic Opportunity Areas" that type of thing. Places with reduced regulatory burdens or that don't have the normal import export tariffs or that just don't have customs inspections, I think there is quite a lot of variability in what they get out of having to do and that they are all over the place.
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Jun 9, 2014 16:39
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BrandorKP posted:Aren't their actual "business friendly" places like that already? With names like "Free Trade Zones" or "Economic Opportunity Areas" that type of thing. Places with reduced regulatory burdens or that don't have the normal import export tariffs or that just don't have customs inspections, I think there is quite a lot of variability in what they get out of having to do and that they are all over the place. Of course; don't assume that libertarians know even one thing about the world and what's in it. The freedoms they petulantly demand are in almost all cases available to the investor class they worship.
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Jun 9, 2014 18:16
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BrandorKP posted:Aren't their actual "business friendly" places like that already? With names like "Free Trade Zones" or "Economic Opportunity Areas" that type of thing. Places with reduced regulatory burdens or that don't have the normal import export tariffs or that just don't have customs inspections, I think there is quite a lot of variability in what they get out of having to do and that they are all over the place. Where did you have in mind? Situations where tariffs are waived are pretty common but not so much other things.
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Jun 9, 2014 19:39
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BrandorKP posted:Aren't their actual "business friendly" places like that already? With names like "Free Trade Zones" or "Economic Opportunity Areas" that type of thing. Places with reduced regulatory burdens or that don't have the normal import export tariffs or that just don't have customs inspections, I think there is quite a lot of variability in what they get out of having to do and that they are all over the place. To the people who try to start the "super free city" projects, almost any regulation or tax whatsoever is too much. Your typical free trade zone is a port area or staging area for a port that allows a lot of customs fees to be avoided until an oppurtune time, or have reduced import fees (the general goal being that shipping companies will bring merchandise into that area that's meant to be forwarded on to another country, and this will provide work for people to do). Your typical "economic oppurtunity area" either reduces the sales tax rate, or cuts some property/business income taxes, but rarely to 0.
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Jun 9, 2014 22:06
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wateroverfire posted:Where did you have in mind? Situations where tariffs are waived are pretty common but not so much other things. Yeah it's the tariff / customs thing mostly. But mostly I just keep hearing about the drat things, and it's seems like every new one is different. Some of them seem to be just big versions of a bonded customs warehouse, some of them are places where final assembly of parts from multiple nations occur. Every time I pick up an economist (I know, there's my problem) I seem to see an article about the things. There always seems to be a new term for the area and there always seems to be a new incentive being tried. I would normally call these areas "liberal" (in the sense the Economist is liberal not American liberal) but not Libertarian, but I have this general (and frankly nebulous) perception that they seem to be tending towards more Libertopia-ish as time progress. I really should follow it more closely. I'm in and out of these types of areas all the time. Edit: To be clear I do think they have a purpose in many cases. I'm all to familiar with the problems involved in import/export. Pope Fabulous XXIV posted:*I cannot tell if the Kochs are cynical or not. I'm pretty sure Charles and David Koch are true believers. Digging to the Koch newsletters I found honest to god young Charles Koch parables. They even have assembled a canon : http://www.kochind.com/Newsroom/EconomicFreedom.aspx. From a review of Sons of Wichita in the Times: Sunday Book Review posted:They have sincere political views that go beyond being just a cover for their companies’ interest in lower taxes and fewer regulations, and many of their political activities have been right out in the open, rather than lurking in the shadows. He seems to be almost in awe of Charles, the most mysterious of the brothers, who runs Koch Industries by a system he devised called Market-Based Management. Summarizing, but not dissenting from, the views of Charles’s employees, Schulman calls him “a near-mythic figure, a man of preternatural intellect and economic prowess,” adding: “He is unquestionably powerful, but unfailingly humble; elusive, but uncomplicated; cosmopolitan, yet thoroughly Kansan.” Additionally the fight between the brothers over KII, was in large part over Charles' devotion to Libertarianism (in addition to a good helping of sibling rivalry fostered by the father). Two of the brothers basically thought: We could be making more money if we weren't giving it away to this Libertarian crap. It got really nasty and there is a whole book on it now. But this is a pretty good summary (I posted it earlier because it confirmed Charles was a John Birch Society member.) http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/koch-brothers-family-history-sons-of-wichita Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 15:50
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quote:He is unquestionably powerful, but unfailingly humble; elusive, but uncomplicated Charles Koch: Baal
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Jun 10, 2014 16:51
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BrandorKP posted:The "Seasteading" crap always irritates me. This is unironically one of the more interesting things I've read in D&D for a while. I don't know what thread maritime discussion would fit into, but thanks for sharing this.
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Jun 10, 2014 18:19
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There is an ask/tell maritime industry thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3393222 Buncha sailors / various maritime academy grads on SA.
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Jun 10, 2014 19:09
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SedanChair posted:Charles Koch: Baal Heh. You do have a way of getting to the heart of things.
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Jun 10, 2014 19:12
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BrandorKP posted:There is an ask/tell maritime industry thread: The market has provided me with the opportunity to boostrap my way to an answer. 
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Jun 10, 2014 19:27
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NPR had a story on Asa Earl Carter this weekend. http://www.npr.org/2012/04/20/151037079/the-artful-reinvention-of-klansman-asa-earl-carter Asa Carter is the guy who wrote many of the speeches of the segregation movement, most importantly the speech. He's the guy who wrote "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" for George Wallace. A really awful person, so extreme right that often the extreme right groups weren't radical enough and he'd break off and form his own. The show is about a book he wrote later (apparently he felt betrayed by Wallace and dropped off the map) while pretending to be a Native American storyteller. So why is this person relevant to a thread about Libertarians. Well he used to host a radio show. The title floored me. "On Liberty" The intersection of some of the roots of talk radio, the hate of the segregationists, and Libertarianism all expressed in one person.
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Jun 16, 2014 15:30
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The NSFWCorp archives are apparently sadly offline, but a couple of good Mark Ames stories about the history of Libertarianism and its ties to the radical right can still be found in some form online. The True History of Libertarianism in America: A Phony Ideology to Promote a Corporate Agenda and Charles Koch's Brain Shuts Down The Holocaust By Mark Ames Ted Cruz’s libertarian ideology and the rise of US holocaust denial.
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Jun 16, 2014 18:13
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BrandorKP posted:NPR had a story on Asa Earl Carter this weekend. I caught that story as well during, and among the many interesting things about it was his pal's heterodox interpretation of the book he wrote while in the Forrest Carter persona, The Education of Little Tree. To add to what you've said, and for those who haven't the time/inclination to read the NPR story (you really should): After being by all accounts a horrible but eloquent klansman shithead for much of his life, Asa Earl Carter sorta vanished after Wallace, reading the changing winds, distanced himself from that sort of blatant shitheadery, only to later resurface as "Forrest" Carter, a supposed Cherokee storyteller who authored the book which got picked up as "The Outlaw Josey Wales," and who all attest was just the sweetest old boy you'd ever want to meet and who didn't have a prejudiced bone in his body. Anyway, at the end of the NPR piece one of Carter's friend from the bad old days insisted that the point of The Education of Little Tree is actually a quasi-libertarian (or neo-Confederate, if you please) one where the villains are all Meddlesome Government Men and the heroes all Independent The inversion and Asa pulled in reinventing himself is what I found the most fascinating, as well as how we'll likely never really know if it was genuine or a long-con. Captain_Maclaine fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jun 16, 2014 |
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Jun 16, 2014 20:40
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