Details, by way of Wonkette, profiles the young dotcom billionaires who want to build libertarian nation-states in international waters:
It goes like this: Friedman wants to establish new sovereign nations built on oil-rig-type platforms anchored in international waters—free from the regulation, laws, and moral suasion of any landlocked country. They’d be small city-states at first, although the aim is to have tens of millions of seasteading residents by 2050. Architectural plans for a prototype involve a movable, diesel-powered, 12,000-ton structure with room for 270 residents, with the idea that dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of these could be linked together. Friedman hopes to launch a flotilla of offices off the San Francisco coast next year; full-time settlement, he predicts, will follow in about seven years; and full diplomatic recognition by the United Nations, well, that’ll take some lawyers and time.
“The ultimate goal,” Friedman says, “is to open a frontier for experimenting with new ideas for government.” This translates into the founding of ideologically oriented micro-states on the high seas, 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.
It’s a vivid, wild-eyed dream—think Burning Man as reimagined by Ayn Rand’s John Galt and steered out to sea by Captain Nemo—but Friedman and Thiel, aware of the long and tragicomic history of failed libertarian utopias, believe that entrepreneurial zeal sets this scheme apart.
Go read the whole thing. I would love to see this happen, just to watch it collapse.
Some ocean storm is going to destroy that thing a month in.
They should call it “Twaterworld”.
Oil platforms. Those must be cheap enough for a couple of dudes to buy.
I’m sure they think they’ll get “investors” who they will somehow pay back by building a couple of office buildings on a platform. I’m sure the rental income from some office space in the middle of the ocean must be sufficient to pay for an oil rig right? Then you have to ferry employees back and forth every day.
Eventually, you convince people to live permenantly on an oil platform with 250 other weirdos. All far enough off the coast so that it’s in “international waters.” Paying to import 95% of their food and other goods. Man, that would be great sociology experiment, until someone went crazy and killed everyone else.
When you think about the practicalities of it, you wonder why someone would even bother to write an article about it.
There is/was one rogue oil platform kingdom off the UK I believe. It survived by becoming the official clearing house for a bunch of shady crap by international criminals and tax dodgers.
It would be just like BioShock, except real!
@Right Rev: Beat me. Damn for not staying logged in.
This has been a thing since forever. Sealand has been at it for over 30 years.
Gun crazed, oil rig dwelling utopian cults? Sounds like a job for Boat Cop!
I especially like how there won’t be any welfare but lots of weapons. There’s nothing like being stuck in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of armed and penniless people with nothing to lose.
I’m sure any wonky government could work with only a few hundred people, where everyone knows each other and is on board with the rules. It’s making it work for 300 million that’s the trick.
I hope they do this so then we can declare war on them and take their resources.
They have an island like this already. It is called Haiti.
So….where does Dave Lister send his condo application?
Looser building codes + floating around in the ocean = what could go wrong?
Let’s send some Somali pirates over to invade them, just as a practical joke.
This is The Raft from Neal Stephonson’s Snow Crash.
If you threw no corporate income tax into the plans you’d have all kinds of investors lining up for corporate headquarters.
Somebody has watched Water World too many times.
Don’t they already have something like this? “Offshore tax havens” I believe they’re called? And why does every dumb-ass wheel re-invention seem to have the name Friedman attached to it? Honestly, dude, go back into your suburban DC mansion and bug your heiress wife for a while. Leave the rest of us the hell alone…