Super-yacht not big enough - How the rich plan to get away from taxes

Super-yacht not big enough? 'Seasteads' offer libertarians the vision of floating cities for the future



For (very) wealthy libertarians, seasteads – floating cities – might be the way forward, with their ambition of 'guaranteeing political freedom and enabling experimentation with alternative social systems'
Paul Peachey

Thursday 26 December 2013



Available soon, for sale or rent: brand new island with sea views from the terrace, fresh fish daily and swimming pool in the resort hotel. An ideal base for 225 pioneers with £100m-plus to spare and a yearning for a new political and social system.

And if you don’t like it, no problem. Hitch the house to the back of a tug boat and try somewhere else.

For the right-wing American libertarian with deep-seated problems with Big Government, the 19th century challenge to “Go West, young man” retains a powerful appeal. But for the current target audience – the free-wheeling capitalist dotcom millionaire in Silicon Valley – going west means getting wet.

Not an issue, according to a new design report investigating the feasibility of “seasteads”, communities of like-minded, self-governing individuals established on the high seas, free from what its proponents see as the restrictions of nations, welfare systems and punitive taxes.

The seasteading movement has emerged as a political movement – with nods to climate change and land shortages – to create new water-borne city states. Over 85 pages, a Dutch engineering and urban development company has outlined the feasibility of a floating “village” for 225 permanent residents and 50 hotel guests – a blueprint that the pioneering seasteaders hope will become hundreds of floating petri dishes of social and political experiments.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/superyacht-not-big-enough-seasteads-offer-libertarians-the-vision-of-floating-cities-for-the-future-9026242.html

Get 'em all on and tow it away, give someone else a chance lol

Oh!!!

I thought the title said: "How the rich plan to get away from Texas."

They are brilliant! I just love the stoned one!

Yes, they portray libertarians for exactly the delusional, bombastic and occasionally disturbing people they are!

What I find funny about this is that these guys so often argue for the "efficiency" of market capitalism over all other forms of social organization. Man, those entrepreneurs just get it done! Except -- the whole sea-steading thing has been trying to set sail for a good 41 years now. Not exactly the time it takes for Samsung to roll out an innovative new smartphone ...

In the end, I think the reason people aren't truly suited to the sort of lifestyle advocated by libertarians is that we can't be engineers, farmers, physicians, tailors, teachers, builders, etc. simultaneously. How many planned utopian communities, of any political stripe, have failed throughout history because while they had plenty of watchmakers, lawyers and philosophers, nobody knew how to plant a crop or pull a bad tooth?

Interdependency is at the heart of human civilization, but these people seem to think they can gather up a random 150 or so millionaires, put together a massive man-made island and make it work. Who's going to clean their homes, educate their kids, give their flu shots, fix their infrastructure and do all the other thousands of vital, low-paying jobs we have to have people doing -- and where will they live? Will the floating cities have some sort of modern-day servants' quarters? And who'd choose to leave a fully developed society to risk their life in a spoiled rich kid's experiment?

I gather you have read George Lakoff, Moral Politics.  I know that Obama has, as the dichotomy between economic individualism and communal humanism is exactly what he has in mind:  You didn't make that fortune, we all did.  

Or, as you put it so well: "interdependency is at the heart of human civilization."  Couldn't have said it better myself. Nice to meet a kindred soul.

Ben_Reilly wrote:Yes, they portray libertarians for exactly the delusional, bombastic and occasionally disturbing people they are!

What I find funny about this is that these guys so often argue for the "efficiency" of market capitalism over all other forms of social organization. Man, those entrepreneurs just get it done! Except -- the whole sea-steading thing has been trying to set sail for a good 41 years now. Not exactly the time it takes for Samsung to roll out an innovative new smartphone ...

In the end, I think the reason people aren't truly suited to the sort of lifestyle advocated by libertarians is that we can't be engineers, farmers, physicians, tailors, teachers, builders, etc. simultaneously. How many planned utopian communities, of any political stripe, have failed throughout history because while they had plenty of watchmakers, lawyers and philosophers, nobody knew how to plant a crop or pull a bad tooth?

Interdependency is at the heart of human civilization, but these people seem to think they can gather up a random 150 or so millionaires, put together a massive man-made island and make it work. Who's going to clean their homes, educate their kids, give their flu shots, fix their infrastructure and do all the other thousands of vital, low-paying jobs we have to have people doing -- and where will they live? Will the floating cities have some sort of modern-day servants' quarters? And who'd choose to leave a fully developed society to risk their life in a spoiled rich kid's experiment?

Indeed, and what are they going to do with the servants, stick them in submarines and have them live underneath.   And oh my, the plumbing gone, the shower won't work old thing, what ARE we going to do about the domestic situation, we can't go around stinking hey what!!!!!!   Idiots, people can't manage without interdependency, not possible.     It would be like Lord of the Flies if it happened, rich toffs plotting destruction over who gets the last biscuit.

This is why it would be easier if we all just voted skynet