Real Life Rapture Doesnt Need 'Loser Building Codes!'

[TheMagicLemur]

Ah, so it's a paradise for the sort of libertarian who really just wants to be a selfish asshole without being condemned for being a selfish asshole (read: about 80% of libertarians).

To clarify, I'm not saying that all libertarians are just pricks that need a socio-economic excuse to be pricks, but there are quite a few that are just mean, selfish people who don't want to share or help anyone but themselves. On the other hand, I wholeheartedly condone them going off and living on their own; I can't wait to see how that clusterfuck of greed and ruthlessness works out.

 

[SnootyEnglishman]

I say we wait till an internal power struggle erupts on the islands and wipes out the populace. Then we move in to steal all their scientific breakthroughs and proceed to wreak havoc on the mainlands with an army of brainwashed Big Daddies and the ability to shoot hornets from our wrists. If anyone's interested I'll be taking applications for would be marauders now.

I would like to join.

OP: While the idea is interesting i don't see much good coming out of it..but then i've been wrong before.

 

[Nurb]

No safety regulations, no minimum wage, no child labor laws, and no worker rights.... Their first hurdle after it's built is finding people stupid enough to work for them to support their services and maintainence.

"The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place."

Oh I get it, if a worker can't afford to leave the island and doesn't have a job, they'll prevent homelessnes with forced labor. I bet those perverted, rich sexual tourist businessmen will enjoy not having to worry about Thailand's cops busting them in a child brothel there either.

Hell i'd volunteer to do security for it.

Imagine the giggles you could get watching people flail about trying to create a society with no law or regulations.

You don't understand.

It will have laws and regulations, it's just starting from a clean slate.

Personally I hope they are able to go through with it. I beleive in libertarian values in theory, but if this works out I'll get to see if they actually work in practice.

Laws and regulations are what they're getting AWAY from. They don't want them:

"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 not like you have to worry about it in the first place, you and most libertarians will never be able to afford to live there.

 

[FalloutJack]

Does anyone else see this as a really bad idea...
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silicon-valley-billionaire-funding-creation-artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html

*Waiting to see signs of James Bond villainy*

 

[Nickolai77]

I'm in in favour of people setting up their own pieces of sovereign territory and conducting "experiments in living" as JS Mill would call it.

I think a small Libeterian island would work okay because it would be populated by a few dozen very very rich and like-minded billionares whom don't need to steal and murder one another. The problem is that it will become an immediate tax-haven, and this pisses off the international community whom will eventually shut it down or force sanctions.

Otherwise, if the Libertarian community grows to a a couple thousand individuals, your going to start getting problems concerning people not being able to afford decent health and education and whom are on very low wages. In the end, these struggling people will pack up and leave- and the Liberterian "paradise" will probably never grow to more than a hundred people or so- which consists of a few billionares and their servants, and in the end of the whole exercise proves little.

 

[Pyode]

No safety regulations, no minimum wage, no child labor laws, and no worker rights.... Their first hurdle after it's built is finding people stupid enough to work for them to support their services and maintainence.

"The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place."

Oh I get it, if a worker can't afford to leave the island and doesn't have a job, they'll prevent homelessnes with forced labor. I bet those perverted, rich sexual tourist businessmen will enjoy not having to worry about Thailand's cops busting them in a child brothel there either.

I bolded and underlined the part that you are either missing or intentionally ignoring.

He is not saying there will be no laws or regulations. Just that because of the way this nation is being founded, it won't be tied down by any predisposed notions of how it should be formed.

Libertarianism is not the "rich man's anarchism" like so many people seem to think.

Now I don't claim to know this man's personal beliefs on everything, but I can pretty much guarantee you that there will be laws against child abuse, murder, rape, theft, and most of the other crimes that involve one person harming another.

At it's core (and keep in mind this is a massive oversimplification) libertarianism is about protecting people from each other, but not from themselves.

Laws and regulations are what they're getting AWAY from. They don't want them:

I have already explained why this is completely false.

"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."

I don't claim to know how eliminating these policies are going to work in practice (neither can you) and I can understand why they sound bad on paper. I have no doubt that even 50 years ago these policies would be almost guaranteed to lead to massive poverty and suffering. However I don't think that is the case any more.

It used to be that if a product was faulty or dangerous, the company creating it could fairly easily stop the information from spreading through their user base. This is why government regulation had to be implemented, because the general public had absolutely no deference against this practice.

I don't think this is the case anymore. The flow of information is so vastly improved that if a company say, started to build shoddy houses, people will learn quickly and stop buying those houses. At that point the company has to clean up their act or they risk losing those customers to another company.

It's not like you have to worry about it in the first place, you and most libertarians will never be able to afford to live there.

I never said I wanted to. I just see this as a great social experiment. If it succeeds, then great, perhaps we will be able to make some changes to our own government. If it doesn't, well, at least we learned something.