Yeah, Chris, a small settlement of massive egos all working together in perfect harmony! What could possibly go wrong? :-)

ROTFL. Exactly.

Could be fun to watch, though. From a distance. Like a too-full cage of fight-trained angry pit bulls.

As Nick notes, even a small poor government could take out or take over any micronation yet established. Like the Kingdom of Tonga took back Minerva.

It helps that apparently a lot of them do things like computer programming that you can do from almost anywhere. They talk about businesses like prostitution, gambling, and legalized drugs making them money. But in the end their best bet is to keep doing what they’re doing. And some less PC illegal activities. There’s a lot of eating on a Blue Whale.

The only really new thing these guys are trying is creating a floating port to refit their boats every few years, keeping governments off their backs, and protecting that port from pirates. Given that the military has created floating ports before I have no doubt it should be possible for these guys to do the same given enough money.

As for governments they’re in for trouble. The Republic of Rose Island was dynamited by the Italians in the late 60s. Sealand has some legal protection, because the only sovereign state that can mess with it is the UK and the British Courts have given it some legal protections. If these guys were smart they’d actually buy the platform and use that as a base.

Pirates could be even more trouble. Especially if they legalize drugs and have large amounts of the hard stuff on hand.

But viable as an ongoing economic entity? Even remotely self-sufficient? I sincerely doubt it. Without some sound economic basis to keep the resources flowing, the best they could manage is a deep-pockets retreat. Like Galt’s Gulch, but without the magical mystery power machines, or all the required skilled trades mysteriously being covered by all the elite who move there, or the food supply miraculously being sufficient.

And yes, the history of micronations suggests that existing governments would be the downfall of any attempt at sovereignty. Not that pirates and scavengers wouldn’t be a threat as well.

I would actually love for them to go through with this idea, because what would they have to do to survive? create their own government, that’s what. Government with rules, which limit the freedoms of some for the benefit of the majority.

For better or worse, things like nations and cultures and so on and so forth bind humans together despite their differences. That’s a big contributor to many of the most magnificent human accomplishments, ones which take time and planning and teamwork and building on others insights.

Seasteading sounds like a zillion nations of one, with everyone ready to take their ball and go away if they don’t get their way. My sense of human nature doesn’t make me optimistic on it. That’s without even talking about pirates, matey.

It reminds me of that South Park episode where the college know-it-all hippies are saying “and one person could bake bread and one person could grow vegetables and one person could….”. And then Stan says “yeah, that’s called a town.”

Wherever you go to make this purchase, you’ll most likely have to pay sales tax.

Game over!

Agnostick
agnostick@excite.com

P.S. Anybody else thinking of Deacon from “Waterworld?”