We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Selling honours from a micro-state I wonder what Patri Friedman, moving light in the Seasteading Institute and an advocate of the idea of creating new nations, makes of this story.
Sealand is one of the longest-running attempts to create a micro-state. It is off the Suffolk coast, based on an old anti-aircraft tower. The article, by the local newspaper in the East Anglian region, contains a nice photo of the place.
I suspect that if Sealand ever provided services – such as totally encrypted financial service facilities – then a tax-hungry UK would not demur at sending over a frigate to shut the place down. But the guy who set up this place has been known to defend his territory vigorously. For a supposed old eccentric, he’s held out remarkably well.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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I’m not British. Not a retired Major. Not a former businessman. I do know the feeling.
Some veterans and people who have kin in the military
hang US flags in front of their houses. More houses have various flags that seem only decorative. A few have the Gadsden flag.
I’m waiting for all those flags to be replaced by the Jolly Roger and cannon ports to open on the sides of houses
I don’t even vote. I can misrepresent myself, thank you
I’m surprised that some billionaire hasn’t outright bought some tiny island country from the inhabitants and set up something similar to Sealand. Completely independent server farms, et cetera…
Cirby, it’s been tried. Patri Friedman talks about it in his Seasteading book (there’s a link on their website), and if you’re really interested in the subject here’s another book which talks about some of the difficulties of starting a new nation.
Why even buy a country? Perhaps it is just an old trope from pirate movies, but what about the good old uninhabited desert island. Or have all those been claimed too?
I’m afraid that the ‘micro-state’ method of escape is a non-starter. During the 1990’s, the tax haven countries such as Cayman, Monaco etc were threatened with economic embargo unless they toed the line and agreed to sign up to various “anti-money laundering” laws that, effectively, terminated their status as havens.
This is exactly the fate that would befall any billionaire who attempted to set up another micro-state.
The only micro-state or haven that would be of any use is one where us overtaxed ‘big country’ citizens could opt to go and physically reside. However, the very ‘micro’ nature of the micro-state renders that impossible too.
Sorry chaps and chapesses, but the Days of Haven are well and truly over.
Wasn’t it Prof. Ian Angell of the LSE who some years ago suggested off-planet banking as a way to place details of your transactions and assets beyond the clutches of the terrestrial taxocracy?
Anyone who seriously threatened the global tax cartel would be taken out with extreme prejudice. A few people can slip under the radar, but as soon as the level of transactions rose to that of even a nascent state, very bad things would start happening.
There might be avenues using strong crypto, but in the real world deniability and non-repudiability are competing desiderata (you need to be able to prove it’s your money so you can withdraw it but you need to be able to deny it’s your money so the authorities can’t tax it.)
‘Off-planet banking’? Isn’t the banking already out of this world?
Havenco already did that in Sealand – they used to handle encrypted payments for online gambling websites, amongst other things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havenco
The Royal Navy no longer has enough operational frigates to spare for that sort of thing.
There was a spectacular fire at Sealand in 2006:
http://www.bobleroi.co.uk/ScrapBook/Sealand_Fire/Sealand_Fire.html
Matter of time.
New States are the solution. Seabased or Spacebased.The problem is that people that are into it do not grasp there is need of military capability.
Also a variable size state where if anyone disagrees seriously with some rule can jump out.
“threatened with economic embargo unless they toed the line and agreed to sign up to various “anti-money laundering” laws that, effectively, terminated their status as havens.”
Maybe but they can still have a 5% tax rate or less or an equal fee or a Constitution that limits the tax rate.
New states are necessary to destroy the forced Social Republic we have.
On Saturday perhaps the final last major step will be taken in the bankruptcy of the United States.
The health care bill will likely get its 60 votes in the Senate – vote to proceed will mean vote to pass (whatever some Senators say later).
If this happens there may well be new opportunities – although things will be very nasty.
There will be no way to prevent economic collapse in the United States over the following few years (it may well happen if the Bill does not pass – but it is certain if it does pass).
Then people will have lots of new opportunities to found new nations – and not just in what was the United States and elsewhere. But I will not welcome this (even if I am about at the time), too much chaos and violence for my likeing.
“The Chinese will enforce order on the world”.
Perhaps – but perhaps not.
Cannon: instrument employed in rectifying national borders. Definitions of things have been changing as
more people take upon themselves the task of defining.
Territory, organization, control. Cellular phones have given rise to flash mobs. Organizations do not need territory. Control can be in many forms.
There have always been individuals and groups that owe little or no loyalty to any nation. Corporations, especially financial, behave as their own “nations”
Rigid, too-defined, inflexible thinking will lose.
There are cliques and claques of all kinds. In large affairs, often those who control things are not known.
Only doubt is certain.
Not even graveyards are in a sovereign state.
This is bloody goddamned nonsense and Friedman is an epic fool.
There is no running and hiding now. There is only a desperate and principled defense of freedom: that’s the only hope, if there is any at all.
Cirby, the reason they’re called desert islands, is because they lack fresh water sources, so you couldn’t just move in! I had similar fantasies about the Ashmore reef, until I found out how water-lacking it was. Now if a billionaire put in a desalination plant, and moved good topsoil onto it, to support the citizens needed for an army, so you could fight off any troops from established nations, then a new country might come about, but you’d need a billionaire with deep pockets, and those types, like Richard Branson, want to go up, not out!
Good point, Nick. Very rich people get very rich only by playing the system – there is no other way, so they mostly have no interest in opposing that same system. I’m afraid I’m with Billy on this.
What Billy Beck said.
I have rarely read such a lot of complete tinfoil-hattery on this site.
Get real, people; you have to live in the world as it is.
David Gillies,
“There might be avenues using strong crypto, but in the real world deniability and non-repudiability are competing desiderata (you need to be able to prove it’s your money so you can withdraw it but you need to be able to deny it’s your money so the authorities can’t tax it.)”
Yup. I’ve said something about it over at Counting Cats, if you’re interested. I don’t claim it to be a complete solution, but I don’t think the properties are necessarily incompatible either.
Ok, thanks a lot for your post. It was of good help to me, hope to hear from you soon again.
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