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PDFWhile millions continue to suffer economic hardship in the U.S. — not to mention all those suffering from disease and famine in the Horn of Africa — billionaires spend millions investing in the possibility of nation-building in international waters. These floating “petri dishes” will no doubt facilitate tax evasion for the oligarchists.
Pay Pal founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel has given $1.25 million to an initiative to create floating libertarian countries in international waters, according to a profile of the billionaire in Details magazine.
Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of law-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch–free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be “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.”
With the human population currently at 7 billion (and soon to be 8 billion), the potentiality for floating cities might be more than just sci-fi. While the concept of building new governance structures on floating cities is an innovative one, Seasteading appears to be more interested in claiming oceanic space because “all land is already claimed,” according to their web site. The folks involved in the “project” are all wealthy, powerful elites who are interested in catering to their fat cat funders. Haven’t we had enough “sovereign nation-building” by this self-serving, greedy, destructive, and irresponsible lot?
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