LESSWRONG
LW

Personal Blog

14

Floating Festival Jul 22-25

by Eliezer Yudkowsky
21st Jul 2010
1 min read
9

14

Personal Blog

14

Floating Festival Jul 22-25
8Roko
3Kevin
6Roko
7Kevin
2Kevin
4kodos96
4Kevin
0knb
0timtyler
New Comment
9 comments, sorted by
top scoring
Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 6:14 AM
[-]Roko15y80

What made the insurance cost so high? Did they have to insure against future damages caused by an army of libertarian pirates raiding the California coast?

Reply
[-]Kevin15y30

It doesn't seem unreasonable that this is something that would be extraordinarily expensive to insure -- and the insurance cost balloon wasn't 10x, but 2.5x. I mean, there are going to be drunk/high people jumping from boat to boat and doing various motorized water sports.

Reply
[-]Roko15y60

High on revolutionary fervor, is that?

Reply
[-]Kevin15y70

It never looks like a revolution until the government sends in the military to stop it.

Reply
[-]Kevin15y20

It certainly sounds like fun.

"I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it."

-Emma Goldman

Reply
[-]kodos9615y40

I'm not entirely clear on what exactly they're insuring against.... someone getting injured and suing the Seasteading Institute? I wonder if the insurer factored in the fact that everyone involved in the event believes in a political ideology of extreme personal responsibility, and are therefore much less likely than the average american to sue some random third party when they slip and fall.

Reply
[-]Kevin15y40

what exactly they're insuring against.... someone getting injured and suing the Seasteading Institute?

I think so. I doubt the underwriters took the ideology into much account, they probably just went with the standard factor for P(lawsuit | serious injury) which I would guess is over 50%.

Reply
[-]knb15y00

Damn it, I can't make it this year.

Just once, cant they hold a festival like this on the Cuyahoga River?

Reply
[-]timtyler15y00

The announcement: http://ephemerisle.org/2010/06/ephemerisle-2010-cancellation/

Reply
Moderation Log
More from Eliezer Yudkowsky
View more
Curated and popular this week
9Comments

The Seasteading Institute had to cancel their annual on-water get-together, Ephemerisle, after being quoted ridiculous insurance costs, and it came back as the unofficial Floating Festival - no tickets, no organizers, you just show up with a boat.  (Or find someone else who already has or is renting a boat and still has a spare spot, etc.)  Jul 22-25 with an unconference (i.e., show up and give a talk) on Saturday the 24th.  Posting here because of the large de facto overlap in the communities.  The location is about a two-hour drive from the Bay Area.

Main info page.

Mentioned in
8Bay Area Events Roundup