Actually, make that "government" in the singular. ... Nowadays, however, the U.S. government acts a single global authority that you have to contend with, and it has little tolerance for regimes that are outside of certain approved bounds.
If the seastead existed somewhere in the North Sea and the Dutch, German, Belgian and British governments approved its existence while the U.S. didn't (because it feared realization of a libertarian utopia; no terrorist group on the seastead assumed), how likely do you think they would try to put it down by force? And how likely if it were in the Yellow Sea?
How large is the set of things that Western European governments would be OK with, but the U.S. government wouldn't? It seems to me that their ideological consensus is strong enough that there is little if any practical difference.
When I speak of the U.S. global authority, I don't mean just authority exercised through explicit military interventions and diplomatic pressures. I also mean the informal and indirect authority that stems from the fact that the modern-day global ideological consensus emanates from American institutions, which means that other c...
Recently the relatively awesome entrepreneur invested 1.25 million USD into this (seasteading institute website here).
It seems such a wonderful concept, finally somewhere where new forms of government could be tried out. But I'm just wondering how in the world they hope to deal with existing governments since their reaction to any kind of serious alternatives, especially one that either economically or ideologically presented a significant challenge, is bound to not be positive.
I was just wondering what LWer thoughts are on this matter? Also has there been any discussion of seasteading in the past that I've missed? Also I'm wondering if anyone would hazard to perhaps offer a prediction or judge how likley this is to succeed (maybe on predictionbook)?