How likely is Peter Thiel's investment into seasteading to pay off?

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)?

Recently the relatively awesome entrepreneur invested 1.25 million USD into this (seasteading institute website here).

Huh, I found the opposite, in the abstract he's insightful but his descriptions of modern day reality seem to be coming from some bizarre counter-earth, for instance:

"The pretend enemies (such as the Communist countries in the Cold War, other Third World nationalist thugs, revolutionary Islamists, etc, etc) are actually best defined as partial clients. Unlike full clients such as the OECD democracies, their friendship is only with one side of the American political system (the left side, duh). If their "anti-Americanism" actually reaches the level of military combat, the war is a limited war and essentially a civil one. Right enemies include: Nazis and other fascists, of course; apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia; the Portuguese Estado Novo and Franquista Spain; the Greek colonels; and, of course, Israel. You might notice a property shared by all but one of the regimes on this list, which is that they don't exist anymore. Sometimes there will be patron-client relationships on the right side of the equation, but they are always tenuous. Even in the last case, the "Israel lobby" is a piece of dental floss compared to the arm-thick steel cable that is the Palestine lobby. (You'll notice that USG's policy is that the war should end by Israel giving money and land to the Palestinians, not the other way around.)"

He's perceptive and erudite enough that when he says something so gratuitously and obviously wrong I sit there for ages thinking hang on, is this just something I don't want to believe- a politically correct myth I don't want to let go of. It disturbs me how often the answer is no, but I genuinely cannot see a way to make passages like the above make sense.

I find these questions fascinatingly interesting, but I'm afraid this isn't the right place to proceed with this discussion. Feel free to PM me if you want some of my further thoughts, though.

4[anonymous]15y

It would be helpful if you narrowed down to a specific claim which you consider to be gratuitously and obviously wrong. For instance, your quote contains the claim that, of the regimes described, only Israel has survived to this day. Is it your contention that Franquista Spain has survived to this day, or that Israel has not survived? If that is not your contention, then you do not, after all, object to the whole quote, but object to only part of it. And yet you dropped the whole thing into your comment, apparently expecting your reader to know what section of the quote you object to.

0sam034515y

The passage above seems quite obviously true, indeed pretty much common sense. Do you have any specific points in it that trouble you, or is it just that the entire thing turns conventional wisdom one end over the other. You quote the article as if it was obviously unreasonable on sight. I am puzzled, and would like to understand what is unreasonable about it. Recall, for example, when the pentagon was allied with the Northern Alliance, the State Department was allied with the Taliban. The state department ordered the Northern Alliance not to enter Kabul, much as it demands that Israel give Jerusalem to the Palestinians. The Pentagon furtively indicated it was fine with the Northern Alliance entering Kabul, which resulted in something close to shooting war between the Pentagon and the State Department. The Northern alliance, contrary to orders, entered Kabul and threw the Taliban out of Kabul. In the end, the state department, and thus the Taliban, won, in that the Northern Alliance was suppressed, and replaced by a government that is is composed, like the Taliban, of Pashtun, unlike the Northern Alliance, composed, like the Taliban, of Radical Islamists, unlike much of the Northern Alliance, but nonetheless is supposedly at war with the Taliban and supposedly on our side, not withstanding its habit of burning bibles, executing Muslims who convert to Christianity, and executing Muslims who try to rationalize away the more disturbing parts of the Koran, odd behavior for a supposed ally of us and supposed enemy of the Taliban. You may think this account of the current war is odd, but if it is odd, is not it odder that the State Department ordered the Northern Alliance to not enter Kabul? Is it not odder that the current government of Kabul has policies that are a lot closer to the Taliban than to the policies of the Northern alliance? And if the US is on Israel's side, is it not odd that its policy is that peace should be made by the stronger side yielding land and

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How likely is Peter Thiel's investment into seasteading to pay off?

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How likely is Peter Thiel's investment into seasteading to pay off?

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