The excellent new system being required to work with criminals and outcasts merely to prove its own viability means taking up such an ENORMOUS burden of proof... you do realize that, don't you? What would the prior probability of "We'd all be better off changing our society in line with what those weird guys, who give the NK regime aid and technology in exchange for shelter, have been doing for a couple of years" appear to be for an intelligent mainstream Western person? Sorry, this is basically the least sane bit of armchair speculation that I've heard from you period. I mean, the average Bond villain has a more viable AND ethically sound plan.
I do understand the motive, of course. You were looking for a way to make up an ethical dilemma to signal smart contrarianism with. Aren't we all guilty of that sometimes?
The history of the relationship between Israel and South Africa is more complicated than I thought, but that kind of thing isn't a pure hypothetical.
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)?