Privatization of cruiseships and other comments.

From: Trygve B. Bauge (trygveb@powertech.no)
Date: Fri Mar 03 2000 - 16:58:34 MST


I rarely read the extropian digest so if you respond to my posts,
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Subject: Re: I'm happy to hear the surgery went well!!

To James Swayze,
Based on recent posts I assume you have some kind of bone cancer.
Let me draw your attention to http://www.gerson.org/
The Gerson therapy has a 30-40 percent success rate in healing cancer.
If you can afford to I suggest you buy a Norwalk juicer or at least a
champion juicer, and start drinking fresh squeezed organic juices every
waking hour!
Coffee enemas every 4 hours are important too, as is the rest of the
therapy.
(Unless you have taken chemo theraphy, in which case it is important to
first consult one of the doctor's trained in the Gerson therapy and start a
little easier with the juices etc. not to get into kidney failure.)

Trygve

--
To John Grigg,
if James hadn't posted the private mail he would never have gotten the above
advice.

Trygve -- Subject: Re: Barges for autonomous living

> D. den Otter wrote: > > http://www.ships-for-sale.com/floating_hostel_barge.htm > > "Floating Hostel" Moor it in some shallow spot in > > international waters and you have an instant autonomous > > city (ok, town).

There are lots of more seaworthy vessels than barges. The better cruise ships, are built to take on the Atlantic during storms. -- Michael S. Lorrey wrote:

>THe problem not answered by these sovereign-sea schemes is that to protect >from storms you will HAVE to build a significant seawall of some type to >attenuate wave action, or else have solid anchored structures seated on the >seamounts (like oil rigs) to be relatively impervious to them. A barge is not a > very seaworthy vessel.

Many sovereign-sea projects are inflexible stationary schemes, that easily can be stopped or taken over by the nearest land based nations. It always amazes me that people will set themselves up to be blackmailed by government that way, when there is a well tested alternative that has worked well for centuries: Mobility.

With ocean going ships, ship owners can flag their ships under most any nation. This gives an extreme leverage against any government, and is the reason why taxes on ship owners often are low or non existent. This is also the reason for the many freeports where ships can enter without paying customs, and where the crew members can shop duty free. To attract ships and trade, nations have been forced to treat ship owners quite libertarian.

The ability to flag out, gives the ship owner very good leverage to negotiate with various nations so to find one willing to give him the best legal conditions to operate under. Admirality law has traditionally given the captain almost free reigns as to what laws to enforce on board his ship.

Strange that run of the mill libertarians have not caught on and used this opportunity to negotiate with the worlds nations so to see which will give them the most libertarian legal conditions. Actually ship owners have caught on a long time ago, but though there are libertarian ship owners they haven't until recently started considering making their own liberty available for others as well. see: http://www.residensea.com/ The first ship is fully financed and already under construction and will be off on its maiden voyage within two years. It is only for millionairs. But if the demand is there, someone will certainly create a version for the lower classes as well.

> Don't float those things north of Oz; those precious, government free > international waters are full of pirates. That's the torture & kill everyone > aboard and take all the stuff kind, not the more harmless peg leg & parrot > variety.

Bullshit. (or propaganda used to frighten the sheeps back to obediently obeying their government.) Norway has been one of the worlds largest seagoing nations for several centuries now, and pirates is something we hear about as rarely as people being hit by lightning. There are some pirates in the Far East and off Africa, and Norwegian boats have had to take meassures to fend off such, but in the North Atlantic pirates are an endangered species. Most pirate incidents are attacks on bulk ships, where a few crew members easily can be overwhelmed by a handful men. Cruise ships on the other hand have a crew of several hundred or often more than a thousand men, and can easily be defended in an orderly fashion. Maybe that is why they are so rarely attacked by pirates. I think there was one attack off India/Africa some time ago, but such are rare and can easily be prevented.

>Sounds like they need some attitude adjustment. Just the place for >techno-libertarians...

> > But then I forget that a lot of you guys are relatively heavily armed.

>Si.

> > There's some kind of endpoint to this libertarian extremism, where > > international waters hold exactly as many libertarians as can be squeezed > > in, without any one seeing the others (others are always over the horizon). > > Each person sits on his/her personal barge, fully armed with all many of > > ballistic weapons. Scanner (radar?) continually scan 360 degrees, and launch > > missiles, etc at anything that moves. Sounds like a really bad movie. > > Waterworld?

You don't have to start your own nation or army to get liberty at sea. All you have to do is to shop around to see what nation that most eagerly will let you incorporate a ship under your own libertarian charter. Many nations eagerly set up freeports to attract trade and business. And traditionally many nations let the ship owners and captains run their own ships any way they please. Many nations are just happy that the ships are flagged under their flag, and they are underbidding one another to attract ships. The idea seems to be that it is better to earn a small amount from many ships than to price oneself out of the market and earn nothing. Being flagged under an existing well esteemed nation, gets you instant protection from being attacked by uncle Sam and other war mongers. And in case of wars one can most often sail off. Most ocean going Norwegian ships escaped being captured last time Norway was invaded (by the Germans in 1940).

>Anyone anchored on a seamount stakes claim to an undersea >structure (as well as surrounding abyssal plains full of metallic nodes) > that is a gold mine to those who develop it wisely. Costner doesn't understand > this, which is why all of his WW extras looked so Dickensian.

With satelite communications, and internet, I think there is a larger potential in creative work and research and in the ability to build and operate a boat without having to deal with taxes, zoning laws, majority rule and other regulations,

>Since dwellers would not pay taxes to a government, they could afford quite >reasonable armaments on the open market. Those that get hair trigger wind up >getting snuffed by those who want to live peacably.

Most ship owners prefer to spend their money on more boats, or on yachts, huge residences, vacations and other luxory, but I guess if anyone wants to voluntary spend it on weapons, when they don't have to...it is a free country. -- Subject: and I bet they don't fly the skull and crossbones anymore to give warning.....

Emlyn wrote: >But then I forget that a lot of you guys are relatively heavily armed.

Emlyn or John Grigg wrote: >ALL HANDS, REPEL BOARDERS!! EXTROPIANS TO THE DEFENSE >OF THEIR LIFE AND >LIBERTY!! I'm a pretty good shot! Who would be in charge of the training >programs to repel boarders? Mike Lorrey and Evmick? lol

A voluntary militia, of people who have given their oat to enforce liberty by means of liberty in liberty, would be my preference.

John Grigg wrote: >I would be interested to know what Trygve B. Bauge would have to tell us >regarding this matter since he is a leader in the area of developing >independant communities on the open seas.

Traditionally cruise ships have been a kind of socialistic welfare states, where the cruise company owns everything and all the passengers get everything during the cruise as part of their ticket.

I have been promoting the privatization of cruise ships for about 6 years now. By calling for the creation of cruise ships where each suite is sold and owned separately. A kind of floating town ships. One Norwegian group of ship owners have recently targeted the millionair market and will be up and sailing such a floating village within 2 years.

The same concept can be used for those of us that are not millionaires as well: The idea is to buy an old cruise ship (Ships are written down (paid off) in a few years and older ships are available far cheaper than it costs to build new ones.) Subdivide it into individual lots and sell off these. Instead of huge & fancy restaurants one could have McDonalds and private grocery stores, and instead of large suites & room service one could have youth hostels and laundromats etc, all owned by separate individual entrepreneurs.

Ships do not stay sea worthy for ever. But most larger harbours have tax free, free ports, such a ship could easily be anchored near such free ports for an extended life.. And with all the freeports that are around it should be possible to negotiate a final anchor place that respects liberty. In the mean time each ship can sail a generation or two on the seven seas. And one can of course move on to newer ships. Ship owners typically make enough money on their ships to scrap these and buy new ships long before the older ship is worn out. There is nothing to prevent inhabitants of a floating village from making enough money to move on to newer ships every few years as well.

>>"Trygve B. Bauge" trygveb@powertech.no wrote: >>A challenge for the next century!Introduction: On February the 28th, 2000, >>it was 100 years since the birth of my grandfather Bredo Morstøl, presently >>in cryonic suspension in Nederland,Colorado. He has now been suspended >>for 10 years. (end)

>I was very impressed by the scope of your vision and hopes for the future of >society. I liked the focus on personal freedom to travel and emergency >preparedness. You could be the father of the survivalist/transhumanist >movement! :)

>Congratulations to your grandfather for being suspended. perhaps, one day I >will get to meet him in the flesh! What organization is maintaining him >while in suspension? I have built a terrain integrated, earth quake proof, storm proof and fire proof house in the Colorado Rockies. He is stored on our property there in a dry ice box. And we have hired a local entrepreneur to add 900 lbs of dry ice every 3 weeks.

>>Trygve wrote: >>And let us be sure our constitutional charter makes it a punishable felony >>to attempt to outlaw the most life-extending treatments like cryonics & >>human cloning. >>(end)

John Grigg responded: >To me this would be a violation of a person's right to stand up for what >they view is right. I could never agree with this.

What I had in mind was an amendment like the first amendment: "Government shall make no law regarding individual life-extension or the free pursuit there of." Basically it is a crime, unconstitutional and a transgression of one's power for a government to try to pass or enforce laws that violate the first amendment. Only a federal constitutional amendment and not a mere bill or law is what that is needed to take away this liberty, and local or state governments can not take it away on their own at all. I would like to protect cryonics and human cloning the same way that free speech has been protected. And to award full compensation, punitive damages, cost or even tripple damages to anyone who's life-extension rights have been violated by government.

What I meant was to make it a punishable felony to attempt to outlaw cryonics and human cloning in any other way than through a constitutional amendment. At the same time I would like to put in place so many constitutional checks and balances that it will take several hundred years before the majority or any special interest group can manage to take away this right.

>Anyway, welcome to the list. I hope the world takes on the shape you >envision. I want to learn more about the communities on the high sea's you >are developing.

Stay tuned a few years down the road. I am working on completing a constitutional charter that enumerates Entrepreneurial liberty as a set of universal unalienable rights. And would like to complete the latter before I turn a cruise ship into an affordable floating village.

I hope that someone else will jump on the idea and implement it, so that I don't have to implement it myself. There are always enough life-extending challenges. That is why I am grateful to the Resident sea people for implementing the floating village idea. I am not involved in their project. But I have been promoting the concept for many years now, and it is nice to see that someone finally is implementing it. -- >James referred us all to: > http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_656000/656685.stm

>This advance from English scientists to harness magnetism will eventually >cause a VAST increase in computing power which is truly astounding. The >singularity locomotive is really building up speed!

I haven't checked the above web site yet, but super cooled super conductors and super cooled magnets, will get a big push if Aker Maritime's proposed pollution free gas powered power plant is built here in Norway. It will produce enormous amounts of inexpensive industrial liquid coolants liquid Nitrogen and liquid carbondioxide. http://www.akermaritime.no/emission_free_gas/start.html

sincerely,

Trygve Bauge

If you see two copies of this post, that is because I haven't found out yet which of these two addresses to post to: <extropians@maxwell.kumo.com>; or <extropians-digest@extropy.org> and to be on the safe side, posted to both. Please let me know which one to use..

Trygve

Life-Extension Systems, the Norwegian Icebathing Assoc. & Action 88. To borrow a VHS presentation of my work, send $50 to Trygve Bauge c/o Aksjon 88, Pb. 59 Hovseter, 0705 Oslo, Norway,Ph 47-2214-8078 E-mail: trygveb@powertech.no http://www.powertech.no/~trygveb/



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