In a message dated 1/23/01 3:54:07 PM Central Standard Time,
alexboko@umich.edu writes:
> Maybe this is legit, and maybe it isn't but very kewel concept. Strong
> emotional reaction when I first saw the page. If anybody has had any
> experiences with them, RSVP. and other people who dare to desire
> privacy and autonomy, have a look at this. Some of you may find an
> immediate applicability to your own business and/or pleasure.
>
> http://www.lfcity.com/
It seems to be impossible to tell just how "real" things like this are from
simple web browsing. What does seem real is that there have been quite a few
libertarian/lassez-faire projects with fairly grandiose plans announced and
promoted through the web, which then sink beneath the waves, never to be
heard from again. What they all seem to have in common is a dream of
creating an autonomous community free from government regulation, using the
web as some kind of open intermediating resource. The more grandiose ones
call for creation of fixed or floating enclaves. The latter all seem to
suffer from fairly gross underappreciation of for just how expensive, complex
and difficult maritime engineering and operations are.
Beyond this, these schemes all seem to suffer from the same inter-related
problem: They fail to achieve a necessary critical mass and don't appear to
be very clear about how they mean to offer real value in the real world that
can compete with existing social structures. Yes, participating in a
libertarian enclave sounds neat, but will I get sufficient value to pick up
and move my life and business operations to another place that suffers from
isolation and relatively poor physical infrastructure? So far, no one has
offered a compelling answer to this question.
One kind of business that MIGHT need the sort of freedom offered by these
enclave ideas is human genengineering. Assuming that a clinic offering a
real benefit could be created in the kind of isolation an enclave would
require, the services it could offer might generate enough value to offset
the costs of being located in a remote, relatively undeveloped place. To
achieve this, you'd have to have some proven human genengineering technology
that is prohibited everywhere else, and a group of clinicians willing to
sever their ties with the rest of the world due to the professional
condemnation they would suffer . . . A big leap . . .
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:27 MDT