6/15/2026 at 10:53:40 PM
What, again? Neither of the "Bitcoin island" schemes ever happened. The seasteading people failed to convince anybody that living on an old anchored cruise ship just for a tax break was worth it. The Sea Pod didn't look survivable in a storm.Red Rock Island in San Francisco Bay [1] is apparently for sale again. It was supposedly sold in 2025, but that deal may have fallen through. Nobody built anything on it. Five acres of rock with cliffs. It's basically a mountain peak sticking out of water. It would take a lot of money and work to do something with it. At least as much as the Eagle's Nest [2], plus the costs of operating on an island. Which means there are about a dozen people in the Bay Area who could afford it.
[1] https://www.latitude38.com/lectronic/red-rock-island-isan-fr...
by Animats
6/15/2026 at 10:55:30 PM
Libertarians did make an actual island, Republic of Minerva, but the Australian/western and Polynesian governments were so scared shitless of a tiny island of libertarians that they concocted a story about it being "Tongan fishing lands" (despite the fact being way out of Tongan waters and Tonga basically ~never having mentioned it until some other people decided to put an island there). Then they sent the Tongan Navy to take it by force.http://www.queenoftheisles.com/HTML/Republic%20of%20Minerva....
by mothballed
6/15/2026 at 11:42:31 PM
Nothing scares a cartel of coercive monopolies extracting rent from trivial administrative work more than competition.by vovavili
6/15/2026 at 11:13:30 PM
What exactly is the argument for why their credibility should be taken as higher than the Tonga government claims?Because there clearly could be ulterior motives involved on both sides.
by MichaelZuo
6/15/2026 at 11:23:57 PM
From "might makes right" is Tongan because the Tongans were able to take it. From the perspective of homesteading, owning the fruit of your labor, etc I think you can argue since the Minervans both made the island, homesteaded, "discovered" (didn't exist until they made it), and claimed and were actively using it they have senior property rights (you can argue any of these individually but in summation it's quite weighty over any Tongan claim).Of course might make right ultimately trumps everything else, it is just interesting that you so often hear that if libertarians want to escape society they shouldn't use force to make others follow their ideals, they should just go off into the woods or their own island or some such. But then when they actually make their own island, actually "society" decides they will just take their shit under the auspices of a military force that will kill them if they defend themselves (although the only homicide on Minerva was one Tongan killing another Tongan).
Right now Fiji and Tonga are fighting over it and in reality neither one actually gives much a shit about the actual property rights to hold the island and as a fiji/tongan dispute suddenly the Navy is not so interested anymore. The Tongan claims were initiated after a conference with Polynesian countries and Australia where the goal was not to preserve some Tongan fishing but to smack down the libertarians using it -- Polynesian claims were never an actual reason for the invasion, only kicking the libertarians off the island.
by mothballed
6/16/2026 at 12:34:11 AM
If they have literally no credibility worth speaking of… maybe it just doesn’t matter that much?by MichaelZuo
6/16/2026 at 3:04:31 AM
If you can't defend your land, somebody else will eventually take it. That's kind of why governments were invented in the first place.by amanaplanacanal
6/16/2026 at 11:43:44 AM
(1) They were minarchist not anarchist, so not sure what your point is about government; they weren't looking to re-invent government defense privately or some such, rather their failure mode was ultimately political alienation manifested in violence (rest of world in that area hated/afraid of the possible prospect of successful libertarians upsetting the status quo and thus called to action to squash them at once). They likely could have survived with the same weak military under a different more palatable political model that makes Australia and Tongans happy face, because in reality Aus+polynesia had no interest in actually taking the land for themselves only expelling libertarians.(2) Yes they were militarily weaker than the entire coalition of australia + polynesia under the flag of Tonga for invasion, this applies to pretty much all sovereign islands in the Pacific, there is no particularly special lesson to be learned here about polynesian military might -- even the Tongans were ultimately proxying Australia and would find the same fate if Australia disliked their political model.
(3) The takeaway Michael Oliver did actually learn (dude was a legit genius) from this is if you find any success "democratic" countries that preach tenants of peaceful property rights actually are just frauds running under the cold veneer of "whoever can kill and steal, gets the land."
(4) The next "adventure" by the same foundation used lethal force to defend themselves (Vemerena), and IIRC it did survive a bit longer. (There were three major attempts by Phoenix foundation, one was making a new island island, another a civil war-ish breakoff nation in Vanuatu, and another an attempt at civil democratic secession in the Bahamas-- the one defended by armed actors was arguably got the closest to success)
(5) Thus ultimately we can see the property rights model of modern democratic countries are no better than the founding libertarian models, it's just violently taking whatever you can get away with whenever you can get away with it wrapped up under more flowery language than what the libertarians used and with generally higher tax rates. We see this continually whether it is libertarians or communists, the bigger democratic countries will just fuck their shit up as a mode of political alienation whether they have a "government" or not.
(6) Conclusion is duration of survival of small territories of Minerva, communists, et al has little to do with their philosophical model of property rights. Has more to do with forming allies (Cuba with Russia for instance) and/or military might. None of which is philosophically incompatible with the Minervan model of minarchism.
by mothballed
6/15/2026 at 11:38:15 PM
Casting seasteading as a tax avoidance strategy because some loud self proclaimed Libertarians were briefly involved is really sad. Some people really are entranced with the idea of living on the seas and building communities there. Given what goes on with cruise ships and aircraft carriers this isn't even a particularly challenging goal. Put down your aggressively critical politics for a moment and let yourself enjoy that others can dream.by m0llusk
6/16/2026 at 2:35:26 AM
Great username. I too wished to live at sea once, but I gotta be honest with you; hang around any of the big submariner/shipwright/offshore groups for long enough and it will shock you how few people with money in those circles are not Andrew Ryan wannabes. As an avid Cousteau and Earle fan all my life, it broke my heart. If you're uber-wealthy, seeking recognition for that success makes enough sense; that recognition typically comes from people who inevitably live on shore someplace. They might commission a big yacht like Gaben or Zuck, but it serves multiple purposes, not the least of which being "hey, look at me!" But there is a particular type of personality for whom keeping to themselves is the height of luxury, and a couple folks of this persuasion are incredibly wealth. These dragons hoard their keep because, philosophically, it is theirs to do with as they please and not anybody else's. For them, the inherent eroticism of the sea calls their name. I swear to God, it happens every time.by Shalomboy
6/15/2026 at 11:04:40 PM
I'm eternally disappointed that none of these libertarian projects even manage to survive long enough to hit the "oops we just reinvented government and taxes" stage.by p1necone
6/15/2026 at 11:19:53 PM
They don't want to actually create anything for anyone else or the messaging would be different.It's the same energy of a kid running away from home to the tree house in the yard. All they want is to have all the benefits of society (imagine if they were barred from reentering their home country or traveling anywhere else because Pirate-Monaco-Dubai-island(tm) doesn't have real passports) and not be held responsible for their destructive behavior and impulses.
by Avicebron
6/15/2026 at 11:31:43 PM
I would reframe this as the rent-seekers not wanting to create anything for anyone else.The reason Pirate-Monaco-Dubai-Island isn't productive is because all of the productive land is being squatted by rent-seekers. There is some history that indicates that anarchistic sort of socities can be productive, for example kowloon walled city.
by monerochan
6/16/2026 at 12:34:42 AM
Libertarianism is a spectrum. The majority believe in some form of government, just limited in what it can do to varying degrees. The are also anarchists, yes, but that's not all libertarians.by arcfour
6/15/2026 at 11:23:30 PM
True, but this is what distinguishes libertarianism from anarchism. Libertarians aren't pursing anarchy, they're pursuing a minimal government and a global environment that makes governments compete on taxes/protections/benefits/etc.The most extreme form of libertarianism, minarchism, still proposes the existence of a government
by monerochan
