The Disastrous Voyage of Satoshi, the World's First Cryptocurrency Cruise Ship (theguardian.com) 387
XXongo writes: The Guardian tells the story of the Satoshi, the converted cruise ship that was supposed to be the libertarian paradise, homesteading the high seas off the coast of Panama, free from rules and regulations and (most of all) taxes, with an economy run on cryptocurrency. The ship was even named "Satoshi," after the pseudonym of the nearly-mythical elder who outlined the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
So, what went wrong? Well, turns out that it wasn't quite so simple, and in some ways the "borderless seas" are actually among the most tightly regulated locations on Earth. Even selling the ship for scrap turned out to be hard...
So, what went wrong? Well, turns out that it wasn't quite so simple, and in some ways the "borderless seas" are actually among the most tightly regulated locations on Earth. Even selling the ship for scrap turned out to be hard...
Even the seas are regulated (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Funny)
There is certainly no "THE" social contract. You're quoting from some vaguely-understood liberal arts meme.
And you appear to be borrowing from the Pedant's Handbook, although it's possible you are also using "Jumping to Conclusions". I have well loved copies of both.
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Funny)
You mean _A_ Pedant's Handbook, certainly. There's more than one so that all of us don't have to share the same copy.
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:2)
There is certain a "the social contract" in that it's relative to a nation. The social contract of the United States is not the same as the social contract of the People's Republic of China. That doesn't change that when I say I am going to "the mall" my friends understand despite there are many malls.
"You tried your best and you failed miserably, the lesson is 'never try'"
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
There is always A social contract, or else society breaks down and you end up with warlords bullying everyone else; and even then there is a social contract of not pissing off the warlord if you want to live.
So, these freedumbs - the freedumb to pollute the ocean and rivers, so that poorer people downstream have to live with it? The freedumb to to withhold medicine from your own child for religious reasons, because a child is treated like property? The freedumb to cheat and swindle your neighbors? The people who whine that they have no more freedumbs left anymore don't realize that everything they do affects everyone around them.
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
This even extends to the seas, you need naval power to defend your freedoms or else someone else (ie pirates) will exercise their freedom to take yours away from you.
Society breaks down and you have warlords... (Score:4, Interesting)
The key to a libertarian/anarchist paradise/dystopia is to go not where there are no rules but where rules aren't effectively enforced. Because the only rules that matter are the ones that are enforced. These places aren't hard to find.
Do what you can get away with is the whole of the law. Always has been. Rules are for the little people, and for suckers. The elite do as they see fit, and those who do as they see fit are the elite.
Anarchists seem to grasp this, but libertarians don't get it. Libertarians think we need fewer rules. Control freaks think we need more enforcement (of their favorite rules.) But anarchists know that sometimes rules can be safely ignored, and take advantage of that.
To be properly socialized is nothing more or less than knowing what you can't get away with.
Re: (Score:3)
you end up with warlords bullying everyone else
These were free-market loving entrepreneurs. I think they are already the warlords.
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
The curvature of bananas is "regulated" because you want to know you're going to get what you expected when you buy a shipment of bananas.
So in such industries there are standards and agreements about what a banana of a given grade is supposed to look like, so that when you order a ton of them to use as-is, you don't get some random mush from the bottom of the pile, or some bunch of weird mutants twisted into a pretzel. Enforcing the quality and standards of merchandise goes a very long way back, including the famous "Complaint tablet to Ea-nasir" from 1750BC, well before Karl Marx was even born.
I don't see what that has to do with communism, in fact it's very much capitalist: such rules ensure a stable market of commodities. You can buy from a supplier you've never dealt before, confident that Alice's bananas are more or less the same thing as Bob's bananas.
Re: (Score:3)
It's funny how the leftists always get pissy when you call them the "c" word
They get "pissy" because it's always used by people who have no idea what Communism actually is and have never read any of Marx's books or cracked a poltiical science textbook.
It's being used incorrectly to describe something which is plainly not communism. Marx's book was actually quite short and easily digestible. What constitutes "communism" is clearly defined.
Now to be clear, I think it's utopian nonsense, but at least I
Re: (Score:3)
Here's a good game to play with Libertardians. Ask them for any time/place in history where relaxation of rules controlling markets was not immediately exploited by the powerful to the detriment of everyone else (and generally ultimately to themselves). They won't be able to come up with a single example, most times you'll be met with dead silence.
Here's another. In the 1960s the Cuyahoga River caught fire and burned on national television the entire summer, caused by the miles of chemical and paint comp
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
The parents wishes should be lower than that of the broader community in some cases. This is not an extremist view I hope. If the child is dying of a treatable form of cancer, and the parents insist that they only use prayer, then the state has a vested interest here in protecting the life of one of their citizens! To the state, and the community too hopefully, the child also has rights here. In many places you cannot even treat a pet as badly as some treat children.
I know this sounds like an extreme cas
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure freedom... you want that? freedom to starve, freedom to die from common illness, freedom to get killed by others...
This effortless stupidity of people who rail against laws and regulation that have been put together over the past few thousand years because people, are simply people
imo there is a way to meld living within the bounds (and good graces) of a society while still remaining more free than and past generation of humans in history
People who argue that any regulation is too great a restraint are just trying to sucker you. or have been suckered y a different predator
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the story says: they want to freedom to be charged a $200 fine if they throw pet waste overboard.
They want the freedom not to be allowed to use microwaves in their room, because safety.
The freedom to be permitted pets under 20lb.
The freedom to drink three drinks a day.
The freedom to spend millions of dollars on a stupid dream without having made a plan or investigated the details, fail, and blame The Grinch.
Re: (Score:3)
We can't, they had to sell the ship.
And they weren't even allowed to sell it for scrap!
Re: (Score:3)
Small and voluntary.
Compared to government regulation of your home and yard, it is huge.
Maybe you meant, "for small values of voluntary?"
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
The story has been told over the last few decades that everyone is losing freedom, that all governments are evil except that one that has no laws, and also that anyone who disagrees is a goddamm communist.
I remember growing up that litter on the side of the roads was a real thing, and I would see people roll down the window and toss out a McDonald's bag like it was no big deal. Then the police started enforcing laws against this, and I heard some people bitch and moan about how it was none of their business. Some people just don't understand how to live in group.
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Funny)
Know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna get myself a 1967 Cadillac El Dorado Convertible, hot pink, with whale skin hubcaps and all-leather cow interior and big brown baby seal eyes for headlights, yeah! And I'm gonna drive around in that baby at 115 miles per hour, getting one mile per gallon, sucking down quarter pound cheeseburgers from McDonald's in the old-fashioned non-biodegradable styrofoam containers. And when I'm done sucking down those greaseball burgers, I'm gonna wipe my mouth on the American flag, and then I'm gonna toss the styrofoam containers right out the side, and there ain't a goddamn thing anybody can do about it.
(From Dennis Leary's "No Cure for Cancer" routine, also used in the song Asshole.)
Re: (Score:3)
We seem to have evolved to be altruistic towards our close relatives. The level of sacrifice we are willing to do depends on the genetic distance between altruist and the beneficiary. The distance is measured in probability of shared chromosomes. Parent/children, siblings are 0.5 apart. Nephews, nieces, grandchildren are 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 distance apart. And you can calculate other relationships
The benefit
Re: (Score:3)
Other critics, including John Rawls in Justice as Fairness, argue that implied social contracts justify government actions that violate the rights of some individuals as they are beneficial for society overall.
Or you could think about it for a moment.
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is the unpopular opinionâ¦. But screw it. I do not care about the mod ratings⦠maybe we should really consider that there is no place a person can go to avoid being ruled by other people⦠think about that for a moment. There are literally governments everywhere. Does freedom even exist at all?
What is freedom? If you want total freedom I suppose you could go live in a cabin in Alaska or Siberia miles from anyone else, but it does not seem like much of a life. If you want to live with other people than your freedom is limited by their freedom, as in the old quote: Your right to swing you fist ends at my nose. Governments are how societies (groups of people) preserve or attempt to preserve their freedoms from each other. Sadly they often fail miserably. We have always had governments, even simple tribes have a chieftain or a council of elders or some form of leadership which implies government. The larger and more diverse the group of people, the complicated the society, the larger and more complex the government becomes. Without government, you would rapidly lose you freedom to someone or some group with more force that you have.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
There is a school of philosophy called "Pragmatism" that arose in the United States in the 19th Century, that adopts a *practical* approach to questions like this.
Take for example the question of whether a knife is sharp. Some philosophers would construct an ontological category of "sharp things" then try to determine whether this knife belongs to that category. A pragmatist will simply ask, "What can I cut with this?" A knife may be sharp for cutting asparagus and at the same time dull for performing
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:4, Interesting)
Well... I loved the videos from this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/channe... [youtube.com]
He builds huts in the forest, complete with under floor heating and a swimming pool. He does everything from scratch, including the bricks, the oven to cook those bricks, and even the axe to cut the woods.
The problem? I am sure I lack that skill. I am pretty sure 99% of the population lack it too. And I am also sure even that guy will lose all those abilities with advancing age.
Moral of the story: we need each other unless we want to live in mud brick huts, away from everyone and every nicety, including easy access to food, water and healthcare. And don't forget the Internet, how can we read Slashdot in the middle of nowhere if someone is not willing to provide a service?
That is why we don't have absolute freedom. We are pack animals.
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:4, Insightful)
He builds huts in the forest, complete with under floor heating and a swimming pool. He does everything from scratch, including the bricks, the oven to cook those bricks, and even the axe to cut the woods.
Do you suppose be built the camera he recorded that with from scratch?
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Informative)
He's not separate from society, nor does he want to be. He doesn't have some anti-society philosophy. He's a nerd who is into technology. His hobby is primitive tech. In his book he talks about the importance of following local laws, including land use and conservation laws. He also mentions that he used bark instead of leather for some projects because of Australia's strict hunting laws. He is very much a responsible member of his society, even when he's out in the forest playing in the mud.
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Informative)
I've watched all the videos and I have the book, so I can give you a spoiler: He does that on the weekend. During the week he lives in a modern house nearby. If he gets hungry, he can walk home for lunch and come back to finish his project.
If he was trying to actually live that lifestyle, it would be a lot harder, because he wouldn't have the same muscle mass. He wouldn't be able to get enough calories on that land to do all that same work himself. It's a really great hobby, and honestly it is wonderful he is documenting hands-on, usable examples of some of this technology.
But it isn't just lack of skill that keeps people from living that way. It turns out, living that sort of lifestyle full time makes relying on other people not just a matter of convenience, but a matter of life and death.
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:2)
primitive technoly doesn't do pools, that's from other channels that emulated him.
Doing a pool without running water is a terrible idea and just leads to mosquitoes and disease.
Re: (Score:2)
He builds huts in the forest, complete with under floor heating and a swimming pool. He does everything from scratch, .... even the axe to cut the woods
Just what the world needs, more people chopping trees down.
Re: (Score:3)
opinionâ¦.
ratingsâ¦
peopleâ¦
think about that for a moment.
Great, Jarjar started reading Ayn Rand.
"I lost the election, I have no freedum becurse gubermint"
It reminds me of something my father observed; "Some people think Freedom is a motorcycle and a bag of cocaine."
Without government, you'd have even less freedom than you have with it. Oh, you want to not have government, and have everybody be nice to you, too?!? I don't want to be nice to you. What about my freedom?!
Re: (Score:2)
No, and it never has.
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:2)
High seas wouldn't do it. (Score:3)
Also, sooner or later a typhoon is liable to sink it. Or an iceberg.
There are plenty of places on land where rules aren't enforced. That's the place to try these utopian experiments. Libertarians and liberals both make the same mistake: they don't understand how rules wo
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom is an illusion.
Libertarians are the worst kind of "my freedumbs trump your freedom"
In theory, Libertarians, should, have the freedom to do anything without any consequence. In practice, those consequences happen, and they don't want to be held accountable for it.
To wit, "My my, isn't the consequences of my own hubris"
Homesteading on the ocean, was not going to happen. You're not going to order uber by helicopter. You're not going to be welcome bloody anywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Do you want freedom, or society? If you have a truly free society, nothing stops me from killing you and taking your stuff.
If you want true freedom, it's difficult to reap the benefits of society.
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:4, Interesting)
Freedom to do ANYTHING does not exist. No, and it never will. We are not solitary creatures, we live in a community. That word does not mean communist (yes, some of you idiots thought it right away, didn't you). It means we live in groups. That is why in prison it is solitary confinement that is the worst punishment. And since we are pack creatures, it means there must be rules in order to live together. That is, don't shit on my bed, shit on your own bed. Duh. For the seas, it means don't pollute the seas because it comes back and pollutes the shore. That is why there are regulations, not to put a boot on your head but to prevent you from putting a boot on the head of others.
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:2)
Solitary confinement is only punishment because they take away your things.
Give a man a computer (or even a phone) with Internet access and he will happily stay in solitary confinement forever.
Re: (Score:2)
I hear good things about Somalia when it comes to the no-law department.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:3)
As Adam Smith noted, you cannot have freedom without regulation. The issue is whether the regulations are healthy or toxic.
At sea you're free, but fair isn't there. (Score:2)
maybe we should really consider that there is no place a person can go to avoid being ruled by other people
You forget that not only you can you do what you want, others may also do what they want too. If a government decides it wants to send over a gunboat full of armed marines to discuss their wishes with you, who's going to stop them? Are you going to run back crying to the your government complaining how unfair they are? If so, all your talk about freedom is just "I want! I want! I want!" from a spoiled brat.
At sea you're free,
but fair isn't there.
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:4, Insightful)
Does freedom even exist at all?
Define freedom. The desire to do absolutely what you want without any recourse has never existed anywhere in history. It doesn't exist in a modern world. It didn't exist the first time 2 Neanderthals got into a disagreement.
Your freedoms end where another's begins. Society defines these boundaries and forms governments to enforce them for the common good.
Re: (Score:2)
maybe we should really consider that there is no place a person can go to avoid being ruled by other people⦠think about that for a moment.
The problem is living with other people. Government is just the least onerous manifestation of that.
Re: (Score:2)
I read the whole article, but I still don't get it. The reporter claims that the ship, "would have had to sail 12 miles out [from Panama] every 20 days or so to empty tanks into international waters." Wasn't the whole point of seasteading to park in international waters? Why all this need to gain the approval of a random government?
Anyway, none of this really matters, if one has the misfortune of being a US person. The US is the
Re: (Score:2)
There are plenty of places like that. Somalia comes to mind. Afghanistan in recent weeks too. The democratically-elected government just disappeared overnig
Re: (Score:2)
You can be faux-free by hiding someplace far, but that's not freedom is it? Well, any place you go if there is someone else around they can arbitrarily do anything to you and vice versa. The only way to prevent that is to put laws and an enforcement system of those laws. That's "freedom," isn't it? On the high seas, a flagless vessel --which carries the protection of no nation .. is liable to be boarded and "inspected" by anyone for any reason. Good luck.
Re: Even the seas are regulated (Score:2)
It's good to be king but it can suck to be the boss
Re: (Score:3)
Freedom is a negotiated contract between individuals. Each agree to perform, or not perform, certain actions. For example, you and I may agree we want freedom of bodily autonomy. We agree not to harm each other. And we also agree that, should someone else try to harm the other, we will intervene.
That's freedom. That's it. Nothing more. It's not magic. It's not "god given." It's just an agreement between individuals.
Re: (Score:3)
Unfortunately, there is always someone more mighty than you looking to take it away... so people band together (not always voluntarily), at which point they just become a more mighty and oppressive bully. That bully might bring benefits to the member
Re:Even the seas are regulated (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, you are talking about license. That's just "I do what I want." There's nothing noble about that. Nobody idolizes Cartman from South Park. We all recognize he's an amoral sociopath.
Let me ask you, does a tiger recognize your freedoms? How about a hurricane? No? They don't care that you have declared you have a right to life? Only other humans can even begin to comprehend the idea of freedom.
If you aren't part of a society, you don't have freedom. You have license to attempt whatever you have the power to do. That's not freedom though. You can cry "My free speech! Don't censor me!" as the tiger chews your neck, but it won't do a damn thing. The hurricane does not care about your rights. They are meaningless.
Only other people can possibly care about "rights" or "freedom." And if you want to have the freedom to live, you need to curtail your behavior towards other people, and let them live as well. If you want the freedom to own property, you have to abide by the rules set forth by society.
Trying to argue that freedom is "natural" or "god given" is simply argument from authority, a logical fallacy. And the very fact that a person would need to make such an argument proves that said freedom is not natural, but in fact relies on the agreement of other people. If freedom were truly natural or god given, you would not need to convince others that your particular ideas about freedom are correct.
It may pain you to think that freedom comes only from other people, but once you realize the truth, you can address the ideal of freedom in a more realistic fashion instead of treating it like an idealized fantaasy.
Wurts a cur? (Score:3)
"If you drove a car from 1787, it would be a horse," he pointed out
No, if you were driving it then it would be a wagon, or cart. Also know as a "car."
Just like, if you were driving a car from 2021 it would be a car, not an "engine."
Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance (Score:5, Insightful)
One statement I loved: "Plagued by over-regulation [like Aviation and Nuclear Power]".
Ok
If we ignore that lovely statement, did they not think to involve SOMEONE who knew a thing or two about Merchant Shipping ?
P&O must have thought all their Xmases had come at once when they hoved into view offering to buy an old Cruise ship.
Re:Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance (Score:5, Insightful)
One statement I loved: "Plagued by over-regulation [like Aviation and Nuclear Power]".
If I had to pick three things that should be regulated out the wazoo, two of them would be aviation and nuclear power.
Re:Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance (Score:5, Funny)
Number three would be proctologists.
Re: (Score:3)
No, they should be regulated up the wazoo.
Re: (Score:3)
Probably just some idiots who think that once you get in the water that all the rules no longer apply. And that dammit, that stupid fascist DC government has a coast guard, so let's head down to Panama because we heard they don't have rules there and we can just bribe people to break them even if they do.
This isn't all libertarians. Most libertarians are smart. But damn if a small set of them are as stupid as a box of bent nails. But this applies to all political groups. Or actually, all groups, politica
Re: Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance (Score:2)
Most people who follow a single system are stupid. Libertarians doubly so. Authoritarians (often the same people, which is impressive in itself) triply.
The Moon: Build it, and they will come (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
True. They took those Heinlein books literally. They're pining for a science fiction libertarian future where they can do whatever they want, they survive by being clever, and the virtuous guys not only survive they get the girl, too. And the spaceship.
The good news is, they got exactly what they paid for.
Re: (Score:3)
Wait, don't the girl and the spaceship get a say in all this, don't they deserve freedom too?
Re: (Score:3)
What? No!
Freedom is me doing what I want to do! Screw the rest of the planet! If I have to take their freedom into consideration, it cuts into my freedom! If I had to take care of their freedoms, we'd end up with all sorts of rules and regula...
oh...
Re:The Moon: Build it, and they will come (Score:4, Interesting)
Haven't you read any Heinlein?
The girl and the spaceship love all the protagonists, and nobody gets jealous, because they're all so heady with freedom and righteous virtue!
They somehow love each other for always getting what they paid for. Or something.
If you read it as a teenager and don't mistake it for a philosophy book it is a lot of fun. But I've seen how the guys who took it too seriously end up. But at least they have their ham radio!
Re: The Moon: Build it, and they will come (Score:2)
Neither women nor spaceships nor pkanetoids get a say in Libertarian theology.
re-broadcasting Major League Baseball with implie (Score:3)
re-broadcasting Major League Baseball with implied oral consent, not express written consent will not work on that ship
incompetence not regulations killed them (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
and had to laugh at why no one would insure them, with their imagining crypto coin had anything to do with that, ha! "the insurance companies wouldn't say why. Yeah a bunch of starry eyed morons with not a shred of a clue how things work in the real world, let alone shipping, wondering why no insurance company would touch them with a ten foot pole.
Re: (Score:2)
Who thinks they would want to live that way? People would spend millions of dollars on a ship, without having looked into the insurance requirements first.
Their probably outsourced their expense spreadsheets to the Underpants Gnomes.
Re: (Score:3)
Have you ever been in an enclosed space where somebody burned popcorn in the microwave?
I work in a part-lab environment and the cost of any fire evacuation is so expensive that you cannot even bring a bag of microwave popcorn into the building
I trust that banning microwaves was the shortest path to banning all of the horrible things they could wildly overcook in said microwaves
Re: incompetence not regulations killed them (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Well, if you knew why the regulation is in place, then it would make a lot more sense and you'd be a lot less incompetent. However, what seems like overly burdensome regulation is often there because someone incompetent tried something else and it failed miserably leading to physical harm to people.
Like the whole "gig work" thing - a libertarian ideal of jobs done without the overbearing legislation. Yet it brings up the reason for that legislation to exist in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
So reading the actual story it wasn't regulations in the high seas/international waters that killed it, it was their poorly thought out plans, lack of research, lack of logistics experience and straight out naivety that killed it.
Not sure how much I can blame them, since their thought process is drowning in non regulation due to the product and lifestyle they're pimping, living as a financial pirate in the society of the high seas.
I kind of doubt Pablo Escobar knew much about paying taxes either. Go figure.
no shit regs nearly line a airliner or nuke plant (Score:2)
Did those starry eyed morons have any clue the damage a ship could do to another ship, to a port, to the waters near land? No, lack of insurance had nothing to do with crypto, had to do with juggernaut of destruction run by clueless.
Dumb proposals still not vetted (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
In this day and age, how can such dumb proposals pass, and be financed without any cost benefit analysis, nor any people to check the sanity of what was proposed?
Hand a bunch of idiots a ton of money that they basically came into not unlike a lottery jackpot and there you go.
The irony is thick (Score:5, Interesting)
Government wasn't the problem, they were stumped by businesses like insurance companies not wanting to touch them with a 10 foot pole, physical reality, their own need for "laws" and "regulations" to keep people from being at each other's throats, the fact that these "Atlases" were unable to manage without working class people literally keeping them afloat.
Of course, they claimed the problem was "regulations". They always do.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm still confused why they even needed insurance in their almost-rule free libertarian paradise. Why not just add a clause between the no-microwave clause and the $200 dog poop clause saying they can't be sued?
(no, I'm not actually confused. I know it was because they were less interested in a libertarian paradise than they were in making money off of people who are interested in one)
Cyberpunk reality isn't romantic ... (Score:3)
...and "Life isn't a pony-farm" as they say in Germany. Nor is it star trek next generation. Ideals are nice posts for orientation, but as anyone that has finished a real world feasible project knows, no vision survives reality without taking some serious redoing.
They should've started small or joined projects that have been going for a few decades already.
In the navy (Score:2)
Cryptos aweigh, my boys, cryptos aweigh
Farewell to foreign shores we buy at break of day ayy
Through our last night ashore drink to the foam
Until we meet again here's wishing you a happy coinage hodl
I am a Libertarian Cryptopunk.
I will support and defend the blockchain of the cryptocurrency and I will provide the proof of work in all transactions.
I represent the distributed ledger of the blockchain and those who have blocks before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.
I proudly serve my non-fun
COVID? (Score:2)
Didn't COVID kill the cruise ship industry?!?
Or have people simply ignored the health concerns, just like they did with all the pre-COVID outbreaks on cruise ships (Legionnaires' disease, etc)?
Re: (Score:2)
COVID is how they were able to buy a $100million ship for only $10million.
countries are firms and citizens are customers? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Government, he believed, needed an upgrade, like a software update for a phone. “Let’s think of government as an industry, where countries are firms and citizens are customers!” he declared."
Who here wants to live in a country run on the same principles as the Purdue family had? or a payday-loan provider? For that matter; who wants to live in WalmartCountry?
By god, this guy should have been booed out of the room the moment he made this incredibly. stupid and dangerous statement.
Re: (Score:3)
You might not, but Napoleon sure did!
Its not about crypto (Score:2)
This story doesn't have anything to do with crypto, its about a bunch of people who acquired a ship and didn't realize all the work that goes into keeping a ship like that going.
Kind of funny (Score:3)
Dunning-Kruger effect in action (Score:3)
Seriously, they are like teenagers.
Re: (Score:3)
When something has never been done before, no one knows everything about it. All of the progress of the human race comes from people doing things they didn't know how to do, and figuring it out by trial and error.
Except, similar things have been done before and all the problems these people ran into are because they didn't bother to look into existing rules, regulations, and laws.
Commercial space flight had "never been done before, no one knows everything about it". But, we do know there are rules, regulations, and laws about it. If SpaceX had simply hired some engineers, built a rocket, launched it from New Mexico, and the rocket hit a commercial airliner, disintegrated and crashed into Dallas, it wouldn't be c
Re: (Score:3)
It's even funnier that libertarians would even want to commit to this life - to be confined to some pokey little suite on a cruise ship with a bunch of rules and very little freedom or say in where they end up going or
Re: (Score:3)
The crackpot has a bold new idea. The naysayers all say it has issues from the start. Sometimes the naysayers are right, and sometimes the crackpot is right. There's only one way to find out. This is how progress happens.
This relies on the premises that 1) the idea is "bold" and "new". ) the crackpot is right. and 3) there is only "one way" to find out and 4) "progress" is somehow made. Those are very large assumptions especially in this case. Again see my example of my bold and new idea of touching things in a fire. Humanity progressed so much when I had people touch things in a fire.
It's called empiricism.
You are assuming that all empiricism is the same. I do not need 100 people to touch things in a fire to know that you should not do so. I do
Re: (Score:3)
The crackpot has a bold new idea.
There is nothing bold or new about the idea.
It's called empiricism.
There was nothing empirical about this. They had an idea, did no research on the idea, tried to implement the idea, and failed because they didn't understand what they were doing because they did no research because they thought they were smarter and more knowledgeable than they really were.
Theory is for cowards and other small minds.
You don't seem to understand how science works.
I'll make an exception for theory based on lots and lots of data, but where do you get lots and lots of data in the first place?
From existing sources. In this case, one should see how cruise ships operate and what regulations are involved. Finding out abou
Re: (Score:3)
'The particular context' doesn't matter in the slightest. Operating a cruise ship is operating a cruise ship. Just because you want to pretend there are no rules, or that the rules don't apply to you doesn't mean that there are no rules.
The fact that a vessel must have a certificate of seaworthiness does not depend on context.
The fact that you can't discharge sewage into the sea does not depend on context.
The fact that you can't cut a giant hole in the bottom of the ship while it is afloat to swap out the
/shock (Score:3)
So wait, some staggeringly wealthy nouveau-riche libertarian Americans thought they could by fiat establish a libertarian utopia and were basically fucked by the realities they were blissfully unaware of?
How very typically American. US history is littered with the ruins of communes, collectives, utopias, workers' paradises, and similar, from the 18th century to the 21st, all of which (mostly) ran aground on the reefs of reality.
It seems to be a stream of particular American idealism that runs through our history from the Puritans and Shakers to the most-recent-I-know-of, the hilariously dumb https://blackhammer.org/hammer... [blackhammer.org] ,
Re: (Score:3)
Well, the Arts and Crafts Movement left behind some beautiful products that are highly prized these days
But yeah, most end up like doomsday cults
So tl;dr they were completely fucking retarded (Score:3)
Some napkin math later and we figured he'd need at least 750K to start the kind of winery he wanted and he would have to cut out most of the types of wine he liked because the climate was not hospitable to the grapes. I have some very alcoholic, wine knowledgeable relatives as it turns out.
At least we caught him before he could try to put a bid in for one of them.
Re: Huh (Score:3)
How would a ship filled with libertarians sinking be disastrous?