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The Guardian has a wonderful chronicle of the rise and fall of an experimental libertarian society built on a cruise ship armed with little more than crypto-mining rigs. Yes really. Did I mention one of the founders was Milton Friedman's grandson? Here's how the journey began

In 2017, Patri Friedman and the "seavangelist" Joe Quirk wrote a book, Seasteading, in which they described how a seasteading community could constantly rearrange itself according to the choices of those who owned the individual floating units. (Quirk now runs the Seasteading Institute; Friedman remains chair of the board.) "Democracy," the two men wrote, "would be upgraded to a system whereby the smallest minorities, including the individual, could vote with their houses."

In the decade following Friedman's talk, a variety of attempts to realise his seasteading vision were all thwarted. "Seavilization," to use his phrase, remained a fantasy. Then, in October 2020, it seemed his dream might finally come true, when three seasteading enthusiasts bought a 245-metre-long cruise ship called the Pacific Dawn. Grant Romundt, Rdiger Koch and Chad Elwartowski planned to sail the ship toPanama, where they were based, and park it permanently off the coastline as the centrepiece of a new society trading only in cryptocurrencies. In homage to Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym of bitcoin's mysterious inventor (or inventors), they renamed the ship the MS Satoshi. They hoped it would become home to people just like them: digital nomads, startup founders and early bitcoin adopters.

Surely a bunch of Silicon Valley Tech Bros could hack their way into disrupting the regulatory apparatus of the ocean to create a Libertarian Utopia, right?

Welp, much like that libertarian community in New Hampshire that was overrun by bears, it seems their focus of hyper-individualism meant overlooking a few key details. For example, you couldn't cook your own food in your unit, not even with a microwave you were forced to engage in commerce with the ship's restaurant. And then of course, there was the issue of what to do with all the waste, both human and otherwise. Which, maybe there'd a solution between "No food" and "What do we do with this poop?" but the founders neglected to consider things like fuel costs and crew costs, too.

What's even more absurd is that this cruise ship was merely intended as a stepping stone to achieve a society of SeaPods little independent Jetson-like pods that sit on a pole above the ocean, where (according to their website) you just sip wine and Bitcoin-mine all day, for freedom.

If these men were more diabolical, they could have probably pulled off something akin to the Scientology Sea Org but alas, they did not. If you're interested in learning more though, the Seasteading website is still up and offering information on other aspirational libertarian communities.

The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world's first cryptocurrency cruise ship [Sophie Elmhirst / The Guardian]

Image: Rapid-fire / Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

See the article here:
Discover the hilariously epic failure of a crypto-fueled libertarian cruise - Boing Boing

Manifestos regularly promise not to raise income tax, VAT, or NICs because such acts are believed to be politically costly. Proposed tax hikes to major revenue sources make us question: what exactly am I getting for my money, given Im already paying a high rate? But raising the new health and social care levy from just 1.25pc to, say, 1.5pc or even 2pc of earnings? That at least sounds much less of a big deal and is likely to elicit strong support from the key beneficiaries: the elderly. In that sense, the levy relaxes the political constraint against tax hikes.

The revenue-raising potential of softly hypothecated taxes is exemplified at local level. Since 2016-17, councils have been able to charge an adult social care precept, which currently allows them to raise council tax by an extra 3pc in the nameof part-funding social care overtwo years. Its well used of 152authorities with adult social care responsibilities, 148 utilised some, or all, of their precept freedom this year, with 100 authorities opting for the full3pc addition.

So what has happened to overall council tax bills since the precept was invented? The average annual increase in Band D council tax payments was 0.8pc per year between 2010-11 and 2015-16, as central government sought to keep bills frozen. Since then, the average increase has leapt to 4.2pc per year. Yet council tax has, if anything, become a less salient political issue with the separate precept line present. Theres good reason to expect this new levy to be the thin end of the wedge and a catalyst for bigger government.

The rest is here:
Libertarian Tories will rue waving through social care tax trick - Telegraph.co.uk

After a circus of a summer spent hearing appeals from a motley crew of gubernatorial candidates, Californians will decide on Tuesday whether to recall Gavin Newsom. If they do, the man who replaces him will probably be Larry Elder, a libertarian radio host who rose to the top of a crowded field of small-time Republicans, including a guy who has been touring the state with a live Kodiak bear (we werent kidding about the circus).

The problem with the 69-year-old Elder is that hes no better equipped to run a state of 40 million than the man-bear duo, and more dangerous to Californias future than either of them. Current polling indicates Newsom will prevail, but to have someone as inexperienced, regressive, and bigoted as Elder come this close to assuming control the nations most populous state is a terrifying prospect for the people of California and for the rest of the nation.

How close isthis close? Californians will be asked two questions on Tuesday: Should Newsom be recalled and, if so, who should replace him? If more than 50 percent of voters say yes to the first question, whichever candidate voters bubble in most for the second will be the new governor. There are 46 (!) candidates on the ballot, and polling puts Elders support at around 28 percent, more than 20 points ahead of his closest competitor, a Democratic YouTube influencer named Kevin Paffrath. This means that if enough disaffected voter decide its time for Newsom to go, Elder will likely be on his way to Sacramento despite being favored by only around 25 percent of the 50 percent of voters who want Newsom recalled. Itd be a small miracle given Elders rap sheet, which weve broken down for you below:

The self-proclaimed Sage of South Central, Elder made a career as a Black man espousing conservatives views in a liberal state. Hes railed against Black Lives Matter. Hes claimed repeatedly that racism doesnt exists, or at least that its not a problem in America. Hes said the idea of voter suppression is a Democratic con job. Hes argued Barack Obama had less to overcome in running for president than did white candidates like Mitt Romney and John McCain, and that police are more inclined to shoot white Americans than Black Americans.

Hes also said that if he were in the Senate in the 1960s, he would have voted against the Civil Rights Act, the landmark anti-discrimination bill passed in 1964. To the extent that those laws mandate any kind of interference in the private sector, I would have voted against it, Elder said at a Libertarian convention in 1998.

Elders speech didnt end there. He transitioned from bashing the Civil Rights Act into bashing the Americans With Disabilities Act, saying he was upset that it exists. In August, Media Matters pointed out several other instances in which Elder has criticizes the law that prevents employers from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities. Elder has called the ADA hideous, said it creates dependency that impinges upon our freedoms, and says he felt double-crossed when George H.W. Bush signed it.

In a 1996 ad promoting his radio show, Elder says this about women: Glass ceiling? Ha! What glass ceiling? Women, women exaggerate the problem of sexism. Not great, which is why a hand proceeds to slap him across the face in the ad, which was uncovered by CNN. He then says that Black people exaggerate the significance of racism and that Medicare should be abolished, with each line eliciting a new slap. Whatd I say? he says at the end of the ad, a grin on his face.

Elder wasnt joking about his lack of respect for women. He argued in a 2000 piece for Capitalism Magazine that women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events, citing the results of a questionnaire. Elder went on to argue that the Democratic Party was hindered by its fidelity to SHE issues like Social Security, health care, and education, and that those pushing these issues namely women, with Elder citing how Bill Clinton lost the male vote in 1992 and 1996 were ill-informed.

Media Matters also pointed out that in his 2002 book, Elder railed against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Family and Medical Leave Act, positing that employers should be able to discriminate against women based on pregnancy.

Elders former fiancee Alexandra Datig told Politico in August that Elder would often threaten her, and repeatedly demanded that she get a tattoo that said Larrys Girl to prove her devotion to him.

This isnt why their relationship ended, though. No, Datig broke off their engagement in 2015 after, she says, Elder pulled a gun on her after hed been using marijuana. He checked if it was loaded while I was talking, Datig said. He wanted to make sure I saw that he had it.

Datig later in August filed a police report over the incident, also alleging that Elder pushed her in 2014.

Elder has denied he pulled a gun on Datig. I have never brandished a gun at anyone, he wrote on Twitter in August. I grew up in South Central. I know exactly how destructive this type of behavior is. Its not me, and everyone who knows me knows its not me. These are salacious allegations.

There are millions of Republicans in California, but the state is still overwhelmingly Democratic. California hasnt elected a Republican senator since 1988. It hasnt voted for a Republican candidate for president since Ronald Reagan. Every statewide office is currently occupied by a Democrat. Elder, who is vying to hold the states highest office, is close to as far to the right as one can get on several key issues. Heres a brief rundown on where he stands:

Once again, this man stands a reasonable chance of becoming the new governor of California.

Elder told reporters in August that Joe Biden won the election fair and square, but he reversed course a day later during an interview on a conservative radio show. Do I believe that Joe Biden won the election fair and square? Give me a mulligan on that one. No I dont. He then cited Alan Dershowitzs contention that the Supreme Court should have taken up the Pennsylvania election results, calling Dershowitz who has represented both Trump and Rudy Giuliani a left-wing professor.

It isnt surprising, then, that Elder has been drumming up doubt in the validity of the recall. You can also print your own ballot here in California, he said on Sean Hannitys radio show last week. What could possibly go wrong? We know about all the shenanigans that took place in 2020.

On Monday, the day before the election, Elder on his campaign site even said he had detected fraud in the election that resulted in Governor Gavin Newsom being reinstated as governor. This is before any results had even been released.

Just watch the clip until the end.

Stephen Miller is the vilest, most bigoted person to work in the White House in recent memory. Larry Elder is a huge fan.

The two go way back. Miller called into Elders show while he was in high school in the Los Angeles area, and Elder has supported the anti-immigration former adviser to Trump ever since. He even told Miller hed like to see him in the Oval Office himself. I hope to live to see the day when you become president, Elder once wrote to Miller, who responded by telling Elder he is the one true guide Ive always had.

Politicians suck. We know. At the same time, when running a government the size of Californias, it stands to reason that it might help to have some experience running a government, any government, or at the very least working in one.

The last, and only, person to slide into the Governors Mansion after a successful recall in California was Arnold Schwarzenneger, who became governor after Gray Davis was recalled in 2003. Schwarzenneger had no government experience and led the state into a financial quagmire before riding into the sunset with an anemic 22-percent approval rating.

Theres also, of course, Donald Trump, who won the presidency in 2016 despite having no experience in government and proceeded find creative ways to botch just about every problem that crossed his desk. This includes Covid-19, which has now killed well over 600,000 Americans due in no small part to Trumps ineptitude.

Elder indicated in February that he didnt really want to be governor of California. Id love to serve. Id hate to have to run, he said. I just dont believe I have the stomach, the temperament, the personality, the drive, the willingness to deal with these doofi in Sacramento for the next several years of my life.

Its hard to tell here if Elder is saying he doesnt have what it takes to run for governor, or to run for and then also serve as governor. The first part of the quote indicates the former. The bit about dealing with all the doofi in the states capital indicates the latter. Its also possible that making sense isnt a strong suit of Elders, something that could hinder his ability to appeal to a state of 40 million.

(Its also possible Elder just really wanted to use the word doofi, which is a little more understandable.)

Im not going to run, Elder added.

Four months later, he entered the race.

Read the rest here:
A Guide to Larry Elder, the Right-Wing Extremist Who Could Be the Next Governor of California - Rolling Stone

Thiel sat on President Trumps executive transition team; Palantir, Thiels data analytics firm, procured a number of lucrative government contracts. Behind the scenes, Chafkin says, Thiel was pushing for a Republican crackdown on tech companies, and more specifically on Google, his nemesis. (Googles size and reach presented, in Chafkins words, a threat to nearly every company in Thiels portfolio.) You might think that this deployment of government power would go against everything the libertarian Thiel believed in, but you begin to wonder, while reading The Contrarian, whether the Big Government bullying that conservatives warned against before Trump became president was in fact just a projection of the big-footing they would gladly do if given the chance Trumpism as a form of wish fulfillment. In Chafkins summary: Get on the Trump train, or get a visit from the F.T.C.

As it happens, Thiel was bullied as a child a skinny, socially awkward, chess-playing boy, he protected himself by becoming resolutely disdainful. He was born in Germany and moved to the United States as an infant, in 1968. His fathers job at an engineering firm also meant a sojourn in apartheid South Africa, where the younger Thiel attended an elite, all-white prep school. He went to Stanford and started the Stanford Review, a conservative newspaper, staying put to go to law school. An unsatisfying stint as a corporate lawyer ended when he failed to get the Supreme Court clerkship he so desperately wanted. I was devastated, Thiel would later recall, saying it precipitated a quarter-life crisis.

The Contrarian recounts Thiels professional trajectory in full, depicting him stumbling into the tech industry not out of any particular passion but because it presented an opportunity to get rich. Thiel, unlike the fantasy of the American entrepreneur who risks it all for his dream, was always hedging his bets even, at one point, proposing that PayPal turn over its limited cash reserves to his own hedge fund so that he could speculate with the money.

Chafkin portrays Thiels support for Trump on the 2016 campaign trail in similar terms. Chances are, any establishment Republican would have been fine for Thiels business interests, and Thiel had already scandalized Silicon Valley with his criticisms of womens suffrage and immigration. But if Trump won, Thiel was bound to be rewarded by a president who clearly prized demonstrations of loyalty above all else. Not to mention that Thiel by any material measure a master of the universe relished the thought of Trump sticking it to that part of the elite club that wouldnt have him as a member. As one of Thiels investors put it, He wanted to watch Rome burn.

Continued here:
The Contrarian Goes Searching for Peter Thiels Elusive Core - The New York Times

A conservative Twitter pal notes that back in 2015, before the conservative movement lost its mind, conservative writer Ben Domenech, writing for the really conservativeFederalist, called it insane that vaccine mandates would stir any controversy:

Fundamentally, the protection against life-threatening plague is one of the original reasons government exists. Weve had mandatory vaccines for schoolchildren in America since before the Emancipation Proclamation. The Supreme Court has upheld that practice as constitutional for over a century, and only the political fringes believe there ought to be a debate about such matters. This is one of the few areas where government necessarily exercises power [Ben Domenech, The Insane Vaccine Debate, Reason, 2015.02.03].

Domenech expressed sympathy for parents who wanted to delay shots for their kids but not for people who wanted to avoid vaccination without consequences:

Its the failure to deal with those consequences that frustrates me about this debate. If you choose to not vaccinate your children, that is your choice. In the absence of an immediate threat, such as a life-threatening plague or outbreak, the state doesnt have a compelling reason to administer that vaccination by force or to infringe on your rights. But that doesnt mean there are no tradeoffs for such a decision. If you choose not to vaccinate, private and public institutions should be able to discriminate on that basis. Disneyland should be able to require proof of vaccination as a condition of entry, and so should public schools. You shouldnt be compelled to vaccinate your child, but neither should the rest of us be compelled to pretend like you did [Domenech, 2015.02.03].

Domenech cited libertarian science writer Ronald Bailey, who expressed this very libertarian argument for vaccine mandates in a 2014 debate:

Vaccines are like fences. Fences keep your neighbors livestock out of your pastures and yours out of his. Similarly, vaccines separate peoples microbes. Anti-vaccination folks are taking advantage of the fact that most people around them have chosen differently, thus acting as a firewall protecting them from disease. But if enough people refuse, that firewall comes down, and innocent people get hurt.

Oliver Wendell Holmes articulated a good libertarian principle when he said, The right to swing my fist ends where the other mans nose begins.

Some people object to applying Holmes aphorism by arguing that aggression can only occur when someone intends to hit someone else; microbes just happen. However, being intentionally unvaccinated against highly contagious airborne diseases is, to extend the metaphor, like walking down a street randomly swinging your fists without warning. You may not hit an innocent bystander, but youve substantially increased the chances. Those harmed by the irresponsibility of the unvaccinated are not being accorded the inherent equal dignity and rights every individual possesses. The autonomy of the unvaccinated is trumping the autonomy of those they put at risk.

As central to libertarian thinking as the non-aggression principle is, there are other tenets that also inform the philosophy. One such is the harm principle, as outlined by John Stuart Mill. In On Liberty, Mill argued that the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. Vaccination clearly prevents harm to others [Ronald Bailey, Refusing Vaccination Puts Others at Risk, Reason, April 2014].

Libertarians advocate maximum freedom, not absolute freedom. Maximum freedom results from imposing minimal restrictions on individuals to prevent harm to others. Vaccines are minimal restrictions that maximize freedom: they stop individuals from conducting their normal business for maybe twenty minutes and then allow everyone to go about all of their regular business with far less fear of infection, hospitalization, and death, all of which egregiously restrict freedom.

Even Kristi Noem used to believe mandatory vaccines were a good idea:

Gov. Kristi Noem says she opposes a bill eliminating the vaccination requirement for students.

Vaccinations have literally saved millions of lives over the years. That is not something that I can support, she said during her weekly press conference [Lisa Kaczke, Gov. Kristi Noem Opposes Bill to Drop Vaccination Requirements for Students, that Sioux Falls paper, 2020.02.21].

Ah, the good old days, when conservatives had a sane, practical commitment to protecting our freedom from real threats, like disease and death.

Read more here:
Conservatives and Kristi Noem Used to Think Government Should Require Vaccines - Dakota Free Press