Originally published at: Discover the hilariously epic failure of a crypto-fueled libertarian cruise | Boing Boing
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One question answers the other
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My contention that most Libertarian “tycoons” would bankrupt a child’s lemonade stand if given the chance to run one is confirmed once again. This story of entitlement, arrogance, incompetence and ignorance is definitely worth a read – it makes Bioshock’s Andrew Ryan look like a reasonable and responsible businessman.
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Funny how rugged individualism falls apart very quickly when you have to act collectively.
Libertarians are entirely dependent on the apparatus of a state/collective as parasites. Feeding off of its infrastructure and trying to harm it at the same time.
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Or when you have to acknowledge the importance of nation-states even on the high seas. Did these “free”-market morons think that flags of convenience are hoisted on ships just for fun?
This (and other aspects of their ridiculous saga) is why I made a habit of quickly side-lining founders of startups I advised who described themselves as Libertarians or “classical liberals”. Off they were sent to management areas that didn’t touch on the company’s finances or other critical operations (tips: giving them control of blue-sky R&D or hands-on coding/engineering with fancy titles keeps them happy and distracted without endangering the company; also design the term sheet so that they don’t control the majority of voting shares).
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The people so determined to remake civilization in their own image are always the ones who least understand how civilization works. Collective action is how we have everything that’s good about our lives. It’s what humans are good at and why we succeed- community building and helping each other with no strings attached. Sewers get built, clean water is secured, agriculture and supply chains are arranged to meet as many peoples’ needs as possible. The idea that you can throw a bunch of privilege-blind bros on a boat and all that will somehow just happen is so hilariously ludicrous.
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These guys always imagine themselves as Al Swearengen’s when they are E B Farnum’s at best.
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The myth of rugged individualism might make sense if we were a species of solo apex predators like jaguars or something. Unfortunately, we are a bunch of gimpy bipeds who have to team up and climb the tech tree in order to survive even trivial obstacles. Our very existence as a civilization is based on collective efforts.
I used to think that Libertarianism was dumb and selfish, but not especially harmful in the grand scheme of things. I was wrong. From an environmental and a public health standpoint it is fucking dangerous and needs to be shat on at every opportunity.
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But Dashcon was run by a 17 year old…
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Libertarians: never figuring out how to solve the problem of bears because no one is actually in charge.
I do love their idea of seasteading, though. “Hey, let’s park a few hundred feet of the coast of some country so we can be FREE while relying on the resources provided by their robust government and infrastructure.”
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What is it with libertarians and practical matters such as infrastructure? They’re like small children who take for granted almost everything around them.
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Oh cool, democratic representation directly tied to property ownership. I wonder why no one has thought of this before (we’re going to need a bigger eye-roll…)
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Yeah, the quote in the post about how they hadn’t considered things like fuel costs, crew costs and what to do with the waste almost made my eyes get stuck in my head.
What lives have these idiots been living that they would overlook such very basic considerations but still have the money to buy an almost 300 meter cruise ship? Blerg.
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As much as they pout that “Mommy can’t tell them what to do!”, Libertarian tech-bros still rely on her (and eventually girlfriends, wives, or hired help) to do the laundry and cook the meals and clean up their rooms.
Very fortunate kinds of lives. These man-children hit the jackpot gambling on Bitcoin or won the genetic lottery in terms of wealthy and connected parents. Of course, they’d describe it as “hard work, superior intelligence, and bootstraps”.
Plus a ship isn’t a democracy of any stripe. If things hadn’t gone pear-shaped so quickly for these clowns, the captain would have ended up leaving and shutting things down a few months later.
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If i’m not mistaken, the “vote with your house” is not about linking owning property and a right to vote, but that if your current ‘state’ decided to implement something that you disagree, you could just move your boat to another ‘state’ that suit you better.
Considering all of the strange things that come from from libertarianism, this at least consider that people are not so free, as their house or community is stuck on the ground where it stands, and that if your region is captured, there is a big trade-off between abandoning something you have or accepting something you disagree.
Of course, there is still the problem of how many people own their own space, but probably this is the best version of utopical libertarianism.
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They got off very lucky. Had they stumbled into any level of success at all, they might have met some really very Libertarian “proactive salvage professionals” interested in an acquisition. Best practice that elevator pitch!
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That isn’t the problem, otherwise anarchist collectives would also fail for the same reasons.
The problem is that they are hyper-individualist to the point where they can’t co-operate without the fear of their neighbour getting something that they didn’t work for, so all the stuff that requires co-operation tends to get left until the problem becomes too big to ignore. Then the bears move in.
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To be fair, Jefferson’s ideal libertarian type utopia, is everyone living off of self sustaining farms with out the need of others for the basic needs - not sitting on your ass sipping wine and crypto mining.
Modern libertarians, at least many of them, I agree never seem to have a problem when accepting money/resources from the state if it benefits them. (Though some would refuse some services as a matter of principle.) But we all benefit from public works like roads, bridges, health codes, etc.
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