The declaration of independence, however, was greeted with great suspicion by other countries in the area. A conference of the neighboring states (Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji, Nauru, Western Samoa, Cook Islands) met on 24 February 1972 at which Tonga made a claim over the Minerva Reefs.
[...]
A Tongan expedition was sent to enforce the claim. The Republic of Minerva flag was lowered. Tonga’s claim was recognized by the South Pacific Forum in September 1972. Meanwhile, Provisional President Davis was fired by founder Michael Oliver and the project collapsed in confusion. [...]

In 1982, a group of Americans led again by Morris C. “Bud” Davis tried to occupy the reefs, but were forced off by Tongan troops after three weeks. In recent years several groups have allegedly sought to re-establish Minerva. No claimant group has to date made any attempt to take possession of the Minerva Reefs territory.

nylund, what was the south pacific island called?

Some libertarians also once tried to start a country on an “uninhabited” island in the South Pacific, only to learn that it was uninhabited because it was the ancient burial site of the natives that lived on a nearby island. Those natives then came over in boats with machetes and beheaded all the libertarians for desecrating their sacred island.

Smut, any talk of your benevolent dictatorship must involve an in-depth discussion of your army of Scarlett Johansson clones.

By the way, you may be interested to know that Scarlett Johansson has an army of Smut Clyde clones.

That and others can be found in this collection of Kornbluth stories.

They got rid of the submarine ride at Disney World for sure. It had been replaced with something new (Little Mermaid, perhaps) the last time I was there… ~12 years ago.

Also BBBB,

I got a snort out of that. I think at this point Disney is beyond conventional navies and is going with orbital death-rays and what not.

It won’t be a nation’s navy that’ll shell the platforms, it’ll be the Disney Corporation.

Perfesser’s just afraid that Mark Levin would take a fancy to his mouth.

It sounds like Thiel/Floaters see the advantage to having a female population as a combination concubinage (men’s “needs”), brothel (free trade), and service industry (maids) all in one.

Surely, Sam Schulman would parachute in, guns blazing, to protect theses females from rape, degradation, and concubinage. Of course, he would have to marry them all to accomplish this.

I think the breakdown of Seatopia would begin like this:
“Dude, you can’t just crap wherever you like! Use the latrines!”
“WOLVERINES!!!!”

Libertarians make very important contributions. Those who have read Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle will recognize the term wrang-wrang.

Fuck you.

Link mangled, probably from length. Shorter.

Longer: http://www.alternet.org/politics/140253/seasteading:_libertarians_set_to_launch_a_(wet)_dream_of_%27freedom%27_in_international_waters/?comments=view&cID=1225490#c1225490

I hope this doesn’t get missed, now that new posts are around. There’s a really priceless Libertarian/Galt rant in the comments: http://www.alternet.org/politics/140253/seasteading:_libertarians_set_to_launch_a_(wet)_dream_of_%27freedom%27_in_international_waters/?comments=view&cID=1225490#c1225490

What I love is rants against the uselessness of our present society *on the Internet*. In the not-too-distant future a new wireless mesh network might evolve from voluntary participation — and a new hyper-linked web might evolve over top of it, while Sealanders fabricate ICs and attendant materials and market them free of regulation or coercion to customers with perfect information — at which point anti-state rants will be a lot less ironic.

Sheesh.

Turns out that he has been promising to do this since 2002, though the last update to his website was in 2004.

He claimed in 2003 that “the missile has been completed (apart from some minor work that is relatively inconsequential) and, to ensure that the testing will proceed at sometime in the New Year, it is no longer in my possession — but it is in safe hands.”
…also that his forced bankruptcy was a form of government persecution designed to stop him from displaying the missile, let alone testing it.

In case you are one of his financial supporters, and you want evidence that this missile project has progressed past the drawing board, he also provided Mythbuster-stye illustrations of how he built a fibreglass fuselage in his garage.

For further proof, he apparently wrote a book last year, and you can e-mail him if you want to be notified when it gets off the ground.

In the 1980s the King peddled Tongan passports, mostly to Asian customers. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were among the buyers. Unlike the King’s other get-rich-quick schemes this one was a roaring success. Nearly $26 million was raised, equal to more than half the Government’s annual budget. Adamant the money would not be ‘wasted’ on public works the King parked it offshore, where it eventually came to the attention of an enterprising US Buddhist named Jesse Bogdonoff. He persuaded the King to allow him to invest the passport profits and to appoint him as the Tongan Court’s first jester. The money all but disappeared and Bogdonoff was tried for fraud, negligence and conspiracy. The King has faced no censure for his part in this scheme – thanks mainly to ‘retrospective amendments’ to the constitution.

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, you could just watch the play.