Mindborg

Seriously? This is the level that you want to bring the discussion to? Is this really a world problem that you want to spend your time solving? There are no more pressing problems for you to think about than a manager in an asteroid company smearing poop in employees face? Pathetic. If these problems are what objectivists are spending their time on, then it's easy to see why more important problems are not being solved.

I agree it has not existed at large scale, but at smaller scale and for short times I'm quite sure it has. If nothing else then some people might have traded between themselves without any interference by any third party. So-called black markets is trade outside of the control of the state.

Any AGI could quickly control any kind of machine, then use those machines to crush me. Why? Because I'm an individualist and like to be left alone. As I say, it's a very low risk, but definitely above 1%. I love software, but I love hardware too. I like to build things in the physical world, and I want to build big. International waters is still mostly free from government coercion, and it might be possible to build something awesome there.

The only potential threat I can see is artificial general intelligence, and I don't think that's a major threat, but I could be completely wrong on that one. If that becomes a threat, it's game over for humans. I don't think it's a threat, I think smart people will do good things with even AGI. The worries you perhaps are having is the reason I think that Mindshore can do very well the next decades. There are so many people who worry about all these big ticket items that they have no control over. But what if you can live in a place where all the people are secular? What if you can live a place where the rights of the individual is respected? What if you can live a place where nobody expects any unpaid help from you, but see you as benevolent if you help out? What if you can live in a place that has a 20% chance of becoming a place with no taxes, and no reporting requirement? What if your private finances were private? How fast could you accumulate capital, and what businesses would you build if you were free to do so? It's just a dream I know. But some dreams do become real. Political instability; I'm sure this will rise, especially with the next recession which might come before too long. What if you could move a place where you're too busy building fun things to even notice that the big countries are having trouble? So, no, I think capitalism will never collapse. As long as people are alive, they will want to divide work and trade, and trade is capitalism. Trade predates humans, it's an integral part of being human. I think not even nuclear war can eradicate capitalism or humanity.

I don't agree there, I think it's better to build people up than try to tear them down. How about praising them for their success. I've done this several times, and it have worked extremely well for me. If you're not envious, but instead praise them for what they've done, it can be the start of a friendship and even a business relationship. If you want success for yourself, you want to surround yourself with people who are smarter and more successful.

Looks like Hong Kong, but I could be wrong. Capitalism the unknown ideal is very good. I also really love Nathaniel Branden's material. He's got a long seminar on Objectivism with a lot of explanations that are implicit in Atlas and Fountainhead. Seems to be the issue all over. Living up to other people's expectations, instead of worrying about internal convictions.

Sounds like you think for yourself. All reason leads to the same fundamental ideas. Sure, different ideas must be tested and validated by science, but many things have been tested and demonstrated not to work. That optimism you talk of is very important. I think too many lose it due to inaction and lack of constant growth. I think internal honesty is essential to keeping that flame alive.

I spent ~1 minute searching and find tickets for about 1200-1300 dollars from LA to Tahiti, you might get better price if you spend more time searching.

Yes, that might be coming down the road. Yeah, starting a country seems ambitious, especially when you see where I want to start. Most of you will probably laugh and say it's impossible. Yes, there needs to be rules, though very simple at first. As you know I want to build a community for rational individualists in Tahiti. As a very early start to doing this, I am asking for feedback on my ideas. If you hate the idea, I want to hear it. If you love it, think it's boring, think it needs adjustment, I would like to get your feedback. If you want to laugh at it because it's silly, please tell me, and also how I can make it less silly. Why would this be of interest to you? Starting small, I think that it's possible for us to create market value specifically for objectivists. It might be a possibility that a community can start growing in Tahiti over time if we can provide enough value. Over time we might create the systems needed for a more rational society to grow. We might also create systems to help people develop their reasoning skills and promote objectivism. If you please have a look at this link: http://mindshore.weebly.com/pre-sale.html and then tell me what you think of it? Is it tempting, boring, not serious, looks like a scam, beautiful, "I'm in" or anything else? Don't worry about my feelings, I just want your opinion. What do I need to change to get you aboard?

My tips is to just ignore it. This problem is internal to you, it's not their problem. Don't worry about what they think of you. You're not in competition with them, you're on your own journey. I think too many people care what others think of them. It's next to impossible to have long term success if you care too much about what people think of you. See difference between Roark and Keating. Roark doesn't care much, Keating cares all the time.

Absolute scratch: I see I explained myself ineffectively, sorry about that. Technologically we build on all the work that has been done before. But in the questions I think we should start from the very basic, and instead of using the same answers that has been found before, we should find new solutions based on new technology. For example, I take it as a given that we need money, but lately there has been invented new models for how to do money very differently and more decentralized than having a central bank. Bitcoin is approaching a decade of almost flawless execution, better than any other financial system thus far, and it's doing so with new technology and it's big advantages and disadvantages. You might like it or hate it, but you have to admit that it's doing what it was designed to do. I think it's possible to use and create new technologies to answer questions differently than they have been done before. On government: Wikipedia defines government as: A government is the system by which a state or community is managed. It's a system to manage a state or community. Do we need that? Absolutely. Chaos is the default if people are not working and operating in a systematic way. If there's only a void after a state collapses, often it means rule by brute force. We need systems that are operating properly so that people can live in peace. I think, however, there are more than a million different solutions that could work for that problem. So to a large extent I agree with you Eiuol. On violence: I think that better and better systems have been reducing the amount of violence needed to make societies all over the planet work, and I think this trend will continue. Eventually we might get to a society where violence and violating other's rights are activities so expensive that they are pretty much non-existent.

Good point New Buddha. I think of a government as just a way to organize people, objects and systems to do a certain set of tasks that needs to be done. Those tasks can probably be done in a different way much more effectively today than 100 years ago. I think these systems can and must be redesigned from an individualistic moral code. When we expect people to act in their own rational self-interest, and not "for the greater good", it changes incentives very much. With a better understanding of incentives we can get the systems and people to better produce the results we want.

Thank you for your comment Eiuol. You're spot on; I have not reasoned out how it should be. After spending a lot of time designing software and working on startups, I am very suspect to anyone who claims to be able to reason out how any system should work in detail. This is simply because I used to do it, and ended up with designs that didn't actually solve the problems. My experience is that up-front design is mostly a waste of time unless you have done the thing multiple times before. Houses has been done before, and you know what to expect, so then planning makes sense. You can plan and know for sure that people will buy the house. Here we're designing a community. It has never been done before, and I think none of us even knows if it's possible. The plans will go in the wastebasket faster than they can be written. I have some abstract ideas, and I'm sure you have ideas as well. I think we should reinvent the wheel and start from scratch, because we have different tools available today than when societies were designed hundreds of years ago. We also have very different problems. Paraphrasing Rand, she describes one of the heroes; I think it's in Atlas, as follows: [The industrialist] studied the field for a long time. Then he redesigned it as if he had never heard of it before, upsetting all precedent. My key difference is that I know I'm ignorant, and I question very many things down to the root. Most people think they know, and because they know it all already, they just slightly modify solutions that has worked in the past. What some of the great investors of Silicon Valley says is that you should go to first principles, and reason from there. We need to start from absolute scratch. - Why do individuals need to live in a society at all? - What people are needed in a good society for it to operate smoothly? - Are the ideas people hold of any consequence to how they act? If so, should we care? If so, how can we assess what ideas are constructive and what are destructive? If so, can we create systems to ensure we repel the people with destructive ideas and attract the ones with constructive ideas? - What systems are needed to ensure that people are behaving in their own long term self-interest? Yes, I want to throw all existing social structures out the window, start from scratch and see what problems we encounter, and then solve one problem at a time. If it grows, we'll encounter totally different problems than what other societies encountered before, and we need different solutions. If we copy existing structures and ideas, we'll also copy their results. I don't like the results that I'm seeing around me. In a society where you have multiple religions and languages you require very different structures from an atheist society with a single language. In a society composed of different philosophies you require very different structures then a society of a single strong rational philosophy. A philosophy of egoism requires very different social structures than one of altruism. I know this evolutionary, no-planning, on-the-spot problem solving approach contradicts how most people think, and it might be a hard struggle to see how an evolutionary process can work at all. But the fact of the matter is that pretty much 100% of startup companies today are done this way. Why? Because it works, and it's fast. I want us to apply what works in business and software to also design a society. Excellent comment, thank you for this Eiuol. I don't know what to call it; I guess it has no name yet, so I just call it a product. It doesn't exist yet, so making it real and creating something of value to customers are the first problems. Right now it's just untested ideas. As for being a cult; I trust your own awake and aware mind will keep you far away from this project if it turns into a death cult. You love your life right? That love will take you far away from any death cult. I am not afraid of that however. Might it become a "cult" of people who ask critical questions, who are interested in science, in building businesses, making money and living happy in this life? I hope so. As for demonstrating how your rights are protected, that's a very valid point. It's important that each customer can know with certainty how they will be treated before even ordering a trip to Tahiti, and that there are systems in place to make sure Mindshore is held to a much higher standard than what's normal. I can guarantee that we'll make mistakes and that some people's feelings are going to get hurt. But I can also promise that we'll make improvements as we go along, if there's enough interest to get it off the ground.

Well, I'm not actually from the US., and though it's very tempting to me, I've never entered the US. I might take the trip one day, I guess there's a reason so many awesome people are living there. For potential customers who are quite happy with their current status, we'll have to provide a huge value before this project can even be a temptation. But in some years we might be able to have solutions to problems you don't even know you have. My hope is that we can provide value for one customer at first, then to two customers, then three, and maybe one day we got so good systems that even you will be tempted to visit for just a week. And like any awesome experience, maybe you'll be hooked before you know it That's what I aim for, but it's probably just a dream.

You are correct Eiuol. It needs to be figured out. I have some ideas on how things can work, but experiments needs to be run to verify if it works in practical life. I have very good reasons to believe the systems for governance will work, when fully operational, several orders of magnitude better than the systems that are used today, but the assumptions and implementations still needs to be tested against reality. Eiuol, I don't find you mean. I am very encouraged by the fact that you use some of your valuable short time here on earth to respond at all, it means you care far more than nothing. As for being realistic; yes, I have a lot of doubt. The facts are that this is a venture with so low probability of success that being certain of anything would be lying to myself. The more I work on it, the more I see that it should be possible, but also that there's an almost endless list of problems that needs to be solved. So many of the problems can temporarily halt or permanently sink the project. Here's just a few issues: - Can we successfully create jobs? - Can we successfully create an economy? - Can we successfully get a tiny market of objectivists interested? - Can we successfully create a positive and engaging culture? - Can we successfully get intelligent people interested? - Can we successfully get a lot of these people to move to Tahiti? - Can I learn to become the leader that this project needs to succeed? - Can we successfully deal with political issues? Are politicians going to stop this? - Can we successfully deal with the engineering issues? - Can we successfully build the safety needed, or will there be drowning accidents that crater the project? - Can we successfully deal with the local population in Tahiti? Are they going to hate us and stop the project? Even with a ruthless adherence to reality, once you're stacking these problems on top of each other and do the math on the probabilities, you'll see that even if we humans can change probabilities and bend reality to our will, there are limits. I have a lot going for me, one of my best assets being a level of creativity and problem solving skills that are very rare, along with the fact that I don't need to raise money for a very long time. There's a circle of possible fading into the impossible on the edges. This project I think is just around the mist between the two. I think that if I can get a product / market fit, then I might attract the talent this project needs to succeed. Our philosophy should provide a good pool of people to select from. As for passion for Mindshore: You guys in this forum have given me a lot of optimism. I expected to struggle much harder before I got any kind of response and criticism, I even expected to pay people to criticize this project because most would see it as completely uninteresting. That said, I've probably not expressed it, but I'm on fire for this project. I think about it and work on it day and night, 7 days per week. I'm supposed to take the weekend off, but I am doing little else with my time but optimizing my probability of success. I don't think that would be doable without inspiration. I am hesitant to express too much of my big long term visions, because it turns some people off. But I do have goals that are pulling me out of bed every morning.

I think it's most certain that this can and will happen. Might it be possible though, to design software systems, educational systems and whatever other systems are required, systems that are doing the work of changing people from dogmatic to actual independent thinkers? I think it is. Difficult? No doubt. But it requires no magic, "just" serious skills and creativity.

Thank you for that series of Rand quotes dream_weaver. I found them very good and inspirational. As for usable product, if I remember correctly my path it actually came from a very different path of thinking; inspiration from using Apple products many years ago. I realized that people don't discuss if electromagnetism works. There's no discussion because they are using the products that comes from it. Rand has been an inspiration for many years, but I cannot directly credit her with leading me to this. The reason people still discuss philosophy and many other things is because there's no product for the theories. Some people think the moon landing was hoax. Why? Because you cannot buy a return ticket to the moon for 1000 dollars to see the landing site. When you can, the debate is gone. When we have a operational society based on reason, and people can see the results, educate themselves and participate in the huge profits that comes from minds dedicated to reality and life, the debates will evaporate, as if they never existed. If someone successfully builds a rational society, whether its Mindshore or more probably some other project, there will be no discussion about what principles make a society function. Excellent quote. This is exactly what objectivism is. It's a signpost saying "Looking for happiness? Buckle up for pain. You have to think for yourself, make your own mistakes and be different from those around you."

Thank you for your comment softwareNerd. The chance of gaining political independence in Florida seems very low. In Tahiti political autonomy is a real possibility, perhaps in only a some years Mindshore could have a different tax system. If it doesn't work in Tahiti, doing this project in a different location might be an option yes, I've thought of ways to get to international waters faster. It does probably require many years and tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars though, so it's a longer path than the path I'm trying now. Regarding moving; perhaps it's a downside, perhaps it's a good thing. The threshold is so high for moving to Tahiti that the chance of getting false positives on this project is very low. If this idea is not going to work, I want to find out fast, because my life is short and I have a lot I want to do. If it fails, it's better if it fails fast. I'm afraid that if I did this project in an existing city it could take a long time before I get good feedback. Job prospects: This part will be very difficult to solve, and is a major risk to the project. If we cannot solve this problem, the project will fail. By forcing creation of jobs early on on Mindshore, we can take care of the high-risk items first. If we cannot solve the job problem, this project is never going to work. I want the project to fail fast, so to me this is a good reason to start in Tahiti, where we got all the odds against us. Moon: Perhaps some would find it boring, but many would enjoy it very much. Low gravity, totally new problems from those on earth... I'm quite sure I would like it, I'm an introvert who loves engineering of all types. Light only needs ~1 second to travel there, meaning internet would be almost normal. I've been thinking about cheaper ways to do both transportation and construction on the moon. There is so much money to be made from utilizing the moon, and I think a lot will be done within the next 30 years. But again, I think it's a much higher threshold than moving to Tahiti, at least for now.

Thanks. I grasped it after a short while it had to be something like that. I guess it's from a movie. Is it worth watching?

I haven't seen that one before. It's very good. After having lived in strange cultures, I do realize that imposing my culture on others is not very effective. If I want to effectively get my things done, then it's just a matter of fact that it's often better done following the other culture.

Thank you for the comment. You might be very correct that we need to defend no matter where we go. Currently we expect to be under the roof of France. Long term I imagine our own defense, but the specifics is just too difficult to predict. We have to build, and accept that we cannot know everything. It's the best path I can currently see. Nothing in life is risk free, but to me this looks like an acceptable level of risk.

What I'm after is building an English speaking culture of rational individualism. The details of how it will work I do not know, but I guess it might involve a lot of software, because software is so good at what it's doing. I don't claim to know if we need a government or not, but I am 100% certain that there are other options for how humans can interact peacefully than the options that are on the table today. I'd think there are at least 100 million different options out there. So far humans might have tested 50 options, though maybe someone has a better guesstimate than mine. There are a lot of possible combinations of systems that could have a positive result. Just like all businesses are designed slightly different, so I think that social systems also need to be different; they need to be designed for each specific need. Just like Roark designed each house depending on its function and it's circumstances, so also each social structure needs to be built for a specific purpose. Link: Thanks. I think Walt Disney at the end of his life was in quite a different position than what this project is in. Walt had a track record of a lifetime of success. He could trust his judgement to a very high degree, he had trusted people and money. I can guarantee with 100% certainty that if I attempted to do what Walt did, I would fail. Walt could have built it I'm sure. I cannot. I have to start small.

Sorry I didn't explain that well. Shortest path to a peaceful society based on individualistic law and morality instead of altruistic morality. Funding: we don't need funding for a long time. Moon: I don't think I have the self-esteem needed, as well as many other things needed. I'm ambitious, but I need some more victories before I can take on the moon. Self-esteem is the reputation I have with myself, and it must be built over time. Cabin in the woods: I'm sure it will look like that to many. We need to build value that attracts customers, even though the scope initially is very small. It is a longer term goal to make it a special economic zone. If we can get that, reduced or eliminated taxes etc, then we're probably going quite strong already. My opinion is that doing so would be starting too big, but I could be wrong here. I'm a strong believer in starting small, or even tiny.

Thank you for your ideas StrictlyLogical. I'm afraid of relying on donations and volunteers; I have little experience in how these things work. I know that some people can utilize other people's time and money effectively, but I stick with what I'm good at. Yes, we definitely are taking a gradual approach. So many of the details needs to be figured out over time though. All I can see is the end vision, and the next few steps. Everything in between is quite diffuse, and needs to be figured out as we go.

My current idea, subject to change and improvement, is to build facilities that can be rented out on AirBnb. Then I could hire one person to do the management of the facilities when I'm not there. Short term it won't be the most lucrative job, but for someone who takes a view of a few years it might be very attractive. We will then get a lot of feedback on how things are working, and can improve. When the facilities are working well, we can start inviting more people of Objectivist bent, maybe first a stay of a week, then a month. I've also been thinking of setting up a fund that could do an initial round for people who want to start their own business, but I think that it would be a lot of work, so I'm not sure if that's a good one.