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Mindborg

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Everything posted by Mindborg

  1. I have no idea if it's good or bad, or even how to judge it. My point is that once you set up certain systems, they tend not to change for a very long time. I think the same can be done here. If we set up the culture and systems in a certain way, it will maintain itself.
  2. Excellent comment New Buddha I appreciate that you're direct, honest and take the time to voice your opinion. As for funding; the function works like this: time = money / burn rate. So I'm saying that the burn rate is very low, and I intend to keep it like that for long Yes, collection of data is very important. There most certainly will be a long list of problems regarding living on the sea. I will probably have to live there and take the risk at first, and then when it's safe, we can open for more. As for 10 persons, this has now been corrected to "a few people". I think 10 people are too high expectations early on. Scientology: I'm not very familiar with that religion, but you might have a valid point. So one idea is to perhaps rent the facilities out on AirBnb and get feedback that way. Then a person who's very interested in this project might have a managerial role, maintaining the facilities etc. I've found that many libertarians have not bothered to read and learn much philosophy, so that's why "improve their knowledge..." is in there. Since continuous learning and philosophy is so important to the culture, I put that in there. Do you see some wrong assumptions here, or should I formulate it differently perhaps? I did change it on the website, it's now saying that early settlers are expected "to give lot of feedback so we can improve the facilities and build the systems needed for further expansion." As for free labor; It would be an exchange of value. Free rent and the experience is certainly a value, but there could be others. Perhaps options in the project, perhaps direct payments. I think experiments need to be run to figure out what will work the best. As for credibility: TSI has credibility I have no hope of matching. I am a very private person, and have chosen to take the most difficult path to success by trying to establish credibility while remaining quite private. Quite feasibly it's an impossible path to take, but I have seen artists do something similar; Daft Punk being one success story, Satoshi Nakamoto another. If this project succeeds it might become big news. If it becomes big news people will recognize my face if I'm public, and I cannot walk in the streets without people wanting to take pictures etc. I love walking in the streets and think for myself. I don't want to be famous, at least not for now. I want to establish credibility by my actions and my ideas over time. When you meet me in person you’ll see my face. I've been thinking a lot about this. It would be so much easier in the short term to make my face public. But I'm here for the long term, and I have to optimize for long term happiness. I'm very open for being wrong on this, but thus far I have not seen the evidence that will convince me. If I see it, I will be more public. At the same time, I think that many people today automatically associate public figures, faces and addresses with trustworthiness. I think that is a mistake. In Galt's Gulch Chile all the people were public. It didn't matter, and the victims are no better off for them being public. If the leaders were anonymous they wouldn't get away with anything of it, because people would be much less gullible. In the same way, if I can fight such an uphill battle as steep as having a robot face and still gain the trust of those around me, then I can only do that by having a different level of integrity. If I'm a person of integrity it will shine through my actions and my words. Said in a discussion between Gail Wynand and Howard Roark (paraphrased): (Howard) "I had an ally I could trust" (Gail) "Who? Your integrity?" (Howard) "No. Yours Gail". You have to judge for yourself if I'm trustworthy or not. Many, probably most, will have a difficult time trusting a person who doesn't want to show his face in public. I'm increasing the short term risks of the project by doing it this way. I still think it's doable. I don't expect other participants to be more public than me at current stage. It might change later. Feasibility: I agree; there's too little information on this point. My current thoughts (subject to change) are as follows: 1) Get a lot of feedback from this forum. Thank you all, you have no idea how much I appreciate you taking the time. You might not buy in with cash until later, but you buy in enough to care to write comments. 2) Try to get some buy-in for the project. This will take time. 3) When I have some buy-in, start building in Tahiti. 4) Take pictures; display the facilities and why people should come. 5) Make experience good to awesome. This will be very difficult. Get a lot of feedback from first people. Improve things a lot and repeat. In other words, I hope to increase the credibility of the project over time, as well as demonstrate its feasibility. By documenting facilities, progress etc.; I think that it should be possible to establish a track record and reputation over time. Ah, one more thing. People who have established lives are not the target market for round 1. I don't want married couples with kids to uproot and take the kind of risk that is in this project. As I say, it will probably fail. You don't want to quit your job when there's a 70-80% chance that things will fail. I think early on I should take most risk, and perhaps we can find some young people with no responsibilities with high ambitions and dreams. Then as the risk reduces, we can take people with smaller risk tolerance.
  3. Thank you for that softwareNerd It's a very valid objection. I've met some libertarians and found that some I enjoyed hanging out with, and others not. I don't yet know what would make this different, but I do think that it should be possible to figure out systems that can minimize the impact of all the shortcomings of Objectivists (I certainly know I have many shortcomings) and boost their strengths. Perhaps it's possible to build a social machine that is handling the conflicts that usually arise between Objectivists? What objections did you have in your last encounter with other Objectivists? What pain-points did you experience? What were the things you did enjoy?
  4. Trade: Early on we got access to infrastructure on Tahiti. There's access to a regular port there. Later we might set up a floating port, but still under the flag of French Polynesia. Ancap: I am 100% sure that there are solutions to problems that neither you nor I have thought about. All we know is what exists today. Is there a way to build computer systems that replaces many of current government services? Almost certainly. Do we need systems to enforce contracts? Maybe, maybe not. I know I have certainly thought of several systems that can replace these functions. Can those system work in practice? There's only one solid way to find out, and that is to try on small scale and see if it works. My strong assumption is that if this project develops, it's going to be neither ancap nor purely according to what Ayn Rand suggested. Rand probably didn't imagine that a lot of code could be run on computers, and that is a big game-changer. Code run on computers is fundamentally different from code run by social structures and in the head of lawyers and judges. For one thing, it's much cheaper and can handle high volume much better. This changes how resources should be deployed. World as bad as in Atlas: No, we're not there. In Venezuela I do think it's perhaps that bad, perhaps worse. But I don't want to spend my life doing "not as bad as fantasy horror". I have one short life, and I want to live it to it's fullest. I want to do awesome, I want to build, build, build. I want to see how far I can go. I want to dance with no chains attached, I want to flaunt my virtues, not hide them like I do now, I want to see how far the merger of my brain and good ideas can take me. I want to build a place where bragging about your virtues and your success is encouraged. I think human society today is an engine operating at 3% of capacity. I want to see how it operates on pure philosophical fuel at 50% or more of it's capacity. Funding is not a problem at this stage. As for resort, I don't know much about it. Can you guide me to some links or tell me more about this? Moon: Yes, I agree the moon is a good long term option, not to mention other planets. The problem there is that I'd need substantially more money than I currently have, and I'd have to operate inside of current legal structures here on earth. Most of the assets would be placed on earth, giving governments substantial leverage. Perhaps I'm wrong, but from my perspective the route of going to sea seems to be shorter. As for convincing Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk (both have rocket companies and envision a very bright future in space), I don't know if that's the best route either. Why would they listen to me? Not only that, but they both have so much assets in the US that they would never dare risk that for trying out new structures of government. I think only small actors have the freedom to take on the kind of risk we're dealing with here.
  5. That's all right Repairman. Thank you for telling me. As for free lunch; no there's no such thing. I expect is to make a lot of money on this long term. But I can wait for a very long time before I need to make money, so what I'm really after at this stage is information about what things objectivists find valuable, if there's any interest at all, what things would be interesting to see etc. Then maybe I can create some value for early adapters, perhaps get a community started, then we can step by step get more and more customers. Perhaps one day I can live among awesome people. I know for certain that I don't do that today. Down the line, if I do a good job and I beat the odds, I might get paid in money, friendships and happiness.
  6. OK, so I see you got some pain points here. While not desperate, there are still things that you experience as unfair. It will take long time to deliver a system where you are free from injustices like that. It is my long term dream to build that with a lot of help, but it's not a value I can deliver tomorrow. I'm trying to figure out what value I can bring to objectivists like yourself tomorrow or very soon, and then we can slowly move towards a system that are designed according to rational standards. As a software engineer I do not believe at all in big up-front designs. It doesn't work very well. I don't know what laws, processes etc. is needed for a modern society to work. But I can tell you with certainty that we have much more advanced ideas how to make things work today than was accessible over 200 years ago. I believe that certain meta-techniques are so powerful that we don’t need to know all the specifics. It’s similar to how self-esteem works. If you have high trust in your abilities to learn, then you’re able to learn specifics with ease. You just deal with difficulties so easily, because you got powerful abstract tools. Similarly I know how to figure out what we need. No big up-front design of laws are needed, instead we’ll evolve a system of law when it’s needed. If you’re not familiar with Lean, continuous delivery, software engineering etc. it might sound risky. But it’s the only way to work effectively in today’s world, and the risks are magnitudes lower than up-front design. Protection of individual rights: I don’t know what’s needed here. I know my girlfriend and I don’t have any written contract, but we work really well together still. Constitution: If it’s needed, we’ll develop that. We don’t need it when we’re 5 people. Perhaps when we reach 100 or 1000? I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out as we go. Stopping government from expanding beyond its role: I think building our philosophy into everything in the community is essential. I think that rational individualism should be woven into the social fabric so strongly that it can never be pulled out. That I think is the only way to stop government from growing. If people’s value is security over freedom, people will crave bigger government and will get it one way or the other. If you’re instantly asked to leave the community if you even dare suggest that the government should take care of anyone, then we’ll have a culture that is next to unbreakable. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Alaska has the same number of seats in the Senate as California, even though the populations are very different. This was how it was set up back in the days, and it’s next to impossible to change. We got to make the culture so strong that it becomes impossible to change. Constitutions are not strong enough. Cultures can be much stronger than constitutions, which is proven time and again all over the world; even if they adapt new constitutions, the cultures of the countries don’t change. 2. I doubt we'd start as a government. I don't know what social structures are needed, but I do think that computer science offer a completely different way of thinking of social structures. I think what's needed is entrepreneurship and independent thinking. As we move, we have to figure out the problems that we face, but then we design new solutions, probably with a heavy element of computer science. Computers today can do next to anything, and I think almost all of social problems can be fixed by designing incentives into computer systems. Computer systems are dry code, and forces people to behave in certain ways. The system won't execute if you try to do something it doesn't allow. For example: Problem: purchase and sale of property. Old solution: lawyers and a court system. Potential new solution: cryptographic signature system. Property only responds to the keyholder. No laws or jails needed. Example 2: Problem: copyright; difficult to stop others from copying your trademark. Old solution: lawyers and a court system. Potential new solution: attach a double QR code to your product; a scan of the QR will instantly verify if the product is fake or real. Attach social stigma to using fake products. No laws or jails needed. 3. Yes, we'd be starting out at Tahiti, so you got access to all regular facilities. There is a market on Tahiti, there's about 29 000 people in Faaa. So a small businesses can work from very early stages. But if you want to be a billionaire in the next 3 years, this is not your target market. But it's possible to build a smaller business here. If you have a viable business idea that can be started on a small budget, I've been thinking of investing in that. A lot of work have to go into that, so I'm not sure if it's a good idea. But please tell me if you think it's worth thinking more about. Yes, I don't think I would want anyone with a family to take the risk at this stage. There's a low probability of success at present, and you want to make sure that you're not taking too much risk. You should expect the project to fail at this stage. There have been reports of people ending up living in a car, losing everything after Galt's Gulch Chile. I do not want that to happen on this project. If it's going to fail at an early stage, I alone should carry the costs. I would still love to hear what things would be valuable to you, so that as we reduce the risk of the project, we could perhaps entice you to consider taking a trip for a week or a month at Tahiti?
  7. That's the general outline. I imagine that spending time with rational individualists can be quite enjoyable. I have some experience, my girlfriend and me discuss rationality and the impact of philosophy every single day. I love it. Another reason was that I met with many cool people at Galt's Gulch Chile, and I found it to be a very good experience. The fallout was not good, but that was because of bad leadership and business practices, not because of the customers. The question is, what does it take for this project to have such high value that you would come? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that it has to be very valuable, because the trip to Tahiti alone costs about 2000 dollars. I know some Apple products when I bought them was easily worth 10x what I paid for them. I'm no Steve, but maybe with a lot of effort I can deliver more than 2000 dollars worth to some customers. The project has to offer you some combination of values that are so high that you're willing to take a small risk at first, and when you get a taste of how good the product is, you might be willing to come back again and again until you decide to join permanently. It's probably going to take years to build that up. I'm open to ideas. What do you find valuable? What are you missing in your life? Lower taxes is an obvious long term value. But for the short term we don't have the special economic zone, so I'm thinking very cheap housing for a week or a month in Tahiti. Eventually we need to charge for this service, so maybe it's not a good idea. I'm not sure, I think we need to run experiments. Benefits: That's an excellent question, and I currently don't have a good answer. I need to understand objectivists other than myself well to find out how I can build something that is valuable to you. I know what I want; to live and work among people I respect, with a prospect of one day becoming a nation of individuals of high self-esteem who demonstrate how objectivism works and thus change the world and direct it towards a rational philosophy. But to get what I want, I need to give many customers what they want. So that's the difficult thing. How can I provide you with value as soon as possible? How can I make your life better? I think the answer is that I have to build something that just a few people like, then make it better and better over time, and as things get better, it becomes more valuable to more people, perhaps even so good that you might like it Have you tried living among objectivists? I have not, not really, so I don't know if there are any benefits at all. I know my girlfriend, and we talk a lot. I love that. I want to run an experiment to see if it's valuable or not. If I find that other objectivists are not really enjoyable to be among, then I'll write it off as a successful experiment and I'll find something else to do. But I think there's a good chance that living with awesome people can be better than what I experience day to day. One potential benefit could be access to capital. Let's say that you want to start a business. If people around you know that you're a person of integrity, then you might have an easier time getting funding. I’ve been thinking of setting up a venture fund for funding startups on Mindshore. The potential problem here is that that would be very time consuming and have a long payback time, and the funds might be needed for building Mindshore. But it's definitely something to think about. Another potential benefit is access to employees. Have you ever tried hiring people? It's such a painful job, and then you're trying to teach them the total basics of working skills... What if you knew that the people you hired had at least the working attitude and philosophy in place, and what they needed was just to learn the job skills? Save you a lot of pain right there, no need to explain that money is a good thing, not the root of all evil. We have a philosophy where money and creation of value is central. I think we can create something of value here, but much more work is needed to find a good path. So much value must be created in this project that your life becomes significantly better by joining than if you don't join. It's difficult I know.
  8. The Seasteading Institute (TSI) has of course been a huge inspiration for Mindshore. I didn’t think of seasteading before hearing from them. I also went to the gathering in French Polynesia and met the people there, and talked quite a bit with the TSI guys. We don’t have a formal working relationship at this point, but that’s something that I’m very open for. At this time Mindshore is a tiny project. I understand TSI wants a thousand nations and governments, and I have a specific vision of how one of these could look. I think Blue Frontiers is designing platforms, so if they do that at a reasonable cost, it might be possible to purchase one of the platforms. I’m not sure about a lot of things, but in general action beats inaction. I’m not going to sit around waiting all my life for someone else to build my values. It’s my job. I met with a lot of the people at the conference, and many of them love seasteading, but few were rational individualists. To me, philosophy is extremely important. That’s why I want to build Mindshore with explicit philosophical values. I hope that clarifies, but please ask more if you have more questions.
  9. This is true, there have been flops. This project will probably fail as well, I expect it to have a 20-30% chance of success, which means 70-80% chance of failure. I'm probably just another dreamer, but I'm not a scammer. I'm here to stay on planet Earth for quite a few decades, and living with integrity is much easier in that timeframe than being a scammer. I have been scammed a few times until I learned, and the scammers are not having good lives. I don’t need to scam people, Nathan Branden’s tips on living with personal integrity is much better for happiness. Howard Roark is also a strong motivation for me to live with integrity. One of the differences from Galt's Gulch Chile is that I take about 100% of the financial risk. The GGC founders took very little personal financial risk, they let the customers carry that risk. There were many other mistakes made in GGC that I'm learning from, but we don't need to go into all of that. Tell me if you want to know more, I'm happy to share. I do think that Lean Startup methodologies make a lot of sense, which is why I do want to get feedback from potential customers early on. Are they willing to put down a small sum, perhaps 10, 50 or 100 dollars? Here your scam flags are probably alerting you, as they should. But those red flags I have to overcome for this to have any chance of success. This project offers you little of value. That's much more potential than 0 :). Which to me means you see some potential value in the future? How could a small scale community be of value to you, if you had a magic wand? Maybe a job? Maybe higher standard of living? Maybe good friends? Free accommodation in Tahiti for one month if you cover your own travel? I'm not saying I can deliver any of those values, but I'm asking what it would take for you to be interested?
  10. I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner, for some reason I didn't know there were replies on this thread, maybe I didn't check my email properly. 1a) As the FAQ on our site says, I'm not taking any investments, any donations or sell any product at this stage. The project is so risky at this stage that I allow nobody but myself to take any significant risk. You will be able to take the risk of traveling to visit the project in Tahiti, and I do want potential customers to take the risk of putting down 100 dollars or something like that to express interest. But nothing on the magnitude of buying a property. 1b) Yes, it does, and I agree it's a risk we need to address. 1c) There will be limited trade, and difficult to get an economy started. I agree that's a substantial risk that needs to be addressed. 7) You think it's infeasible to build a community as a business (perhaps for lack of trade), but if it's a resort for the community it might work better? Thank you for that suggestion, it's noted.
  11. Thank you for that history lesson Nicky, I stand corrected. I don't know how to do all these things. I think it's safe to say that when we're 10 people there, living in Tahiti, nobody is going to attack. I doubt anyone is going to attack when we are 100 people and living out in the oceans. How are politicians going to sell attacking 100 or 1000 people living peacefully far out at sea? I think it's very difficult. The internet has made it much easier to communicate, and we'll be able to say that we just want to be left alone out there. The germans used the excuse of "lebensraum" for attacking countries around them. That's difficult to defend when we're in the middle of the sea. Also, we won't be encroaching on anyone's territory. Hong Kong transformed China. They were tiny compared to China, just a rounding error in the population numbers. Still, Hong Kong is doing very well, and was not flattened by China. If we cannot protect it (and I think we can very rapidly defend ourselves with the tools of internet, diplomacy and potentially new weapons) we can as a last resort sink our country if someone tries to take it over, just like Hank Rearden abandoned his steel mills. It's impossible once these ideas infect people's mind to control people. If people want to be free, they will find a way. I have found a way for myself to be very free even in today's world. There are ways, we just need to make it easier for more people to exit the current systems. Remember Ragnar Danneskjöld? Let man with the club try to attack the man who uses weapons and reason. Reason is magnitudes stronger than weapons. Longer term my goal is to establish a base on the moon and beyond, but to most people seasteading is too far fetched, so not to loose too much credibility I'm not going into how the moon can be done with a very low budget. There is however a low probability but viable path to permanent escape from violence and collectivism. Maybe I'll be killed when going to Tahiti and doing this. I have been in Tahiti already, and I just don't think it's going to happen. Can it happen? Perhaps. But life is not without risk, and this to me looks like a plausible path to freedom and a society based on a reasonable philosophy. A 0.1% chance of dying if some collectivist country is attacking is a risk I'm willing to take. My values are worth living for, and as a last resort, to die for.
  12. Gradual process: The gradual change I'm seeing is going fast, and it's downhill. Government is growing and fast. Entitlements are growing. What actions can you take today to change the direction of the US towards a society of objectivism? That is difficult no? I can tell you exactly what tasks I'm going to complete over the next week or more to move my project towards reality: 1) Work on creating a pdf or website explaining the vision, what steps are involved, and how customers can participate. 2) See what venues I can gain some traction. I'm thinking google adwords, so if people search for Ayn Rand, objectivism etc then my ad comes up. 3) See if I can get customers to pay for example 100 dollars. For that price they get some benefit when going there. My guess is that 0 people are willing to put up 100 dollars. 4) Then I expect to pay someone to give me feedback; "what would it take for you to put up 100 dollars for this vision?" 5) Iterate multiple times until I get 2-3 customers to sign up, paying 100 dollars. 6) (this one will take some months) Build a first version of the facilities in Tahiti. Then invite the first customers to go there. Iterate and get feedback, then get more objectivists to come there. What would it take for you Repairman to put up 100 dollars? If I gave you 1 month free rent in Tahiti on a simple but functional platform with free internet, power, shower, bathroom, bedroom and a promise that you can have discussions with an investor and a builder who loves reason and philosophy, would that be attractive? If I tell you that you have a >0% chance of becoming a founding father of a new America, would that be attractive? If not, what would I have to do to get your attention enough for you to say "shut up and take my money"? I don't expect to be profitable for many years, maybe 10+ years. I just want feedback from potential customers that there's some value here. I think America itself is a very good sample of a startup. They started almost from scratch, and could therefore establish the new country based on experiences gained from a badly functioning Europe. They could learn from the mistakes of Europe. They did, and created in the process the most successful country so far in history. They made an awesome product, but not a perfect one. Perfection doesn't exist I think, there will always be room for improvements. Maybe starting anew with a solid philosophy is an order of magnitude improvement. I agree to a very large extent. Without a clear philosophy it's difficult to direct your life, your business and the same goes for a society. This is why I want to start fresh and to attract first one and two, then 10 or 20, then 100 or 200 people of those who love this world. When things start working we can use growth lessons from Silicon Valley to grow this venture. It's a long shot, and so are all ventures in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley have the highest output of massive success anywhere in the world, and it's a lot because they believe that 1% chance of massive success is worth taking. This venture will probably fail, but I think the chance of at least some success is north of 20%. A small experiment like Hong Kong changed how China is working today. Maybe if we can demonstrate how objectivism works in a small community of a few hundred people long term, people will change their minds about individualism and philosophy. People want products, not theories. We have a badass philosophy for those who want to live. If we can transmute objectivism into a usable product, I think people will love it.
  13. Thank you for pointing that out, I want to be made aware of weaknesses as soon as possible. That said, I think this project can be started without a military. Luxembourg is doing quite well, and I don't think they have much of a military. They do have armed men though. David Freedman has been discussing how you can have a military without taxation. But those are long term concerns. In the short term I find it highly implausible that we'll be attacked for being productive people. Less than 10 people building a community in Tahiti? Why would anyone attack? In Tahiti people are very peaceful, I've talked with several of them. They are very friendly and very willing to take money. What will they conquer if they do attack? Nothing but some floating houses. The political cost is going to be much to high; tourism is the biggest industry there. Attacking tourists is not the way to personal gains. If you're doing seasteads outside of Somalia, sure, these are worries. But in Tahiti this is not a big worry.
  14. Thank you Repairman, those are kind words. I'm a businessman and I'm somewhat familiar with objectivism, though I've not read all the books. I've read Atlas and Fountainhead about 25 times each, I find it to be some of the best art there is. Too bad there's not a lot more like it, so I just have to read the same ones over and over. I'm also familiar with some of Nathaniel Brandens work, as well as one book by Peikoff. Yep, I agree. As sad as it is, I think they are winning. The beast that Roark and Steven Mallory (the sculpture artist) is talking about when discussing Ellsworth Tui; the drooling monster of apathy, I think it's winning in the US. I don't like it one bit, but that's how I see it. And just like Galt, I'd rather start something fresh and new, and spend my life building the new instead of trying to patch up existing structures. There's a reason why nature has selected for new babies to be born every generation. The old structures just cannot cope with the changes needed. The young and fresh can adapt faster. OK, if you consider the ideas of the constitution, individual liberty and the pursuit of happiness to be the core of the US, then I can see why you hold it in high esteem. I do the same, I live for those values, and every waking and sleeping hour is spent thinking about and working on making those values win on a massive scale. My issue is that I think the probability of a big permanent win for liberty in the US is down at the low single digit percentages, and that's me being completely stone on optimism. I just don't see how it can happen. Ron Paul was the best shot for a very long time, but he didn't stand a chance. When people hate personal responsibility, how can you possibly sell them on the benefits of having no safety net? I don't think it can be done, unless there's some startup that figures out a way to do it with technology. Yeah, liberty built America and made it great, and now more and more are getting comfortable with welfare, government health care, basic income, taxing the successful and all the other ideas that comes along with low self-esteem. It's happening very many places in the west. I see friends who had a little ambitions when younger, and then they go on welfare and their lives are just a complete mess. I don't see this changing unless there's some new tech startup that does that. And I don't see any tech startups being that ambitious. I would love to hear if you think it's possible for the US to return to individualism? If so, how could it be done? Yes, I've read that. While good, it's not the kind of society I imagine on the moon. I think that private industry will make possible many new societies, just like seasteading will. I want to build the new stuff, starting from scratch, just like they did in Atlas. How do you think it's possible to start a society from scratch and succeed?
  15. You are probably right. Still. Amazon have done amazing things in 20 years. Uber and AirBnB has done staggering things in 10 years. It will probably not work. I don't think it's easy. But the potential value of creating a place better aligned with rational individualism and making money in the process is too enticing. I think the constitution and large parts of the legal system is based on individualism, which I totally agree with. Much of the morality of the US was imported from Europe, and Europe back in the days (and still today) has a much more collectivist outlook. Those ideas has had a big impact on the culture of the US, and it's strong individualism has been watered down with more and more collectivist ideas. From my perspective those are becoming more of the core of the US, and I expect this process to increase dramatically in speed in the next economic downturn. I think the US in 10 years is going to feel very different than it is today, just like if you see movies from 1980's they reflect a very different US than today. - I wish to be free to build some projects I have without paying taxes. I don't accept being punished for doing good. I live for my own sake and my own happiness, not for the sake of everyone around me who I don't care about. I want to be free to trade with individuals without having to pay all those who stand around watching and bringing me no value. - I am quite free to build what I want. It's up to me to try to achieve this society that I imagine. Probably it's just a figment of my imagination, but as a software engineer I think so many things in society can be done much better now that we have computers. When that society is built by me, or more probably someone more skilled than me, I wish to build a moon company without having to answer to slow moving laws designed 50 years ago. I want to move fast and break things, and see what awesome things can be built. - Bravery; I don't believe in speaking out very much when it comes to politics, I have not seen it bring much long term results. For those with a public profile it seems to work, but I'm an introvert engineer with little desire to be an activist. I believe that I can take action and position myself so that good things strike me and bad things dodge me. I optimize for what works. - Am I right? Probably not. But I much rather make a mistake and learn from it than follow other people's judgement. My judgement says I have perhaps a 20% chance of small success, and a tiny lottery-chance of a huge payoff where the whole world becomes dramatically better. It's very interesting that you seem to feel so strongly about the flag and country. I have not experienced that before. Would you care to explain more? My loyalty is to my own life and my values. I protect myself, and when I don't, then I get hurt. I get hurt a lot, and I learn a lot. I don't put my trust in any one country, I put my trust in my mental abilities.
  16. How about we shrug? How about leaving it all, and build something new according to our values? Sure, it might have some value to support or not support Native Americans. But if we want to make our values of rational individualism real in this world, I would argue that building a community in an special economic zone is much more practical.
  17. Hi there happiness I think the US flag has meaning to many people, but its meaning has changed a lot. As an outsider from the US, when I see the flag, I do think of power and military might, not freedom. Perhaps that's just me, but I suspect not. As for saluting the flag; how much do you agree with the ideas around the US? I cannot say, but I know that I don't agree with the core ideas of any country. Shameless plug; this is by the way why I'm working on a project to build a community of rational individualists. Over time I think it's possible that we can gather up many smart people, and then we can over time gain economic and political independence. Then we can maybe make a new flag, one that symbolizes the ideas of freedom, individualism and rationality. I would love to hear your thoughts:
  18. Hi there I'm completely new here, so please tell me the things I'm doing wrong and I'll try to adjust. Inspired by Galt's Gulch in Atlas and after making some money I'm working on a project to create a community of rational individualists. It's crazy and will never work, I know. But still I have not yet found any specific reason why it shouldn't work, and so far no problem has come up that cannot be solved. Spot 5 errors in this project: http://mindshore.weebly.com 1) Why do you think it will fail? Very good if you can find 5 reasons we'll fail, but we're thankful for any number. 2) How much do you like the idea? (1-5 stars) 3) What's the most attractive part to you? 4) What are the barriers that would stop you from joining this project next month, if you wanted to join? 5) How much do you want to join if it works? (1-5 stars) 6) What parts of the content did you not like? What did you like? Is there too much text, or too little? 7) Other improvements we should make?
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