PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION INTO SEASTEADINGHow to find better forms of social organization?- Chhay Lin Lim

chhaylinlim@hotmail.com

- Economics & International Management- Philosophy- Cambodian origins, born in Thailand refugeecamp- Living in Holland- Disgruntled with politics

“The masses have given up on unregulated capitalism, so those who support unregulated capitalism should give up on the masses”

Introduction

MAIN POINT: WE NEED TO INTRODUCE COMPETITION INTO THE INDUSTRY OF GOVERNMENTS

WHAT IS BEST FOR HUMANITY CAN BEST BE DISCOVERED BY LETTING MILLIONS ENGAGE IN TRIAL AND ERROR

- Value pluralism and political disagreements- Does representative democracy satisfactorily deal with these

realities?- We should look for political possibilities beyond representative

democracies- An open space for experimentation with social organizations

List of content

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IS TO AN IMPORTANT DEGREE FOCUSED IN THE IDEA OF POLITICAL DISAGREEMENT

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Bernard Williams (2005)

1. VALUE PLURALISM (1)John Rawls on the roles of political philosophy with regards to value pluralism/comprehensive doctrines:- Provides underlying basis of philosophical and

moral agreement to maintain social order in a divided and pluralistic society;

- Has the role of orientation (aims, purpose, roles);

- Should be realistically utopian.

- Solution: political agreement- Democracy as the means to deal with value

pluralism- Public policies are consensual by mere fact of

voting- Political agent is unifying force

“[T]he central characteristic of representation by agency is that the agent is responsible to his principal and is bound to act in the principal’s interest”- Gerard Casey

1. VALUE PLURALISM (2)

P PP P P

A

“[there is] no interest common to the constituency as a whole, or, if there is, it is so rare as to be practically non-existent. That being the case, there is nothing that can be represented…

it is not that it is difficult to represent a constituency – it is rather that it is impossible”

- Gerard Casey

- Democracy divides people along the lines of their comprehensive doctrines

- Democracy is fundamentally coercive and violent

2. DEMOCRACY DEALS BADLY WITH VALUE PLURALISM AND POLITICAL DISAGREEMENTS (1)

- Governments have monopoly on jurisdiction and coercion over their land

- Governments are resistance to political changes- Political revolution is costly- Public Choice Theory shows that the incentives to stay

informed with politics are extremely low- Constituents who gain little from political influence have fewer

incentives than those who can gain more- Lobbyists benefit small group

2. DEMOCRACY DEALS POORLY WITH VALUE PLURALISM AND POLITICAL DISAGREEMENTS (2)

- Meta-system level perspective of industry of governments“Utopia will consist of utopias, of many different and divergent communities in which people lead different kinds of lives under different institutions. Some kinds of communities will be more attractive to most than others; communities will wax and wane. People will leave some for others or spend their whole lives in one. Utopia is a framework for utopias, a place where people are at liberty to join together voluntarily to pursue and attempt to realize their own vision of the good life in the ideal community but where no one can impose his own utopian vision upon others… utopia is meta-utopia: the environment in which utopian experiments may be tried out; the environment in which people are free to do their own thing; the environment which must, to a great extent, be realized first if more particular utopian visions are to be realized stably.“- Robert Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia)

3. LOOK FOR POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES BEYOND DEMOCRACIES (1)

- Meta-system level perspective of industry of governments

“[T]he principles of a free society describe … an archipelago of competing and overlapping jurisdictions”

Society should be structured “according to norms of mutual tolerance or civility, under which people accept that different groups or communities live by different moral beliefs, but also recognize that no group has the right to compel anyone to become, or to remain, a member”- Chandran Kukathas (Liberal Archipelago, 2003)

3. LOOK FOR POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES BEYOND DEMOCRACIES (2)

- Experiment with new forms of social organization- Need open experimentation space

- Sociological imagination: not being limited by the imaginative tyranny of the present

- Epistemological modesty: realizing that our intellect is fallible and preventing “pretensions of expertise”

- Realization that order can emerge spontaneously- Realization that the utopian dream of a single perfect society is impossible

3. LOOK FOR POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES BEYOND DEMOCRACIES (3)

- Atlas Shrugged (John Galt)- Bio-Shock (Andrew Ryan)- Seasteading: creating permanent habitable

dwelling on the ocean that preferably lies outside governmental waters

- social rules and legislations heavily influence all aspects of life, including technological progress and social well-being

- newly emerging societies will inspire social changes around the world and contribute to human flourishing

4. SEASTEADING

South Korea compared to North KoreaGDP/capita 18x largerInternet penetration 815x greaterLife expectancy rate 10 yrs longerPre-school boys 4 cm taller

1. Lower cost of switching social organizations;2. Can help realize social change and solve social issues;3. Can help generate knowledge in areas of political philosophy and social

sciences through experimentation;4. Can help humans deal with realities of political disagreements and value

pluralism

5. BENEFITS OF SEASTEADING

6. SEASTEADS IN THE MAKING

- Core focus of political philosophy is to deal with realities of value pluralism and political disagreements

- Representative democracy deals poorly with these realities- We have to look for new political possibilities- Seasteading provides a solution to monopolistic industry of governments- Change our attitudes and cultivate sociological imagination

- Seasteading can help providing political agreements- Seasteading helps people orient themselves better throughout political

space- Seasteading is realistically utopian

“Let a hundred seasteads bloom and let a hundred social organizations contend”

7. WRAP-UP