The Seasteading Institute

Reply To: Eelco

[quote=Eelco]

[quote=libertariandoc]

Off hand, I can think of no countries (possibly excepting the Vatican, and the tiny nation-states like Luxembourg) that don't owe their sovereignity to political or military firepower. And the further down the food chain a nation is, the more likely it seems that they will use that firepower to bully another nation or their own people. Case in point right now is N. Korea, a "Nation": that cannot feed it's own people but insists on trying to bully both their neighbor and the nation that is willing to give them the most food.

Or, if you prefer, Zimbabwe: force of arms terrorizing their own citizens....Iran, building nuclear weapons. The list is endless.

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Most countries are small as measured on a global scale. My own country, the netherlands, has been upsurped countless times in history. Now thats a low standard to aim for, but in the end, its still on the map.

'how to start your own country' is a book exploring these issues: patri gave me a copy once. Its a pretty good read.

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Where do you think the Netherlands would be today, had they not been so compliant? The reason that the Netherlands exists at all today is because the Allied Powers in 1939-1945 fought so that the Netherlands would exist today. Diplomacy against the force of thugs didn't work, did it? The Netherlands (and most of the rest of Western Europe) lacked a sufficiently strong capability to withstand Germany, hoping that diplomacy would prevail.

It didn't. In fact, diplomacy is what started the first World War, and allowed Nazi Germany to become as large and powerful as they did in for the second. The United Nations is responsible for most of the killings since then, but still 'diplomacy' in action.