In response to let a thousand nations bloom (Mike Gibson). 2/21/10 2/22/10
The right to leave ones state and nation is among the most primary rights. However, this does not relieve the need or power to form community. The forces for Liberalism( in its truest and classical form) are facing many challenges from its homeland (America) and across the globe. Community is of the utmost importance to repel those forces.
I've enjoyed immensely the input and ideas, especially the power of opting out, posted on "Let a Thousand Nations Bloom" over the the past number of months. I've taken the title of the blog quiet literally and believe it means nations. The idea that a nation can survive solely on contracts, as elegant a solution as contracts are, is lacking in several respects, the two main being fecundity and martial capability. These are two necessary aspects of continued existence for a nation that secular ideologues don't like to address, but are of the utmost importance for the continued existence of a nation. It would take immense technological improvements for this not to hold.
Two important aspects to morality: the non-initiation of force and the creation of lasting value are important to this debate. What is the point of creating something of lasting value if their are no inheritors? The icky necessity of reproduction is not something secularist, those who often imitate a non-chaste neo-Shaker revival, and have not spent a lot of time commenting on how to continue the nation.
Second, an emotional and economic commitment would require some martial expertise. Would no one repel a pirate attack, would everyone run at the first sign of danger? Perhaps I've misunderstood, but I've come away with the impression we can just run away from any threat of violence. A force capable of repelling the Tongan Navy is a minimum. With some growth and success a deterrence capability approaching a nuclear attack submarine may be required.
Common Ideals are necessary for that kind of commitment. While freedom of expression and speech are paramount to a free nation, a country being tugged by Libertarians on 0ne hand and people with ideals similar to leftist policies of the fascist and communist on the other, is going to have serious problems.
The Report on DPRK via Seth’s blog, was fascinating, because it showed the DPRK accomplished enforcing non-exit while not being able to physically enforce those laws. The Liberal states of the 19th century were able to combine great personal autonomy with nationalism and lots of opportunities for exit. I do not believe that these virtues are mutualy exclusive and may be necessary for enduring success.
I can watch the world fall apart from my front porch in Texas with a six dollar mocha in one hand and a fiddle in the other. I don't have to travel the Seven Seas to witness decadence. A nation will require immense commitment otherwise you just have a Gated Gulch.
1 comment:
I can offer comment on these issues.
First, fecundity. I have a three word response to this that I give to all discussions about demographics and particularly the demographic implosion that the social conservatives whine on about. These three words are: “radical” “life” “extension”. More specifically, SENS and bionanotechnology. Indeed, one of the reasons for seasteading in the first place is for people who want radical life extension to get out of countries that may try to ban it. That takes care of the fecundity issue.
Defense is a valid issue, since we live in a nasty, hostile world. Machiavelli wrote that city-states that do not provide for their own defense are effeminate and therefor contemptible. I believe there are ways to provide for defense in a cost-effective manner that will not bankrupt our city-state. One of the envisioned industries for our city-state is as a equatorial space launch location. One proposed low-cost method of space transportation of hardware, but not people, is a space cannon. During peace time, a space cannon fires payloads into space for paying customers (satellites, robots, etc.). During conflict, the same space cannon can fire projectiles to target any location on the surface of the Earth with great accuracy. Laser launch is envisioned as another low cost method of space access. A laser launch facility capable of putting payloads into orbit can certainly be used for military purposes as well.
Robotics is another one. Robotics, especially micro- and nano-robotics will likely become a big industry in the coming decades. We will probably have some of this industry as well in our city-state. Any factory that can make industrial micro and nano robots can certainly make military ones as well. Lastly, there is biotechnology. One of the purposes of our city-state is for biotech and nanotech industry that may be excessively regulated or prohibited in other countries. We can certainly benefit from these bans as our city-state can serve as a haven for these various technologies. Certainly medical, industrial, and agricultural biotech can be used for military applications as well. There are many ways that we can use civilian technologies that will likely become a part of our economy anyways for military purposes, and at relatively low cost. Some of us actually do think about defense issues.
Another way to defend the city-state is to attract lots of foreign investment. Since our city-state will likely be some variant of free-market/libertarian, or at least something like Singapore, it will naturally be an attractive place to do business and will therefor attract foreign investment. The presence of lots of foreign investors will put pressure on the home governments of those foreign investors to ensure that the physical security of the city-state is never violated.
If our city-state attracts the best brains on the planet, I think it likely that those brains will come to identify with the city-state such that they would have an interest in ensuring its survival.
This, I believe, is one of the biggest mistakes that Israel made for many years. They did not create an open Hong kong like economy to attract lots of foreign investment. Thus, the rest of the world felt that they had little interest in ensuring the survival of Israel. If Israel had pursued the Hong Kong model of economic development right from its beginning, it would not only have far more countries interested in defending it, it would be a far wealthier country as well.
I believe that Hong Kong and Singapore serve as useful models to emulate in the development of our city-state.
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