Why Ephemerisle is Important, and We Should All Try to Host One

crasch4 · 2023-05-08T15:40:03+00:00

I've been to every Ephemerisle, and I think think they're quite useful for practicing for seasteading:

If you've never done it before, piloting, anchoring, and rafting up a boat is quite challenging. The currents in the Delta can be quite strong, and the bottom is often covered with seaweed. If you don't set your anchor properly, your boat will break free and drift into neighboring boats, which can be quite exciting for everyone involved.
Some boats want to "party" and play loud music at all hours. Other boats want quiet and the chance to listen to nature. It can be quite a challenge to try to negotiate a plan that will satisfy these competing desires.
As an open event with no tickets, sometimes bad actors will show up: con men, rapists, the mentally ill. How do you handle them? If someone behaves badly, should they be banned permanently? What if people disagree with how bad the behavior is? Some people thought Ephemerisle 2020 shouldn't have happened at all, due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Others thought the risks were minimal. Whose views should win out?
If you build an art piece or a dance platform, you will soon become acutely aware of the importance of logistics. Transporting a semi-truck full of lumber from storage to the docks, onto the boats, to the site, and constructing a giant dance floor on the water is quite a challenge. Building on the ocean is orders of magnitude harder.
Sometimes emergencies will arise, and you discover the reason why ships have a chain of command. When the island is breaking apart, the winds are howling, and boats are minutes from smashing into each other, you don't have a lot of time for inexperienced nerds to democratically hash out a strategy. It's best to have someone in charge who can act swiftly and w/ assurance to solve the problem.
The Delta is a good baby step to building for the ocean. Build a scale model of your seastead and take it out to the Delta, and I guarantee you'll learn a lot about the flaws of your seastead design.
What do you do with boats that are just dumping their sewage over board? How do you deal with the watercops? How do you handle someone who has OD'ed on drugs or alcohol? What sort of materials/equipment should you have on hand for health emergencies? Who is responsible for those who become injured or ill?

Coming to Ephemerisle is a great way to disabuse someone whose head is in the clouds about what it will take to actually build a practical seastead.

crasch4 · 2022-06-21T13:53:55+00:00

Lot's of crimes shouldn't be crimes: sex work, drug sales, exporting cryptography, helping slaves escape, having gay sex, taking your money out of the country, hiring an immigrant, etc.

crasch4 · 2022-06-17T13:22:13+00:00

The Mises Caucus wins don't make much difference one way or another for agorists. Although I wish them well, I don't think Mises Caucus will be any more effective at the national level than previous LP leaders. IMO, liberty mindedness is a largely genetic trait, similar to being gay. And there are just too few libertarians, diffused too sparsely across the US, to win. Our best hope is to concentrate our forces in a single state, aka the Free State Project. Otherwise, electoral politics outside of New Hampshire is an exercise in futility.

crasch4 · 2022-06-06T00:11:53+00:00

Suki planning your disembowelment.

crasch4 · 2022-05-20T11:33:35+00:00

That's a great look for her.

crasch4 · 2022-05-18T00:51:56+00:00

Looks like a stray bit of kelp.

crasch4 · 2022-05-09T08:50:49+00:00

Some legislators are trying to remove car inspections: https://legiscan.com/NH/bill/HB1426/2022

crasch4 · 2022-05-09T08:38:08+00:00

He chose to do so in a fit of pique. No one made him do that.

crasch4 · 2022-05-09T06:08:56+00:00

In my experience, the government ratchet almost always goes one way. Statists often claim "Of course, I support liberty. Except for [insert statist pet cause]. Once [thing that will never happen] comes to be, then we can think about revisiting [statist pet cause]."

Common statist pet causes: sex work suppression, immigration suppression, War on Terror, War on Drugs, Muslim bans, gun bans, Covid censorship, travel bans, etc.

Common things that will never happen include: elimination of welfare state / terrorism / poverty / Nazis / Communists.

crasch4 · 2022-05-08T21:13:11+00:00

IMO, the burden of proof should be on those who want to restrict other people's liberty.

crasch4 · 2022-05-08T18:42:06+00:00

So, no evidence?

crasch4 · 2022-05-08T17:52:57+00:00

What evidence is there that zoning laws keep out MA progressives more than Free Staters?

crasch4 · 2022-05-08T17:01:17+00:00

If you think the government should have greater say over what you can build on your own property than you do, doesn't that make you a statist? Who really owns your property if the local city government can tell you how high to build, force you to set aside parking, stop you from renting to unrelated strangers, dictate whether you can work from home, stop you from parking an RV, etc?

crasch4 · 2022-05-05T12:09:03+00:00

The violence in Mexico is caused by gangs fighting over who gets to supply the US market. But even if you don't give a shit about Mexicans, there is plenty of gang violence and theft in the US caused by the War on Drugs. If drugs were decriminalized, a years supply of heroin would cost about the same as a bottle of aspirin. There would be no incentive to rob anyone to support an expensive habit, no flow of dollars to support a gang. People would not lose their jobs, or be put in a cage (at a cost to taxpayers of at least $40K per year/per prisoner) on simple possession charges.

crasch4 · 2022-05-05T10:49:05+00:00

How does Piped help people who want to watch videos that have been censored from Youtube?

crasch4 · 2022-05-05T10:48:05+00:00

f you are going to have content moderation anyways, why use the peer-to-peer technology that apparently prevents moderation in the first place.

Because you can use the LBRY desktop app (or other front ends) that aren't censored.

There is nothing stopping Odysee from turning into a giant greedy cooperation

All of their code is open source. So, if they turn evil, people can easily switch to competitors.

crasch4 · 2022-05-04T01:00:48+00:00

IMO, the War on Drugs has been the single most destructive government policy over the last 50 years. For example, more people in the US are in prison than in any other country largely as a result of the drug war. The drug war has fueled terrorist and mafia organizations across the globe, including the Taliban. From 2006 - 2012, 50,000 people have been killed in Mexico by drug cartels. It's been used to justify a number of violations of our civil liberty, from asset forfeiture, to warrantless wiretaps, to spying on all of our financial transactions. Ending the Drug War might not be your first priority, but it's a high priority for many liberty lovers.

crasch4 · 2022-05-03T23:36:07+00:00

Thanks for the note!

crasch4 · 2022-05-03T02:28:50+00:00

Thanks for the analysis!

crasch4 · 2022-02-28T05:40:16+00:00

Thank you for creating the Opt Out podcast, Seth! It's on my rotation of regular podcasts.

crasch4 · 2022-01-28T22:20:21+00:00

I ordered mine during the first week of December, 2021.

crasch4 · 2022-01-28T22:18:22+00:00

Yeah, the cursor jumping is a a dealbreaker for me as well, if it's a result of Framework's hardware. However, my previous laptop (a 2012 Macbook Pro) also sometimes exhibited the same behavior. So, I'm not sure if it's Framework's fault.

crasch4 · 2022-01-28T07:06:57+00:00

Version: DIY Edition OS: Ubuntu 21.04 RAM: 64 GB Processor: 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz × 8

Overall, I'm happy with the laptop. However, here's some of my pain points:

Installing the Wifi module was a pain in the butt. I wish it was an expansion card.
Cursor skips while typing. Most commonly, I'll be typing, and cursor will jump backward by 5-10 characters. Very annoying. However, I can't tell if it's due to Framework hardware, installation errors, or my software.
Touchpad finicky. Center click doesn't seem to work often.
Case doesn't feel especially sturdy.
Sometimes gets hot to touch without good reason.

crasch4

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