Quotulatiousness

December 4, 2011

The Economist looks at Seasteading

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Politics, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:48

And it manages to avoid the mocking tone that’s common to most articles on this topic:

THE Pilgrims who set out from England on the Mayflower to escape an intolerant, over-mighty government and build a new society were lucky to find plenty of land in the New World on which to build it. Some modern libertarians, such as Peter Thiel, one of the founders of PayPal, dream of setting sail once more to found colonies of like-minded souls. By now, however, all the land on Earth has been claimed by the governments they seek to escape. So, they conclude, they must build new cities on the high seas, known as seasteads.

It is not a completely crazy idea: large maritime structures that resemble seasteads already exist, after all. Giant cruise liners host thousands of guests on lengthy voyages in luxurious surroundings. Offshore oil platforms provide floating accommodation for hundreds of workers amid harsh weather and high waves. Then there is the Principality of Sealand, a concrete sea fort constructed off Britain’s coast during the second world war. It is now occupied by a family who have fought various lawsuits to try to get it recognised as a sovereign state.

Each of these examples, however, falls some way short of the permanent, self-governing and radically innovative ocean-based colonies imagined by the seasteaders. To realise their dream they must overcome some tricky technical, legal and cultural problems. They must work out how to build seasteads in the first place; find a way to escape the legal shackles of sovereign states; and give people sufficient reason to move in. With financing from Mr Thiel and others, a think-tank called the Seasteading Institute (TSI) has been sponsoring studies on possible plans for ocean-based structures and on the legal and financial questions they raise. And although true seasteads may still be a distant dream, the seasteading movement is producing some novel ideas for ocean-based businesses that could act as stepping stones towards their ultimate goal.

Lowering allowable blood alcohol limits will not make our roads safer

Filed under: Cancon, Law, Liberty — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:38

Jesse Kline on the sounds-good-to-nanny-state-fans legal situation on Ontario roads:

My colleague Matt Gurney argues that creating a legal grey area between federal and provincial laws relating to drunk driving helps no one, and it’s better to have a lower overall limit than two conflicting ones. But lowering the legal limit to .05 is only going to distract police from going after the people who are actually making our roads less safe: dangerous drivers. By lowering the legal limit, we end up punishing motorists who are not driving dangerously, while diverting resources away from catching those who are.

The U.S. embarked on a similar push to reduce the legal limit from .10 to .08 in the 1990s and the results were less than stellar. A 1995 study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found 21 of the 30 states that had adopted the new rule experienced no improvement, or had less safe roads than the rest of the country.

In 2000, the federal government mandated that all states adopt the new standard. In the four years following this change, alcohol-related fatalities actually increased. Part of the reason was that drivers with a blood alcohol content (BAC) between .08 and .10 are generally not the ones swerving all over the road, so police set up checkpoints in order to catch them. This took officers off patrol.

According to Transport Canada’s own data, a person over 19 years of age with a BAC of .015 is statistically just as likely to get into an accident as someone with a blood alcohol level of .099. A majority (80%) of all alcohol-related crashes causing death are caused by drivers with a BAC over .08, while only 5% involve drivers in the grey area between .05 and .08.

“Scratch a Walmart-basher and you’ll find a snotty elitist, a person who hates capitalism and consumption and deep down thinks the Wrong People have Too Much Stuff”

Filed under: Economics, Liberty, Media, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:09

ESR shares his thoughts about WalMart bashing:

I find that, as little as I like excess and overconsumption, voicing that dislike gives power to people and political tendencies that I consider far more dangerous than overconsumption. I’d rather be surrounded by fat people who buy too much stuff than concede any ground at all to busybodies and would-be social engineers.

But there’s more than that going on here . . .

Rich people going on about the crassness of materialism, or spouting ecological pieties, often seem to me to me to be retailing a subtle form of competitive sabotage. “There, there, little peasant . . .” runs the not-so-hidden message “. . .it is more virtuous to have little than much, so be content with the scraps you have.” After which the speaker delivers a patronizing pat on the head and jets off to Aruba to hang with the other aristos at a conference on Sustainable Eco-Multiculturalism or something.

I do not — ever — want to be one of those people. And just by being a white, college-educated American from an upper-middle-class SES, I’m in a place where honking about overconsumption sounds even to myself altogether too much like crapping on the aspirations of poorer and browner people who have bupkis and quite reasonably want more than they have.

NFL week 13 predictions

Filed under: Football — Tags: — Nicholas @ 10:05

The Tim Tebow show comes to Minneapolis today . . . which I plan to watch if the Winnipeg station is picking up the game. It’s the first time in a while that Minnesota is favoured, although it’s only by a single point.

    Philadelphia 14 @Seattle 31
    @Buffalo vs Tennessee (1.5) Sun 1:00pm
    @Chicago vs Kansas City (7.0) Sun 1:00pm
    @Miami vs Oakland (3.0) Sun 1:00pm
    @Minnesota vs Denver (1.0) Sun 1:00pm
    @New England vs Indianapolis (20.0) Sun 1:00pm
    @Pittsburgh vs Cincinnati (6.5) Sun 1:00pm
    @Tampa Bay vs Carolina (3.5) Sun 1:00pm
    New York (NYJ) vs @Washington (3.0) Sun 1:00pm
    Atlanta vs @Houston (3.0) Sun 1:00pm
    Baltimore vs @Cleveland (6.5) Sun 4:05pm
    Green Bay vs @New York (NYG) (7.0) Sun 4:15pm
    Dallas vs @Arizona (4.5) Sun 4:15pm
    @San Francisco vs St. Louis (13.0) Sun 4:15pm
    @New Orleans vs Detroit (9.0) Sun 8:20pm
    San Diego vs @Jacksonville (2.5) Mon 8:30pm

Last week: 7-6 (3-10 against the spread)
Season to date 106-70

Powered by WordPress