The long read: Last year, three cryptocurrency enthusiasts bought a cruise ship. They named it the Satoshi, and dreamed of starting a floating libertarian utopia. It didn’t work out

A variety of considerations held him back. “The wife,” as he put it, had her doubts. He wasn’t sure about the “ginormous leap down in luxury” from living in deep residential comfort on land in the US midwest to living in a very small cabin on board a 30-year-old cruise ship. He was worried, too, by the limited facilities – “No kitchen of my own? Tiny bathrooms? Tiny everything?”

  • comi [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    As with many stories about techno-libertarian fantasies, the tale of the Satoshi begins in an all-male, quasi-frat house in San Francisco in the late 90s.

    :michael-laugh:

    Thanks for this gift

    After trying multiple insurers and brokers, Romundt began to realise that the cruise ship industry was, as he put it, “plagued by over-regulation”. (Along with airlines and nuclear power, according to Harris, it’s in “the top three”.)

    • comi [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Seeing the pod’s nascent form, I felt a boringly pragmatic urge to ask Romundt what happened if, once afloat, you needed to buy a pint of milk. My question seemed to miss the point, too wedded to old-fashioned notions of locality and human connection. The Pods had been designed to have a hatch in the roof, Romundt said. He was talking to some drone creators and imagined people flying to their pods independently, landing on the roof and entering through the hatch. Perhaps that’s how you’d get your milk.

      :ohnoes:

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Always a good sign when your new revolutionary form of living has a "Perhaps" when you try to describe how to get basic foodstuff.

        • 6bicycles [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          On the other hand an unregulated drone flight service is gonna take about two weeks before it has killed literally anybody using it

      • CrimsonSage [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        to old-fashioned notions of locality and human connection.

        "Why no I dont feel emotions fellow huemaan. Why do you as such a question with your meat tongue?" -Mr.ActualHuman Libertarian