[ExI] Alpha Centauri

[Anders Sandberg]

On 19/10/2012 11:46, Charlie Stross wrote:
> So I'd expect such a colony mission to make the Netherlands or Sweden 
> look like an anarchist utopia populated by wild individualists.

Of course, at least the Netherlands show that one can still be pretty 
individualistic along some dimensions while being cohesive among others. 
But it certainly helps if you are a rich and secure society.

Generally, I agree that a small society in an unforgiving environment 
will likely tend to be cohesive and collectivist by necessity. If you 
want to build libertopia it better be big enough, or have a relatively 
easy frontier to expand into.

So my prediction is that if seasteading ever happens it will be more 
like rural communes than Galt's Gulch. Until it becomes really easy, 
which would produce a brief period of wild west as the oceans get 
colonized fully, followed by consolidation and romantization of the free 
past.


-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University