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khaoz
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Dox47
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16 Sep 2014, 8:39 pm

So, a land scam with an Ayn Rand theme went down, what's the point?


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Misslizard
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16 Sep 2014, 9:21 pm

The majority of "Utopias"or communes fall apart pretty quick.Several have come and went in this area.One was female only,another was naked people on horses,then another one with a poetic name.All eventually went belly up,the problem is usually too many Chiefs and not enough Braves.
The one that has survived is in MO,they figured out a way to generate income.Their nut butters are sold all over the states in health food stores.


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RushKing
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17 Sep 2014, 12:00 am

Dox47 wrote:
So, a land scam with an Ayn Rand theme went down, what's the point?

Scam? Whats wrong with two people making a voluntary exchange? :lol:

Isn't that what a market is?

You just want to point a gun at me! Don't you understand my NAP?

I'm afraid it's time for me to defoo myself from wrongplanet.



Kraichgauer
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17 Sep 2014, 5:32 am

That's too rich! I know I'll sound like a terrible human being for taking joy in the misfortune of others, but these are the very same people who figured those in need are takers, while they believe they themselves owe nothing to anyone else in society - and it blew up in their faces. I plan to get drunk to celebrate! :twisted:


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Magneto
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17 Sep 2014, 8:55 am

Dox47 wrote:
So, a land scam with an Ayn Rand theme went down, what's the point?


QFT.



zer0netgain
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19 Sep 2014, 5:50 am

Misslizard wrote:
The majority of "Utopias"or communes fall apart pretty quick.


That's because no one ideology gets it all right.

I may be a bit of an Ayn Rand fan, but I also recognize there is a need for SOME regulation and SOME welfare system to be in place. The secret is to find a healthy balance that promotes the most benefit for the largest number of people without unduly hampering the rights/liberties of the minority.



Magneto
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19 Sep 2014, 7:42 am

The solution is to accept that you can't make a utopia, and to accept the way humans are inclined - which isn't selfishness per se, but selflessness for people within your group and a willingness to screw over anyone outside it if it helps those within it (the monkeysphere). Given that, you have to make sure you develop a system where people won't make decisions that can seriously affect people who are more than two monkeyspheres away - that is, if you make a decision that screws someone over, it will either be your friend, or someone they know. Either way, you've done something that will upset someone who you consider a person, rather than something that affects the nameless, amorphous 1%/benefit scroungers/corporations/them. Which should, at least in my theory, make ou a lot more careful about the decisions you make.

tl;dr - keep political units at 20-40k people, such that a large majority of the population will have mutual friends.

This isn't, despite what many people will claim, difficult. The Most Serene Republic of San Marino is over 1700 years old, and has a population of 32k. It's doing fine. There have been republics, such as the Republic of Indian Stream, which have had populations of a few hundred. Iceland is doing okay with a population of 300k. That's 0.1% of the USAs. The lesson? Big countries are not needed. The bigger the country, the less affinity there is going to be between the individual citizens, and the more distant the government is going to be. Plus, they're a lot harder to leave, whereas you can walk between city states.

tl;dr - if you have small countries, not only can people make their voices heard a lot easier, but they can leave if they don't like it.

In the context of PPR, this would allow khaoz to live in a city state that bans guns, whilst Raptor and Dox live in ones which allow them. In return, khaoz doesn't try to get guns banned in their cities, and they don't try to get them legalised in his.



sonofghandi
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19 Sep 2014, 8:11 am

Magneto wrote:
The solution is to accept that you can't make a utopia, and to accept the way humans are inclined


If only more people could get this concept into their heads, so much conflict could be avoided.


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LoveNotHate
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19 Sep 2014, 9:34 am

khaoz wrote:
Re: Ayn Rand Utopia bites the dust


The premise is right. Taxes can be avoided, and greater freedom can be found.

-Eduardo Saverin, Facebook founder renounced his citizenship and moved to Singapore right before his Facebook stock more than tripled. He is estimated to have saved over a hundred and eighty million dollars in taxes he would of had to pay. (note: I extrapolated the number from the article which mentions the stock price at 30 and it is presently 77)
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1079524

-Rich Americans renounce their citizenship and move to Belieze, Cayman Islands because they can live essentially tax free, and the relative wealth disparity makes them fabulously wealthy. I worked with a lawyer that would fly in from from one of those islands.

-Doug Casey, author/Libertarian speaker/gold investor finds Argentina the best place to live for a very wealthy person.
http://www.internationalman.com/article ... -the-world



Last edited by LoveNotHate on 19 Sep 2014, 9:38 am, edited 2 times in total.

Raptor
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19 Sep 2014, 9:38 am

I don't have much sympathy for anyone naive enough to believe that some kind of utopia can exist on earth to the point where they invest heavily in it. A fool and his money are soon parted.
Looks like Khaoz's attempt to get the conservatives and libertarians riled up didn't quite pan out.


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Kraichgauer
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19 Sep 2014, 9:55 am

LoveNotHate wrote:
khaoz wrote:
Re: Ayn Rand Utopia bites the dust


The premise is right. Taxes can be avoided, and greater freedom can be found.

-Eduardo Saverin, Facebook founder renounced his citizenship and moved to Singapore right before his Facebook stock more than tripled. He is estimated to have saved over a hundred and eighty million dollars in taxes he would of had to pay. (note: I extrapolated the number from the article which mentions the stock price at 30 and it is presently 77)
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1079524

-Rich Americans renounce their citizenship and move to Belieze, Cayman Islands because they can live essentially tax free, and the relative wealth disparity makes them fabulously wealthy. I worked with a lawyer that would fly in from from one of those islands.

-Doug Casey, author/Libertarian speaker/gold investor finds Argentina the best place to live for a very wealthy person.
http://www.internationalman.com/article ... -the-world


And how is anything going to get done without taxation? You can have all the money in the world, but you're at the same mercy as the poor person at the prospect of having no public roads to drive anywhere on. A rich person can die from food poisoning due to poor sanitary conditions in a meat packing plant, same as a poor person, due to lack of government health inspections. And all those things are paid for by taxes.
As for that Facebook d*ck who renounced his citizenship - this is a perfect example of how the rich put greed and selfishness ahead of patriotism. What he and other rich ex-Americans have done is nothing to brag about, and everything to hold in contempt.


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luanqibazao
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19 Sep 2014, 10:46 am

Kraichgauer wrote:
You can have all the money in the world, but you're at the same mercy as the poor person at the prospect of having no public roads to drive anywhere on.


[img][800:686]http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/03/e1/02/03e102490f55965586913bfe80ab9658.jpg[/img]

Re the story: there is an unfortunate tendency in every outsider group to be overly trusting of people who appear to be part of the group. This is true of Objectivists, gays, vegans, you name it. Someone who "sells" land to people who won't be able to take possession of it is no Objectivist no matter how many catchphrases he knows. Just a conman.



RushKing
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19 Sep 2014, 11:08 am

luanqibazao wrote:
Re the story: there is an unfortunate tendency in every outsider group to be overly trusting of people who appear to be part of the group. This is true of Objectivists, gays, vegans, you name it. Someone who "sells" land to people who won't be able to take possession of it is no Objectivist no matter how many catchphrases he knows. Just a conman.

This is how the market operates. Individual transactions within the market are all about maximising self gain. The affect the transaction has on other people is not in the equation. So If people in this social system can participate in preadidory bahavior, people will participate in preadidory bahavior. This is how competition works. Ken Johnson is more objectivist then you realize. Kens role within the transaction isn't to look out for Wendy, what he did was what anyone else does in a competition and looked out for himself.



Last edited by RushKing on 19 Sep 2014, 11:50 am, edited 4 times in total.

Janissy
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19 Sep 2014, 11:12 am

It failed not because it was an Ayn Rand themed utopia but rather because Chile (like every other place on earth) isn't. It failed because of government regulations in Chile. There are government regulations everywhere. You can't escape them simply by moving away from your own country. It is a bit ironic.

It was also a scam since the original man setting it up had no authority to do so. The duped investors suing him say that he knew this.

Its failure is not because intentional communities are impossible (although utopias are). They exist all over the place. But they have to take governmental regulations into account when setting up. Being Ayn Rand themed doesn't negate that need.

From the linked article:

Quote:
There will be no zoning for the 1.25-acre lots or other arrangements of less than 10 acres. GGC is an environmentally protected area and it would take the political movement of heaven and earth to allow a community based on small lots to be officially approved. I had the opportunity to ask a question of the salesman who showed my husband and me ?our property.? I claimed it because I fell head over heels for the most beautiful tree I?ve ever seen. I felt an instant connection as though the two of us were old souls who had found each other. I could believe it, I could see it? waking up each morning and having coffee under that tree, telling it about my plans for the day. Months later, in a Skype conference, I asked the then-GGC-alienated salesman, ?When you ?sold? us the property, when you printed out a photo from your phone that read ?Wendy?s tree,? did you know you could not legally sell us the lot you were offering?? He said, ?That is correct.?


another article:
http://panampost.com/adriana-peralta/20 ... nightmare/


Quote:
The anonymous author told McElroy that she had been scammed, citing the subtleties of Chilean land ownership law as evidence. According to the email McElroy received, the GGC may have been able to sell her the land, but the project lacked the necessary water rights to develop it. Purchasing land and water rights are separate processes in Chile, and without water, the land was effectively useless.


Quote:
It was during these months that several dramatic changes took place behind the backs of GGC investors. Ken Johnson had managed to sideline Jeff Berwick, an original GGC founder, and assumed complete control of the project. Months later, McElroy learned that GGC property had been developed on environmentally protected land, and it would be nearly impossible for anyone to build any sort of community.


The lesson isn't that an Ayn Rand utopia (ok- intentional community) is impossible because it's a terrible premise. But rather that any such community must take government regulations into account even if they really don't want to because they are Ayn Rand themed.



Kraichgauer
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19 Sep 2014, 12:50 pm

^^^
Sounds like Randians are so infatuated with the old bitty's call to be free from government and it's regulations that they allowed themselves to become divorced from reality in denying that said regulations have any influence on them.


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