A Three-Hour Tour

[filkertom]

Every now and again, I mention my ultimate Lottery dream: buying an island somewhere, building up some infrastructure, and moving my family and a whole bunch -- three to five hundred -- of my friends there with me. Just getting us the hell away from everything.

It would never work, of course. There are too many technical problems, potential legal difficulties, and supply problems to overcome. Not to mention the existence of pirates, various naval forces with weapons tests, and the occasional tsunami.

Besides, Cthulhu's alarm clock might be about to go off.

This does not mean that I'm the only person to think like this. And now some ultra-rich doof is trying it. They're supposed to be little libertarian petri dishes, where a man can truly be free.

Good luck with that.

I figure that, in a few years, these little Time-Share 2020s will have been picked clean and abandoned, and maybe then we can go out there and rehab 'em.

Meantime, I'm saving up toward a missile silo.

What's your ultimate personal fortress? How detached from civilization do you wish to be? In my case, not much at all, thank you -- but I do want a nice, tornado-and-nuke-proof haven. (Seanan, don't you even think about all the ways you could mess me up with virii. I don't get enough sleep as it is.)

Comments

[jenk]

I am periodically tempted by a cohousing scheme using an old motel, ideally a "suites" motel (sitting room/kitchenette, bedroom, bath) that forms an L or U around a restaurant / courtyard. Divide the restaurant into cooking/eating space, TV lounge, gaming and/or music areas. Folks could decide whether to buy 1 suite or 2 and remodel...

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Peter, build your own airport onsite. A nice rolled greenbelt all the way across the site (or if your prevailing winds are other than cardinal, 5000' is sufficient), we can set sunken lights to border it that only shine towards incoming aircraft, and have them pilot (radio) controlled so they're only on when need be... GPS will help us find it in bad weather... and instead of a locomotive and rolling stock, a couple small to medium sized aircraft, probably of the de Havilland marque (since those handle small strips - and skis - well... would be easy to get to their choice of Green Bay, Milwaukee, Detroit, or in a pinch Midway...

Just dreamin'. :)

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Love the new icon.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

There's actually a property like that up for sale, government surplus, for like $1.3M but it's in upstate New York.
It also comes with a spacious underground bunker complex.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I wish them luck and hope they succeed in building it. The R&D costs will drain a few bank accounts and put the money back into the economy and the spin-off technologies and discoveries will benefit everyone. Plus watching it fail will help us build one that actually works and the world will have solid proof that libertarianism doesn't work.

How do I know it will fail? Well loose building codes will mean shabby construction and when the first "big" storm hits, it's disaster movie time! On top of that one of the biggest risks is fire. Again the slim building codes will mean someone will decide to skimp on sprinklers. It won't matter how well YOUR house is built when your neighbor is The Towering Inferno. Almost forgot, no government "controls" means no government protection. So a bunch of pirates or even a bunch of gangbangers with a boat can just take over. Yeah, the residents may be better armed, but which side has more experience in actual combat. Providing your own military is expensive and when the shit hits the fan, I think most guards would save their own skins.

Now for my own personal fortress, there's this house in a cul de sac in my neighborhood that would work. It's on a hill with a pond behind it. I'd double the strength of the foundation, make sure it's water tight with an escape tunnel out near the pond. The outer walls will be secured with metal plating under the siding. Floors would be secured too. I'd have a shed attached to the house by a covered hallway with a generator for power outages. Not only would I be secure, but the house would be out of the way in a maze of streets giving me a certain amount of invisibility.

Now about PayPal, I don't know much about it, but AFAIK it doesn't actually produce anything. It makes money by shuffling around funds in banks and living off the interest. I like PP because it's convenient, but that's it.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I want a Hobbit Hole. With metal covers that can slide over the windows in case of Zombie Attack.

... I have a degree in Architecture. It's possible.

[stormsdotter.livejournal.com]

I missed your comment earlier. I also want a Hobbit Hole. And I have this semi-useless degree in Architecture....

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

Would this protect me from the zombie apocalypse? No. In a nuclear war it would be blown away in seconds. But it would sure save me from the everyday grind and depression that's going on.

And of the three, that last one (grinding depression) is most likely to kill you.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Nice, so as soon as they made it the closest government took it over LOL

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I don't have a degree in architecture or engineering, but I can almost see how to do it, and not have it be visible when the metal covers are retracted.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Oh I cannot WAIT till these spoiled little white boys who've never noticed their own privilege their whole lives (98.6% of all libertarians) get a clogged toilet - and there are no invisible brown/female/poor minions to magically swoop in and unclog it for them at below-minimum wage.

Or when these libertoofs look around their island paradise and realize there are two whole women on the island (and they're both getting the hell out of Dodge, thank you very much).

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I've never thought about this. I'd probably scout out Route 66 for someplace where the land is cheap, the infrastructure is still there, and I don't have to go too far to get groceries. And I wouldn't build a fortress, although I might want to grow two rows of bushes, with a Jersey barrier between them.

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Who do you think's going to get on an airplane to go someplace to clean toilets for pennies a day?

[holzman.livejournal.com]

Um... predictably?

[holzman.livejournal.com]

I encourage these folks to build their Libertarian paradise, and I encourage all Libertarians to waste no time getting on over there and testing their theories out.

Whatever they choose to name it, we'll all call it by its traditional name: Coventry.

I do wonder, though:

• Who's going to clean the toilets? No one's going to get on an airplane to take bottom-rung jobs -- or even middle rung jobs -- if there's no such thing as a minimum wage, and there will be no native people to colonize into doing it.
  
• What makes them think a government in a position to spend trillions to their millions won't colonize them the moment they have something worth taking?
  

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

I read an article a few years ago about route 66 ghost towns. In fact, I just googled it and found dozens of sites with pictures. Maybe you could form a collection of fandom who would buy enough shares to buy a ghost town, fix it up, and make it a year-round, 24-7 convention hot spot where you continually book celebrities, stage events, host filking sessions, and so on. Get a video crew there and you could make a few reality shows to sell to cable networks.

Think of it as a land-locked cruise ship and you can see how this would work.

[jenrose]

Jealous. We have 2.2 kwh on our roof, and we really need closer to 6. (7 person house).

We have to live close to public transportation, alas, or I'd be out in the country in a hot second.

[jenrose]

You want... our house.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

Well, let's see:

Stupid rich people
On an island
No political ties with other nations
Guns easily available
No government (police, military, etc.)
No extradition

I'm sure there's lots of people willing to travel there for menial jobs that pay less than what you'd find under vending machines. It's an island full of opportunity... and stupid rich people!

[smparadox.livejournal.com]

My ultimate personal dream fortress is on the far side of the Moon. Great view, no light pollution, a little lethal radiation but nothing a few meters of solid rock won't cure...

Obviously the ideal fortress depends on the circumstances. In a zombie apocalypse, the local CostCo or BJ's would be my personal fortress. After a comic-book origin, the bottom of the ocean or the Mon, depending on the superpowers. After a lottery win - a house with plenty of stoneface and lots of privacy landscaping would do.

[oceansedge.livejournal.com]

I did give some semi serious geekery thinking (http://oceansedge.livejournal.com/796033.html) to this old satellite tracking station (http://idx.filogix.com/idx/SSNS/display_property.html?key=118860.3879888&id=2771782&ptype=com) in Nova Scotia that's up for sale. 365 acres of pristine unspoiled private forest for $245,000 ... that's only $671.23 an acres. A damned good deal even without the geek factor... the geek factor just makes it way way cool - I mean above ground tunnels, ....

[oceansedge.livejournal.com]

well, ya know pollution .. eco conciousness .. it's all made up theories and lies by the gubbermint to keep us all in line. In liberatarian heaven we'll just dump our garbage and toilets into the ocean! Then no one has to clean it up.

[dysprog.livejournal.com]

This could actually be a good idea. Let all the would-be John Galts go set up a tax free haven in the ocean, and the rest of us can get on with life.

[marsdejahthoris.livejournal.com]

the bottom of the ocean or the Mon,

While I'm fairly sure you meant the MOON, "The Mon" is the local nickname for the Monongahela river here in Morgantown, and I just imagined a fortress underneath it, surrounded by the legendary mutant fish of Decker's Creek. ... Which might make for an interesting comic...

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

My favorite part is this: "And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late."

Why do these people get off on the fantasy that someone is going to try to stop them? I know I wouldn't dream of trying to stop them. Nor do I think we should rescue them from the subsequent typhoons, pirates, fires, disease, or the other problems that they're going to have in their little 'paradise.'

(It also occurs to me: they speak of no minimum wage. What currency are they planning to use, exactly? To have a currency, don't you need some sort of government?)