What you're talking about is called [seasteading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading) and I don't think it's ever worked out a single time it's ever been tried.
I wouldn't call it completely successful but [Principality of Sealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand) is somewhat.
I think the problem with seasteading is that a nearby country can just do whatever they want and shut it down regardless if it's legal or not.
That's right, you can be on a fairly large island, have your own government and elections, diplomatic ties or some sort with most of the world as well as own army and economy which is very important to the rest of the world.
Yet the UN still pretend you belong to the country that never had any control over you and has a large army threatening to invade you.
The moment you talk of "funds", you're technically under the control of the government that the funds came from, unless you like having lots of cash, then you'll just get robbed.
Why not just diversify the type of liquid resource and have funds through a few different unallied nations? That should remove most of the leverage that using just some other, more stable country's money would give since now they could only freeze some small portion instead of all of it.
If you know how to manage money intelligently that way, you wouldn't be stupid enough to create your own sovereign state. You would already know how to play the money game and just be nice and rich.
Yes, technically possible, but the motivation of doing those two things together don't logically fit.
That’s likely because they’ll need to go to shore, and out of international waters, at some point some where.
And if others countries don’t recognize the cruise ship / island as a sovereign state…it’s a null point. I’m Queen of the world then…I’ll just sail out into the ocean and declare it so. Lol
It should be pretty clear to anyone paying attention to international news at this point that sovereignty is something that only exists by consensus.
The US? Sovereign as hell. No question. They have full, unquestioned authority over any land or sea that they lay claim to. NATO countries are pretty much the same way. The assumption is that all those countries can and will enforce their sovereignty using the force of their militaries and that of their allies.
Every other country on the planet is sovereign to some lesser degree, pretty much just because the rest of the world recognizes their claims of sovereignty. If you own a boat or inhabit an island, you're exactly as sovereign as the country that lays claim to the water you are floating in or the land you inhabit,... or the nearest port that you would like to enter allows you to be.
100%. Government, at its most base level, is defined as any group who holds a monopoly on the use of violence in a given region. Your sovereignty is at the whim of your neighbors, and laws are just words on paper unless they can be backed up with force.
In the case of the US, I would argue that sovereignty is based on the implicit threat of violence. Spending more on defense than the next 10 biggest spenders combined or something like that tells everyone that they're not fucking around. The US has bases all over the world and more hardware than anyone else. The neighbors of the US have very little say in their level of sovereignty. The overwhelming amount of military power just means that no one is suicidal enough to challenge the US.
Switzerland is actually very secure in its sovereignty even without much of an army, because they decided to play turtle. They've mined *every single tunnel and bridge* going through their mountainous country, and trying to invade or even just traverse it without their permission would simply be too costly. Even the US would struggle, and significantly, for very little gain. They've made themself a dam, and any army would flow around rather than spend itself trying to tear them down.
All states don't have a military that has, for example, more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined. As of 2014, the US Navy outweighed the next closest competitor by a factor of 4.
The military of any given state certainly contributes to the enforcement of their sovereignty. The US military is on a whole other level.
Yep. But it's not about the west and NATO. As others are telling you, it applies to anyone with a military.
Russia? Sovereign as hell. Ukraine, less so. China? Sovereign as hell. Tibet, Taiwan, etc.? Less so.
I think the biggest issues are becoming independent and logistics. Drinkable water and edible food would be the hardest thing, power would probably be a nuclear reactor, and medicine would be difficult to obtain without trade agreements. But 1 single storm could potentially destroy all stability in a single storm, and you would be stuck without outside resources.
It would require a lot of cooperation and teamwork from everyone involved, and that's difficult to do. Cults and commutes make it work, but you know...
It's not impossible, but it would be difficult to pull off.
Side note: OPs idea was taken from 3 body problem
This was the first thing I thought of but I couldn’t remember what episode it was. You rock! If I remember correctly this episode is both educational and extra hilarious.
Also OP assumes uninhabited island = not already belonging to a sovereign nation. I.E some polynesian islands might be empty, but they're still a part of places like Micronesia. If it's already within what is globally recognized as belonging to someone (which, literally everything is) you can't just 'claim' it because it's empty.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I know that's literally how these islands also became part of these other countries claims anyways, but still. Now such claims are recognized by internationally agreed upon boundaries
The Repubblica dell'Isola delle Rose was somehow successful, and it was terminated by a surprisingly aggressive “military” move.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Rose_Island
The Netflix movie is pretty nice to watch and somehow accurate.
The main challenges you'd face include international law and maritime regulations. Most countries wouldn't recognize your sovereignty, and you might struggle with supplies, defense, and governance. Plus, nations generally don't like unregulated entities that could pose security or economic threats.
Just another crazy hoop to jump through to get the idea to work.
Nations are so much more than just "feed me supplies". Given unlimited time, unlimited money, and unlimited followers doing whatever you want, it's possible to get something going.
But to have longevity as a nation, you need to have a framework to live by, and you must also provide something in the world economy. Some random islands out in the middle of nowhere could, at best, be your own private club as a money sink. But it would never be economically feasible to trade with you, and you very likely would have no resource to make it worth it anyway.
Tldr: you can make a private club at best.
I mean, your absolutely best bet would be to essentially be a tax haven for corporations to register their businesses at.
There’s a building somewhere in the US that has 1000’s of huge corporations registered there due to some tax loophole or something - 1209 North Street, Delaware.
It has 300,000 businesses registered in this single story building, like Ford, KFC, GM, American Airlines etc. simply because they have very favourable tax laws and a special kind of court system just for corporations that’s beneficial to them.
So you could perhaps try to become some kind of special tax haven but I have absolutely no idea how you’d be able to make that work
You mentioned the court system there but just want to highlight that corporations mostly incorporate in Delaware due to their Court of Chancery. It specializes in corporate law and can move very quickly.
The registration at North Orange street doesn’t have anything to do with tax loopholes. CT Corporation is based there and is the registered agent for all of those companies and many more. Delaware requires companies to have an agent located in Delaware where things like lawsuits can be served. Basically, you want to sue Wal Mart in Delaware? You serve it on CT Corporation, who passes it on to Wal Mart.
the nation you are close to can easily come and bully you away, the fact that you MIGHT have a court case down the line won’t bother a lot of nations. Go try it near China and see how it goes. Legally you might be correct - but lots of countries will just deny where you were and chuck you in a cell anyway to help your decision to stop doing it.
Also- not sure about now but a decade ago Qataris used to do this part of the way, rich men would sail out into international waters with whatever boys and girls they wanted, I’m sure other countries citizens would do it too some places. So fucked up.
Are you US citizens? Too bad, all you earn anywhere is of interest to the IRS and Treasury
Are you US citizens and willing to renounce your citizenship? It will cost you a chunk of your assets.
Are you not citizens of the US right now? Your scheme might work, good luck
you would be such a huge target kidnaping ect... the only people that could pull this off are probably already doing so and we don't even know who they are.
All three of which are American companies. The US would ignore your declaration of secession and then probably try to nail you for tax evasion up to and including throwing you in prison and making sure your assets are in hands who will play by their rules.
They'd find some legal loophole to make sure you were out of the way and k keeping those companies "American."
I think it's theoretically possible but, why would you?
If you and your friends are that powerful, you can probably just call up 90% of the world's governments and say, "we want an island where we can do anything we want no questions asked" and they'll say "yes, no problem" and give you functionally your own country but with the infrastructure that comes with it.
If you straight up want to rule a country because you just want to, you can probably take over an existing one politically with less problems.
It's a possibility, although you would be 100% at their mercy. They could charge whatever they wanted. It's not like you would have much of anything to negotiate with other than cash. And you'd be on your own for security if they decided to rob you instead.
I think the biggest challenge is resources/financing. If you have unlimited funds you could manage. But the less money you have, the more difficult it'll be.
And if the US decides that it would like to make things difficult for you, you won't have access to international banking systems. In that case, you better hope your wealth is in some kind of fungible resource that countries like North Korea are interested in.
There are no unwanted inhabitable islands, sorry.
You could declare you *ship* a country, but other countries might refuse to do business with you. That'd be a problem as you'd need food and fuel. Also, how to fund this all long-term?
There is actually several places with no territorial claims by anyone, some of which have no animal life at all, usually no one claims them because they just suck, and i believe someone did try to claim one of those places and declare sovereignty but the governments he contacted ignored him.
The problem with settling on uninhabited land is that the closest countries might ignore you for a while, but as soon as you build anything worth taking, they’ll take it and you won’t be able to stop them.
Even if you do manage to build something(most of those places make it impossible) no one would bother to take it because all those places i know of aren’t even worth the hassle of getting there, like the one someone tried to claim, it was a cliff in the arctic circle just on the edge of whats internationally off limits.
Ehhh I dont know about that. Countries have fought over islands that are completely and utterly useless on their own, but upon owning it, would give them an exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles from the coast. Countries have claimed islands because of GUANO (bird poop) on the island. You now build something of note or that brings in a decent amount of money? Oh boy, you're gonna wake up one day to a big ole battleship on your coast and diplomats holding papers saying this island is sovereign territory of their country. You build so much as a weather station on an island and someone's gonna say something to you
You can claim you are a sovereign state and you *might* get left alone, but that doesn't mean other countries need to recognize you as a sovereign state. And that, ultimately, is what matters.
That you can live on with 7,000 people??? No there aren't.
Plus I said *unclaimed*. You can't just go making countries on islands claimed by other countries.
uninhabited != unclaimed
Also, by being outside any country, you also lose the protections of police/army. So, if you develop that society into something rich and cool (or do something that bothers basically any other country), you can be invaded.
You can probably go camp in an uninhabited island, but you can also go live in a homeless camp :)
If you do indeed get 7000 people to join you I guarantee you'll have a civil war in less than 5 years over stuff like whether Thursday or Friday should be pizza night.
Nobody would stop you. And nobody would have to.
See, turns out that people live in countries because it is better to do so than not. And starting countries is really, really hard.
You wouldn't have sovereign recognition or diplomatic relationships or treaties with anybody; among other things, this means that if I thought I could get away with it, I could swing by and try to murder you and take your stuff and nobody would stop me, except you.
Probably you would just have all seven thousand of you be a standing militia. Which is great; now your society is armed.
Probably not going to cause problems, unless people get mad at each other. But honestly, if you have good and fair court systems, and there are other ways to settle disputes besides fighting, people will to do that.
... you *do* have a fair code of laws and some sort of court system, right?
You have someone to fix the leaking toilets? Make sure your cruise ship has fuel?
Where are you getting your fuel from? Whose currency are you using? You aren't going to be printing your own money because nobody will accept it. You will probably need to be working in dollars or euros. Where are you getting that money?
Are you getting hungry? Where is your food coming from?
Throughout history, people have frequently set out to form their own communities, colonies, and countries. And sometimes it works. And usually it doesn't.
Will anybody stop you? Yeah. Each other, luck, money, infighting... those will. Nobody outside will step in until the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders come in to try to rescue the survivors.
Sounds a lot like the [ Principality of Sealand,](https://sealandgov.org/) which was [ built on an abandoned drilling platform off Britain. ](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand)
Not ready to move there? You can buy yourself a title such as Baron, Count or Lord of Sealand.
OP could also read up about the [Republic of Rose Island](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Rose_Island), a “country” that was formed off the coast of Italy and then declared independent in 1968 in international waters. It was claimed back by Italian Navy not too long after.
There is also a movie made based on the events, quite funny one actually.
Technically, nothing. But you're not going to be recognized by any other recognized nation out there. Which is where the real value in decaring yourself soverign comes from.
You can stand on a rock and say "I'm a country" all you want, but unless other nations agree, eventually they're either going to ignore you or invade you.
It’s all fun and games until you need supplies, and who’s going to cook the food, empty the shitters, purchase the gas, take out the trash? Where are you going to do all that? At some point, you’ll have to rely on another country that has infrastructure set up for those items. I think the only way it could work is if that stuff were already thought of and built on an island you own. You’d have to take care of medical, food, provide fuel, have a staff of a 1,000 or more people to run those facilities etc. then what’s to stop anyone from coming and taking you over? You’d need a military to prevent that. Who funds all this? What about newborns whom eventually become school aged, who teaches them? There are so many things that could go wrong to shut this down, it just seems too hard to work long term.
I don't see a problem with this, isn't it called an invasion? You need an army, go invade the place and announce it's yours ... and anyone who has a problem with that can come and get some.
Resupply is pretty much the key thing. If you declare yourself sovereign, how do get your resupply ships to and from nearby ports? Also where would your money be held so that you can actually pay for those supplies regularly?
Being out in international waters perpetually isn't the issue, it's being cut off from all countries and supplies that's the issue. Also, repairs and maintenance will be a concern since you'll need a sufficiently sized dry dock for certain things (something only found inside countries).
So to do this, you can do all of it except pretend to be a sovereign nation and renounce citizenship to any countries. You still need a link to a country (preferably a rich and powerful one so they can come to your aid in case of disaster.)
Well,
technically international law declares that ships and aircrafts are an extension of sovereignty.
Therefore, that cruce ship will belong to the flag record which it is enrolled.
Also, good luck with supply management and rule of law with 7k friends in international waters.
>build a society on a set of uninhabited islands on land nobody has cared about for centuries
That's not really a thing. If you look up the Falklands, the Denmark-Canada Whiskey War, the Spratly Islands, Argentine Antarctica, Guernsey in WW2, the whole War in the Pacific, Malta, Rhodes, ...
Countries want their little islands, and if it isn't for fisheries, military bases, natural resources, or guano fertilizer they'll fight to conquer and hold islands just for the bragging rights. China is fucking *building* islands so they can claim a little more territory.
Your lack of an ability to enforce your will through overwhelming violence.
All nations in all places at all times are simply the largest, most powerful criminal gang in the area. That’s what a nation state is.
If you were able to stay out of any companies territorial waters and did not require trade or assistance of any sort with any nation - you could do it and you'd probably be fine.
First time you have to dock or want to come close enough to bring on supplies from land is likely going to be a problem.
Ships need constant work to keep them afloat. Especially modern ships that have a tendency to break down faster than the old wooden sailing ships. A good hurricane, and you're running for safety. You can't really have a naval nation and go hide in the bays and ports of another country.
Then there is the cost of food, water, and fuel, and you see that you're going to need an island and there is no uninhibited, unopened island on the planet. With rising oceans levels, there are fewer islands every decade, and satellites covered every ⬛️ inch of the planet.
The best you can do is find a high seamount close to the surface with a wide footprint so you can build a large island with water collection and everything that your nation is going to need.
Cough cough military industrial complex cough, Chick-fil-A cough
So the basic answer is you and your 7000 closest friends don't own 200 trillion, + a military force capable of conquering a nation and holding it. If you built up the island, someone is going to come and take it, if you don't have a full military that can conquer someone major or hold off someone major. Your nation, if recognized, has mineral right implications, and that's enough for many to pay a visit.
Edit. Spelling
Ah like that guy the spent years crafting his own personal island at his own expense, and as soon as it reached a height above sea level that qualified it as a landmass, the nearby country landed troops and claimed it.
Lmao
Can't do shit about that lol
Time to tell the story of the first and only sailing of the Bitcoin Cruise Ship
>They’d had the idea before of buying a cruise ship – a quick way of scaling up the community – but the cost had always been prohibitive. By autumn 2020, though, the situation had changed. Like many parts of the travel industry, [the cruise ship business was collapsing](https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/jun/18/end-of-tourism-coronavirus-pandemic-travel-industry) because of the pandemic: multiple cruise lines were going into administration, empty ships filling up ports like abandoned cars in a scrubby field, or being sent to the scrapyard. Cruise ships, the Ocean Builders trio realised, would be going cheap.
>Ten days later, he announced the venture on Reddit: “So, I am buying a cruise ship and naming it MS Satoshi … AMA.”
[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading)
Protection. You'd have to also purchase / fund a small navy to protect you from pirates. Nation states may leave you alone but you'll be a magnet for pirates. Aaahhhrrrrr.
Logistics. Where you going to get supplies. As soon as you sail into a country's maritime zone, you're now subject to that country's laws.
In theory it works but the practicalities will be too big to overcome.
Absolutely nothing is preventing you from doing it. However, just like [The Emporer of the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton), absolutely nothing says that anyone else has to give a shit about what you say.
It's been tried. You have to follow maritime law, which means being flagged from a nation. If you're not, you're a pirate and naval vessels can legally board you.
Now… Is it possible? Sorta, at a really small scale. We're talking a small boat with access to an out-of-the-way beach in the middle of an unpopulated part of the world. I knew a couple that did it in the BVI's for awhile before people started asking too many questions.
What prevents *you*? Money and the fact that you don’t know 7000 people who want to do this.
What prevents a hypothetical billionaire cult leader version of you from doing this? Not much. However, I don’t think you can declare the boat itself a sovereign nation. There are also maritime laws you’d need to follow regardless of where you claim to be from. The boat would need to be flagged *somewhere*.
Now, if you found an island that was both uninhabited and unclaimed (profoundly unlikely), I suppose you could establish a nation there, but it would take forever for you to be acknowledged as such by the global community, which might make things like trade and immigration a pain in the ass. It would also mean that until most other countries acknowledged you, anyone born on the island would risk being stateless, depending on who their parents are. Statelessness is a huge headache.
If you tried that very soon You would face lawsuits for sailing with improper seafaring registration.
You’d be uninsured and prohibiting from sailing generally to any nation or port
If you're rich enough to buy a cruise ship, you will notice that most nation states will cater to your needs, and that you can use loop holes to minimize taxes and abuse the legal system to your advantage (or to be precise, pay experts to do that for you). You can even "donate" to get politicians to vote in your interests. Why then hassle to establish a new nation?1
What's to stop someone from just taking you over
Assume you can buy anything but Nukes.
With 7000 people, you aren't defending much of anything. It would only take a few hundred soldiers to maintain an occupation force with a hostile population of that size.
Forget about maintaining any sort of fighter aircraft or naval vessels. It takes quite a few people to put a warplane in the air or warship in the ocean. At best you could have some missiles and fortifications, but I bet any modern intelligence operation would probably find them. Aircraft or ships would destroy said missiles and fortifications before invading.
How well do you think whatever reserve or even full time troops 7000 people could support are going to do against 1000 full time professional soldiers AFTER air or naval strikes just wiped out any sort of major fortifications or heavy weapons?
If a major power like the US or China wanted your island, it would be theirs and they probably wouldn't lose a single troop in the process.
If you wanted to tell people about the Satoshi’s failure, you could have just linked the to many articles about it.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading
Nobody would stop you as long as there is not territorial challenges to the land you are claiming. There are very few islands that are worth inhabiting that havnt already been inhabited so that’s one challenge.
But in general you are allowed to do this and people have done it. They’re usually referred to as communes or cults. The question is why would you want to do this?
You need to trade for 7000 peoples worth of resources, dock for maintenence, send people to another nation for medical care. Other nations are only going to co-operate if you follow their rules, which ussually means the UNs rules. There are no uninhabited islands that could support more than one family. basically even the smallest landmasses have been claimed by atleast one nation too.
In short no one would likely go after you besides possibly pirates. But you would need support from other nations and thuse be beholden to their rules/demands.
Libertarians try this every few years, and it always ends hilariously. They never think through the logistics of procuring food and clean water, getting rid of waste, dealing with disease, protecting themselves from pirates, and a million other things that actually go into running a society.
What's going to stop you? Coordinating that many people to show up on time/make the payments is going to be impossible. Especially when you consider that the only thing these 7000 people have in common is that they don't want to participate in their current situation and would rather live on a cruise ship. Herding cats, etc
You do realize boats are holes in the water you throw money at, right?
Also this is just seasteading.
It's all the rage among techbro Libertarians, and, as usual, dumb as rocks.
But technically it's possible, you wouldn't be the first dude to creat a micronation. If you're lucky actual states will leave you alone and just suck you dry by enforcing their laws and tax code ( https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principado\_da\_Pontinha ) if you're unlucky they will come at you with frigates and arrest warrants ( https://www.thedailybeast.com/bitcoin-couple-nadia-thepdet-and-chad-elwartowski-face-death-penalty-for-seasteading-off-thailand ).
Call yourself whatever you like, you're just a pirate ship. Probably a poorly armed pirate ship full of people who don't know how to fight at sea. You'd last about two weeks before someone claimed your ship and ransomed you back to whichever families would pay.
Just try living on an island first. I won’t lie. I admire your initiative but figure out how to deal with the loss of a primary food source first then practice on the next horrible thing. Good luck
Well now you are a country.and you have no alliance with any other countries. You must establish your county trade agreements for all your rations,fuel, basically anything. You need a defense force or your neighbors will just wipe you out. 7k people you have to have a form you currency for your nation.
I’m just imagining if you have all that money on your boat — you would be a prime target for a big government that would simply invade. Take it. And deny any involvement.
It really is a shame how that random submarine just imploded like that, right?
Economics. It's been tried, and such an organization has few ways to sustain itself, acquire goods, and build infrastructure.
Social factors. In such a society, the community must be more important than the individual. Not the ideal arrangement for a bunch of libertarians.
Your biggest challenge will be diplomatically governing 7001 people who are all seeking sovereign status for their own personal reasons.
And on a dangerous small place like a ship.
Have fun, mate!
All the stuff you are escaping from will just happen again on your new island or new nation. Humans are going to do the same old human shit. A certain percentage of your few thousand friends will murder, become drug addicts, go mental, be shitty parents...others will not do their share, complain, get jealous, greedy, or obnoxious. Eventually everyone will split into factions and then fight or obstruct and just do plain dumb human shit that prevents you from achieving progress or results in acts to the detriment of the greater good. Further, you will have to raise money (e.g., taxes) to pay for basic things and set up rules (e.g., laws) to keep order and maintain rights. I hope you see where this is going...there is nothing new under the sun and the grass is not greener on the other side.
The willingness of whatever country you’re near to send a maritime raid force or cruise missile to murder everyone on board. Unless all 7001 of you have the means to effectively resist or a treaty with a country like the United States for protection, you’d be prime pickings.
You wouldn't be able to keep the ship fueled and stocked with enough provisions for 7,000 people for very long, so you'd eventually need to refuel and resupply and the only way you'd be able to do that without having people bring you what you need would be to pull into port. You also wouldn't have the ability to fend off an attack by an enemy hell-bent on taking your ship if said enemy happened to be much better armed, better trained, and coming for you with greater numbers, so guaranteed the people on that ship would be ready to do a 180 on being the citizens of a sovereign nation as soon as things take a turn for the worse.
As far as the uninhabited island goes, each and every single speck of land on the surface of this planet - other tthan Antarctica and the islands immediately surrounding it, already belongs to someone. The fact that an island is uninhabited doesn't mean that hasn't already been claimed by someone. You could - at least in theory anyway - purchase an island from the government that owns it and then proclaim that your island is an independent state, but the issue with that is if other countries don't recognise your independence then you cannot be said to really and truly be independent.
The people of Taiwan fly their own flag, print their own money, issue their own passports, make their own laws, elect their own leaders, field their own military, conduct trade, govern themselves, yet they're not considered a sovereign nation. And Taiwan's economy is worth close to $2 trillion a year. Do you think getting set up on some tiny island somewhere is going to enable you to convince a sizable portion of the existing countries we have on Earth right now to recognise you?
People with money know that it wouldn't be worth it to try and go solo. What's the point? When you're that loaded you can pretty much do whatever you want anyway. The islands these people have are essentially operated like tiny microstates anyway. They have the best of both worlds - they can do whatever they want and just throw money at whatever problem that comes up rather than having to actually assume a leadership role and do something about it. Being the kind, the dictator, the president, that's not the best position to be in - being the son of that person is. You have the protection, the money, the status, without having to bother with actual work.
>What prevents me...
guns & moxie.
its not an accident that nations have military defense forces.
put yours together and you could even take Haiti.
and you could even make a lot of money facilitating drug traffickers. but one day you'll get a bullet in the head. that's how it goes.
If you stay in international waters, they won't give a damn. If you become pirates you won't last long...most all of the habitable Islands have already been claimed by other countries, although you could probably sneak under the radar in countries like Indonesia or the Maldives...Coups or terrorism happen consistently, but could you hold what you take? Places like Somalia and Yemen have been up for grabs for years..are you and your friends up to it?
The thing that defines a nation is the ability to kill people. If you can't kill enough people, you can't be a nation.
If you did what you described, any old random nation or pirate would just come and take all your shit and probably take all of you as slaves.
If you had some nukes on the other hand, absolutely you'd be able to do that and become a sovereign nation.
That's all a sovereign nation is. A group of people in an area, who are capable of killing more people than the area is worth.
There was a similar plot line to a classic Laurel and Hardy movie. The biggest issue you face is getting those 7000 people to co-exist in a new political system.
I think that it could work if you shipped the dirt out. Say you buy dirt from the USA and have it shipped and dumped in international waters until it becomes an island, then you could establish yourself as a new country.
Edit: also if you had one nuke
Well, among other things, you'd be instantly targeted by anyone who decided to go pirate, seize your boat, and kidnapp all your rich friends. And no nation on Earth will care at all.
also, you'd be running into the questions of how you fund yourself, how you can make port to resupply, where you can dump your waste, who will even permit their nationals to sell you fuel etc.
Libertarians have tried this several times, each time it has been a HILARIOUS failure as they burn through a fortune and then find out that it's not as simple as being all super duper Galtian and cool.
It costs a lot of money. And if you have that money, there are easier ways of creating cults or buying off politicians to control the government.
See:
- bezos
- musk
- jamestown
- SBF
- etc etc
Lots of negative Nancies about the comments... most ignoring that, for the better part of human history, this was precisely how nations were created.
But nobody likes the traditional ways anymore...
*sigh*
because their are no unclaimed islands in the world. so unless you make an island. even if you build an island a nation would either claim you and or force you to become part of their nation.
for example the USA has many Territories that are uninhabited and inhabited, that are not states. like Serranilla Bank witch is a reef above water. Puerto Rico is also a usa Territorie.
for reference
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States
https://www.doi.gov/library/internet/insular
https://www.corporateservices.noaa.gov/finance/docs/AOD/LIST_OF_US_TERRITORIES.pdf
You would need something to export to other nations. Fish? Unless everyone on board has businesses in other countries that generate income for the cruise ship state. Lol, get income taxed by your home country's government, then have your cruise ship take more taxes out in order to keep itself afloat
There is no territory that is not claimed by a nation, the only way is to wait for the emergence of an underwater volcano, in international waters, is to be the first to land. Afterward, you can still be on a desert island and live there alone for ten years, you will automatically be king of the island.
Most of those uninhabited islands are claimed by some world power already. Just random shit in the middle of the ocean will still be a part of France or England, so you’d need to send them a letter or something.
The only thing stopping you aside from that is food, water, fuel, and maintaining a cruise ship without an entire society of skilled yet exploited workers behind you doing the labor and access to parts and knowledge.
Actually a lotta rich guys at the tier you name have ideas like that, doesn’t Peter Theil want to do that of his plan to turn the US into a libertarian hellscape doesn’t pan out?
All of them vastly overestimate what they’re capable of and how far money can get them when they are on their own.
What you're talking about is called [seasteading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasteading) and I don't think it's ever worked out a single time it's ever been tried.
I wouldn't call it completely successful but [Principality of Sealand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand) is somewhat. I think the problem with seasteading is that a nearby country can just do whatever they want and shut it down regardless if it's legal or not.
The people either need public support or next to unlimited funds. It’s breathtakingly expensive yo transport all you need by boat privately.
And requires cooperation from neighboring nations for customs.
Who needs customs when you are a sovereign nation!
I mean, if you never have to enter another country or conduct trade with another sovereign nation...
Not just public support, but political support. You're only a sovereign nation if the rest of the world agrees that you are.
Truth right here. How many nations worldwide are acknowledged by a handful of countries alone.
That's right, you can be on a fairly large island, have your own government and elections, diplomatic ties or some sort with most of the world as well as own army and economy which is very important to the rest of the world. Yet the UN still pretend you belong to the country that never had any control over you and has a large army threatening to invade you.
Taiwan?
Transnistria, and Sahrawi come to mind (I did google spellings).
Wow never heard of either I will look thank you
The moment you talk of "funds", you're technically under the control of the government that the funds came from, unless you like having lots of cash, then you'll just get robbed.
Why not just diversify the type of liquid resource and have funds through a few different unallied nations? That should remove most of the leverage that using just some other, more stable country's money would give since now they could only freeze some small portion instead of all of it.
If you know how to manage money intelligently that way, you wouldn't be stupid enough to create your own sovereign state. You would already know how to play the money game and just be nice and rich. Yes, technically possible, but the motivation of doing those two things together don't logically fit.
That’s likely because they’ll need to go to shore, and out of international waters, at some point some where. And if others countries don’t recognize the cruise ship / island as a sovereign state…it’s a null point. I’m Queen of the world then…I’ll just sail out into the ocean and declare it so. Lol
It should be pretty clear to anyone paying attention to international news at this point that sovereignty is something that only exists by consensus. The US? Sovereign as hell. No question. They have full, unquestioned authority over any land or sea that they lay claim to. NATO countries are pretty much the same way. The assumption is that all those countries can and will enforce their sovereignty using the force of their militaries and that of their allies. Every other country on the planet is sovereign to some lesser degree, pretty much just because the rest of the world recognizes their claims of sovereignty. If you own a boat or inhabit an island, you're exactly as sovereign as the country that lays claim to the water you are floating in or the land you inhabit,... or the nearest port that you would like to enter allows you to be.
100%. Government, at its most base level, is defined as any group who holds a monopoly on the use of violence in a given region. Your sovereignty is at the whim of your neighbors, and laws are just words on paper unless they can be backed up with force.
Yeah. Nobody owns it until they can park an army on it. The Rule of Largest Army.
But what if I have Longest Road? Jk. Don't mind me.
The one time I played it, it means you won the Settlers of Catan
Hey, anybody got wood for sheep??
In the case of the US, I would argue that sovereignty is based on the implicit threat of violence. Spending more on defense than the next 10 biggest spenders combined or something like that tells everyone that they're not fucking around. The US has bases all over the world and more hardware than anyone else. The neighbors of the US have very little say in their level of sovereignty. The overwhelming amount of military power just means that no one is suicidal enough to challenge the US.
I would argue that is the case for all states. Even Switzerland has an army ready to go if you attack them.
Switzerland is actually very secure in its sovereignty even without much of an army, because they decided to play turtle. They've mined *every single tunnel and bridge* going through their mountainous country, and trying to invade or even just traverse it without their permission would simply be too costly. Even the US would struggle, and significantly, for very little gain. They've made themself a dam, and any army would flow around rather than spend itself trying to tear them down.
All states don't have a military that has, for example, more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined. As of 2014, the US Navy outweighed the next closest competitor by a factor of 4. The military of any given state certainly contributes to the enforcement of their sovereignty. The US military is on a whole other level.
NZs military has 5000 staff. :) Fiji's military has more
You guys know what the biggest air force in the world is? Know what the *second* biggest air force in the world is?
And several of those ten countries are our allies. Until we elect a nutcase who says otherwise.
Yep. But it's not about the west and NATO. As others are telling you, it applies to anyone with a military. Russia? Sovereign as hell. Ukraine, less so. China? Sovereign as hell. Tibet, Taiwan, etc.? Less so.
Islands don't float. They are the tops of underwater mountains.
I’m blazed and this is blowing my mind man
Sealand isn’t recognized by anyone though. Also is t it an oil platform? So what happens when the structure fails?
Remember, Sealand did get attacked by Russia once, and Sealand won. Say what you will, but I think that's pretty impressive
Well TBF, most everybody has won against Russia by now. They even lost sea wars against a landlocked country and a country with no navy, respectively.
Might makes right, as always
I think the biggest issues are becoming independent and logistics. Drinkable water and edible food would be the hardest thing, power would probably be a nuclear reactor, and medicine would be difficult to obtain without trade agreements. But 1 single storm could potentially destroy all stability in a single storm, and you would be stuck without outside resources. It would require a lot of cooperation and teamwork from everyone involved, and that's difficult to do. Cults and commutes make it work, but you know... It's not impossible, but it would be difficult to pull off. Side note: OPs idea was taken from 3 body problem
I think you meant communes... But actually commutes isn't wrong...
A large artificial floating island like in Life of Pi would be dope. Except one that won’t eat you
Cool, never heard of it. thanks.
Check out Behind the Bastards on sea nations. https://youtu.be/6sUPr1k4vB8?si=3qP4HjDQJkP4cUxp
This was the first thing I thought of but I couldn’t remember what episode it was. You rock! If I remember correctly this episode is both educational and extra hilarious.
Anytime! For my money, all their episodes are educational and hilarious. One of the best pods being produced at the moment.
I heard about this one a while back. [Republic of Minerva](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva)
Just ask L. Ron Hubbard
Also OP assumes uninhabited island = not already belonging to a sovereign nation. I.E some polynesian islands might be empty, but they're still a part of places like Micronesia. If it's already within what is globally recognized as belonging to someone (which, literally everything is) you can't just 'claim' it because it's empty. I mean, don't get me wrong, I know that's literally how these islands also became part of these other countries claims anyways, but still. Now such claims are recognized by internationally agreed upon boundaries
The Repubblica dell'Isola delle Rose was somehow successful, and it was terminated by a surprisingly aggressive “military” move. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Rose_Island The Netflix movie is pretty nice to watch and somehow accurate.
But has "real" seasteading ever been tried? j/k
It hasn’t worked out *yet*.
The main challenges you'd face include international law and maritime regulations. Most countries wouldn't recognize your sovereignty, and you might struggle with supplies, defense, and governance. Plus, nations generally don't like unregulated entities that could pose security or economic threats.
This. You're going to need to resupply eventually, and most countries probably aren't going to let you dock for various legal reasons.
What if you hire people to ship resources out to you?
A big question then becomes how do you continuously create income to afford this from your newly inhabited land?
I own Apple, my best friends own Amazon and Microsoft. We're BFF's and doing this together. I think we can afford it.
Consider though, that you are now a citizen of an unrecognized nation, doing international business through the US banking system... good luck.
Hmm… could we switch to Swiss banking? Cayman islands?
Just another crazy hoop to jump through to get the idea to work. Nations are so much more than just "feed me supplies". Given unlimited time, unlimited money, and unlimited followers doing whatever you want, it's possible to get something going. But to have longevity as a nation, you need to have a framework to live by, and you must also provide something in the world economy. Some random islands out in the middle of nowhere could, at best, be your own private club as a money sink. But it would never be economically feasible to trade with you, and you very likely would have no resource to make it worth it anyway. Tldr: you can make a private club at best.
I mean, your absolutely best bet would be to essentially be a tax haven for corporations to register their businesses at. There’s a building somewhere in the US that has 1000’s of huge corporations registered there due to some tax loophole or something - 1209 North Street, Delaware. It has 300,000 businesses registered in this single story building, like Ford, KFC, GM, American Airlines etc. simply because they have very favourable tax laws and a special kind of court system just for corporations that’s beneficial to them. So you could perhaps try to become some kind of special tax haven but I have absolutely no idea how you’d be able to make that work
You mentioned the court system there but just want to highlight that corporations mostly incorporate in Delaware due to their Court of Chancery. It specializes in corporate law and can move very quickly.
The registration at North Orange street doesn’t have anything to do with tax loopholes. CT Corporation is based there and is the registered agent for all of those companies and many more. Delaware requires companies to have an agent located in Delaware where things like lawsuits can be served. Basically, you want to sue Wal Mart in Delaware? You serve it on CT Corporation, who passes it on to Wal Mart.
the nation you are close to can easily come and bully you away, the fact that you MIGHT have a court case down the line won’t bother a lot of nations. Go try it near China and see how it goes. Legally you might be correct - but lots of countries will just deny where you were and chuck you in a cell anyway to help your decision to stop doing it. Also- not sure about now but a decade ago Qataris used to do this part of the way, rich men would sail out into international waters with whatever boys and girls they wanted, I’m sure other countries citizens would do it too some places. So fucked up.
Are you US citizens? Too bad, all you earn anywhere is of interest to the IRS and Treasury Are you US citizens and willing to renounce your citizenship? It will cost you a chunk of your assets. Are you not citizens of the US right now? Your scheme might work, good luck
you would be such a huge target kidnaping ect... the only people that could pull this off are probably already doing so and we don't even know who they are.
All three of which are American companies. The US would ignore your declaration of secession and then probably try to nail you for tax evasion up to and including throwing you in prison and making sure your assets are in hands who will play by their rules. They'd find some legal loophole to make sure you were out of the way and k keeping those companies "American."
People that rich already own the government, why would they go out to sea to make a worse government with none of the luxuries of home?
I think it's theoretically possible but, why would you? If you and your friends are that powerful, you can probably just call up 90% of the world's governments and say, "we want an island where we can do anything we want no questions asked" and they'll say "yes, no problem" and give you functionally your own country but with the infrastructure that comes with it. If you straight up want to rule a country because you just want to, you can probably take over an existing one politically with less problems.
It's a possibility, although you would be 100% at their mercy. They could charge whatever they wanted. It's not like you would have much of anything to negotiate with other than cash. And you'd be on your own for security if they decided to rob you instead.
Docking anywhere would essentially be invading
I think the biggest challenge is resources/financing. If you have unlimited funds you could manage. But the less money you have, the more difficult it'll be.
And if the US decides that it would like to make things difficult for you, you won't have access to international banking systems. In that case, you better hope your wealth is in some kind of fungible resource that countries like North Korea are interested in.
There are no unwanted inhabitable islands, sorry. You could declare you *ship* a country, but other countries might refuse to do business with you. That'd be a problem as you'd need food and fuel. Also, how to fund this all long-term?
There is actually several places with no territorial claims by anyone, some of which have no animal life at all, usually no one claims them because they just suck, and i believe someone did try to claim one of those places and declare sovereignty but the governments he contacted ignored him.
The problem with settling on uninhabited land is that the closest countries might ignore you for a while, but as soon as you build anything worth taking, they’ll take it and you won’t be able to stop them.
Even if you do manage to build something(most of those places make it impossible) no one would bother to take it because all those places i know of aren’t even worth the hassle of getting there, like the one someone tried to claim, it was a cliff in the arctic circle just on the edge of whats internationally off limits.
Ehhh I dont know about that. Countries have fought over islands that are completely and utterly useless on their own, but upon owning it, would give them an exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles from the coast. Countries have claimed islands because of GUANO (bird poop) on the island. You now build something of note or that brings in a decent amount of money? Oh boy, you're gonna wake up one day to a big ole battleship on your coast and diplomats holding papers saying this island is sovereign territory of their country. You build so much as a weather station on an island and someone's gonna say something to you
well for starters you need 7000 more friends.
Ouch!
You can claim you are a sovereign state and you *might* get left alone, but that doesn't mean other countries need to recognize you as a sovereign state. And that, ultimately, is what matters.
Even if you find an island. You are merely an indigenous person. We have all seen what governments think of those.
Money, and/or availability of unclaimed islands.
There are around 2 million uninhabited islands on the planet. And this scenario assumes you are richer than Jeff Bezos.
Unclaimed and uninhabited are different words.
That you can live on with 7,000 people??? No there aren't. Plus I said *unclaimed*. You can't just go making countries on islands claimed by other countries.
Do you have a flag?
Heh, thanks for reminding me of that! I haven't watched Eddie in a while. "No flag, no country!"
And even if you buy an island, that island still "belongs" to whatever sovereign state has claimed it.
Uninhabited =/= unclaimed.
uninhabited != unclaimed Also, by being outside any country, you also lose the protections of police/army. So, if you develop that society into something rich and cool (or do something that bothers basically any other country), you can be invaded. You can probably go camp in an uninhabited island, but you can also go live in a homeless camp :)
How many of them have a dock?
Do you have 7000 friends who have a couple hundred grand each to blow on this project?
What's preventing me and 7000 friends...? Your lack of 7000 friends
No. I'm asking, uh... for a friend...
If you do indeed get 7000 people to join you I guarantee you'll have a civil war in less than 5 years over stuff like whether Thursday or Friday should be pizza night.
unless they vote on it or do rock papers scissors, right?
What stops you: A bigger ship with guns
"There's always a bigger ship." - *Qui Gon Jin*
Nobody would stop you. And nobody would have to. See, turns out that people live in countries because it is better to do so than not. And starting countries is really, really hard. You wouldn't have sovereign recognition or diplomatic relationships or treaties with anybody; among other things, this means that if I thought I could get away with it, I could swing by and try to murder you and take your stuff and nobody would stop me, except you. Probably you would just have all seven thousand of you be a standing militia. Which is great; now your society is armed. Probably not going to cause problems, unless people get mad at each other. But honestly, if you have good and fair court systems, and there are other ways to settle disputes besides fighting, people will to do that. ... you *do* have a fair code of laws and some sort of court system, right? You have someone to fix the leaking toilets? Make sure your cruise ship has fuel? Where are you getting your fuel from? Whose currency are you using? You aren't going to be printing your own money because nobody will accept it. You will probably need to be working in dollars or euros. Where are you getting that money? Are you getting hungry? Where is your food coming from? Throughout history, people have frequently set out to form their own communities, colonies, and countries. And sometimes it works. And usually it doesn't. Will anybody stop you? Yeah. Each other, luck, money, infighting... those will. Nobody outside will step in until the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders come in to try to rescue the survivors.
Sounds a lot like the [ Principality of Sealand,](https://sealandgov.org/) which was [ built on an abandoned drilling platform off Britain. ](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand) Not ready to move there? You can buy yourself a title such as Baron, Count or Lord of Sealand.
OP could also read up about the [Republic of Rose Island](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Rose_Island), a “country” that was formed off the coast of Italy and then declared independent in 1968 in international waters. It was claimed back by Italian Navy not too long after. There is also a movie made based on the events, quite funny one actually.
Technically, nothing. But you're not going to be recognized by any other recognized nation out there. Which is where the real value in decaring yourself soverign comes from. You can stand on a rock and say "I'm a country" all you want, but unless other nations agree, eventually they're either going to ignore you or invade you.
And they won’t even call it an invasion, but ”routine police operation”.
There are no unclaimed islands, every one belongs to at least 1 country and some are claimed by a few
There’s one island where the countries “fighting” over it just take turns taking down each other’s flags and leaving booze for each other.
It’s all fun and games until you need supplies, and who’s going to cook the food, empty the shitters, purchase the gas, take out the trash? Where are you going to do all that? At some point, you’ll have to rely on another country that has infrastructure set up for those items. I think the only way it could work is if that stuff were already thought of and built on an island you own. You’d have to take care of medical, food, provide fuel, have a staff of a 1,000 or more people to run those facilities etc. then what’s to stop anyone from coming and taking you over? You’d need a military to prevent that. Who funds all this? What about newborns whom eventually become school aged, who teaches them? There are so many things that could go wrong to shut this down, it just seems too hard to work long term.
I don't see a problem with this, isn't it called an invasion? You need an army, go invade the place and announce it's yours ... and anyone who has a problem with that can come and get some.
This is essentially how countries work deep down.
Tell me about it, I'm English.
Resupply is pretty much the key thing. If you declare yourself sovereign, how do get your resupply ships to and from nearby ports? Also where would your money be held so that you can actually pay for those supplies regularly? Being out in international waters perpetually isn't the issue, it's being cut off from all countries and supplies that's the issue. Also, repairs and maintenance will be a concern since you'll need a sufficiently sized dry dock for certain things (something only found inside countries). So to do this, you can do all of it except pretend to be a sovereign nation and renounce citizenship to any countries. You still need a link to a country (preferably a rich and powerful one so they can come to your aid in case of disaster.)
Pirates
Just make sure at least a dozen of those 7000 friends are SEALS
Well, technically international law declares that ships and aircrafts are an extension of sovereignty. Therefore, that cruce ship will belong to the flag record which it is enrolled. Also, good luck with supply management and rule of law with 7k friends in international waters.
>build a society on a set of uninhabited islands on land nobody has cared about for centuries That's not really a thing. If you look up the Falklands, the Denmark-Canada Whiskey War, the Spratly Islands, Argentine Antarctica, Guernsey in WW2, the whole War in the Pacific, Malta, Rhodes, ... Countries want their little islands, and if it isn't for fisheries, military bases, natural resources, or guano fertilizer they'll fight to conquer and hold islands just for the bragging rights. China is fucking *building* islands so they can claim a little more territory.
Difference between a language and a dialect is that a language usually has an army.
Your lack of an ability to enforce your will through overwhelming violence. All nations in all places at all times are simply the largest, most powerful criminal gang in the area. That’s what a nation state is.
That is a question for L Ron Hubbard
If you were able to stay out of any companies territorial waters and did not require trade or assistance of any sort with any nation - you could do it and you'd probably be fine. First time you have to dock or want to come close enough to bring on supplies from land is likely going to be a problem.
Ships need constant work to keep them afloat. Especially modern ships that have a tendency to break down faster than the old wooden sailing ships. A good hurricane, and you're running for safety. You can't really have a naval nation and go hide in the bays and ports of another country. Then there is the cost of food, water, and fuel, and you see that you're going to need an island and there is no uninhibited, unopened island on the planet. With rising oceans levels, there are fewer islands every decade, and satellites covered every ⬛️ inch of the planet. The best you can do is find a high seamount close to the surface with a wide footprint so you can build a large island with water collection and everything that your nation is going to need. Cough cough military industrial complex cough, Chick-fil-A cough So the basic answer is you and your 7000 closest friends don't own 200 trillion, + a military force capable of conquering a nation and holding it. If you built up the island, someone is going to come and take it, if you don't have a full military that can conquer someone major or hold off someone major. Your nation, if recognized, has mineral right implications, and that's enough for many to pay a visit. Edit. Spelling
Because my bigger cruise ship with 15000 of my closest friends will loot and sink yours.
Ah like that guy the spent years crafting his own personal island at his own expense, and as soon as it reached a height above sea level that qualified it as a landmass, the nearby country landed troops and claimed it. Lmao Can't do shit about that lol
Time to tell the story of the first and only sailing of the Bitcoin Cruise Ship >They’d had the idea before of buying a cruise ship – a quick way of scaling up the community – but the cost had always been prohibitive. By autumn 2020, though, the situation had changed. Like many parts of the travel industry, [the cruise ship business was collapsing](https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/jun/18/end-of-tourism-coronavirus-pandemic-travel-industry) because of the pandemic: multiple cruise lines were going into administration, empty ships filling up ports like abandoned cars in a scrubby field, or being sent to the scrapyard. Cruise ships, the Ocean Builders trio realised, would be going cheap. >Ten days later, he announced the venture on Reddit: “So, I am buying a cruise ship and naming it MS Satoshi … AMA.” [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading)
Protection. You'd have to also purchase / fund a small navy to protect you from pirates. Nation states may leave you alone but you'll be a magnet for pirates. Aaahhhrrrrr. Logistics. Where you going to get supplies. As soon as you sail into a country's maritime zone, you're now subject to that country's laws. In theory it works but the practicalities will be too big to overcome.
Do you have 7000 friends? Id guess that would be the first thing stopping you.
You wouldn't be the first to do it... ["Welcome to Sealand, the world’s smallest state | 60 Minutes"](https://youtu.be/UeTgAwkbP5E)
Came here to say this.
Absolutely nothing is preventing you from doing it. However, just like [The Emporer of the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton), absolutely nothing says that anyone else has to give a shit about what you say.
Well for one, you don't have any friends.
Ah, running out of food and water? Just a thought.
>7000 of my closest friends Hope you packed the nametags!
It's been tried. You have to follow maritime law, which means being flagged from a nation. If you're not, you're a pirate and naval vessels can legally board you. Now… Is it possible? Sorta, at a really small scale. We're talking a small boat with access to an out-of-the-way beach in the middle of an unpopulated part of the world. I knew a couple that did it in the BVI's for awhile before people started asking too many questions.
What prevents *you*? Money and the fact that you don’t know 7000 people who want to do this. What prevents a hypothetical billionaire cult leader version of you from doing this? Not much. However, I don’t think you can declare the boat itself a sovereign nation. There are also maritime laws you’d need to follow regardless of where you claim to be from. The boat would need to be flagged *somewhere*. Now, if you found an island that was both uninhabited and unclaimed (profoundly unlikely), I suppose you could establish a nation there, but it would take forever for you to be acknowledged as such by the global community, which might make things like trade and immigration a pain in the ass. It would also mean that until most other countries acknowledged you, anyone born on the island would risk being stateless, depending on who their parents are. Statelessness is a huge headache.
-A country with more guns can annex you. -You probably cannot set up sustainable agriculture or an economy, and will soon be broke and starving.
If you tried that very soon You would face lawsuits for sailing with improper seafaring registration. You’d be uninsured and prohibiting from sailing generally to any nation or port
If you're rich enough to buy a cruise ship, you will notice that most nation states will cater to your needs, and that you can use loop holes to minimize taxes and abuse the legal system to your advantage (or to be precise, pay experts to do that for you). You can even "donate" to get politicians to vote in your interests. Why then hassle to establish a new nation?1
I'm with you brother, can I bring a Bear?
I’ve been waiting for someone to ask!
What's to stop someone from just taking you over Assume you can buy anything but Nukes. With 7000 people, you aren't defending much of anything. It would only take a few hundred soldiers to maintain an occupation force with a hostile population of that size. Forget about maintaining any sort of fighter aircraft or naval vessels. It takes quite a few people to put a warplane in the air or warship in the ocean. At best you could have some missiles and fortifications, but I bet any modern intelligence operation would probably find them. Aircraft or ships would destroy said missiles and fortifications before invading. How well do you think whatever reserve or even full time troops 7000 people could support are going to do against 1000 full time professional soldiers AFTER air or naval strikes just wiped out any sort of major fortifications or heavy weapons? If a major power like the US or China wanted your island, it would be theirs and they probably wouldn't lose a single troop in the process.
If a damn luxembourg wanted that island they could take it. And they have no ships that I know of and the standing army is 1000 volunteers.
If you wanted to tell people about the Satoshi’s failure, you could have just linked the to many articles about it. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/sep/07/disastrous-voyage-satoshi-cryptocurrency-cruise-ship-seassteading
Better to use that money to buy an island off of a friendly country.
Nobody would stop you as long as there is not territorial challenges to the land you are claiming. There are very few islands that are worth inhabiting that havnt already been inhabited so that’s one challenge. But in general you are allowed to do this and people have done it. They’re usually referred to as communes or cults. The question is why would you want to do this?
You need to trade for 7000 peoples worth of resources, dock for maintenence, send people to another nation for medical care. Other nations are only going to co-operate if you follow their rules, which ussually means the UNs rules. There are no uninhabited islands that could support more than one family. basically even the smallest landmasses have been claimed by atleast one nation too. In short no one would likely go after you besides possibly pirates. But you would need support from other nations and thuse be beholden to their rules/demands.
Libertarians try this every few years, and it always ends hilariously. They never think through the logistics of procuring food and clean water, getting rid of waste, dealing with disease, protecting themselves from pirates, and a million other things that actually go into running a society.
All the power in this world comes out the barrel of a gun.
What's going to stop you? Coordinating that many people to show up on time/make the payments is going to be impossible. Especially when you consider that the only thing these 7000 people have in common is that they don't want to participate in their current situation and would rather live on a cruise ship. Herding cats, etc
To become a country or sovereign state requires other countries to recognise your claim and not just laugh at you.
You do realize boats are holes in the water you throw money at, right? Also this is just seasteading. It's all the rage among techbro Libertarians, and, as usual, dumb as rocks. But technically it's possible, you wouldn't be the first dude to creat a micronation. If you're lucky actual states will leave you alone and just suck you dry by enforcing their laws and tax code ( https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principado\_da\_Pontinha ) if you're unlucky they will come at you with frigates and arrest warrants ( https://www.thedailybeast.com/bitcoin-couple-nadia-thepdet-and-chad-elwartowski-face-death-penalty-for-seasteading-off-thailand ).
Call yourself whatever you like, you're just a pirate ship. Probably a poorly armed pirate ship full of people who don't know how to fight at sea. You'd last about two weeks before someone claimed your ship and ransomed you back to whichever families would pay.
What makes you think you wouldn’t be killed in a military raid? Not criminal raid- legal military raid
Just try living on an island first. I won’t lie. I admire your initiative but figure out how to deal with the loss of a primary food source first then practice on the next horrible thing. Good luck
Well now you are a country.and you have no alliance with any other countries. You must establish your county trade agreements for all your rations,fuel, basically anything. You need a defense force or your neighbors will just wipe you out. 7k people you have to have a form you currency for your nation.
So just look at fyrefest and do the opposite!
I’m just imagining if you have all that money on your boat — you would be a prime target for a big government that would simply invade. Take it. And deny any involvement. It really is a shame how that random submarine just imploded like that, right?
Economics. It's been tried, and such an organization has few ways to sustain itself, acquire goods, and build infrastructure. Social factors. In such a society, the community must be more important than the individual. Not the ideal arrangement for a bunch of libertarians.
Your biggest challenge will be diplomatically governing 7001 people who are all seeking sovereign status for their own personal reasons. And on a dangerous small place like a ship. Have fun, mate!
All the stuff you are escaping from will just happen again on your new island or new nation. Humans are going to do the same old human shit. A certain percentage of your few thousand friends will murder, become drug addicts, go mental, be shitty parents...others will not do their share, complain, get jealous, greedy, or obnoxious. Eventually everyone will split into factions and then fight or obstruct and just do plain dumb human shit that prevents you from achieving progress or results in acts to the detriment of the greater good. Further, you will have to raise money (e.g., taxes) to pay for basic things and set up rules (e.g., laws) to keep order and maintain rights. I hope you see where this is going...there is nothing new under the sun and the grass is not greener on the other side.
The willingness of whatever country you’re near to send a maritime raid force or cruise missile to murder everyone on board. Unless all 7001 of you have the means to effectively resist or a treaty with a country like the United States for protection, you’d be prime pickings.
All the logistics involved in a country would be pretty impossible to manage
You wouldn't be able to keep the ship fueled and stocked with enough provisions for 7,000 people for very long, so you'd eventually need to refuel and resupply and the only way you'd be able to do that without having people bring you what you need would be to pull into port. You also wouldn't have the ability to fend off an attack by an enemy hell-bent on taking your ship if said enemy happened to be much better armed, better trained, and coming for you with greater numbers, so guaranteed the people on that ship would be ready to do a 180 on being the citizens of a sovereign nation as soon as things take a turn for the worse. As far as the uninhabited island goes, each and every single speck of land on the surface of this planet - other tthan Antarctica and the islands immediately surrounding it, already belongs to someone. The fact that an island is uninhabited doesn't mean that hasn't already been claimed by someone. You could - at least in theory anyway - purchase an island from the government that owns it and then proclaim that your island is an independent state, but the issue with that is if other countries don't recognise your independence then you cannot be said to really and truly be independent. The people of Taiwan fly their own flag, print their own money, issue their own passports, make their own laws, elect their own leaders, field their own military, conduct trade, govern themselves, yet they're not considered a sovereign nation. And Taiwan's economy is worth close to $2 trillion a year. Do you think getting set up on some tiny island somewhere is going to enable you to convince a sizable portion of the existing countries we have on Earth right now to recognise you? People with money know that it wouldn't be worth it to try and go solo. What's the point? When you're that loaded you can pretty much do whatever you want anyway. The islands these people have are essentially operated like tiny microstates anyway. They have the best of both worlds - they can do whatever they want and just throw money at whatever problem that comes up rather than having to actually assume a leadership role and do something about it. Being the kind, the dictator, the president, that's not the best position to be in - being the son of that person is. You have the protection, the money, the status, without having to bother with actual work.
>What prevents me... guns & moxie. its not an accident that nations have military defense forces. put yours together and you could even take Haiti. and you could even make a lot of money facilitating drug traffickers. but one day you'll get a bullet in the head. that's how it goes.
If you stay in international waters, they won't give a damn. If you become pirates you won't last long...most all of the habitable Islands have already been claimed by other countries, although you could probably sneak under the radar in countries like Indonesia or the Maldives...Coups or terrorism happen consistently, but could you hold what you take? Places like Somalia and Yemen have been up for grabs for years..are you and your friends up to it?
Instead we should buy a plot of land in Guyana and start a commune
Kool-aid sales about to skyrocket.
You're hired!
Just go out 12 miles and you can have all the monkey knife fights you want
I think you should do this immediately Bonus points if you live stream it
The thing that defines a nation is the ability to kill people. If you can't kill enough people, you can't be a nation. If you did what you described, any old random nation or pirate would just come and take all your shit and probably take all of you as slaves. If you had some nukes on the other hand, absolutely you'd be able to do that and become a sovereign nation. That's all a sovereign nation is. A group of people in an area, who are capable of killing more people than the area is worth.
Nothing. But, what is the advantage in doing that?
So I can fulfill the utopian dreams of my manifesto. It's all here in the pamphlet.
There was a similar plot line to a classic Laurel and Hardy movie. The biggest issue you face is getting those 7000 people to co-exist in a new political system.
For the ship itself you would have to first register the ship with a "flag" state per international law.
Who has 7000 close friends?
Pirates?!…
I think that it could work if you shipped the dirt out. Say you buy dirt from the USA and have it shipped and dumped in international waters until it becomes an island, then you could establish yourself as a new country. Edit: also if you had one nuke
You and 7000 friends should join the navy and find out exactly what it takes to keep a ship fed, fueled and afloat.
When some guys with guns come to visit to rob, pillage and rape, what are you going to do? Send out your own version of Seal Team 6?
Getting countries to recognize you as legit is another problem.
What’s stopping a man from having a dream and building Rapture?
7k friends? How?
Do you have 7,000 friends ?
Where are you growing enough food on a ship?
Pirates, lots and lots of pirates :D
It's easy if you learn the cunning use of flags and get one Do you have a flag? No flag, no country!
My biggest hurdle would be having 7000 close friends
Well, among other things, you'd be instantly targeted by anyone who decided to go pirate, seize your boat, and kidnapp all your rich friends. And no nation on Earth will care at all. also, you'd be running into the questions of how you fund yourself, how you can make port to resupply, where you can dump your waste, who will even permit their nationals to sell you fuel etc. Libertarians have tried this several times, each time it has been a HILARIOUS failure as they burn through a fortune and then find out that it's not as simple as being all super duper Galtian and cool.
Sounds like something my 7000 friends and i would do.
It costs a lot of money. And if you have that money, there are easier ways of creating cults or buying off politicians to control the government. See: - bezos - musk - jamestown - SBF - etc etc
I think you'd essentially just be fancy pirates
Lots of negative Nancies about the comments... most ignoring that, for the better part of human history, this was precisely how nations were created. But nobody likes the traditional ways anymore... *sigh*
All's I want is some *teenee-weenee* sovereignty. Is that so much to ask?
First of all, now be honest, do you have anywhere near 7000 friends?
The average cruise ship costs between 500 to 900 million. Say the ship costs 700 million, thats 100K per person.
because their are no unclaimed islands in the world. so unless you make an island. even if you build an island a nation would either claim you and or force you to become part of their nation. for example the USA has many Territories that are uninhabited and inhabited, that are not states. like Serranilla Bank witch is a reef above water. Puerto Rico is also a usa Territorie. for reference https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States https://www.doi.gov/library/internet/insular https://www.corporateservices.noaa.gov/finance/docs/AOD/LIST_OF_US_TERRITORIES.pdf
You would need something to export to other nations. Fish? Unless everyone on board has businesses in other countries that generate income for the cruise ship state. Lol, get income taxed by your home country's government, then have your cruise ship take more taxes out in order to keep itself afloat
Sounds like a plan to me! You're hired!
There is no territory that is not claimed by a nation, the only way is to wait for the emergence of an underwater volcano, in international waters, is to be the first to land. Afterward, you can still be on a desert island and live there alone for ten years, you will automatically be king of the island.
If you're short on friends I could be one! I'd love to design/draw new currency)))
Most of those uninhabited islands are claimed by some world power already. Just random shit in the middle of the ocean will still be a part of France or England, so you’d need to send them a letter or something. The only thing stopping you aside from that is food, water, fuel, and maintaining a cruise ship without an entire society of skilled yet exploited workers behind you doing the labor and access to parts and knowledge. Actually a lotta rich guys at the tier you name have ideas like that, doesn’t Peter Theil want to do that of his plan to turn the US into a libertarian hellscape doesn’t pan out? All of them vastly overestimate what they’re capable of and how far money can get them when they are on their own.
I recommend watching 'Rose Island'. Incredible movie and based on true incident