Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What I would have done with a grant of $500000


Look, let's quit talking about it, really, it is not constructive, and don't send me any more e-mails asking. Please. I'm serious. Figure it out. It won't take long. Just do a web search, see who cares and why, and the conspicuous omissions will inform the debate. Learn from it too, as you'll see that average people of average means are buggered.

Look, if you work in software you will be able to promote the hell out of anything if you have the means and time.If you do it for a living, for the right companies, it's only easier. You can buy yourself access, and buy yourself credibility, and create for yourself celebrity status without ever doing a damn thing. I, while doing my Seasteading research, and launched my first two boats, drove forklift. It's s a precious miracle that any of you know anything about it at all.

I'm NOT competing with anyone. Especially I'm not competing with the powerpoint guys. That's obvious. Don't take it that way. We who Seastead, for real, at the moment, have NO ONE to compete with.

Look, I saw a headline today suggesting that Oprah Winphrey and Angelina Jolie are the most respected women in the world. You are fucking kidding, right? Where is Jane Goodall in that, my favorite, and dozens if not hundreds of others? As for the cheap breastfeed shot, I had no idea that babies could digest silicone. Promotion is everything, and most people prefer the imitation to the real thing. Especially in boobies, apparently.

The fact is that people get paid to daydream when it greases the wheels of the super wealthy. Seasteading--as some define it--is interesting because of the micronation blah blah mostly tax evasion aspects. Isn't that obvious? Really, isn't that obvious? Really really, isn't that really really obvious? That's certainly the only thing that certain "philanthropists" really give a damn about, obviously. Don't have sour grapes about it. I don't. I'm serious. There is no commercial viability at all in anything I do. It doesn't bother me that the "moneied world" doesn't care or is outright hostile. It simply enforces my pirate ethic. Which of course, is the traditional response. Pirates were, of course, the paradigm seasteader, and in response, exactly, to the same kind of crap. And now, when those rich ass "philanthropists?!!?" are getting bailed out with your tax dollars, maybe a cannon or two seems very sensible.

Freedom of the seas? You must be fucking kidding. At sea the elements are a dictator of the oppressive sort that few have ever lived under. There's a whole lot of stuff that's legal, mostly, in the Now Sanctioned and Funded Capital of Seasteading--San Fransisco. . . that you couldn't even physically pull off at sea, unless your abdominal strength was utterly fantastic. I mean come on! What is it that you want to do, that you can't, in San Fransisco? You're repressed, seriously, in San Fransisco? Well, there's taxes. . .

But, what would I do, probably? I would take a long hard think, first, and probably get really drunk. . .honestly, since Seasteading is about self-sufficiency at it's core, at least to anyone who's ever actually ever done any of it-- it really makes a mockery of the the whole thing to run it on grant money. I actually heard a guy say "I'm going to get a grant to teach self-sufficiency. . ." Woody Allen couldn't pen anything better. Seasteading? It needs to be a profitable venture, and. . .drum roll, there is a chance I may well pull that off. Updates on that later. It may well be a godsend. No promises. But, you all know I'm a productive S.O.B.

And no, I'm not trying to get a grant for Blimpsteading, creating libertarian tax havens for the super rich in the skies. The fact that I know little about blimps and haven't ever been on a blimp or built one shouldn't be any reason to think I'm not expert! I expect the check is in the mail!

So what would I do with 500000 bucks? Probably rescue the Falls of Clyde, which is going to be sunk here very soon. Oh man, what a boat. Iron. And it's ironic in the extreme that one of the bitchen'est sailing boats ever built, in mothballs for years, will be sunk at the moment it becomes commercially viable again.

What I wouldn't give to captain an engineless oil tanker. . .jeezzzzz uzzzzzzz

It terrifies me to think I might be one of less than, what, 10?, in the world, that have the experience and could.

As I can see, you would make 3 times that in one run. It's better than tea.

So, when she goes down, learn something.

2 comments:

subgenius said...

OK I finally crumbled and took a look at the seasteading.org site....

My first, last, only response:
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING?

Set up by a guy who formed his ideas IN A FUCKING DESERT AT BURNING MAN and an old geek who's connection to all things nautical seems to be...

...wait for it...

a small company called Rogue Wave Software. I Shit you not.

Thats it. Civilization MUST END. It's the only way.

/Rant off

Anonymous said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/us/19ship.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin