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Pay Pal Founder Building Real Life Rapture

As one of Facebook’s early investors and the founder of Pay Pal, Peter Thiel has had a fair amount of financial success. Now it seems that Thiel is interested in adding one more accomplishment to his resume. The billionaire wants to create a floating libertarian island that sounds eerily familiar to the underwater city found in BioShock.

Details Magazine has a profile on Thiel, which explains how the entrepreneur has been financially backing an organization called the Seasteading Institute. This institute hopes to start building tiny sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms, which would be positioned within international waters so that they would be free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of existing countries.

Details describes these new nations as "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."

Sure, the idea sounds good now, but once the entire population goes mad from genetic experimentation we’ll see who really wants to live there.

[Source: Yahoo News]

Email the author Ben Reeves, or follow on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and Game Informer.

Comments
  • Dude.....
  • These guys need to play BioShock, before it's too late.
  • He's doing this because this is some sort of dream that he wishes to accomplish. However, to some extent we all know that sooner or later that place will be just another country/island bound by laws and rules. Exactly like rapture which was suposed to be a Utopia but eventually went to hell because they started to be controlled just like the goverments above water.
  • Uhm, what? Sounds like a terrible idea to me.
  • Free from laws? Comparing a society to a petri dish? I don't know, it all smells fishy to me.
  • wtf... i wish i had a billion dollars so i could not create evil mad scientist like plans...
  • Noooooooooo

  • Waaaaaaa!?!?

  • Well, if they're looking for volunteers, consider my hand raised.
  • *raises an eyebrow* This can't be serious... lawless sovereign nations on deep sea platforms with loose building codes and lax weapon regulations. No matter how many times I re-read that I can't wrap my head around the purpose of such a venture, anything realistic I mean.
  • Peter Theil is the biggest bioshock fan ever.
  • This is going to end well...
  • These guys stole my idea of making a man made island. I havent played bioshock. So if thats in there never mind. But i was going to do just for myself and family.
  • well seeing as bioshock was based years ago i think we can work out all the bugs

  • Very interesting.

  • Looser building codes on an oil platform? A bunch of people on a minuscule island in the middle of the ocean with all the booze and guns the can buy? Yeah, sounds like paradise to me. I think it is funny that one of the dreams is no welfare when you would obviously have to be rich to be a part of this farce to begin with.
  • Sounds more like the Ark in Brink.
  • I'm in...
  • That sounds pretty stupid. There are these things that seldom occur in the ocean called "tsunamis," and one headed in your direction will kill you.
  • looks like i need to get a chem set and some slug bait
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