PayPal Billionaire Plans Floating Colony off San Francisco Coast

PayPal founder, Peter Thiel, is planning to build a new colony off the cost of San Francisco that would feature platforms housing 270 people and an ocean state with no welfare, no minimum wage and few restrictions on weapons.

Inspired by Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s novel about free-market capitalism, Thiel decided to try and make its title a reality. But this isn’t just a pipe dream for Thiel; he has already funneled in approximately $1.25 million to the Seasteading Institute – and organization that aspires to launch a floating colony into international waters.

The Silicon Valley billionaire recently told Details magazine, “The United States Constitution had things you could do at the beginning that you couldn’t do later. So the question is, can you go back to the beginning of things? How do you start over?”

Thiel’s imagined nation would be built on oil-rig-like platforms that are anchored in areas of free regulations, laws and moral conventions. Thiel made his first investment in the project back in 2008. The aim is to have tens of millions of residents by 2050 living on the floating state and the Seasteading Institute says architectural plans for a prototype involve a moveable, diesel-powered structured with room for 270 residents. Long-term plans include having dozens and maybe hundreds of the platforms linked together.

Thiel spoke to an audience at the Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009 and said, “There are quite a lot of people who think it’s not possible. That’s a good thing. We don’t need to really worry about those people very much because since they don’t think it’s possible they won’t take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it’s too late.”

In addition to his notoriety as the founder of PayPal, Thiel is also credited for being the venture capitalist who helped Facebook expand beyond the Harvard campus.

Source: Daily Mail