I'm considering starting a jungle resort where people can come and hack for a few weeks and build a house with their own hands. Unlike the reddit people, I actually already own the place. In october or so, I'll start some preliminary work, perhaps to be fulfilled a couple of years later.
How much have you done there? I found the technological challenges people faced in the Amazon pretty fantastic when I visited Yachana Lodge [http://www.yachana.com/] in Ecuador. This was a few years ago, and their use of water wheels, (some made out of bicycle tires) gas engines, and mesh networks to get around the difficulty of wiring and power generation was simply fascinating.
Nothing is done, just cleared the spot of grass and there is some shack there. I worked on a water wheel when I was there a year or two back, but we could not get it to work (and produce electricity). I'll make a HN post maybe someone will give me some tips on this.
r.e. electricity production; I might be able to help. My degree was Electronics (rather than Electrical) Engineering but you can't help pick up a few tips :)
(I expect there are more qualified people here too; but if none appear...)
At first this might not seem interesting to HN, but I'm wondering if this is a progression of the open source movement. First software, then hardware, now big projects like resorts.
I'm not sure what would make a resort "open source", but a bunch of strangers collaborating over the internet to open a resort is pretty awesome.
That's arguably the same way the United States came into being: People didn't like the way the current closed system was being done, so they decided to fork a new government and invite everyone to contribute.
I just read Black Elk Speaks which gives a glimpse into the U.S. government's interactions with the Lakota Indians in the late 1800s. Very sad. A turning point was when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Even the government couldn't keep the gold prospectors out of the Indian's land and inevitable conflicts arose. (It serves as a good reminder that when we are chasing our startup dreams we should be careful that we are not inadvertently dashing the dreams of others.)
There are still some Lakota Indians who want the original treaties with the U.S. to be honored and wish to establish their own Republic of Lakotah: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Lakotah
That's pithy and funny, but not really fair to most of the Founders. Akhil Amar's biography of the Constitution gives a readable refutation of that concept.
In his lectures, at least, he argues not only that the system was better than others at the time, but also that the founders designed it in a far more democratic way than people give them credit for in retrospect. Perhaps this was not emphasized in the book; it's been awhile since I read it.
Now that this Reddit Island Project has surfaced and gained some support, I actually think that an island for a larger group might be more practical. A group the size of YCombinator with the resources of YCombinator just might be able to do this. If we expand the project to include all YCombinator startups and contributors to HN, there should be enough people so that each person would only have to pay a rather small sum. I know that I am putting the cart before the horse here, but with a somewhat reasonable goal of 10M, we could probably purchase our island within a few years.
Just to continue with the brainstorming, it would be even more practical to have an "island" on land. We could purchase about 50 acres worth of some backcountry land in the US and develop it into a place for some sort of entrepreneurial or internet-centered facility.
This seems like a case where they really ought to consider starting 'lean'.
Initially buy a small house in an area densely populated by redditors and turn it into a coffee house or something where they can go to hang out. When you've gotten past a certain point, move to a small resort location, then eventually get to the island stage. It just seems like setting yourself up for failure to go straight to the island, which has soooo many more obstacles in the way.
Interestingly, I saw a similar project a couple of months ago. But it was for the Anonymous group. Don't know what happened to them.
We are not attempting to establish a separate
country or create problems for ourselves.
I wonder what would happen if they were. Not that I want to see them in trouble, but a big, populated version of Sealand could bring many economical, political and even ethic concepts to discussion.
Just putting this out there: I don't think this idea is crazy. I fully endorse this.
However, I'm not really a part of the Reddit community.
If HN wants to start a similar project, or combine, I would be completely for it and would to like be involved. Or, I seem to remember a submission a while ago about creating off-shore communities.... Could just join that initiative.
It would be interesting if Second Lifers could so identify with their virtual life that they too begin to experience existential crises under the oppressive weight of the knowledge that everything is somehow, inexplicably!, empty and illusory. Perhaps they too will pool their resources to create a real world environment where they can get away from it all. ("Lost" fans could also usefully think about buying an island.)
Which brings about an interesting question; every independent country either needs to be self-supporting (which would be friggin badass, and hackers seem one of the most likely groups to grow their own food etc- but still unlikely) needs an export. What export would a computer geek nation produce? Skilled labor is hard to export.
*: as for hackers growing their own food, I consider myself somewhat of a hacker in the frame of mind sense, and I find I can absolutely obsess over any topic if necessary- so I can just imagine hackers obsessing over farming...
This is what I was thinking. I hope these guys have the presence of mind to basically fund a local militia should they go the route of "solitary island out in the middle of nowhere." They aren't actually considering only islands though, as parts of islands are in their spreadsheet as well.
i love the idea, but what i would prefer is the establishment of a community where people would come to live and work remotely, instead of buying an island primarily to create a resort on it for vacations and tourism.
This is a good idea, akin to a Luxembourg for technology, except for one thing.
A lack of women. Oh sure maybe some redditors will bring their wives and girlfriends, but they will still be outnumbered in the same proportions as Women In Tech.
Solve the women problem and you'll have your island.
I was at the last montreal reddit meetup, and the ratio was almost 8/6. (http://imgur.com/p5aWY). Most of the guys: programmers. Most of the girls: graduate level psych students.
I read somewhere that reddit as a whole is about 35% female; I'm not sure what the breakdown is when it comes to the different subcommunities within it.
Also, what makes it almost 8/6? Based on that picture, the ratio seems to be exactly 8/6.
We'd also attract many tourists confused about whether they were on Hacker Island or actually on Reddit Island, worried that they had somehow arrived at the latter.
Well, a disinterest in tropical islands and the sole requirements of power and internet opens all northern and souther islands, so it's a facet to be considered! Hell, so long as there was a source of food and a volunteer group willing to service the windmills when they froze, we could dig some caverns in Antarctica! The 'Frozen Hackathon', 24/7/365.
I'm thinking the inevitable resulting Linux distro could be called "Linux OnIce", or just "OnIce" for short.
