Did they learn nothing?

Reminds me of two things:

1. The long-pitched long-sided Freedom Ship, which is more of a floating island.
I'd read somewhere that they had intended to have a significant security force, including computerized anti-aircraft weaponry and intercept aircraft.

2. A less than pretty retreat, the Principality of Sealand

Hmmm.... Somebody must really like the game Brink

"Andrew Ryan: I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."

Thats a typo. It's the new libertine island.

Hmmm I bet he has a big chair and a fluffy white cat.

Thing about these man-made islands is that they can essentially be like Atlantis in Stargate: Atlantis. Namely, you tether-anchor them down to the bottom of the ocean and have a retractable line up on the above-water part. The line can retract or extend to deal with rising water while still maintaining the same position in the ocean. No need to worry about drift or eventually being underwater.

The mile-wide golf course surrounding the city will be a buffer to the storms.

And the quarter-mile-wide shanty town of servants' quarters will be a buffer for the golf courses.

Shanty town? That would spoil the view! No, the servants quarters will be below sea level. Out of sight, out of mind. Plus, you can make them pay for air! It'll be like the Company Towns of the early 1900s but better!

/snark

While it's been fun making jokes about this kind of "utopia" the sobering bit is that there are already real world analogs to what this kind of thing might be like.

As part of my job-related travels I've been able to spend a few weeks in Dubai over the past few years. Surrounded by desert it's a sort of city-state where the Emirate royals and uber-rich, living in their near-futuristic 7-star hotels and exclusive green communities, are supported by a separated class of foreign engineering and support personnel from many other countries.

If you're one of the Dubai elite you can basically get away with things the average person can't. I've seen cars tagged with royal license plates flying down the highways doing 180+ kph where the posted speed limits would be like 100 kph and not get stopped by police who were plainly visible watching them do it. Even though prostitution is technically illegal there are certain night clubs which employ literally hundreds of "working" men and women from around the world who can be fairly openly selected and paid for on the spot for a night's "services" in nearby hotels. They'd even started creating man-made islands off the coast where they've been planting multi-million dollar mansions reachable only by their multi-million dollar yachts. I suppose that's easier than building walls to keep the riff-raff out...

Basically if one of these "floating libertarian countries" ever happens I imagine it'll be modeled like a miniature Dubai.

Dibs on filming the first reality show there.

It's like the old Larry Miller bit "If we pooled our money together, we could buy our own bar and do this every night!"

Are they going to ban weapons? This was tried on one of the Tonga islands in the 70's -- it didn't last long (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva)

Apparently this is being set up by Milton Friedman's grandson

You know, between the large scale hacker wars, the continual integration of wireless technology into everyday life, and the floating private islands of ultra-rich businessmen, I think I can quite comfortably say that real life has finally turned into a Cyberpunk novel.

Now let's just hope that this whole thing isn't some mad plan to brainwash every nerd in the world by using ancient Babylonian neuro-linguistic hacking skillz. (+10 to whoever gets the reference).

Snow Crash