Day 302 – Patri Friedman at Hillsdale

Tuesday, political theorist, activist, former Google engineer, and World Series of Poker player Patri Friedman came to Hillsdale to give a talk on structural activism and seasteading. Friedman is the founder of The Seasteading Institute, whose mission is “to further the establishment and growth of permanent, autonomous ocean communities, enabling innovation with new political and social systems.”

He gave a very interesting talk on structural activism and the seasteading movement. The talk was the culmination of his past few years of thought on how to change political structures in order to maximize freedom in a society while still maintaining the stability of that society. While significant work has been done on how to set up political systems to preserve a high level of freedom and stability while minimizing coercion, little –if any– work has been done on how to actually get to political systems like this. Until now. That’s where Friedman comes in.

Does this interest you? If so, check out Friedman’s essay from April on the topic of structural activism and why he thinks it is the only way to make systematic changes that will lead us to a realistically freer world in our lifetime. The essay is basically an outline of what he spoke about on Tuesday night. Also check out Let A Thousand Nations Bloom.