Ephemerisle: Visions

Here are some brainstorms I've had about neat things that could happen at this event. Some of them may not be realistic, especially for the first Ephemerisle, but hopefully they will serve to inspire others to help turn visions into reality.

• Intranet - This would be a fundamental enabling technology for the event. Communication would greatly aid market-based coordination and the anarcho-capitalist legal system. Wireless seems like a good way to implement this, probably 802.11, which can get a 1mile radius on a flat surface with a high, amplified antenna. A protocol that was conducive to cryptography and robust against malicious attacks would be a plus.
  • Digital Cash - With a data network, digital cash becomes possible.
  • Digital Reputations - An eBay-like digital reputation system could be developed, and used to help enforce court decisions and consensual interactions. Maintain a web of trust so people can see what links of trust they have to each other.
  • Lots of other digital-society stuff like arbitrators, certificates, and timestamps.
• Anarcho-Capitalist institutions - The above would make it easier to interact through a market-based system. Some a-c institutions would be useful (perhaps even necessary), others fun:
  • Private Protection Organizations - there will be a need for rule-enforcement, protection of people, protection of goods, and perhaps even protection of the entire event.
  • Arbitrators/Judges - to resolve disputes.
  • Courts - and associated legal systems .
  • Private Currencies - preferably backed by something.
• Electricity - Might be useful to sell. Can be generated from solar, wind, waves, or gasoline (although negative noise & pollution externalities may be an issue).
• Radar - might be a useful part of national defence. But who pays for it? Perhaps they sell subscriptions to the information for fun, or provide early alerting in case of an incoming flotilla of US Navy vessels.
• Drugstore - No prescription necessary.
• University - talks/classes of interest to attendees could be given, free or for pay.
• Casino - What could be more precious than the freedom to risk money with negative mathematical expectation?
• Mail-order goods - Forget to bring something? No problem! Have a company that finds out when lots of people are leaving and contracts with them to take additional goods, if necessary. If you run out of your favorite brand of toothpaste, their continental agents can buy it and get it to the next people who are leaving, and you'll have it in a few days.
• Floating Green Tortoise - like the Green Tortoise bus which goes to burning man so that people can get there without arranging their own transportation. Someone just rents a ship w/ lots of room for passengers and sells berths.
• Other events - This is a little science-fictiony, but one could certainly see Ephemerisles becoming like a modern carnival or trade gathering. Rather than being a fixed-location yearly event, gatherings could be announced for various locations at various times. People would go to whichever were most convenient, and spend a week or two doing conducting business which is best done away from nations.