I've done quite a bit of reading into, and talking to hardcore advocates of, Libertarianism. On the surface, it's something I can agree wholeheartedly with, but here's the problem: it's an idealized system. Yet I find it more attractive than other idealized systems (see true [not Russian/Soviet/dictator] Communism and true [not WWII] Fascism). That said, I'm not truly a libertarian...but that's it's own essay. Which means I'm temporarially suspending certain aspects of my own philosophy to focus on examples of real-life libertarianism and functionality. One could simply make the argument that because it's an ideal it should be discarded, but from reading here I think most would agree it being an ideal just means we need to address the practical concerns for making the ideal work. There's been a lot of interesting case studies and just plain history behind it, but let's look at frontierism. Specifically, why-ever should we dismiss it?
Despite the romanticized 'wild west', the truth is that people established essentially libertarian lives until the frontier moved again. That is to say, the true frontier moved West again as the control of the State extended. If anything, it's astonishingly easy to see the circumstances where a truly, or at least mostly, libertarian society arises and then 'succumbs to statism.' The things to focus on are based on the same problems with (surprise!) Communism and other systems: the bad apples. The bad apples are the folks who are shortsighted and focus on use of force, the above mentioned 'sheeple' who ascribe to the mentality, and others who focus on UNenlightened self-interest. So the core question is how to get people to focus on enlightened self-interest. Perhaps unfortunately, this would require a level of 'frontier/cowboy justice' both as deterrent and means of repayment. Still, the focus would be on education of enlightened self-interest and the change of social norms, self-defense and effective communication, and preventing statism reversion.
The first four of those five are amazingly simple and intertwined in any model of libertarian society, especially AnCap. Let's focus on frontierism and examples like Iceland and pre-monarchies. In such cases, the idea of armed (and indeed, warrior) women and scrappy children was anything but outlandish. Self-interest and community interest were usually related. The norms and education of those born to such clans and frontiers reflects this. The problem inevitably arsises at statism conversion. As monarchies, or in the case of the West the originating State, arose they were seen as the ideal. Ignoring that the extreme centralization of power makes one vulnerable to conquest, this meant that the libertarian lives were subsumed by a desired state. Such desire arose from a variety of misconceptions and the general idea of a 'better life' under such a system.
So on the simplest level, 'Escape From Terra' presents the most logical way for a libertarian society of any sort to sustain itself as a look to the future in a frontier that values its way of life and does not idealize (in fact, demonizes) the State. One thing I'm interested in exploring is alternate historical speculation based on clan systems and the Wild West along the same thought experiment. It isn't so much that AnCap can't work as a situation where it will never naturally arise and be able to resist Statitization (...or something like that. word synthesis, you know what I mean)