Lisa Miura, Hawaii County’s real property tax administrator provided these answers:
The government does not claim ownership of all land covered by lava; the private property owner retains title even as the land’s assessed value plummets to zero.
As for that new oceanfront land? The state claims new coastal land created by volcanic eruptions. This ownership applies to lava flows extending seaward from the coastline — increasing the size of Hawaii island — not to those that cover the existing property.
There may be cases where the government eventually assumes control of private land inundated by lava, but it is not common practice. “If the property is abandoned, then eventually it could be sold at tax sale. However, we have not had a tax sale recently in this area as the values have been less than what was owed on taxes. The county and state have not been automatically assuming ownership,” Miura said in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
The government does not claim ownership of all land covered by lava; the private property owner retains title even as the land’s assessed value plummets to zero.
According to the county, Hawaii County does reduce or eliminate real property taxes for property owners within a lava inundation zone, and is doing so for those devastated by Kilauea’s current eruption, which has destroyed more than 500 homes in Lower Puna, Kapoho and Vacationland at this point, and made many more inaccessible.
How much is the assessed land value for fresh lava? The assessed value of the property would fall to zero for 2018, and the owner would pay no property tax, according to Miura. Any property assessed at $500 or less is exempt from property taxes, under a Hawaii County law approved last year. Presumably, such properties would continue to be assessed at $500 or less for years to come. And then, like some homeowners in Kalapana, rebuilding could begin for those residents willing to take the risk again.
One could write a good story on the premise of an alien race who comes to Earth after the loss of their home planet. The aliens then attempt to reactivate dormant submarine volcanoes to create a new continent for themselves in the Pacific Ocean.
Biologicals won't leave their solar system. The AIs that don't need biochemical metabolisms, caloric intake, gasses, gravity, etc. will.
Brains as we know it die, cannot replicate, and take years or decades to train. Hard drives can be duplicated and loaded into memory with no limit.
Biology and biological intelligence is a bootstrapping mechanism - a "hard step" [1] or two - leading up to the next stage in the evolution and proliferation of intelligence.
All of our science fiction centers on humans, because we write stories about ourselves and what we're familiar with. But that's just fantasy. The future probably looks nothing like what we portray in our films and books.
To slightly spoil a 20 year old book series, this is a variation of one of the alien conquerer strategies in Frederik Pohl's The Eschaton Sequence to subjugate recalcitrant planets.
You’d think so but we’re advanced enough to live in some of the most barren places on Earth — Siberia, Antarctica, the Sahara - but most people would surely prefer Bali or California (leaving aside community and social ties etc.)
If alien settlers arrive at Earth it will be more akin to what European settlers did to the buffalo than the Native Americans. Nuisance fuana to be pushed out of the way / eliminated.
Yep they likely will just wipe out any race intelligent enough to give them or their terraforming activities any issue. There is no reason to expect them to be nice to a species as primitive as us.
If an alien colonization fleet is in orbit around Earth, that's a fair assumption. They didn't come all those lightyears just to have tea and biscuits. They're not likely to just move on just because there are some buffalo already living there. We wouldn't.
It still depends - if you travel lightyears with a sizeable fleet just to capture a specific planet for living space alone, something is seriously wrong with your race anyway (unless you have some yet unknown transportation technology) as you could likely build uncountable space habitats for all that mass and energy spent & right at the heart of your civilization, not somewhere in the sticks with no friendly infra where Earth is.
You need a deeper purpose our you would not be there.
Would that also be the case if it was on private land? If my hypothetical private island had a few acres added to it from an eruption (can you even buy an active volcano?) , would it still be owned by the state?
Yes, all beaches and coastal areas to the high tide mark are public property according to the state constitution. Pretty much all coastal areas are already owned by the federal or state government and lava adding to it would just add to that.
Nope. You might have trouble getting there though. If there's no public road/easement to the beach, you'd have to get there by boat in order to legally use the beach.
Looks like he owns 98% of it, with the remaining 2% owned by the state, or by the few thousand inhabitants of the island. The 98% was already privately owned (pineapple plantation), he just bought that.
