30 replies to this topic

[FunkOdyssey]

http://www.wired.com.../05/seasteading

With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems."

"Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public-sector models around the world," Thiel said in a statement.

It might sound like the setting for the videogame Bioshock, but the institute isn't playing around: It plans to splash a prototype into the San Francisco Bay within the next two years, the first step toward establishing deep-water city-states, or what it calls "seasteads" -- homesteads on the high seas.

Within the pantheon of would-be utopian communities, there's a particularly rich history of people trying to live outside the nation-state paradigm out in the ocean. The most ambitious was Marshall Savage's Aquarius Project, which aimed at nothing less than the colonization of the universe. There was also Las Vegas millionaire Michael Oliver's attempt to create a new island country, the Republic of Minerva, by dredging the shallow waters near Tonga. And the Freedom Ship was to be a mile-long portable country costing about $10 billion to construct.

Check out the whole article, tell me this isn't an uber promising idea.

[Mind]

How awesome is this?

Super Awesome!

[forever freedom]

Fancy, but not very useful. I can't see many advantages to the world and the advancement of the civilization with this project. It's really more of an entrepreneur project to make money and to feed some guys' dreams of living in sea cities.


One project like this one that i would want to do instead if i had the money would be disaster-proof underground mini-cities. That would be cool and it is viable in principle. Like cities for 10,000 inhabitants with a supply stock of 10 years, in the case some disaster strikes earth. I'm sure a lot of rich folks would be willing to pay for a place in these ultra secure cities.

[Live Forever]

Fancy, but not very useful. I can't see many advantages to the world and the advancement of the civilization with this project. It's really more of an entrepreneur project to make money and to feed some guys' dreams of living in sea cities.


One project like this one that i would want to do instead if i had the money would be disaster-proof underground mini-cities. That would be cool and it is viable in principle. Like cities for 10,000 inhabitants with a supply stock of 10 years, in the case some disaster strikes earth. I'm sure a lot of rich folks would be willing to pay for a place in these ultra secure cities.

I could be completely wrong, but reading through the article, it sounds like they want to establish their own government, not just live in a sea city. The way they describe it is that they want the barrier to entry for a new government to be lower (as it is tremendously high right now).

[mitkat]

This really is awesome. I hope this idea gets more respect than Sealand Seriously though, the "right" people living in an environment like this could prove to be a model society - I won't use the word utopian, but it could prove to be a truly new way to live. As time went on, increasingly complex ecosystems could be developed on these seasteads, becoming a very nice place to live.

To some extent, they believe the outfittings for the seastead will be dependent on the business model, say aquaculture or tourism, that will support it and the number of people aboard.

They'll always have an excellent source of pure fish oil

[JonesGuy]

I love certain libertarian ideals. I just hope they remember that you're only allowed to pollute (as a libertarian) if all the downstream victims of your pollution are compensated their due.

[forever freedom]

Yea i guess being able to create new governments more easily can have it's benefits.

[niner]

I love certain libertarian ideals. I just hope they remember that you're only allowed to pollute (as a libertarian) if all the downstream victims of your pollution are compensated their due.

Therein lies the rub, eh? Once adapted to work in a society, as opposed to a hypothetical world where everyone is completely isolated from everyone else, libertarianism morphs into plain old human society...

[Shannon Vyff]

Well, great investments into Ocean communities, of larger amounts--have failed before (Like Freedom Ship with billions into it). I wish them all luck, but would rather the money was going to Mprize

[lunarsolarpower]

The way they describe it is that they want the barrier to entry for a new government to be lower (as it is tremendously high right now).

Not only is it generally quite high but there's also usually a lot of killing involved...

[eldar]

Of course, one major role of government is to provide security, which would seem to be an issue on the open sea. But Friedman's not worried about defense beyond simple firearms because he thinks pirates will lack the financial incentive to attack the seasteads.

"More sophisticated pirates will take entire container ships that have tens of millions of dollars of cargo and 10 crew [members]," he said. "On a seastead, there's a much different crew-to-movable assets ratio."

I don't find their arguments for security very persuasive. In addition to the pirates, other countries might decide to invade seasteads.
Other than that it's a great idea, but the security issue really is the key one here.

Edited by ceth, 20 May 2008 - 08:54 AM.

[FunkOdyssey]

That's why you load these things up with American tourists, so our Navy takes an interest in keeping them safe.

[JonesGuy]

Libertarians do not thrive if they're parasitical free riders.

[FunkOdyssey]

Libertarianism is not a religion that demands you adhere to a strict set of tenets -- that seems to be the vibe I pick up from your posts. Saving money on security sounds like a great way to thrive. America wants to be world's police force, let them.

Edited by FunkOdyssey, 20 May 2008 - 02:20 PM.

[JonesGuy]

Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm not attributing any religious concepts onto it. You're very right, being a free rider is advantageous when possible.
But libertarianism actually has some rather strict tenets: it's not sustainable without being very careful and knowledgeable about those tenets.

[eternaltraveler]

umm, what crazy pirates are going to attack a sea platform with 1000 people with guns?

And of course the US government would protect them, whether they wanted them too or not. This isn't being a free rider. The US wouldn't give them a choice in the matter.

I'm in.

[maestro949]

I like the idea but with 200 mile EEZ's wouldn't we run out of ocean pretty quickly and be in the same boat so to speak?

[JonesGuy]

http://www.ted.com/i...lks/view/id/264

Whattya bet Mr. Thiel saw this TED talk 2 months before we did?

[Live Forever]

I like the idea but with 200 mile EEZ's wouldn't we run out of ocean pretty quickly and be in the same boat so to speak?

1) I think the idea is for trying out new governments more than moving massive amounts of people to live on the sea.
2) There are large parcels of land not being used now; With people crowding around population centers.
3) Approximately 79% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, so we have a ways to go to cover up the whole thing. (not gonna happen anytime soon)

[Live Forever]

http://www.ted.com/i...lks/view/id/264

Whattya bet Mr. Thiel saw this TED talk 2 months before we did?

That was a really good talk. Thanks for sharing.

[freethinker]

http://www.ted.com/i...lks/view/id/264

Whattya bet Mr. Thiel saw this TED talk 2 months before we did?

That was a really good talk. Thanks for sharing.

Agreed! Most enthusiastic talk I've ever seen!

[maestro949]

I like the idea but with 200 mile EEZ's wouldn't we run out of ocean pretty quickly and be in the same boat so to speak?

1) I think the idea is for trying out new governments more than moving massive amounts of people to live on the sea.
2) There are large parcels of land not being used now; With people crowding around population centers.
3) Approximately 79% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, so we have a ways to go to cover up the whole thing. (not gonna happen anytime soon)

But once one group starts their own quasi-nation, everybody will want one. First it'll be the libertarians, then the log cabin republicans, then the People's Front of Judea or is it the Judean People's Front? Pretty soon the whole ocean'll be dotted with "splitters" and the displaced volume of water will cause all the land to be covered with water.

[solbanger]

I like the idea but with 200 mile EEZ's wouldn't we run out of ocean pretty quickly and be in the same boat so to speak?

1) I think the idea is for trying out new governments more than moving massive amounts of people to live on the sea.
2) There are large parcels of land not being used now; With people crowding around population centers.
3) Approximately 79% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, so we have a ways to go to cover up the whole thing. (not gonna happen anytime soon)

But once one group starts their own quasi-nation, everybody will want one. First it'll be the libertarians, then the log cabin republicans, then the People's Front of Judea or is it the Judean People's Front? Pretty soon the whole ocean'll be dotted with "splitters" and the displaced volume of water will cause all the land to be covered with water.

To me it sounds like a glossed up offshore tax scheme. Tired of dodging the IRS? Set up an underwater casino and demand that you are given freedom make your own laws. I'm sure Thiel is aware of the failure rate of underwater communes. I mean prices would be exorbitant to attempt to live there full time. I mean take a look at Hawaii, they have to import much of their food and they actually have a native ecosystem. An undersea community would have the same blandness of character as space shuttle living conditions if they attempted to live on a reconditioned material to save money on food. *shutter* Basically it sounds like it would be run like an cruise vacation where they charge its "citizens" huge ticket fees to cover the quadrupled price of the salad bar.

So with that said, it's probably a tax shell. He'll get four people to run the new government, and take care of his accounting, then abandon the project and claim it was due to a ballooning budget. But the point is not to establish new undersea technologies, it's to use magic tricks so he can make tax and pollution culpability more lenient for elitists in the future.

[forever freedom]

Creating a country where it's legal to do all sorts of scientific experiments that puritan fundies wouldn't like at all would be nice. Cloning, stem cells from as many goddamn embryos as scientists wish, and whatmore.

[forever freedom]

So with that said, it's probably a tax shell. He'll get four people to run the new government, and take care of his accounting, then abandon the project and claim it was due to a ballooning budget. But the point is not to establish new undersea technologies, it's to use magic tricks so he can make tax and pollution culpability more lenient for elitists in the future.

Whatever, let's do it. Let's not forget that Thiel supports the movement and has already donated generous sums of money. No need to feed a government that has Bush on office.

[Heliotrope]

ocean now , space next . . .

[maestro949]

I want my own nation...

[solbanger]

So with that said, it's probably a tax shell. He'll get four people to run the new government, and take care of his accounting, then abandon the project and claim it was due to a ballooning budget. But the point is not to establish new undersea technologies, it's to use magic tricks so he can make tax and pollution culpability more lenient for elitists in the future.

Whatever, let's do it. Let's not forget that Thiel supports the movement and has already donated generous sums of money. No need to feed a government that has Bush on office.

That's not the point. It's a slippery slope that might become an escape hatch for the world's thimble-sized megarich to live outside the boundaries of internal checks and balances. This includes all wealthy people against life extension tech.

[mitkat]

So with that said, it's probably a tax shell. He'll get four people to run the new government, and take care of his accounting, then abandon the project and claim it was due to a ballooning budget. But the point is not to establish new undersea technologies, it's to use magic tricks so he can make tax and pollution culpability more lenient for elitists in the future.

Whatever, let's do it. Let's not forget that Thiel supports the movement and has already donated generous sums of money. No need to feed a government that has Bush on office.

That's not the point. It's a slippery slope that might become an escape hatch for the world's thimble-sized megarich to live outside the boundaries of internal checks and balances. This includes all wealthy people against life extension tech.

This also includes incredibly radical fringe groups, including religious zealots if this increases to be as large a phenomenon as we're talking about it here. It would be amazing to think of a new society to test out living styles/arrangements, neo-tribalism and anarcho-primitism come to mind - not that I'm for it personally, actually quite the opposite - but being involved on an ocean colony makes it sound interesting and seem more realistic and possible to change so radically, and you could measure things totally, like work efficiency, happiness, quality of life, civic involvement/participation, a huge amount of data could be collected in short from these outposts. However, if it stays a small and weird venture (when and if), it will indeed just be those megarich, and it will be a novel tax-haven.

Edited by mitkat, 22 May 2008 - 03:34 AM.
whoops

[forever freedom]

So with that said, it's probably a tax shell. He'll get four people to run the new government, and take care of his accounting, then abandon the project and claim it was due to a ballooning budget. But the point is not to establish new undersea technologies, it's to use magic tricks so he can make tax and pollution culpability more lenient for elitists in the future.

Whatever, let's do it. Let's not forget that Thiel supports the movement and has already donated generous sums of money. No need to feed a government that has Bush on office.

That's not the point. It's a slippery slope that might become an escape hatch for the world's thimble-sized megarich to live outside the boundaries of internal checks and balances. This includes all wealthy people against life extension tech.

I don't know if that's the case in the US, but where i live, escaping the duty to pay taxes even when you earn a lot is not at all a reason to have any shame. The rate of the GDP that goes to the government is, currently and growing for decades, more than 40%. Soon this will become a goddamn socialism. The government is VERY VERY inneficient and corrupt. Through private initiative we must pay double for the benefits (pay once for the government that should provide the services but doesn't, and pay twice to get a decent service through private initiative).

If i got rich i'd make sure to find every little scheme to avoid taxes, after all i earned the money i had and wouldn't want to forcingly donate it to some politicians' deep pockets/a very inneficient administrator, the government.



Consider evading taxes as a silent protest against the current system. I guess there are a lot of poeple in the US who must feel the same way, since i figure no government is very efficient.