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Paypal Founder Puts a Half Million Dollars Into Seasteading
eldavojohn writes "Wired is running an informative article on Paypal Founder Peter Thiel's investment in seasteading. There's a great graphic indicating how the spar design helps platforms weather rough seas with a ballast. There's a lot more than just Thiel throwing the half million towards this and they hope to pitch this to San Fransisco for a bay pilot. Ocean colonies can be both liberating and also downright human-rights-lacking scary."
Welcome to the pontoon world of Neil!!! Give me your booty!!
After years of being a digital pirate, I've been looking for the chance to branch out into naval piracy. This looks like a great career opportunity!
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
It is clear by now that we will not have the possibility for independent space colonization anytime soon. Seasteading is the best bet for those of us who feel that the status quo of society is not good enough.
Bal Bei yu ua auk ie lae al ej fj.
011010 10010101
10010100 010101
0101001 0101010
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yaou afl all eia fiaf!!!
what about piracy = home invasions? and storms (hurricanes) dry land can be dangerous enough, seasteading is just over the top (over the top of an abyss that can drown you that is)...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
So, how will we confirm our shipping addresses within paypal? I mean, we'll be constantly moving around the ocean...
Did anyone read that as "Paypal Founder Peter Thief...."?
Would have been oddly suiting....
It sounds like a way for the wealthy to go out and do what they want without having to bother with laws they don't like.
The idea that purchasing a flag of convenience will providing meaningful protection seems a bit naive.
Also wondering about food, waste disposal and power. How are all these cared for? Would the contracts necessary to provide for such make it prohibitive to just move about at will, or are they just planning on dumping all their trash in the ocean?
Will every citizen be a trained firefighter? Who will provide emergency medical services?
If any get too large and do too well, despite nay sayers like myself, it is inevitable that they would become a target by other groups if for nothing more than a source of taxable income.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Why don't you post this story 3 more times, I don't think I've read it enough.
I'm not sure how many other people want to do that, but I'm sure they aren't the majority...
I don't know about any government based on the writings of Ayn Rand, but I've seen enough Seaquest DSV episodes to know this could be really kickass.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Apart from the "let's start a country where we're the government" possibility, I think there are a number of other more likely applications if this really is a more cost-effective and efficient way of establishing a habitable community at sea.
Scientific research, tourism, even resource extraction could benefit from a better way of building sea platforms.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
I think the Free State Project stands a better chance of real reform.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Operation: Sea Arrgh! June 14th
1 Buy a retired aircraft carrier and an oil tanker.
2 Tie them together.
3 Let it flow around.
4 ???
5 profit.
HA! I believe the proper term is "tax dodge". Or dare I say it? Cult
Attn: Slashdot,
Please block this post from reaching the UK
What?
This spot is my spot, that spot is my spot. I have a Rail Gun, you haven't got one. So give me your stuff because I want it. This world was made for only me.
You need to compute the value, whenever looking at new commune/ collective/ arcology/ society construction. This is in some ways a non-numeric computation, but you should at least look at the basic per capita cost, e.g., cost(infrastructure + risk) / population. Many managers focus on one but ignore the other, but any cost-benefit study must look at both. One offset to the cost would be the value of goods or services produced by the population.
A yurt in a comfortable biome houses a small self-sufficient family at nearly no cost. A small crew can man an offshore oil rig (at least, in moderate shifts) because of the immense value of the product. A commune living in a multi-hundred-ton cylinder of concrete and steel floating a dozen miles offshore had better have some damn valuable product to overcome the huge costs of infrastructure and risk.
[
Do you seriously think the established nation states of this world are just going to let a bunch of platforms float outside their jurisdiction and reach?
In fact, nations don't even have to do anything about their landmass, they can simply apply their laws to their citizens in international waters, and they can enforce them there too. So, if you are a US or European citizen, you'll still be subject to DMCA, high taxes, and drug laws. Of course, you can give up all your citizenships, but then you'd have a hard time doing business with anybody on land.
This kind of escapism just doesn't help. Either fix your own nation or stop complaining. Running away stopped being an option when the West was settled, and it won't be an option again until we figure out FTL travel.
Anyone play Bioshock?
Haveing worked the Micro$oft / Windoze pithy witty digs to death, the nut-jobs are the new Slashdot Whipping Post Du Jour?
Or is there some mysterious eBay-PayPal-Scientology connection I'm ignorent of?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Seems akin to the Atlantis Project, which hoped to build the city of Oceania from floating concrete-and-air hexagonal platforms. Sounded promising, but alas no artificial islands have come of it yet.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
ATTFA, it's got _satellites_ on the top of it for internet access. Seems like it would be cheaper to just use satellite dishes and the existing satellite networks. ;-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Here's a crazy idea...
...
Word is there exists the Great Pacific Garbage Patch which is the accumulation of seaborne trash into a blob somewhere on par with Texas in size.
Now work with me here
That's a whole lotta floating stuff already in a relatively stable position (occupying a major ocean current vortex); surely an inventive aspiring frontiersman could turn that mass of materials into an inhabitable floating island. Material acquisition & relocation is already mostly taken care of, as there's a Texas-sized mass of it already there. Much of it is plastic, which should be easily (for the "news for nerds" crowd) reformed on-site into more suitable structures. It's already in a stable vortex, so it's not going to be unmanagably mobile, and remains well outside any nation's claimable waters. There may already be sufficiently compacted sections to stand on & start work from.
Thoughts?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
The first thing that came to my mind was this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Peterbus_Unum
While he article touches on a lot of the obvious issues (piracy, sovereignty, etc), they seem to have missed this episode of Family Guy.
For the purpose of discussion, here's a short list of other issues that don't seem that trivial to me:
1) No natural resources. Or in other words, there's nothing there that anyone wants. You might be able to grow your own food and harvest the necessities from the sea, but you can basically forget about having any exports. This would be a deficit economy just about any way you shake it.
2) Environment is fatal to humans. Should the platform sink, everybody dies. Few of the places on earth with this level of lethality house humans for any real length of time without some really compelling reason to be there (see above...)
3) 'Nation problems'. Without any allies, any nation can declare war on you and sink you. You're a nation now, so you're expected to play at that level. Likewise, your neighbor on his own platform can declare war on you - he's running a nation, too. PirateBay platform, meet the RIAA platform... Do you plan to appeal to the United Nations? Can you even do that if you're not a member? What about trade agreements? There's really a LOT to consider here.
4) 'Hot button' nations. Can Osama float a platform and no longer be considered a terrorist, rather a dictator? What about those pedo-polygamists? Can't they just float a platform and go right on forcing marriage and sex on pre-teens? And if this is possible, wouldn't others want desperately to sink them? Or, if not sink you could they not simply blockade you, or otherwise apply pressure to cut you off from the outside world?
I guess what I'm trying to say is: Nations are nations because of where they are and what they have, not merely because of their desire to be independent.
Peter eventually caved. He didn't even manage to get an ink-pen for his trouble...
Paypal founder changes name to "Andrew Ryan".
...just look what happened to Rapture.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
This is no different from running a cruise ship, except that it isn't cruising anywhere. The biggest problem is that it needs a reason d'etre, else it will go bust, just like any poor island nation.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
OK lets assume for a moment there is demand for this.
Who controls the "spur"? If 45% want to not defect, 30% want to defect to Constellation B and 25% want to defect to Constellation C, who gets it?
What happens when 51% of the spur decides left handed people should have to primarily use their right hand from now on? Or they get shot in the face. Or maybe instead of 51% I just mean the security force who just took over. Or the pirates who decided they wanted a nice home.
Oh I see, you'd only be oppressed by your individual spur, not by "society." I guess you could always leave the spur, and whatever thousands of dollars you've invested in living there.
Well, that assumes you can leave the spur considering its in the middle of the ocean in international waters. And that assumes whoever is in control of the spur allows people to leave.
And that ignores the practicalities of security (from 'pirates', people who just invade your home and just plain psychos), logistics (massive unit cost, data transmission), lack of demand, international relations (boy it does suck that our supertankers are throwing massive waves over your spurs and making your life unlivable) and a lack of safety net (Hurricane, Smuricane! Sinking ship, sminking smip!).
This is a fantasy for people who live in a secure society who believe they are being held back by the very stability that allows them to survive and thrive. Too much government intrudes on the rights of individuals. No government leaves them completely vulnerable.
From TFA:
So, to be clear, the idea's not crazy, just everyone who's tried it so far. Hmmm.
Invenio via vel creo
If all you do is ensure that anyone can leave any time they want, then you have only one remaining ingredient to support this most fundamental human right:
Somewhere to go.
With the current, very limited, number of territories world-wide, the choices available to refugees is limited not only by the number of territories that would welcome them, but by the absolute number of territories.
Increase the baseline number of territories and freedom reigns.
The problem with current conceptions of "human rights" is they are enumerated in some sort of unstructured laundry list which results in the entire edifice crumbling under stress. Its tragic because the more you "feel" various things are "rights" -- the more "rights" you put on your wishful-thinking-list, the more "righteous" you sound to the intellectually handicapped. This creates a terrible situation for humanity -- where facades of "human rights" displace the need for territory -- the need for carrying capacity -- that forms the real foundation of life hence humanity hence their rights.
I've written up some thoughts on the nuances of a more rationally architected system supporting human rights in Deep Libertarianism: Human Ecology that allows jurisdictions to become as "tyrannical" as they want over their territory, so long as they let people leave at will and support the creation of carrying capacity for the formation of volulntary association.
Seasteading is an important potential in this direction.
Unfortunately, Google's Patri Friedman, while far better than most, is indulging in more of the sloppy thinking that endangers human rights when he says things like "You can change your government without having to leave your house" or implies the assumption that seasteading jurisdictions will not exclude immigrants at their whim. We live in a physical universe with ecologies that operate in space. Attempting to deny spatial structure because you find it inconvenient or even "oppressive" is simply fantasy.
Seastead this.
What happens when a giant oil tanker or a cruise ship crashes into one of these seasteads at night during a storm. Wouldn't all hell break loose?
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
Its bad enough living on small islands, where the energy cost of transportation is so inefficient compared to mainland cities.
Where would you go if you wanted to walk on a hill? Frankly I'd rather be part of a "Red Mars" mission than this.
It's kind of a sad reflection on the kind of society we would live in if Ayn Rand inspired techno-geeks ruled the world. Do none of them appreciate the social infrastructure than allowed them to spend their time inventing stuff, instead of living the life of a frontiersman foraging for food and dying of disease. Private 737 anyone?
Spend the research money on tech to save the environment we have. If we were meant to live ON the sea, god would have given us gills and a taste for our urine...
If people can not act morally in MMOGs they will never act morally in real life. Take a look at the behavior on Slashdot for another example of why it can not work.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
He must have read this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Millennial-Project-Colonizing-Galaxy-Eight/dp/0316771635
There's something to the idea of increasing choice, but I don't think the biggest barrier to free mobility for most people is finding a better place to live - it's having to uproot your entire life to move elsewhere. The older you get, the harder it gets to just take off and leave.
Then again, maybe societies designed to be in constant flux would be easier to leave. It depends on how much your life is attached to the physical location of where you live, and the people who share it with you. The latter is where it gets sticky.
I read it too. The book was called "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps". At the end of the book, the author called for the formation of "The First Millennial Foundation" in order to advance the project that he had outlined. The FMF later changed their name to "The Living Universe Foundation".
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
I think what is worse is that they are painting these spar platforms as something completely new. Oil platforms in deep water have been doing this for years. They're somewhat rare but are one of the best solutions in very deep water. The great downside is that to move them, you generally have to lift the topsides (living areas, oil production and working areas) off of the spar with an enormous crane and then tow the cylinder section lying down.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Similar idea by Buckminster Fuller.
link
``There are three types of floating cities: There is one for protected harbor waters, one for semiprotected waters, and one for unprotected deep-sea installations. The deep-sea type is supported by submarine pontoons positioned under the turbulence, with their centers of buoyancy 100 feet below the ocean's surface. Structural columns rise from the submarine pontoons outwardly through the water to support the floating city high above the crests of the greatest waves, which thus pass innocuously below the city's lowest flooring, as rivers flow under great bridges. The deap-sea, deeply pontooned floating cities will be as motionless in respect to our planet as are islanded or land-based cities.
Do multimillionaires like fish?
I mean fish, fish fish, fish, fish
Only if they could build a big plastic island like this guy,
and somehow make it out of all this crap. Now that would be
worthwhile.
music lover since 1969
The first thing this article brought to my mind is the China Mieville novel "The Scar" which deals with a decidedly dystopian floating city (complete with vampires and other goodies) in a decidedly dystopian world. Quite a fun read but probably not resembling at all what anyone has in mind to try to build.
did anyone else have a problem wit this design? unless it is attached to the sea (puddle, ocean, whatever) floor this is what will happen:
1. it will float away never to be found
2. it will flip and sink
don't they have pre-built silos for sale? anyone who will invest in construction of one of these monstrosities is drinking bong water
These spar dwellings are designed to minimize the effects of normal wave action on the vessel/building's stability. But what about in a hurricane?
What's the wave action like a few meters below the surface during a hurricane? Could one of these spars just submerge for the day or so it takes a hurricane to pass, leaving just air pipes and sensors floating on the surface to get wracked by the storm? Or are the waters below also treacherously gyrating all around the storm's visible action above the surface?
--
make install -not war
Sure you're a sovereign nation on one of these craft, but if you do something wrong, instead of the cops paying you a visit, you'll have a guided-missile destroyer ringing your doorbell.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
It would be interesting to see which states/nations would line up behind the experiment. However, there are risks that could occur:
-- actively destructive, non-retired enemies of states could take up or be provided shelter
-- pedophiles or wealthy murderers could take up or be provided shelter
-- run of the mill scofflaws might take up shelter
-- political asylum seekers might be rejected
-- "assholic" governments might place punitive sanctions upon sponsoring nations or states
-- "assholic" governments might stage military exercises and "lose control" of weapons "intersecting" downrange on the floating structure
-- "assholic" governments might impose cripping, untenable delays upon cruise ships laying over or mooring at or anchoring off of or even while on-the-go ferrying pax to/from the facility, just to economically derail or sink tourist attraction options.
But, the last one could be legally challenged if the tourist attraction route proves lucrative. After all, as long as the vessels are T-Ray (is that the one)-scanned, or CAT-scanned, the false argument of security threats could be slapped down.
----
After all, recall the big hue and cry over the attempt by Bahrain companies to control US ports. The uproar by the US congress or whomever was blatantly and patently disingenuous and failed to tell the public that MOST of the US-based corporations are UK-owned, followed by Germany, some other European nations, Japan, and, increasingly, China. The US GOVERNMENT (supposedly) owns the ports, and PAYS for the jobs securing the ports. Which companies get teh contracts to secure the facilities is a separate matter/question.
Nobody makes a huge stink about that. Moreover, US shipping companies would make NO profit in OWNING the ship docks or ports, so they just license unloading and pierside rights. (Read that from some mag or book that discussed lies and myths about US security concerns...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
There is something of a trade off between defense/enforcement spending and spending on relocation. For example, if your jurisdiction makes it easy for people to move to another, more compatible, jurisdiction, then the motives for force and fraud are reduced.
Seastead this.
This spar design minimizes the cross-section that interacts with waves that push around the vessel/building, and has adjustable ballasts that compensate for up/down motion with their own up/down compensation.
But what about some hydraulic lifts fitted under the foundation platform, with several meters of throw, that sense the ocean surface surging up and down below the foundation, and push/pull to compensate, in a feedback loop? Wouldn't that action let the lifts fill the distance between the stable foundation plane and the varying ocean surface with strong supports? Are there any existing seaborne platforms that do this?
--
make install -not war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
How much you want to bet that after the Liberatarian/Objectivist/Transhumanist crowd breaks this barrier, that the next round of "quasi-sovereign" pioneers on the high-seas will be near-kin to the FLDS or Austrian Basement Incest Rape-Slaves?
Those that think this is a great idea, have already exposed their latent socipathy.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
That's, what, 1/5 the cost of one of these homes?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
"Groups inside a society who have no tolerance for other views are a serious issue."
"sending them all out into the middle of the ocean sounds like a great idea"
Great! When were you planning to leave?
Are there scientologist moderators on here or something? GP needs to read-the-fine-OTHER-article. SeaOrg is one of the lesser-known and creepier aspects of the church of scientology.
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Did they just say they're going to try and get SF to let them build a pilot one in the bay? Um I don't think so. Something tells me they don't want a giant platform parked in their bay taking up a lot of room. They better try another location.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
A number of island nations are going to be underwater in a few years. A properly designed floating man-made island system might give them the ability to continue functioning as independent nations rather than just disappearing altogether.
And to you naysayers who have been pointing out that these Seasteads will be to small to defend themselves from aggressive nations and will have to import basically everything, the island nations of the indian, atlantic, and pacific oceans are basically in the same position. With only a few exceptions they seem to remain relatively unmolested and viable (other than sea level rise). Mainly through tourism.
Rationally architected supporting human rights? That's funny, my work's proxy blocks the site and categorizes it as simply "racism and hate"...
I am a v1ral sig. Plse c0py me and h3lp me spread. Thank y0u?
This scheme will fail just as every simplistic ideologically driven utopian fantasy has failed.
Oh I'm sure they have it all worked out. Just look at how successful they are despite being burdened with paying taxes. Now imagine how successful they will be WITHOUT taxes! How clever. How naive.
The degree of spectacularity of the failure is still to be determined, and I would guess it will be about proportional to the level to which the founding oligarchs take their commitment to the faith.
One thing is for sure... it will be hilarious to see the look on their faces when they call the US government to rescue them from some terrible thing such as cuban invaders, a stiff breeze, or worst or all... creeping statism. Naturally they will blame their failure on some list of imperfections that prevented them from having a true libertarian utopia. After all, it works so well in Ayn Rand and Vernor Vinge novels, how could it not work just as well in the real world?
This is such obvious nonsense.
The SF Bay is, for the most part, about 2 feet deep. The vast majority of it is less than 20 feet deep. The parts that are deeper than that are firstly subject to currents in the 6+ knot range, and secondly are active shipping channels.
Either they're planning a prototype that's sized for a family of mice, they have no idea what they're doing, or they're lying.
They should offer shelter to the inhabitants of some of the islands that are going to be submerged by global warming. Then sue the developing world for the loss of their islands. This has the benefit of getting a population that is educated on how to live with the sea.
So I remember a Star Trek episode years back where they had this planet where people couldn't
get sick or die and people were standing shoulder to shoulder with no space to move or sit down.
Here however we have plenty of space. 90% of the planet is virtually uninhabited and never mind
the stupid one-world global environmentalist crap. Think about it, IF you are already looking
at the pain of living on water why not the Sahara or the Gobi desert? Why not the Sibiria?
Oh never mind Sibiria, Russia has a WHOLE EAST COAST waiting to be developed but the only larger
place there is Vladivostok.
So people supposedly are building platforms to stand off against un/national "governance". Don't you
think that if you did something on those platforms the UN or any of it's serf nations didn't
like they wouldn't just send a warship and impose their will? If you're going to rebel, wouldn't
you be more vulnerable on the water than on land?
Wouldn't it be smarter to take our lives back from the scum ruining it than fleeing into the sea?
What is this business of these things not having anything of value on them?
Obviously, the OCCUPANT is incredibly valuable? They can afford to plunk their own nation state out in the middle of the ocean!
If they have that kind of dosh, then they (or their families) can easily afford a few million dollars in ransom.
Why do you think immigrants who win the lottery in the US beg the news people to let them get their families out of their home country before announcing their winnings on TV? Because they're all kidnapped within 24 hours of the announcement, that's why.
These floating playhouses would be nothing but money trees. And easily picked, too.
[End Of Line]
...end of message.
That won't even get you a 3-bedroom house on Long Island.
rooooar
Maybe they'll put /. on the list now:
Deep Libertarianism: Human Ecology
A libertarian world would reach an equilibrium where there were a number of human ecologies occupying land held in trust for the posterity of the founders of the respective ecologies. Within each such land trust a way of life compatible with its ecology would be pursued. They would tend to be exclusive of other ways of life due to interdependencies within the ecology. And while they will have varying degrees of population exchange with other human ecologies, all will be partially inbred to varying degrees -- coevolving, over the span of generations, genetic as well as cultural adaptations. In more traditional terms, these land trusts are known as 'nations' -- natives of a human ecology deriving a way of life from the nature of their land's ecology. Many of these human ecologies would have property rights upheld within them to varying degrees, just as extended families will tend to have varying degrees of reciprocal vs kin altruism governing their family's affairs -- varying degrees of debt/bankruptcy forgiveness, etc.
The reason libertarianism reaches this equilibrium, of land trusts that control entry of others to their land, is the same reason anyone controls entry of others to their land: To prevent damage -- in this case damage to the human ecology and possibly the natural ecology of the land trust. A shallow libertarian answer to such ecological concerns is reliance on Tort law to remediate ecological damage resulting from open borders. This is inadequate, not just because "an ounce of prevention", "a stitch in time", etc., but because the jury in a tort case is required to not only understand the plantiff's causal hypothesis of damage to his ecology, but to agree with it. Ecological interactions are highly complex and teasing apart causation is very difficult, frequently requiring experimental controls. If it were easy, then central planning of a "scientific state" would work much better than it does. No -- we are mere humans left adrift in a mysterious world with our own views on how the world operates at the level of human ecologies -- on how cause and effect are related. We may even see the same ecological correlations but then we are all subject not only to the fact that correlation doesn't imply causation, but to what statisticians call "the ecological fallacy" which prevents us from drawing strong inferences merely from observing ecological correlations -- assuming we can even gather the data.
This is why Federalism must allow voluntary internal controls on migration: the very limits on human knowledge in the face of nature demand that our laboratory of the States -- of human ecologies -- of nations -- have borders protecting the integrity of experimental controls while maintaining the fundamental ethical requirement that experimentation on human subjects must be by mutual consent.
Posted by James Bowery on Saturday, October 20, 2007 at 10:28 AM in
Seastead this.
Well, he's a twit, but that was still no reason for me to go off on him. Honestly I was just frustrated because I was in the middle of a hairy VM ESX upgrade that should have been a piece of cake. VMWare support is hit or miss, and the problem probably boils down to the fact that our SAN is flaky because I work for the state and apparently no one taught anyone there how to run fiber. Just because it has a freakin' strain relief and it comes pre made doesn't mean you can hang it to the floor and tangle it up in other cables.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The problems these days is consumerism, we all have "stuff", lots of it. Back in the day it was unusual to have much more than you could carry as often villages would need to relocate with the seasons to follow their food sources. Or, in some cases the weather - move to higher ground in summer to be cooler, move to coastal areas in winter to be warmer etc.
Whereas nowadays we don't need to move because we have aircon/heating and we've lots of stuff that we can't or don't want to throw on a truck and move.
I like the theory of buying an old supertanker and converting it to a community but at the end of the day it's hard to sell energy & animal products to other vessels at sea to support a community and without exports the idea doesn't work. Unless you have funds or ventures in another nation which earn you income - and the moment you decide to declare indepedance that income & the underlying assests are then at risk.
Plus, I like my vintage stereo system and it wouldn't like sea water.
Two Parts Swash, One Part Buckle
Being able to leave is an important right, but the seasteads are mostly only supporting this right in one direction - there a place to go TO if you don't like where you are. But if you're ON one and its government goes nutty, getting out could prove tricky...
Related to this is the benefit to freedom of being able to work in a wider geographical area than in past centuries without having to move out of your current residence. Remember company towns and single local business domination in general? These days it doesn't matter if some asshole is "the only game in town", because we can easily commute to a dozen other towns. Doing this from a little community way out at sea... not so easy.
It seemed to work out alright on Australia... Just say'n.
Sea Org is not an ocean colony! It may be scary, but it has nothing to do with water.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Nobody knows how to spell San Francisco?
Split the property into two separate concepts and re-assess your statements.
...
I think the land and natural resources need to be divvied up differently.
Ever hear of the Tragedy of the Commons?
Google Henry George for one practical and tested method of doing this.
Wiki's article on him says he was anti Chinese immigrant. Besides newspapers, that's some he shared with William Randolph Hearst. During WWII besides the Japanese Hearst wanted to put the Chinese and all other Asian into internment camps. He pressed his "yellow peril".
From wiki "George preferred taxing unimproved land value". That misses all the services land offers. For instance wetlands purify water and recharge aquifers. By taxing those lands he'd encourage people to build on that land thus depriving people of fresh water.
It is the land ownership that **created** the poverty in the first place.
Cite please. Actually land ownership allows people to improve their economic lot in life. Even those immigrants Henry George opposed.
FalconShould there be a Law?
From what I've seen, free markets allow greedy and selfish people to accumulate more money than cooperative people.
By encouraging greed and discouraging cooperation, a free market system ensures that everyone will have to act in a greedy and selfish fashion in order not to be taken advantage of by the greedy and selfish.
That's not a free market, what you're talking about is the Corporate Aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of. A free market is cooperative, ie it requires a voluntary exchange. I cooperate with you by giving you something, or performing some service, you want and in exchange you cooperate with me by giving me something.
Should there be a Law?
This reminds me of a story I saw in Newscientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16622432.700-internet-exiles.html) a couple of years back about the Principality of Sealand (www.sealandgov.org). Not belonging to any particular country, it's also not subject to any particular country's laws, including privacy laws. I find it interesting that the found of PayPal is investing in a technology that would allow his company to circumvent any nations' Freedom of Information Act or Money Laundering Act. Hell, he could take all your money and as long as Paypal's servers are on Sealand, there's squat you can do about it.
QuantumPete
Having spent about 40% of the last 2 decades out on various oceans on oil rigs, I look at this and I think "who's going to repair the pumps in the ballast pontoons when they don't work".
And "Who's going to shovel the rotting shit out of the plumbing system when it blocks up. Including that razor blade that you so forgetfully threw down the shitter last week?"
And "Who's going to paint the underside of the helideck, before it rusts through from beneath?"
There are a LOT of skills necessary to running any machine on the high seas. Which means that your libertarian "Sea Steaders" are going to need a considerable staff on board, or easily on call. regardless of the weather.
Also, having spent a moderate amount of time at sea in 60ft waves and 150+km/hr winds (you know - when you get bodily picked up by the wind and are very careful to keep both lifelines hooked on), I wonder who's going to repair the switch gear for the "making way" motors when they're turned on for the first time in 3 years. Oh, Mr SeaSteader is going to be that conscientious about his maintenance jobs? Which government is going to provide the air-sea rescue when something goes pear-shaped?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Flamebait? I was BORN here [Australia] and I would have modded it funny if I had points!
It's also true. Undesirables were shipped to the Americas (where I was born) before we rebelled (and we're still stuck with the damn puritans to this day), and criminals were shipped off to Australia.
It is debatable how effective that policy was for England, but one historical lesson should be considered before we blithely start founding prison colonies elsewhere, be they in the middle of the ocean, on the moon, or wherever.
The United States grew far more prosperous and powerful than the nation which emptied itself of those "undesirables", and along some measures, Australia arguably has as well.
So be careful what you wish for. Today's seafaring colony of prisoners/intolerant jerks/religious fanatics/whatevers might be tomorrow's superpower, and we there satellite state. I shudder to think what kind of a world that would be if it were the $cientologists, Mormons, White Supremacists, Obamites, or (insert whoever you find undesirable here).
OTOH if these libertarians want to found their idea of an Ayn Randian paradise in the middle of the Pacific, I say let them. If they succeed and prosper, then they have a point we should all take note of. If they fail, we can all learn from their lessons.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The critters dump their organic waste into the water, where it is recycled by other critters. Why shouldn't the humans? (They already do it on ocean-going vessels.
And ships' dumping causes problems in some places.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Any modern day cult that builds a compound in the middle of nowhere could be said to tolerate other's views, but they don't really fit in so well when we find that they are like to marry 14 year old girls to 45 year old men. But out in the middle of the ocean, it wouldn't really bother us anymore. Or would it?
... how do you think the world would fare with an emergent $cientology superpower?)
If the FLDS (or worse, the LDS Mormons who may not practice polygamy today and have a slick PR campaign that has succeeded in making them appear benign to many people, but nevertheless still plan on bringing polygamy back when their political power is sufficiently strong, and believe they'll all be practicing it in heaven, but I digress) were to establish such a colony (or be sent there by us as "undesirables", and if such a colony were to be even remotely as successful as the United States (or Australia), the world would have a serious problem. A political power (perhaps a superpower) whose philosophies are antithetical to the enlightenment much of the rest of the world takes for granted.
There are some memes you don't want to allow to fester, no matter how far away from our population centers they're located. Pedophelia, polygamy, racism, and women-as-chattel-by-God's-word, are just a few (and that's just the Mormons
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The point is that a president is more than just the leader of the country, they are the face that people are looking at as "The United States". The fact that Barack Obama refused to wear a flag pin (which is an implied part of the uniform, yes uniform) is the same as if he insisted on wearing jeans that sagged half off of his ass, a mohawk, an old shitty t-shirt from the 90s, and some nasty old crappy skate shoes or something.
Wearing it as a politician is the same as wearing a suit. Not do so is disrespectful.
I don't know what this, "refused to wear a flag pin" is about. As an American though, one thing is that I am ashamed at some of the stuff the government, and citizens, have done. Secondly, between the three current candidates, Hillary, McCain, and Obama if I had to vote for one of them I would for Obama. Remove him from the pool so it's between Clinton and McCain I'd vote for McCain.
FalconShould there be a Law?
"What about a cannabis farming floating island anchored just north of Bermuda, do you think Uncle Sam would let them alone?"
Uncle Sam lets Amsterdam alone, and it's not like they have a formidable army to protect them. Also, Uncle Sam lets the brothels in Nevada alone, within our own borders. And, Uncle Sam lets the casinos on Indian reservations alone, as well. So yes, I believe if the platforms are far enough from the U.S. mainland, and flying another nation's flag, and are not obviously targeting U.S. residents only for their customer base, then Uncle Sam would let them alone.
And for the poster who said they "better have some damn valuable product" to justify the high cost of these platforms, how about:
* Legal drug use.
* Legal gambling.
* Legal prostitution.
* Experimental medical procedures without the long wait and vetting process (with fully informed consent).
* Legal polygamous marriages to OTHER ADULTS (which I'm sure would be recognized only in that jurisdiction).
That floating nation could engage in all these activities without giving mainland nations a reason to invade, because all of them take place only on the platforms. If you added something like duplicating expensive, patented medications or hosting pirated software, then you're inviting a variety of nations to invade.
The compromise is really simple. Leave them alone. If someone doesn't want to interact with you, don't force them. You may find that they will be more open to society if they don't feel the heel its boot on their throat every day.
...that's still a pretty large cross-sectional area on the spar in the illustration.
And I hope that the inhabitants like eating jellyfish, because that's all there will be to eat at sea by the time the first few get set up : no more fish and no more 'flake'.
"In Soviet Seastead, ethical detrius ejects YOU!"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."