Seasteading

[S O F I]

Seasteading Institute

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/17-02/mf_seasteading?currentPage=all

Anyone familiar with the concept? Basically, it's the idea of creating independent, autonomous countries on the sea that will be self-governed. It's being put forth as an experiment at testing new forms of government. So, basically, you'd have a plethora of new countries in the ocean that get to experiment with types of government that they choose and will not have to answer to any other countries.

It's being partially funded by Peter Thiel, who is one of the initial investors into Facebook, the founder of PayPal, and consequently, a billionaire.

Peter also invests money into Methuselah Foundation - Welcome to Methuselah Foundation which aims to prolong human life. It's been said that he once proposed at PayPal that cryogenic freezing be included as an employee perk. He's either Casey Rain's hero already or will soon become.

I found out about this by reading this article: Hyper-libertarian Facebook billionaire Peter Thiel's appalling plan to pay students to quit college. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine
It's an interesting read. I urge you to read Seasteading Institute's response to the "scathing" remarks: Seasteading: An Audacious Vision of Diversity and Innovation In Law | Seasteading Institute

 

[vg4030]

As soon as one of these 'countries' discover a resource... bye bye independence

 

[masta247]

Can I haz my country?

 

[Elmira]

What's interesting is that there has already been a proposal for a city over the sea, over the city of New York at a future time when water levels start rising to unmanageable levels. It's less an experiment in government control as it is a creative response to the effects of climate change and the rising sea levels that threaten to drown great cities like NY, surrounded by water on all sides. It's sort of like the Seasteading concept, to a varying degree and one of the five proposed models looks like this:

Five Architects Plans for Managing a Globally Warmed Future - New York Magazine

The effort started earlier this year and culminated as an exhibition at the MoMa, 'Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront.' I was there myself two weeks ago and it gave me a lot of hope for the future of my city.

Here is some literature on it:
Next American City » Buzz » MoMA: An Exhibition of Resilience
Design Teams Propose Solutions for “Rising Currents” | News | Architectural Record



I'm all for the type of innovative thinking that the Institute brings to the table, but for the time what they're envisioning sounds like a huge hypothetical with a great risk factor attached to it. And it is reassuring to see that they've got a whole book on the logistics of seasteading, but given the unpredictable nature of the sea they won't know how the infrastructure will take until the seasteads are actually in place.