Patri Friedman (son of David and grandson of Milton) has just launched an interesting initiative; backed by Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal, the Seasteading Institute has been founded to establish “permanent, autonomous open communities” based on private man-made structures or islands built in the ocean. The view being that such communities would allow political, legal and social competition as different groups, free from the strictures of government and nation, could experiment and innovate.
They explain:
Currently, it is very difficult to experiment with alternative social, political, and legal systems on a small scale. Countries are so enormous that no individual can make much difference in how they work, and the existing entrenched power structures have tremendous inertia. Seasteaders believe that government shouldn’t be like the cellphone or operating system industry, with a tiny number of providers who offer few choices and make it hard to switch. Instead, they envision something more like web 2.0, where many small governments serve different niche markets, a dynamic system where small groups experiment, and everyone copies what works, discards what doesn’t, and remixes the remainder.
Patri expands further on this idea of competitive government in this essay and in Seasteading: A Practical Guide to Homesteading the High Seas.
13 comments ↓
This is a cool idea. It’s like a space station except it’s in the ocean.
Instead of trying to establish Islamic states in our own countries, all the Muslims who want to live according to Islam could build their own “shariah seastead”.
An interesting concept, living on water. There is an interesting article in the blog section of the Seastead website, I added the link below. Dubai seems to be experimenting with this living on water concept with plans for a floating tower and a floating Mosque.
But I think the Seastead idea would be more out in international waters won’t it? Personally I prefer living on solid land.
Spurred by Rising Seas, Dubai’s Floating Ambition
by Joe Palca
http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....d=89767297
The technology to enable this is probably already there.
I expect the first thing to emerge will be floating tax havens in international waters operating, like ships, under flags of convenience. You could have a bank or banks operating out of these structures.
Ah Utopia, wherefore art thou? I feel seasick just thinking about the idea.
The really great thing is that you can make up your own laws. I don’t know if this will take off for individuals who will move to these structures but it can be useful for niches. e.g. a structure where medical experiments or surgery can be conducted without being controlled by any laws like a platform set up for organ trading.
Given the costs involved it’s pretty unlikely that anyone would seriously do this on a large scale (ie larger than a few families) and even then it would be very unlikely to kast more than a generation.
Plenty of people have attempted to set up their own utopias – none have succeded, AFAIK.
From my internet browsing it seems to me that the groups who are already investigating and in some cases creating ‘independent states’ are the neo-Nazis and White Supremacists of North America. The other main groups which kick against laws and has some track record of creating its own communities are the hippies and neo-hippies.
oh, and Israel is the best example of a utopian dream come true
I can’t really see a time when people will, as you say, move their families to these off-shore platforms and live there for several generations. However, I can see them being set up for specific purposes such as as the base for various financial operations, internet activities a la data havens, or as a ‘holiday destination’ for people who want to do things that would to be allowed in their home countries (e.g. drugs).
Rather than building structures, there may be other variations on this that would be more palatable for large-scale and long-term human settlement. For example, large man-made islands of the sort that have been built in Dubai and elsewhere.
Can you see the world allowing Beastiality-Land to exist as a holiday destination? I can’t.
Come to think of it, Australia already has laws which apply to its citizens even when they aren’t in Australia (paedophilia and possibly other crimes).
Yes, people might go there to use hand-held lasers or set off fireworks or ride bicycles without helmets or something. So obviously the world’s governments would have to band together and pass some laws about these renegade islands…
Wouldn’t these places still fall under international conventions? Flying flags of convenience does not make a ship on the high seas answerable to no one.
They could fly the jolly roger I guess.
On the artificial Islands idea, the one person to try this had had his Island promptly annexed by the nearest sovereign power. Check out the Republic of Minerva on wikipedia.
The individual behind Minerva also tried sea steading, he built a giant concrete barge. It sunk.
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