Floating city project

http://www.seasteading.org/

by hernantz • 11 years ago

83 76 11 years ago

nmrm24• 11 years ago

Does anyone else find it ironic that they have a big page about the failure of modern democracies to protect rights and how setting out to the sea can free us from tyrannical governments with run-away spending, followed by [1]:

The Floating City Project combines principles of both seasteading and startup cities, by seeking to locate a floating city within the territorial waters of an existing nation. Historically, The Seasteading Institute has looked to international waters for the freedom... However, there are several reasons we are now seeking a host nation:... b) it will be easier for residents to travel to and from the seastead, as well as to acquire goods and services from existing supply chains; and c) a host nation will provide a place for a floating city within the existing international legal framework, with the associated protections and responsibilities.

[1] http://www.seasteading.org/2015/04/podcast-is-seasteading-be...

jdreaver2• 11 years ago

How is this ironic? They are piggybacking on the already-established international legal framework. It is indeed possible to criticize the welfare state, defense spending, and corrupt government while still using the legal system. It is a practical decision.

Arguing against government services while still using them is not in any way hypocritical, precisely because you have already paid for those services with taxes. For example, I am not a fan of social security and how it is managed, but you can be damn sure I will use it once I reach the required age, because I have already paid for it. I will be trying to get the money that was taken from me back.

I think socialized medicine is a huge, clunky band-aid on top of a broken healthcare system already made worse by government intervention, but I won't stop going into hospitals if the US adopted a fully socialized healthcare system.

devinhelton• 11 years ago

Ironic is the wrong word.

But the whole point of building a city on a ship was to avoid any national law. If you want to partner with a real country, then might as well build the city on sparsely populated piece of land, and save on the expenses and inconveniences of ship based living. Charter cities and special economic zones seem like a promising idea to me, but seasteading always struck me as very silly.

nmrm24• 11 years ago

They are piggybacking on the already-established international legal framework.

Well, no. Being out on the open sea would put them within the international legal framework. They're piggybacking on some national legal framework, and a big part of the ideology behind the project is getting away from said national legal framework. That is ironic.

precisely because you have already paid for those services with taxes

I somehow highly doubt that they'll get the concessions they want from a government to whom they've paid taxes for years.

return04• 11 years ago

It is very ironic that they want the benefits of taking risks while avoiding risk. There are plenty of countries that are destroyed/impoverished yet still have signed international treaties, so perhaps it would serve better to do the experiment there.

patcon• 11 years ago

I think the idea with this is so that they will have the means to move once they have political, financial and ideological clout. They're aiming to incubate a proto-state within an existing state, so as not to rock the boat too much (cough) while building capacity.

88e282102ae2e5b• 11 years ago

It makes perfect sense, if you view the project as an escapist fantasy that will never actually be acted upon.

zo12• 11 years ago

Well, there is very little place for this supposed "fantasy" to take hold. Seeing as every single piece of land on this earth has been taken up by states that refuse to part with any of the precious land they've accumulated inside their borders.

pbreit2• 11 years ago

Surely there must exist a host nation willing to offer up a few thousand acres to do the same type of thing?

spiritplumber3• 11 years ago

Another Bioshock sequel?

skadamat• 11 years ago

It's ironic how the Bioshock games vaguely follow the Seasteading Institute's plans (Bioshock 1 with Rapture, underwater cities not quite floating islands and Bioshock infinite with floating cities : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7ZWirICmG8)

tokai• 11 years ago

Is it that ironic? It is a very obvious idea from a libertarian perspective. Both are essentially getting it from Galt's Gulch in Atlas Shrugged.

Ironchefpython• 11 years ago

The best part is, when Randies get what they actually want (http://galtsgulchchile.com/) they end up with what any rational person expects would happen.

mizzao• 11 years ago

Couldn't these floating cities get completely owned by tropical storms, hurricanes, etc?

Due to the proximity to (warm) water, storms would be much worse than on land - and there would be nothing to affix large structures to.

nmrm24• 11 years ago

Oh definitely.

But TBF it's far easier to move what's essentially a giant fancy boat than it is to uproot a structure on land. When it comes to really massive (predictable) storms, I'd rather be living on an easily movable boat than a small island.

stefantalpalaru• 11 years ago

Yes, but with the inevitable rise of the ocean level it's worth looking into solving the problems related to artificial islands.

imaginenore• 11 years ago

Not even a storm. On a windy day, let's say 30 knots, go to the ocean shore and see what the waves do. When the wind gets to 55 knots, a good category 10 storm, things get pretty mental.

To build a structure that can withstand category 12 storm and above would require ridiculously good engineering. Water isn't wind, it's fucking heavy, and it hits like 100 trains.

The costs to build something like that must be in the billions. Heck, modern cruise ships cost more than a billion dollars.

abandonliberty2• 11 years ago

Hey, while we're dreaming we may as well make them submersible.

I wonder what's the more challenging engineering: a submersible city or one that can survive cat 12 storms.

bandrami• 11 years ago

Couldn't these floating cities get completely owned by tropical storms, hurricanes, etc?

Umm... unlike cities on land, which never have problems with those?

fia_bui4• 11 years ago

Seaworthyness isn't something that's been ignored, it's a serious issue of discussion.

Three main solutions have come up so far:

* Build above the surface, like an oil rig or a spar buoy

* Build under/go under the surface, like a semi submersible

* Brute force, using floating breakwaters

TSI is currently running with option three, although they were looking at option one a few years back.

zackmorris• 11 years ago

Maybe the progressive analog of this is to bring the egalitarian concepts of a floating city to mainstream society.

escherize• 11 years ago

I think this is impossible. In democracies where everyone has a vote, the majority tends to vote in politicians that promise more 'social services'. That's a euphemism for using the government's monopoly of the use of to take money/time/effort from some groups and divert it into inefficient policies like the war on drugs, war on terrorism, war on poverty, etc.

This is one reason that in the US's early history, only land owners were allowed to vote.

pharke2• 11 years ago

I believe that part of the idea behind sea-steading is to extend the concept of freedom of association to one's residence, real-estate, and business, literally enabling you to pick up stakes and move at any time you feel your environment has grown hostile to your way of life.

Granted this faces the same issues that any other utopian social movement has faced in the past (reaching critical mass, working out the kinks in a new legal, political, and economic system, avoiding tyranny etc.) but at least it has an escape hatch built in.

If someone can figure out how to make these vessels as fool proof as a car (reasonably hard to ruin, owner operable, easily stocked with energy, affordable) they'll have no shortage of disgruntled citizens waiting to try one out.

Animats2• 11 years ago

Blueseed[1] made a lot of noise about mooring a ship off shore of Half Moon Bay, near Silicon Valley, to house developers who couldn't get US visas. They had even fancier off-shore development pictures for later phases. They had the idea that developers could live on the ship and freely visit Silicon Valley. It was mostly a tax dodge.

They discovered that 1) the county-owned small boat harbor at Half Moon Bay wasn't going to support them by building the on-shore facilities they needed for ferries, 2) Half Moon Bay isn't a US port of entry; anyone coming in from the boat would have to go through San Francisco, and 3) if people are going to work remotely, who needs a boat?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueseed

calcsam• 11 years ago

Former Blueseed team member here. This is completely misleading.

The reason we failed to get anywhere was that we couldn't find any viable path forward without raising $30M, and our team had neither (a) deep SV success & connections or (b) deep maritime experience and connections, so were unable to raise that money.

Finding the right MVP for seasteading is both extremely difficult and absolutely necessary for success.

Frondo2• 11 years ago

Just curious...

Why did it seem at all realistic to execute a plan involving long-term boating stuff, without that maritime experience?

spiritplumber3• 11 years ago

Go to Sausalito and talk to some of the people who live on houseboats. I'll introduce you if you like.

tsotha2• 11 years ago

I don't see why anyone would do that versus opening up yet another body shop in Bangalore or Manila. People without visas are not going to be able to visit the valley anyway.

pbreit2• 11 years ago

The valley can visit them?

fia_bui4• 11 years ago

Getting a visa to attend a business meeting in the US is much easier than getting a visa to work there. Plus, even if they can't, it's much easier for the valley guys if their body shop is an hour's helicopter ride away and in the same timezone rather than the other side of the world in a country where you have to be careful only to drink bottled water.

3327• 11 years ago

Humans are yet to master building cities on land let alone a floating one. Dealing with the logistic and infrastructure of a floating city will most likely make it too costly.

For small nations countries in need of land like Singapore sucking out sand from the ocean and refilling it will still probably be cheaper safer and more valuable due to the low maintanance filled land requires relative to a floating one.

aaron695• 11 years ago

Humans are yet to master building cities on land let alone a floating one.

Last I checked people living in cities have a better quality of live than those who don't? We have the longest life spans and are happier than we have ever been in part thanks to cities.

Dealing with the logistic and infrastructure of a floating city will most likely make it too costly.

I think you're missing the whole point of seasteading. It's about freedom from government. Which will include tax avoidance, even if it's 10 times the cost of a normal city it's still viable if the rich want to move there.

anigbrowl3• 11 years ago

The problem is that hardly anyone is paying so much tax that it would be worth it to do this. any city worth living in is going to have government of its own, and some people living under that government's administration are going to end up feeling disenfranchised by it.

skywhopper• 11 years ago

Snow Crash is becoming truer every day.

abandonliberty2• 11 years ago

I'm sorry, that book has been banned as it depicts sexual acts with minors.

(I was given Snow Crash 10 years ago. It contained a note explaining that it would become an illegal novel if laws against fictional pedophilia were passed as proposed. They were.)

return04• 11 years ago

why dont they just buy a cruise ship and set sail already?

anigbrowl3• 11 years ago

This is an entirely reasonable question and shouldn't be downvoted. Cruise ships already have the infrastructure to handle populations of hundreds or thousands of of people, and in greater comfort than an ex-military ship. Also, they're relatively inexpensive.

http://cruiseship.homestead.com/cruiseships.html

personjerry2• 11 years ago

Presumably because cruise ships aren't meant to provide any sort of sustainability, like farming, and requires fuel.

phire• 11 years ago

Cruise ships are designed to return to port every week or so to restock supplies.

You need something that can easily be restocked at sea.

return04• 11 years ago

I wonder if it's possible to connect a bunch of modified cruise ships in a sea colony. That would make it readily expandable and modular, plus allowing enough space for all kinds of alternative energy/food sources

logfromblammo3• 11 years ago

Cruise ships are essentially floating luxury hotels. They are utterly dependent on supplies from port and on labor that is segregated from paying clientele. The base unit of seasteading has to be more self-sufficient. It has to supply food, potable water, and shelter for at least one permanent resident, plus many more transients to realize any economies of scale.

The ship has to be able to never make port, because all ports are potentially controlled by potentially unfriendly government regimes, and defended by armed navies. The ideal of a seastead is to live indefinitely on the high seas, outside the jurisdiction or interference of any nation, as an unflagged vessel.

But the stride from here to there is so long that even Jean Claude van Damme would pull a groin muscle trying to make it in one step.

Operating a retrofitted extended-stay cruise ship under the flag of a disinterested landlocked nation would provide very valuable maritime experience. Even Carnival Cruise Lines, a company specializing in cruise operations, has had some trouble operating regular cruises. I can only imagine the sort of unmitigated disaster these guys could brew up if given enough cash.

Keeping a ship afloat at sea is not as easy as everyone seems to think. I'd like to see these guys keep a regular ship out of Davy Jones's locker, running experiments and proving concepts for a few years before I'd find them credible operators of colossal floating concrete platforms.

frabrunelle• 11 years ago

Nice to see this here :-)

I am the one who helped them migrate their old WordPress theme to Layers (http://www.layerswp.com). I haven't quite finished yet, but I am pretty close.

Let me know if you have any feedback!

btw, I also helped them migrate their forum from bbPress to Discourse: http://discuss.seasteading.org

neonhomer• 11 years ago

On a non-serious note, this sounds like something the Bluth Company would build.

pchristensen• 11 years ago

http://arresteddevelopment.wikia.com/wiki/File:3x06_The_Ocea...

logfromblammo3• 11 years ago

As an anarchist myself, I know better than most that libertarians are all mostly full of hot air.

While I don't necessarily think that seasteading is worthless as a concept, this project is pie in the sky. You don't build cities. They grow. And if you want to grow a floating city, you have to build floating homes.

Build a seastead that supports just one person--one!--without logistical support from any landmass, and keep it afloat for a few years, and I might consider that you would one day be capable of a floating hamlet. But a whole city in 5 years? I call bullshit. Reichee Sowa did more with Spiral Island, and he couldn't even raise $15k on Kickstarter for life jackets and fire extinguishers.

return04• 11 years ago

I 'm starting to not take these people seriously. It seems to me like some libertarian billionaires do the equivalent of building dick-shaped towers in the arabian desert. Their keep planning and planning, but i never hear about how they are going to defend their cities from pirates or what will be the laws of the land.

Tideflat• 11 years ago

While there are significant problems, prirates are not one of the major problems, because unlike oil tankers and cargo ships, they have far more people and don't have a large cargo.

Floating city project

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