
Floating city project - hernantz
http://www.seasteading.org/
======
Animats
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueseed)

~~~
calcsam
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.

~~~
Frondo
Just curious...

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

~~~
ChuckMcM
Not part of the effort but I've found that lack of experience rarely seems to
hold people back. Its a good thing in that they develop experience but it also
means that when they show up asking for investment with no experience, it is
unlikely to to be successful.

Of course the trick to solving any huge problem you have no experience in
solving is to line up a list of all the things you would have to know before
you could be successful and knock them off the list. In this case I'd expect
first on the list would be to get a ship pilot's license.

~~~
Frondo
Well, yes. I'd guess that most investors want the people they're funding to
have prior experience in whatever industry, before starting a business in that
industry.

The way the parent poster makes their situation sound, it'd be like saying
"I'm starting an internet startup. I don't have anyone on my team who knows
anything about computers or the tech industry, but....."

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frabrunelle
Nice to see this here :-)

I am the one who helped them migrate their old WordPress theme to Layers
([http://www.layerswp.com](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](http://discuss.seasteading.org)

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logfromblammo
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.

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mizzao
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.

~~~
imaginenore
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.

~~~
abandonliberty
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.

~~~
fia_bui
Submersible accomodation isn't actually that hard or expensive: You don't have
to go very deep to reduce wave action to next to nothing, only 10-20 meters,
and you only need to submerge in heavy weather.

There's one guy on the forums who built a couple of concrete teardrop hulls
and used them as yachts. He said they were pretty comfortable.

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

~~~
escherize
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.

~~~
pharke
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.

~~~
HarryHirsch
_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._

You mean... mobile homes. John Steinbeck, in _Travels with Charley_ , was very
positive about the motorhome's possibilities. But we know how that dream
turned out.

~~~
pharke
... a multi-billion dollar per annum industry and beloved recreational past
time?

I do agree that prognostication is very rarely correct but the uses for the
technologies in question go far beyond the political pipedreams of the
seasteading society. If you could produce something equivalent to an RV for
the sea you would absolutely have a market but with the major difference that
the upper size limit on floating vessels is several orders of magnitude larger
than that on land based vehicles.

There is already incentive to use structures like this in cities limited by
waterfront. Their uses recreationally as a summer home are extremely evident
if you've ever seen a lake filled with houseboats [1], floating data centres
[2] also come to mind as well as those barges that Google built.

The biggest issue would be transportation to and from the mainland or between
these structures but if they can be joined together at sea this problem
quickly disappears as the number of connected structures increases.

Beyond that, there is still the very real possibility that this could open up
the last and widest frontier on Earth and we'll have gone from prairie
schooners to seasteads.

 __Also, with the increasing mobility afforded by a cell connection for phone
and internet, there is a growing movement in the same vein as the original
dreams for the future of the motorhome [3] I 'd expect a seastead to more
closely resemble a tiny house than an RV i.e. more house than vehicle, since
people want to live in a house not a boat.

[1]
[https://youtu.be/HZJL5kry4UY?t=2m56s](https://youtu.be/HZJL5kry4UY?t=2m56s)
[2]
[https://www.google.com/patents/US7525207](https://www.google.com/patents/US7525207)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_house_movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_house_movement)

------
return0
why dont they just buy a cruise ship and set sail already?

~~~
anigbrowl
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](http://cruiseship.homestead.com/cruiseships.html)

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

~~~
anigbrowl
Sure, but you have to start somewhere. If people can't deal with operating a
cruise ship then I question their ability to create brand new floating islands
and run them sustainably. Surely one could do some farming on a cruise ship
(using a mix of decks and hydroponics) and likewise generate some energy on-
board. Obviously not as attractive as running a small nuclear power plant but
you probably can't buy a used nuclear aircraft carrier, so you're stuck with
diesel in the short term.

~~~
personjerry
I think with the same costs that go into a cruise ship one might implement a
more optimized platform for farming.

~~~
dagw
If you're commissioning a new cruise ship perhaps. You can buy a few second
hand cruise ships for a fraction of that cost.

------
nmrm2
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...](http://www.seasteading.org/2015/04/podcast-is-seasteading-beyond-
democracy-ask-frank-karsten-author/)

~~~
jdreaver
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
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.

~~~
notahacker
As far as I can see, the only notional advantage gained from being based just
offshore is that they can theoretically leave, though that does seem to be (i)
vastly underestimating the complications involved in sailing to whichever
other country will have them and (ii) vastly overestimating the difficulty of
selling up and leaving under a more regular land-based arrangement.

~~~
cantankerous
They could theoretically leave, but if they have serious unresolved disputes
with their host country, it could very well prevent them from leaving by using
force. What then?

------
3327
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
> 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.

~~~
anigbrowl
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.

~~~
Libbum
> 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.

Precisely the point of the detached nature of the planned houses. If there are
thousands of different (yet most likely similar) governmental systems in
place, then there are two options in this situation:

1\. Up and leave, travel to a new city which fits better with your current
modality.

2\. If a large swath of the population is disenfranchised the government must
act swiftly in order to keep the city running, otherwise its state will fail
and everyone will detach and live elsewhere.

We will no doubt see many more failed systems than long-standing ones, which
is essentially part of the appeal in my opinion.

------
skadamat
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7ZWirICmG8))

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

~~~
ceejayoz
For anyone not familiar with the story, Daily Kos has a pretty good summary.
[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/18/1330554/-Galt-s-
Gul...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/18/1330554/-Galt-s-Gulch-Chile-
The-Libertarian-Oasis)

TL;DR: Ponzi scheme, involving environmentally protected land, no water
rights, wage theft, lawsuits.

------
return0
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
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.

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spiritplumber
Another Bioshock sequel?

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

~~~
pchristensen
[http://arresteddevelopment.wikia.com/wiki/File:3x06_The_Ocea...](http://arresteddevelopment.wikia.com/wiki/File:3x06_The_Ocean_Walker_\(06\).png)

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skywhopper
Snow Crash is becoming truer every day.

~~~
abandonliberty
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.)

