
The next frontier: 'Seasteading' the oceans - peter123
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10154185-38.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
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marketer
A large number of ultra-wealthy people living on a vulnerable platform in the
middle of the sea. And because they live in international waters, they aren't
protected by any nation. Could there possibly be a better target for pirates?

~~~
Retric
IMO, the real problem is still the abundance of cheep land.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
This is exactly what puzzles me. I live in Minnesota and there is a TON of
cheap land out there. A house on 10-20 acres of land for < $300k is pretty
normal out in the country. In the 'burbs, you can buy a condo/townhome and pay
for it on a waitress's salary & tips.

Hell, you can probably move to the middle of a desert in the Southwest and get
more land cheaper. Just build your house underground.

There is simply no way you can get seaborne property cheaper than you can on
dry land once you factor in building and maintenance costs.

[edit] You're right about the allodial title, but mortgages can be paid off
quickly and taxes are actually useful for some things. Unless you're going to
live by yourself on the ocean, there's going to be some form of "taxation" to
handle common expenses...like protection from pirates as mentioned.

~~~
gravitycop
_This is exactly what puzzles me. I live in Minnesota and there is a TON of
cheap land out there._

Seasteading is not about cheap real-estate. It is about reducing the barrier
to exit, in order to encourage healthy competition between nations for
customers (e.g. citizens). [http://www.seasteading.org/stay-in-touch/press-
releases/intr...](http://www.seasteading.org/stay-in-touch/press-
releases/introducing-the-seasteading-institute)

 _"The world needs a new model of politics where a diverse ecosystem of
providers offers a variety of institutions that evolve to serve their
citizens. The open oceans, Earth's last frontier, are the ideal place to
nurture this vision of a better world. By making it safe and affordable to
settle this frontier, we will give people the freedom to choose the government
they want instead of being stuck with the government they get._

[http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aseasteading.org+monopo...](http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aseasteading.org+monopoly)

 _The Industry of Government

Think of government as an industry. Citizens pay taxes, for which they receive
government services. Each government has a monopoly over one geographic area,
but citizens can switch providers by moving to other countries. This industry
has two main features that make it horribly uncompetitive.

❑ High cost of switching providers:

The first is the cost of switching providers. Because of the geographic
monopoly, in order to change governments, you have to change countries. That
means you have to leave your job, sell your house, pack your possessions,
leave your friends, apply for new citizenship, get a new job, buy a new house,
and so foth. This cost is enormous compared to any other service provider
switch (cell phones, car insurance, even employers). Because of this people
are unlikely to do it very often. For it to be worthwhile to move, the
difference to an individual between two governments must be higher than this
huge cost. This dramatically reduces market feedback for providers of
government services. So its natural for govts to exploit the current customer
base, because of this huge barrier keeping them from leaving._

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mixmax
This is a very hard engineering problem. And very very expensive.

There are loads of problems, some such as hurricanes and rogue waves discussed
in the article, and some such as fire not discussed. None of which are
trivial.

Basically what they are talking about is an oil rig without the oil equipment.
These will set you back many hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions.
And they still aren't 100% safe. In 1988 a fire broke out on the piper alpha
[+] platform in the North Sea, resulting in the death of 2/3 of the crew. The
whole platform sank to the bottom of the ocean.

And as marketer notes in the above comment security is a huge issue too.

[+] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Alpha>

[+]Video:
[http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&client=firefox...](http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-
GB:official&hs=03m&q=piper+alpha&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=YXaHSbu1Os-g-
gbYnPAr&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#)

~~~
gravitycop
_some [problems] such as fire not discussed._

Fire protection is discussed on the seasteading website:
<http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aseasteading.org+fire>

The structures are generally envisioned to be made of concrete (or
cementitious composite), a fireproof material.

 _In 1988 a fire broke out on the piper alpha [+] platform in the North Sea,
resulting in the death of 2/3 of the crew._

Perhaps oil had something to do with that fire. Are seasteading spars
necessarily loaded with oil?

~~~
mixmax
The risk is obviously much bigger on an oil rig, but fire at sea is a very
real problem, and something that haunts all sailors.

The problem is twofold:

1) You have to put the fire out yourself, the fire department or coast guard
won't be able to reach you before it's too late.

2) You have nowhere to go.

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gibsonf1
From a strictly architectural viewpoint, the concept design has a serious
flaw. Note that in the inboard units have only windows that look directly at
the windows of the inboard unit on the other side. I can't imagine someone
taking the risk to live on the ocean, and for a view, can only see in the
window of their neighbor. The design definitely needs improvement :)

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quoderat
This reminds me of the equally-doomed idea during the '60s to build underwater
homes.

~~~
ivankirigin
Underwater is much hard than seasteading. I wouldn't call them equally doomed
at all.

The free state project mentioned is an indication that this is actually
viable. They want thousands of people to move to New Hampshire to change the
state to be more libertarian. 700 already have.

I think that means you can get a few hundred people to move to a man made
island, if the conditions on the island were acceptable.

The best outcome would be a confederation of city states that only interact
via trading and mutual defense. There is essentially zero competition in
government, and this would change that.

~~~
byrneseyeview
_The free state project mentioned is an indication that this is actually
viable. They want thousands of people to move to New Hampshire to change the
state to be more libertarian. 700 already have._

The fact that they can almost get people to move to a different state is
evidence that they can get people to move to new man-made islands? Seasteading
would be great, but actually getting it started looks really difficult.

~~~
ivankirigin
In my understanding, the islands are much smaller. I think 100 people would be
enough, though that would largely depend on the design.

~~~
byrneseyeview
That's true, but the investment per person is much higher; you don't have to
build land and protect it from pirates in New Hampshire.

~~~
olefoo
You're calling your libertarian credentials into question there; a _real_
libertarian (for extreme values of real) would reply that you do, it's just
that in New Hampshire the pirates call themselves the IRS and the Department
of Revenue.

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rrival
_Enjoys watching as Snow Crash converges with reality_

