
City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away - transburgh
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/09/floating.cities.seasteading/index.html
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ibsulon
If they can figure out how to be safe in large storms, and a solution to
piracy, I'd absolutely be interested in living on one. I also am curious how
they will take care of the fuel costs. (Cruise ships are some of the most fuel
inefficient vehicles on the earth.) tidal power would be quite useful in this
kind of system.

After all, people have already spoken about using cruise ships as offshore
platforms...

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alabut
Why would you be interested in living in a Waterworld city? No seriously,
what's the draw? I'd feel pretty damn cooped up and imagine that it'd be like
living on a houseboat in the middle of nowhere.

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ibsulon
The advantage would be living with people who shared the same values as I do
and not being obstructed by the federal laws most of us would find
distasteful.

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alabut
But you're going to have to have laws and taxes of some sort to keep the mini-
society going - how do you know they'll be ones you don't object to? There's
plenty of countries around the world without the same laws as the u.s. and I
don't see a massive outflow of libertarian hackers to them, so I'm not sure
there's really as much demand as the builders think.

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ibsulon
It's much easier to find 10,000 to 250,000 people who have the same values as
you and can create a new culture. While I wouldn't be interested in a
libertarian society, I might be interested in a completely secular system with
full equality for GLBT citizens and a culture much like San Francisco without
the federal impositions on the culture. (I wouldn't mind moving to the
Netherlands either.)

Further, the laws can be more tailored for a culture when there are fewer than
a million inhabitants. Common sense can work a lot better, and exile can be an
option, making prison expenses much more managable. (After all, no one is
saying that these would be granting citizenship.)

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alabut
I see, so you like the idea of iteration on the policies that govern people,
more than having specific freedoms. Makes sense, I wish we could open source
bills for Congressional review, for example.

It's funny you should mention Holland - I visited during my honeymoon about 6
mo ago and thought it was gorgeous, especially all the clean graphic design,
but read in my tourist book that there's a right wing resurgence and they're
cracking down on a lot of the things Amsterdam is famous for, despite all
kinds of studies showing that it's improved society.

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ams6110
"Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer who now works for the Seasteading
Institute, said floating cities are the perfect places to experiment with new
forms of government."

There are no new forms of government. They've all been tried. There are only
people ignorant of history.

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vegai
So we should just stop trying? That's not very entrepreunial.

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overcyn
Keyword: Could

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time_management
Just thought of "The Raft" in _Snow Crash_.

