Seasteading is a fairly new concept of having permanent communities living on the sea. Essentially, the seasteads would be floating nations in international waters beholden onto themselves. According to the Seasteading Institute, it will be needed to create what they call the next generation in governance. There are also benefits for the banking system, medical regulation and would give democracy a boost. It is similar to charter schools in the sense that they are envisioned to foster innovative ideas to better serve citizens and their needs. In the not so distant future, seasteads may start to appear and their arrival will foster many questions for the world and how society will function and be oriented with this new dynamic. The Source talked to Charlie Deist, Research and Communications Coordinator at the Seasteading Institute.
Would you compare the pioneers of Seasteading to the settlers who founded America and Christopher Columbus and other adventurers who discovered America for Europe?
The difference between previous frontiers like America and the Blue Frontier is that unclaimed, unoccupied international waters will allow for the first peaceful establishment of new nations in human history. The New World was conquered at the expense of less technologically developed societies, whereas seasteading aims to use technology not to subdue but to create positive new examples of functioning voluntary societies. This idea of enabling competing experiments in governance draws on some ideas laid out by the founders of the United States, who envisioned states functioning as small-scale “laboratories of democracy”. However, the possibilities for entirely new forms of government will grow exponentially once small groups of people are able to create their own “startup” nations at sea.
Do you think Seasteading has any comparison to space travel?
Certainly — both outer space and the ocean represent largely unexplored, ungoverned frontiers. They even share many of the same physical characteristics, such as a relatively frictionless environment, which enables large structures to be moved and reconfigured with minimal effort.
Do you see the two endeavors competing for resources?
Many people have pointed out that seasteading is a necessary precursor to space colonization, since it will help the development of systems to support human life in extreme and remote environments, without going to the ultimate extreme. Furthermore, humanity must harness the abundant food and renewable energy resources of the ocean before we will have the wealth necessary for viable space travel. Lastly, any energy that goes into space travel, such as advancing in the physical sciences and developing autonomous life support systems, will bolster the aims of seasteading.
In political terms, given the revolution in the Middle East. How does it affect the political arguments for Seasteading?
We don’t take sides on specific political issues, but it is interesting to note the number refugees fleeing places like Syria and other regions-in-conflict in dangerously under-equipped boats. When these refugees are found — often in great distress — they are sometimes sent back to their home country. We can hope that future seasteads will provide a safe haven for refugees, and allow persecuted groups to opt out of the violent struggles in their home countries.
Movies like Elysium Fields have been made about issues pertaining to Seasteading. Mainly the rich moving away to paradise leaving everyone to suffer. Is there anything that would prevent that scenario from taking place?
The rich already have a number of options at their disposal to escape from bad governance, such as gated communities, private schools, offshore tax havens, etc. While there will be nothing stopping the rich from using seasteading as another outlet for escapism, we still believe it is better to provide additional choice and freedom to the masses of people who currently have virtually no choice in where they live, what schools their children attend, and how their tax dollars spent. Human ingenuity is not limited to the elite. Even if the richest 10% of the world’s population moved to outer space, taking all of their wealth and resources with them, the remaining 90% could come up with innovative solutions to their problems as long as they have the ability to form voluntary associations and are not limited by one-size-fits-all monopolistic governments.
It seems like the technology is in place now to make this a reality. When do you think the first Seastead will be built?
Our Floating City Project aims to jumpstart a Phase II for-profit collaboration among pioneering residents, entrepreneurs and investors, in conjunction with a “host nation.” These parties once identified and persuaded to take the next leap forward, will hopefully build the World’s first floating city within the host nation’s protected waters before the end of the decade. All of the technology for living on the open ocean has been developed by the cruise ship and offshore oil drilling industries — it is merely a matter of making it cost effective for the average person, which is what we are aiming to do, both with the near-term floating city execution, and with research into cheaper platform designs and profitable businesses for open-ocean communities.
What does this do to the ongoing fantasy of building a city underwater?
Our strategy has focused on the surface of the ocean, since it seems to be a more realistic engineering goal — not to mention most people’s natural preference for sunlight. However, there is nothing stopping someone from trying to establish a seastead underwater, provided it could be engineered at a reasonable cost. Many of the technologies developed for surface seasteads will likely be applicable underwater as well.
What about seasteading suffering the same fate that the fabled city Atlantis did?
The vast majority of oil-rigs and cruise ships operate for years without incident, and the standards will be even higher for full-time residents. Additionally, we advocate a cautious and incremental approach (evidence by our Floating City Project and its strategy of locating in protected waters), while still pursuing bold ideas to improve the cost and durability of the aforementioned open-ocean technology. Some have suggested regular ritual sacrifice to Poseidon, but we think this is an unnecessary precaution, and it might upset the neighbors.
Can you name some of the specific technological advances a fully functioning Seasteading community would feature?
I’ll give three areas where seasteads can be expected to innovate technologically:
Data Transmission – Seasteads will need faster methods of obtaining internet than slow, existing satellite connections. Google’s new Project Loon could offer one solution, with a network of wirelessly-linked stratospheric balloons. Alternately, a series of dynamically-positioned buoys could relay a signal from land via WiMAX connection.
Food/Water/Energy Production – Given the limited space, seasteads will need to innovate systems for making more out of less. This will be true when it comes to food (hydroponics, aquaponics and vertical farming can be expected to play a role), water (energy-efficient methods of desalination), waste recycling, and renewable energy production and storage.
Transport – Again, by necessity, seasteads will require more rapid, convenient methods of travel, which can be on- and off-loaded in a variety of sea states. Moving objects from one floating vessel to another on the open ocean has been a problem in a number of maritime industries, which is sure to be solved by the additional frequency with which people and goods will be coming to and from the floating cities of the future.
Any last words about Seasteading?
Readers in your audience who would like to live on a seastead in the future can support our current efforts by taking our survey for potential residents and businesses at floating-city.org. You can also support the Floating City Project with a tax-deductible donation, which will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Thiel Foundation. We hope to see you on the high seas!
– Lulaine C.
