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| Frequently Asked Questions | Frequently Asked Questions | Alternative Strategies |
“Seasteading” means to homesteading the high seas. In other words, build permanent dwellings on the ocean. A seastead is a structure specifically designed for the purpose of long-term living in the marine environment. On the right you can see our conception of what such a structure looks like. More detailed pictures are in the section on our design.
In the short-run, for political freedom and the thrill of pioneering. In the long run, to create a laboratory for innovation in social and political systems. In neither case is any particular ideology necessary: seasteads will empower people with a wide variety of beliefs to experience self-government and serve as examples (good and bad) for future systems. Other advantages include utilizing barren portions of the earth’s surface and preparing for colonization of other planets.
Some people think our cost estimates are surprisingly cheap, others that they are tremendously expensive and we are restricting our nation to the very rich. So clearly price is a matter of viewpoint! Our basic view is that we want the lowest cost which is compatible with our goals, including safety and comfort. It is certainly true that you could build some kind of platform, like Rich Sowa’s plastic bottle island, on a shoestring, but it is unlike to serve as the base for a new way of life. If you disagree, you are of course welcome to take whatever approach you’d like.
Some of our reasons for being pleased with our current cost estimates:
We think there will still be some room for people with lower incomes to participate by renting space onboard. Unfortunately, this is more difficult in our situation because seasteads can’t be built with low-interest bank mortgages like houses. But this stems from the unique nature of the project and will be difficult to avoid. We are not ignoring those with less money, and we believe that in the long-run, they will benefit from seasteading also. But it takes cash to start the ball rolling.
Also see the related question: How will you pay for seasteads?
A wonderful reader writes
It’s really great that you invest so much time and efforts in the Seasteading project! Maybe you should consider creating some fund or Paypal account where people like me can send (small, as i live in a semi-socialist country) donations to show our respect and to cover some of the costs like your days off work, hosting and alike?
We are currently establishing a 501c3 nonprofit to be able to receive donations, so hold that thought! For now, we’d rather that supporters save their money until we have a formal organization set up, with memberships, and products to offer. Products / membership schwag will include books, bathstead models and kits, and similar items. Eventually, of course, we hope to offer substantial products such as small seasteads and timeshares on large ones. In anticipation of that day we recommend that you build up a nest egg so that you can put down a deposit on a seastead share when they someday become available.
This is a great question, although somewhat hard to answer because it is unclear exactly how seasteading development will proceed. However, we can provide some advice:
Definitely useful
Save money. It is going to be difficult to get a loan to build something as novel and unproven as a seastead, which means we’ll need to pay up front for our real estate. And while it would be nice if someone rich built a huge seastead and rented out rooms, it is much more likely that the starting founders will have to scrape to provide their own space, and won’t be able to afford much extra. This has the extra advantage that if you don’t end up going the seasteading route, your nest egg will still be useful. Money is freedom (although don’t enslave yourself to get it).
Be active in the seastead community (which should become more cohesive as we add features to the website.) This includes: providing feedback on book drafts, reading the blog (Seasteading LJ / Seasteading RSS), spreading the word about the idea/site/book to people who might be interested, linking to it, etc. As the movement grows, this may include meetup groups in various areas and even festivals on the high seas (Ephemerisle). An important element of this is evangelism - get people excited and inspired to hear more about the idea and perhaps someday participate. This is a grassroots movement - it’s up to you to spread the word!
Move to the San Francisco Bay Area (or, less ideally, any coastal city). Physical presence will be useful in helping to build and test prototypes, and for the incremental phase of launching the first community. Our favorite models for incremental seastead development involve building up a community on land, where people can get to know each other, get critical mass, build their seasteads (individually, or larger ones in groups), move on board, test them out, and ease the transition to this radical new lifestyle. While this can be done as a distributed effort, our experience with communal living suggests that physical colocation is far preferable. () While we certainly wouldn’t want anyone to move on the sole hope of being part of seasteading, it seems quite likely that the movement will kick off in that particular area, and so it’s one factor to consider if you happen to be moving. And it’s a great place to live, so again, even if seasteading doesn’t work out, there are other benefits.
Probably useful
Gain experience with communal living, for example by living in an Intentional Community or CoHousing development. While seasteading may attract rugged individualists, a project this big will need to be a team effort. Living in a community can sometimes be challenging and requires excellent interpersonal skills. Strong communication abilities, experience with group facilitation, group processes, and conflict resolution skills like NVC will all be quite useful. And these skills will serve you well in a wide variety of other circumstances as well (management roles, relationships…)
Develop methods for generating income onboard by providing local or exportable value. Examples of local value would be food production, mechanical expertise, massage, or entrepreneurship experience and ideas for seastead businesses. Exportable value might be marine research (and ability to score grants), coaching or therapy by phone, or telecommuting work like freelance programming or web design. One of the toughest things about any small economy is finding ways to make money, and being able to work online seems like the most general solution.
Expatriate. The ultimate goal of seasteading is to have living space in sovereign – or at least non-US – territory. You can learn to adapt your life and take advantage of non-resident status today by moving to Costa Rica, Panama City, or other non-US expat low-tax destinations. The low tax rate and low cost of living may also help with accumulating savings.
May be useful
Develop self-sufficiency skills, such as first aid, gardening, and appliance repair.
Develop very seastead-specific skills like ferrocement building or marine law. The risk in doing these is that the seasteading approach may change, or other more experienced professionals in these fields may get involved. While it would certainly be great if people with these skills helped out, keep in mind that experts can always be hired.
Great, we’re glad that you are excited about seasteading. We’re always happy to see unofficial seasteading groups and organizations. One note: please make sure to make it clear that these groups are unofficial and your ideas are your own, and not claim or imply official sanction or endorsement by