Seasteading FAQ
Welcome to the seasteading FAQ. Most sections originated from email responses to questions. If you have additional questions, feel free to email them to info@seasteading.org. This material serves to supplement the book, which is much more detailed. Of particular note is the Extended Question & Answer section which is an expanded version of this FAQ, with some longer answers and less-common questions.
Basics
What’s seasteading?
“Seasteading” is homesteading on the high seas. In other words, building 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 engineers initial design for a 200-guest resort, and you can read about designs in our book or on our Engineering page.
Why seastead?
We believe that current political systems are outdated and work poorly, for two reasons. One is the lack of a frontier - a place to go try out new forms of government (like the crazy new "democracy" which sprung up in far-off America). The other is the lack of mobility on land that happens because people are tied to buildings and buildings are fixed in place, which makes it hard to change states or countries, let alone pioneer. Seasteading fixes both of these.
It opens the oceans as a new frontier for pioneering, a frontier with a fundamentally different quality - fluidity - that lets entire cities be rearranged and reshaped constantly. If you don't like your government, you can literally "Vote with your house" by detaching your seastead and sailing off to another city. In the long run, this will turn the oceans into a laboratory for innovation in social and political systems. No specific ideology is necessary: Seasteads will empower people with a wide variety of beliefs to self-govern and serve as examples (good and bad) for other societies.
That sounds neat, but how do we get there from here?
Great question! Our philosophy revolves around incrementalism - starting small and building up over time. Our basic strategy (2009-2010 Strategy Document) is to grow awareness and membership in the seasteading community while researching the basic engineering and legal aspects of floating cities. TSI and other seasteaders are pursuing multiple paths, any one of which could incrementally grow into an ocean city-state.
-
Coaststead. TSI has designed and patented a resort and office park for international waters off the coast of California, as described on the Engineering page. Services like medical procedures can be done there at a fraction of the price they cost in the USA. People already go to India for medical procedures - why not just take a ferry an hour out of a major city? Once the business concept is proved with an initial platform, Coaststeads could blossom around the world, eventually leading to deep-ocean seastead communities. In order for entrepreneurs to obtain funding for a Coaststead, they may first need to prove their business model using a retrofitted ship.
-
Ephemerisle: In the summer of 2009, we are holding a festival of self-government on the water in the SF Bay. Eventually it will move to international waters. Since (unlike most festivals) we don't need to vacate so that someone else can use the space, over time, Ephemerisles could grow in physical size, duration, and frequency until one was going year-round.
-
Single-Family Seastead: TSI is currently designing a single-family seastead, much like a live-aboard boat, but more spacious and comfortable (design requirements). Over time, these could become common second (and first) homes in which people gathered in flotillas for festivals like Ephemerisle, or to visit larger seastead marina hubs which eventually would grow into permanent cities.
What's The Seasteading Institute's role?
Ultimately, TSI's role is to create the conditions that will make seasteading happen, as opposed to making it all happen ourselves. While we fully intend to "get in the trenches" when necessary, our vision is too large and too diverse to be realized by any single organization. It will take thousands of organizations -- corporations, non-profits, and communities -- to make this a reality. As a non-profit organization, we will welcome these organizations as partners in our goals.
In the early years, we will jump-start the seasteading movement wherever it needs a boost, whether it's spreading the idea, understanding the legal landscape, or building and operating the first seasteads ourselves. Eventually, other organizations will begin to form and carry the torch, one example being for-profit seastead manufacturers. Long-term, we will continue to pursue initiatives that have a high centralized cost yet provide great benefits to the seasteading movement as a whole, such as advocacy, research, education, and evangelism.
TSI's primary goal is not to operate any actual seasteading communities, though we may do so as a means to the greater end of catalyzing the seasteading movement. Ultimately, we want others to operate seasteads. Central to our vision is the idea of experimentation and competition among new governments and social systems, and the power of this vision will be fully realized only when seasteaders are left to self-organize. Our long-term role is to support other seasteading communities however we can, as long as they operate with the consensual participation of their members and are not having an overtly negative impact on the seasteading movement as a whole.
Won’t it sink? Where will you get power? What if someone gets sick? Won't pirates attack you? (And so forth...)
These are all natural concerns, but try to keep in mind that over thirty million people a year already visit floating cities in the form of cruise ships, which provide water, food, power, service staff, and safety from the waves at a cost as low as $60/night. Also note that there are 1500 oil and gas rigs in US waters alone. So while it is easy to imagine disasters for a floating city, the truth is that floating cities are not a new engineering concept, but an old one, with current industries totaling more than $150B/year. This is not to say that seasteads are the same as cruise ships or oil rigs - we have different goals which dictate a different design, and this does create a few new challenges. But the basic problems have long since been solved. Our task is to adapt these lessons to a goal much more exciting than vacationing or resource extraction: permanent settlement on the ocean to experiment with new social and political systems.
Cool! How Can I Help?
Glad you asked! You can become a member (coming soon!), join our community, help with one of our volunteer projects, or consider long-term preparations.
Where can I sign up to live on one of these cities?
These structures are still in the design stages, so there are no seasteads on which to go live right now. When the time comes, TSI is considering helping the process along by gathering a list of individuals interested in living on a seastead. Such a decision will be made in the future when a need arises. It is important to note that since TSI will not operate any seasteading communities on the ocean, the decision on who will live on them in the early stages will ultimately come from private owners/operators of seasteads. Read more about TSI's role in the seasteading movement.
Until then, see this FAQ to find out how you can advance the movement so living on a seastead will sooner become a reality. Also, to get announcements about the seasteading movement, including future seasteading communities looking for founding members, read our blogs and subscribe to our mailing lists.
Concerns
People often seem quick to tell us why our ideas won’t work, which is very helpful of them. However, we’d prefer not to keep hearing the same reasons, so here are some of the common objections that we have already considered, and the answers to them.
Why is it so expensive?
Our current price estimate for the base platform is $300/ft^2. Undeveloped land in San Francisco costs $200/ft^2. We believe we can provide office space on a Coaststead for comparable or slightly higher rates than in San Francisco. It's true that seasteading isn't cheap, but innovation is costly, and we expect the cost to drop rapidly as the movement scales. For more information on cost analysis, see the Engineering page, or read more about cost in the extended Q&A.
Also see the related question: How will you pay for seasteads?
Won’t a seastead be uncomfortable to live on?
People often ask whether a seastead will bob uncomfortably in the waves. If you've been on a cruise ship, you know that unless there is a major storm, the ship has a gentle rolling motion. Our initial platform designs have even less motion than a ship, because they have little cross-section and little flotation at the water-level, so it will actually be quite steady, except in major storms. Our engineers have put a great deal of thought into addressing the issue of livability, andhow a seastead will deal with waves; breakwaters, pillars and doldrums can be used to address many of these issues.
Why will seasteading work when the many similar previous projects have all failed?
Our approach is very different, partly because we’ve learned from other’s mistakes, and partly because we are dedicated to finding a realistic way of achieving success, rather than simply dreaming about grand visions. You can learn about our philosophy, or you can read about past projects and see if you agree that we can do better.
Why do you think you can get freedom without interference?
Even cruise ships (let alone nations) get enormous internal autonomy. We're going to be able to set our own rules in a wide variety of areas, as long as we don't interfere with the sovereignty of other nations. No one is going to invade us because they don't like our zoning laws - but they may if we are exporting illegal drugs. We would advise seasteads to ban the latter, but we expect to see different groups make different decisions, and we'll all learn from who gets interfered with. For more on the issue of autonomy, see the extended Q&A.
Who is going to pay for seasteads to be built? How will you fund the project?
Many similar ventures failed because they expected billions to materialize from thin air. Our ideas for seastead financing are more realistic, the basic summary is to proceed in self-financing, incremental steps. Business ideas can be found in the Making Money section of our book, and incremental plans in Making It Happen.
Why did you choose to patent your seastead designs?
The patent that we filed for the Clubstead design - along with any patents we will file going forward - are intended as defensive patents only. It's not our goal to use patents to prevent others from building seasteads based on our designs, or to extort money from those who wish to. We intend to make our patented material available freely (or for a nominal fee if this better suits the legal and business requirements of the organizations who wish to make use of the patents), and our maintenance of patents is intended to protect the seasteading community as a whole. For more thoughts on patent philosophy, see the book.
Why would anyone accept the low level of comfort?
Pioneers have traded comfort for freedom many times in the past. Those who find this trade-off unattractive won’t participate, which is fine since we don’t need to appeal to everyone. A niche is just fine. Over time, comfort will increase and the market will broaden. The rough life is not our goal, but we see it as the necessary first step. Focusing on luxurious cities at this stage would be like the first settlers of Manhattan trying to design the Empire State Building. We'll be able to progress rapidly, but it will still take some time.
Who is going to move to the middle of nowhere? Who would vacation in the middle of nowhere?
Today, many people already live in rural areas that are far more isolated than a Coaststead, which can be an hour by boat from a major city. Furthermore, we never need to find 10,000 people willing to take the plunge. We only need to find the core of enthusiasts to start, say 10 people. Then the 40 people who are willing to move now that there are 10 people. Then the 100 that will move because there are 40, and so on. It’s not that there is no one willing to be the first, just that there aren’t very many. That’s okay though, because we don’t need very many to bootstrap.
Letting people participate part-time by being timesharers or hotel guests is crucial as well. Rather than moving to this floating platform, people can just visit, which many more will be willing to do, as there is a gargantuan difference in the level of commitment. For more thoughts on this subject, see the extended Q&A on moving to the middle of nowhere, and vacationing on a seastead.
Pirates will get you!
Piracy is still a problem on the high seas, but does not seem particularly worrisome for a seastead. Most piracy is small-scale theft performed by the aquatic equivalent of muggers, these types of pirates would probably steer clear of a sea-city, which would be much too large. For the small amount of piracy that is on a scale to attack or steal a seastead, we believe seasteads still present a bad target. For more thoughts on the issue of piracy, see the extended Q&A.
BioShock
As Quiet Desperation wrote on the Reason blog: "Look, Bioshock was an awesome game, but, sorry, plasmids are eternally science fiction. An experimental Libertarian nation will not fall due to people being able to shoot lightning, or bees, or bees that crap lightning, or lightning made out of bees from their hand." If you insist on a more detailed rebuttal (of a video game ?!?!), see this blog post. And if you are going to model us with a video game, we prefer Civilization.
I don’t think it will work!
One of the virtues of seasteading is that it is an incremental, bottom-up, doing-instead-of-talking movement. We don't need to win any elections, we just need to find a core group of committed pioneers -- people who may not be sure that seasteading will work either, but are sure that it's worth a try. People who would rather convince by demonstration than by a lengthy argument. If they succeed, that's our answer. If they fail, we'll either modify our approach or do something else. No matter what, we'll all learn something.
Alternative Strategies
There are a number of questions that boil down to “Why do you recommend this particular structure or strategy”:
Why not just buy a boat?
The very short answer is: Boats go places, Seasteads are living spaces. Boats are more suited to a nomadic lifestyle, whereas our designs can evolve into cities. For more details on boats versus seasteads, see the extended Q&A.
Why not just buy an island or part of a third-world country?
Our goal is sovereignty, not just territory, and unfortunately there is no such thing as unclaimed land. Even if an island is unoccupied, it extends the owning country’s EEZ, including fishing and mineral rights, which are always of potential value. So even small, barren, remote rocks are claimed by existing countries, and will be defended if you try to take them over. For more thoughts on sovereignty and purchasing land, see the extended Q&A.
Why not reform an existing political system?
It is tempting to think that political systems can be reformed, say, by electing the right candidate. The sad truth is, political systems work poorly because of their incentives, not who wins elections. It is difficult (and sometimes impossible) to change countries, and extremely difficult to start a new political system (you need to win a war, an election, or a revolution), which means that citizens are a captive audience. By making it easier to try out new social systems, and enabling people to vote with their houses, seasteading will fundamentally change these incentives and bring about a much wider variety and higher quality of government.
Over time, this actually will serve to reform the existing political system, because the competition from new nations will keep the old ones honest and encourage them to adapt and evolve. Also, our ecosystem of experimental societies will provide lots of great data about better (and worse) ways to organize a society. Right now, government is like a company with no R&D department - no wonder it's so behind! Seasteads will be the world's political R&D.
Bad Consequences
While we think that seasteading will have an enormously positive impact on the world, there may be some bad consequences. Here are some that readers have been concerned about:
Will seasteads contribute to world overpopulation?
Overpopulation occurs when there are too many people struggling for too few resources. Seasteads allow us to use more of the space we have, and harvest more of the renewable energy resources. This means that while they add population, they also add capacity. Also, the main factors in world population are education, birth control, and economic development. Growth is decelerating and the UN expects world population to peak this century and then decline.
Will seasteads contribute to pollution and environmental destruction?
Some rogue seasteads are, sadly, likely to pollute. But most of the technologies seasteaders use will be much less polluting than what is used on land. Also, resources will be more expensive, which means seasteaders will use less of them, so the net result may well be a reduction in footprint. And it’s not like seasteads are completely unaccountable - we see pollution as one of the areas most likely to provoke interference from traditional nations (and with good reason). You can read more about waste disposal in the book.
Will cults use seasteads to operate without interference?
Cults have survived under existing systems, and we have no reason to think that seasteads will be immune; however we believe that most people are good, and on net people will be more likely to form positive systems than negative ones. Seasteads may make it easier for cults to hide, but it will also make it easier to isolate them from harming others. For more thoughts on cults and dangerous social structures on seasteads, see the extended Q&A.
If you have additional questions, or would like more detailed answers, please see the Extended Question & Answer section of the book.