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The book you are reading is in draft form (perhaps eternally). We believe in transparency and immediate feedback, so we’d rather make something imperfect available right away then wait until it is polished. Also we’d rather work on adding ideas and content than on making it look perfect, so it will always be a little rough. If you’d prefer a slick presentation, there are lots of failed and inactive projects listed in the Review section which were better at hiding their warts. Some of them still have websites.
The first version of this book was written in 2002-2003, when the primary author (Patri) had neither a job nor a family. It then languished for a number of years while he had both. Then we got a big break: on April 15th, 2008, we received $500,000 of seed funding from PayPal founder Peter Thiel to start a non-profit which we called The Seasteading Institute. Patri became Executive Director, and on July 29th, 2008, left his job at Google to work on seasteading full-time. This means more time available for writing, and a much more rapid evolution of our ideas.
Over the 5+ years since this book was first written, our thinking has evolved based on reflection, discussion, and new information. Some of these changes have made their way into the text, but due to limitations on the time available for writing, many have not. We believe that the text will catch up quite a bit during 2008-2009, but it will always be a bit behind our latest thinking. Fortunately, thanks to modern Print On Demand technology, new printed copies will always reflect the latest text.
Some of the key things we’d like to change when we get more time are:
Structure Designs: Talk about more structure designs: multi-spar platforms and flat boxes (the later either in the doldrums or protected by breakwaters). We no longer believe that dumbbells are the best structure, we think there is a lot to be said for flat boxes in the doldrums, even for early-stage ocean settlements, and for larger multi-spar platforms. We are also reconsidering ships as a transitional option for the short-term.
Making It Happen: Modify to reflect the creation of TSI and our latest thoughts about realistic business models and incremental paths.
Making Money - Emphasize aquaculture & medical tourism (“The killer app for seasteading” ?) more strongly as top business models.