Why Seasteading?

Motivation

While we hope that some readers will immediately see the appeal of seasteading, we expect many to be mystified as to why anyone would want to go live on a floating platform. So before proceeding with further technical discussion, we must motivate the project in general. We'll also take some time to explain the guidelines for our particular approach.

A small but passionate minority is deeply dissatisifed with current political systems. These people seek the autonomy to live under and experiment with different political, social, and economic systems than currently exist. It is this search for sovereingty, for the freedom of self-government, which is the fundamental motivation for seasteading. Utopia is different for everyone, and so there are a wide variety of theoretical new systems and gripes with the old ones. We'll present only broad outlines of the most common schools, leaving the explanations of what the Problems are and how each philosophy is the Answer to the partisans themselves:

• Many people are interested in sustainable, environmentally friendly ways of living [Celestopia], which are well-suited for seasteading, where renewable energy generation and closed-loop gardening will be facts of life.

The residents of these future cities, throughout the world, will show by exemplary actions that people of different races and divergent political, religious, cultural and social beliefs can live and prosper together while also being good stewards of the earth, respecting, and thereby benefiting all inhabitants and ecosystems of the planet.[Celestopia]

• Capitalists want low taxes and regulatory freedom [Atlantis1994].

There are tax benefits: no federal tax on coroporate profits, no state corporation tax, no social security tax. And any open sea facility is a free port. You can bring in any raw materials and ship out any finished products, without paying tariff duties. Outside government jurisdiction on the open sea, there are no regulatory agencies to contend with. You can dispense with the expense and bother of excessive paperwork, forms, and reports. You won't be ordered to waste your time appearing before government bodies. Licenses and permits will be things of the past. Government litigation and harassment, and the uncertainty caused by changing laws, regulations, and interpretations will be eliminated.
[Fisher1985, pp. 48-49]

• Few opportunities remain for pioneers, and the oceans are the obvious next frontier for civilization.
• It seems likely that the next major frontier, after the oceans, will be space. We can look at seasteads as a dry (er...wet) run for spacesteading:

  If we are going to colonize space, it is best to colonize the easiest space first...Living in colonies at sea will teach us many crucial lessons about life in space. The isolation, self-sufficiency, and political autonomy of sea colonies are the same as those of space colonies. Both types will impose many of the same requirements on their inhabitants...The Moon is a harsh mistress; we would be wise to learn these early lessons while still in Earth's gentle lap.
  [Savage1992 pp. 23-24]

  If humankind is to survive, I see no alternative to expanding outward into space. And this doesn't just mean settling on other planets and moons. They will be just as vulnerable to doomsday weapons as the Earth, and there aren't enough of them to insure that some will survive an Armageddon. Only a large number of communities well dispersed in the volume of space seems likely to have a chance...The establishment of such communities space would constitute a Golden Age of new-country formation in the next few centuris. Those who gain experience in the new-country field now are the most liekly to be ready to seize the new opportunities when they arise -- or to see their children and their children's children in a position to do so.
  [Strauss1984 p. 47]

  
• Devoted proponents of peace seek places where they can live without being taxed to fund violence.
• Drug users care deeply about the freedom to ingest whatever chemicals they desire [Island]. In many current societies, they are subject to arrest, jail, and the confiscation of their property.
• Individuals who are Environmentally Intolerant (EI), such as those suffering from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, seek environments with minimal contamination from human chemicals:

  Waterfront property offers some of the cleanest air anywhere by virtue of the high rate of ambient air exchange afforded by ocean or lake breezes. Even regions with relatively bad general pollution levels enjoy orders of magnitude cleaner air along the shore, as long as there are regular breezes. Unfortunately, few people can now afford such property -especially those who need it most. A floating home offers a potentially unlimited amount of waterfront real estate with no land cost. You can have as much as you can afford to build. There are no surrounding lawns and trees to generate pollen, no roads with cars to generate pollution -though, of course, boats are still a pollution issue albeit far less than automobiles.
  [Hunting]

  

Our personal motivation is the belief that monolithic, land-based societies are too big and too politically static. We think political flexibility and experimentation with many different political systems is the right way to find new and better ways to live. Seasteads would allow for a rich diversity in forms of governance because they lower the barrier of entry to the market of government. When it takes a revolution or millions of votes to take over a country, small groups have no opportunity for self-government. But if, for the cost of their houses, they can band together and create new sovereign territory, many will do so. While living their own ideal lifestyle, they will also be researching innovations in the basic institutions of society, which will increase our collective wisdom and benefit all humankind. These ideas are explored more under dynamic geography below.

Whatever the specific motivations, the popularity of new country projects make it clear that there is a great deal of interest in this topic [Alexandisle, Atlantis1994, Celestopea, FloatingCities, FreedomShip, Freedonia, Island, LFC, NewUtopia, NewAtlantis, Nexus, Pelagic, ResidenSea, Salsbury1992, Savage1992, Sealand, Seascape, Strauss1984, VenusProject].

While few people are devoted enough to drop everything and go found a new society, we think that everyone is, to some degree, a revolutionary. After all, who was the last person you met who was completely happy with everything about their society? While utopia is not an option, we do believe there are some fundamental reasons why seastead societies are likely to work better than terrestrial ones. As experimenting with new social systems becomes cheaper and easier, it will be a viable alternative for an increasingly large segment of humanity. Seasteading is a realistic way to make a significant leap forward.

Philosophy

There is no single "right" approach to seasteading. Thus we will present you with many ideas, exploring those we think are the most viable in the most detail. However, it does seem like there are some "wrong" approaches, as we can see from the many failures of projects with the same goal. What we've learned from the movement's (admittedly dismal) history has to a large degree shaped our philosophy. Because of this, explaining our approach goes hand-in-hand with identifying common points of failure and indicating how we think they can be overcome.

The root cause of most of these failures seems to have been lack of realism. So our solution is simply to be as pragmatic as possible about our vision. Realism is our philosophy's foundation, and more specific polices are just the application of realism to various areas. Important areas include incrementalism, politics, technology, and finances.

Incrementalism

One problem with doing things all at once is that there is a substantial "stone soup" aspect to seasteading.

We believe that a realistic approch to the difficult problem of nation-founding must be incremental. Large, successful things usually start out small and expand organically, rather than springing forth full-formed like Athena from the brow of Zeus. Rome wasn't built in a day and a succesful business leverages each stage into the next. Big things (cruise ships, skyscrapers, factories) do get built all at once at times, but they are almost always proven concepts that were first demonstrated successfully on a smaller scale. For example, we bet that the first multistory building had exactly 2 stories. In our case, if there was a nation-founder with the financial resources to jump the intermediate stages and create a vast floating city, it would already exist. After all, there are plenty of people ready to design and build one as soon as the multi-billion dollar check gets cut. Since no such deus ex machina appears to be forthcoming, we recommend humbler methods.

There are plenty of grand conceptual ideas out there, but we see a key link between being grand and staying conceptual. We find the notion that the first sea-city will be for ten thousand people is ludicrous. If you make the first step too high, you will never even get started, as the many participants who became frustrated with and dropped out of new-country projects can attest. Instead, we believe that almost all the focus should be on the current and immediate next stage, not on far-distant visions. Watch the path in front of you, not the sky.

There is an inherent difficulty in getting people involved in something that has value only if people are involved in it. How do you start? Contingent contracts help, ie all participants sign something which says "I will pay for my share and move onboard if 99 other people also sign this contract". This approach is working for the Free State Project in its quest to get 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire. In our case, however, there are difficulties. We think that its best to try out this new way of life with fewer people at first. Also it appears difficult to get enough interest for even contingent signatures on floating-cities without demonstrating viability. For these reasons, our plan includes a series of distinct stages, each involving a greater number of people.

First we complete a design, and build an aquarium-sized model. Then a pool-sized version. Next we build a habitable Baystead prototype for 5-10 people, anchored in sheltered waters within US boundaries, to demonstrate our seriousness and our design. This is the first point at which we need other people's participation. We just need to find 5-10 people who are willing to live together, and don't mind the level of creature comforts that can be achieved on a fairly small platform. While it will require a rare level of dedication to the concept to join this group of aquatic pioneers, we don't have to find very many such people.

Next we need to find 25-100 people (or the equivalent in timeshares) who weren't quite sure if seasteading was legit before, but seeing the demonstration by the first group, find it worthwhile to participate. They build the first deep-water, self-sufficient seastead. Next we find the 100 people who weren't quite convinced by the small group ... and so on. Smaller steps can be added if necessary.

There is plenty of historical precedent for this strategy of zealots seeding settlements. North America, for instance, was colonized mainly by members of minority religions such as the Puritans seeking to escape persecution. These dedicated folk were willing to put up with the discomfort of pioneering in exchange for religious freedom. The result of this passionate committment to a cause was, eventually, an increased level of civilization, and a beachhead for the less dedicated to follow.

At every step in incremental development, the standard of living increases due to economies of scale, refinement of techniques, and the network effects of the larger community. Rather than convincing 10,000 people from the beginning, you just keep bringing in those at the margin, who needed things to be just a little bit better to get involved. As interest in seasteading steadily grows, more units are steadily built. Each may cater to a slightly different audience, or experiment with different engineering designs and social systems. They will be modular and eventually cluster together into the grand vision many have proposed [Atlantis1994, Nexus, NewUtopia, VenusProject].

With advanced technology, the pioneering cycle is much shorter nowadays. It doesn't take centuries to go from Conestoga wagons to skyscrapers, and we'll get to start out with electricity, hot running water, and satellite telephones. But at the beginning, we still must be pioneers. We aren't focusing on these humble first steps because we lack imagination, or don't think a huge luxurious floating city would be amazingly cool. That sea city is our ultimate goal, but it is our firm belief that a sea village must come first - and a single sea house before that.

Political Realism

A major issue facing prospective attempts at autonomy is obtaining sovereignty, which terrestrial governments are notoriously reluctant to sell, or recognition, which they are reluctant to give. Examples can be seen in Minerva, Cortes Bank, and LFC, discussed in the review section. Thus we don't think a realistic project should depend on obtaining sovereign land.

In the past, pioneers and malcontents would head to the frontiers, but few remain. The oceans, which make up 71% of the earth's surface, have always been a place for those seeking new ways of life. They are the last great unclaimed region. Ships are not well suited for permanent living (although there is a subculture of live-aboard boaters [Hill1993]), but by creating new land on the oceans we can attain a reasonable combination of freedom and comfort.

Freedom of movement and self-sufficiency are both intimately connected with political freedom. Fixed locations such as seamounts, islands, and atolls are much more vulnerable to the whims of nearby governments, but a mobile seastead can always move if the political climate becomes unsuitable. While a seastead is likely to import many goods, being able to supply its own basic necessities will also add greatly to its independence. This is why seasteads are to some degree self-sufficient, and either roving or at least movable if necessary. This approach to nation founding reduces - but does not eliminate - the difficulty in finding sovereignty by operating in international waters. Further discussion of maritime law can be found in the Ocean Environment - Politics section.

A crucial part of our political realism is modesty in our goals. We won't start out demanding recognition from other nations, acceptance of our passports, or a seat in the UN. We'll asl only to be left alone to experiment with our pioneering lifestyle in peace. Frankly, we think its absurd for projects in the planning stage to focus significant effort on these matters. Its like an american pioneering family who are planning their move west to an unsettled region thinking about how to get formal recognition as a state, when they should be worrying about cabins, crops, and packing their Conestoga wagon. The trappings of statehood can come later (if ever) when it is obvious that a group of seasteads qualifies as a country by any reasonable definition.

Technological Realism

Several potential ventures [Savage1992, Celestopea, Nexus] have focused on the combination of two problematic technologies: OTEC and seacrete, which we feel exemplify the unrealistic "science-fiction" approach to floating cities.

OTEC, or Ocean Thermal Electric Conversion, is a technique to generate energy from the temperature difference between warm surface water and the cold depths. Unfortunately there is little practical experience with the technology, and it scales down very poorly. Its a promising technology for the future, perhaps for governments soon, but not at all applicable to small ventures now. Some projects have treated OTEC as practically free energy for ocean cities, when it is quite expensive indeed. We discuss it further in our Infrastructure - Power section.

If you dip a wire mesh in seawater and run electricity through it, a cement-like substance forms. Known as seacrete, many floating-city designs have been based on this wondrous source of free building materials. Unfortunately, there is a catch. The common cited figures for energy requirements are off by a factor of 40, and the electricity costs far more than just buying concrete. There are additional problems, as we describe in the design materials section.

Seasteaders will not make the mistake of counting on an impractical technology to make their vision happen. Our concept is a big enough jump already, and the fewer jumps we make along with it the better. So while necessity has prompted some novelty in our designs, they are firmly rooted in standard engineering techniques. You'll see us examining a number of cutting-edge technologies, yet planning to use very few of them on early seasteads. Our power will come from solar panels, wind turbines, and fossil fuel backup generators, not OTEC plants. Reinforced concrete is an extremely cheap construction material, and we'll buy it from standard terrestrial sources. In short, our philosophy is to plan our initial designs around mature technologies and save the innovation for later iterations.

Financial Realism

Many proposed ventures are impossibly large in scale. While grand visions are inspiring, they are difficult to make into reality, especially when the idea is novel and unproven. The Freedom Ship is a classic example [FreedomShip]. Their proposed mile-long design will cost ten billion dollars ($10,000,000,000.00). That sort of funding is not easy to get, to say the least, especially for a piece of property that might be destroyed by a storm (imagine the insurance premiums!). Things are made even worse because the only previous floating condominium ship, Residensea, lost a substantial portion of its quarter-billion dollar cost, even though it had sold many of its units in advance. It seems pretty unlikely that an investor will put up 40 times as much to try again.

Our designs are much smaller, and thus the path to funding them is much clearer. Our current estimates suggest that a complete, viable seastead for around a hundred people could be built for one one-thousandth of the Freedom Ship's proposed cost, or about $100,000 / resident. Our platforms may not be a mile long, but which do you think has a better chance of getting built? We'll take modest and real over huge and imaginary any day.

Past attempts to raise money from the community of nation founders have demonstrated the folly of depending on this small group. Those with substantial assets, usually older, are generally unwilling to drop their lives (homes, businesses, families) and move. Those with time and mobility, usually younger, rarely have the necessary cash. A viable project must find ways for both of these groups to participate. More importantly, it needs to draw interest from a much broader market. To put substantial effort into a nation-founding project, one must be a zealot of some type, and it is easy to ignore the less-zealous masses. The new territory must be interesting to more than the few eager separatists. {CENG: prev par unclosed}

We believe that seasteads will appeal to a large group of customers, for reasons explained in detail in the Market section. One key device is a timesharing system, which lets people participate without having to lay their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor on the line right from the start. We think a graduational transition from traditional ways of life to our pioneering one is required for it to appeal to a significant number of people.

Transparency

A solid, realistic plan can stand criticism and review. It is the scams, the half-baked, the grandiose but insubstantial, which must hide behind a facade of mystery. In our experience, the less you see up front, the less there is behind. Sure, its possible that behind the curtain lies a complex and well-considered plan which is being hidden for some legitimate reason, but the odds are heavily against it. If it looks like the emperor has no clothes, he's probably got goosebumps.

There is nothing wrong with playing the micronation game, imagining a country for fun. But the line between Micronation and genuine venture is a blurry one, in the minds of the principals as well as on their websites. Hinting at complex negotiations with mighty powers for far-off territory adds spice to projects on either side of the line. Yet the countless cycle of promises and failures cannot help but turn interested participants into weary cynics, exhausting the enthusiasm of each new generation. We'd much rather be open about what we have (now, a realistic plan, a rough design and a little financial commitment, later, we hope, a small but habitable prototype). We are trying hard to minimize the faith necessary, but there will be some, and we think honesty, not puffery, gives us the best chance to get it.

Realistic Compromises

While our goal is to change the world, we believe that compromise is an important part of the process. We accept that seasteads will not have full freedom to choose their own laws. There will be substantial limitations on what the rest of the world will tolerate. Like it or not, the first seasteads will be tiny fish in huge ponds, and if they make the sharks angry, they'll never grow big enough to put up a fight.

For example, Libertarian seasteads will probably be allowed to have low taxes and low regulation, but genuine bank secrecy may not be permitted because of worries about terrorist money laundering. We think its far better to get what freedom is possible than to fail because of a refusal to compromise. Environmental regulation offers another example where compromise will be necessary. Our political goals are a compromise as well in that we simply wish to be left alone by other states, we aren't seeking recognition, embassies, passports, and a seat in the UN like some projects.

This willingness to compromise does not mean that our new way of life offers no improvements on the old. Its just that focusing our efforts on a few changes at a time is the most effective way to succeed. Even with the limitations of reality, there are still plenty of incremental improvements that can be made to current social systems. In our next section, you'll see the fundamental reason why life at sea may be an improvement of life on land.

Dynamic Geography

{ This has been totally re-written, comments desired. Does it convey the essence of the DG argument? Is it too short? Too long? Suggested clarifications? - P }

We chose the ocean as the best place to experiment with new social systems because it is the only unclaimed area left on earth (and space is still a bit expensive). It turns out, however, that its unique features will lead to a revolution in the quality of government, producing many small governments which are response to their citizen's needs. We'll first analyze why terrestrial governments are so unresponsive, and then show how things are different on the ocean. This is a summary of Patri's paper, see the original for more detail [PFriedman2004].

Land = Crappy Government

Lets consider government as an industry like any other. Citizens pay taxes, and in return they get government services. It turns out that its an absurdly uncompetitive industry for two reasons.

First, the cost of switching service providers is very high, since it involves moving to another country. You have to leave your job, find a new one, sell your house, find a new one, leave your friends and relatives, and deal with a new culture. Compared to the cost of switching cellphone providers, ISPs, cars, or insurance agents, this is gargantuan. So its a great temptation to stay and hope things get better, or perhaps try to change them despite slim odds. The expense of moving reduces the potential impact of jurisdictional arbitrage (a fancy name for changing the system by voting with your feet, taxes, and citizenship). The result is that governments don't compete to do a good job - they don't need to. They focus on exploitation instead of innovation, because there is very little market feedback.

One potential solution to the cost of moving on jobs and friends is an information economy with digital cash, where people can work and maintain social networks from anywhere. This idea has been championed by hi-tech libertarians, and described in the book The Sovereign Individual [DavidsonMogg]. While it has worked for a tiny minority of individuals, the other problems with moving (family, house, face-to-face contact with friends) remain. The number of information workers is growing, but this approach won't work for the huge numbers of people whose jobs involve some hands-on component.

The second problem is that the cost of entering the governing industry is incredibly high. You basically have to win an election or a revolution to get a new government, both of which are very difficult! Economists call this a "high barrier to entry". While industries with low barriers to entry tend to be very competitive, with innovative firms competing to provide the best product, those with high barriers tend to consist of a few entrenched firms taking advantage of their position. The difficulty of getting into the government industry (on land) dwarfs that of almost any commercial industry. So its no surprise that we don't get small competitors serving niche markets.

Taken together, we can see that governments do a poor job of serving their citizens, especially minority groups. Its an industry with little market feedback, little competition, little reason to perform well, and little opportunity for incremental improvement.

Sea = Better Government

When we build countries from modular seastead groups, however, everything changes. Moving around huge buildings on the water is cheap - just look at cruise ships and oil tankers. On the ocean, you can expatriate and take your house, friends, family, and office with you. This dramatically lower cost of switching providers promotes market feedback. If the government announces an unpopular policy on Monday, by Tuesday there may be nothing left but the capital building. This is true for any pet topic - libertarians and taxes, drug users and drug prohibition, pacifists and military expansion, environmentalists and pollution.

Furthermore, the barrier to entry is dramatically lower. Instead of the hundred-plus billion dollars its taking the US to enact a new regime in Iraq, any group with a few tens of millions can start a new country. They don't need to get it all at once either, they can add structures as resources and people become available. The result is to empower minority viewpoints of all types. Instead of huge, monolithic, unresponsive governments, we'll have many small, dynamic, innovative ones. Power will move downward towards the level of the smallest economically feasible platform (something like 10-100 people). We don't claim this will result in utopia, but it should increase the efficiency of any type of government.

These differences are intimately related to the difference between static and dynamic geography. You can grab dirt and hold it. Try to grab water, and it tends to fragment into tiny pieces and swirl away. What little you capture will slowly evaporate. This metaphor is an accurate one. Terrestrial governments control people because they can control territory and the immobile structures on top of it. On the ocean, control of the foundation has little relevance - a seastead can float anywhere.

One of the great things about this idea is that its a technological solution to a political problem. Humans are no good at changing human nature, and human nature, plus the nature of political systems, is why governments function poorly. Yet we are fabulous at solving engineering problems. Well, dynamic geography shows us that we can dramatically improve government merely by solving the engineering problems posed by seasteading. As cryptography makes it almost impossible to censor free speech and communication, seasteading will make it very difficult to exploit a trapped citizenry.

So as it turns out, the ocean is not a booby prize.

Summary

The problems facing prospective nation-founders are undoubtedly difficult, as evinced by the movement's historical lack of success. They can be overcome if and only if we rationally consider our options, then produce a design which is politically, technologically, and financially feasible. For the reasons which we will outline in this paper, we believe that seasteading meets these criteria. While there is a lot of planning and hard work ahead, there are no substantial leaps of faith required. We think that this makes our vision unique.

We cannot over-emphasize the importance of the economic analysis in Dynamic Geography. If one is trying to build a better (or different) society, it would be a great shame to boldly homestead the ocean frontier and have it turn into the same quagmire one was trying to escape. The other parts of our philosophy, and the rest of our paper, all deal with implementation, with the how of seasteading. It is Dynamic Geography that tells us why this new way of life will be different than the old. We are realists, and we expect that living with the same humans will result in many of the same human problems. But different systems can result in quite different results with the same people. While we will never reach utopia, we think we can make some fundamental improvements to current social systems, and in the real world, that is plenty to strive for.

So if you are interested in its details, please continue reading. Just don't expect any "artists renderings" of sprawling sea cities, budgets using the word "billion", or dependence on impractical new technologies. Instead, you'll learn fundamentals like how we plan to put together old techniques in new ways, how we keep our costs down, and how to make seasteading financially viable. By the end, you should have a good grasp of what is involved in making this vision a reality. And perhaps, (we hope) an interest in being part of the process.