Comments page
(You may have to reload this page to see new comments
or modifications to the source paragraph. Also note that the source
section may have been edited since some of these comments were
made.)
Original Paragraph:
[ Modified Wed Nov 12 14:00:02 PST 2003
]
[ Modified Wed Mar 3 07:35:12 PST 2004
]
[ Modified Mon Sep 20 16:51:25 EDT 2004
]
[ Modified Mon Sep 20 17:00:04 EDT 2004
]
[ Modified Fri Oct 29 02:10:34 EDT 2004
]
[ Modified Fri Oct 29 02:15:01 EDT 2004
]
[ Modified Thu Nov 11 21:14:20 EST 2004
]
[ Modified Thu Nov 11 21:15:09 EST 2004
]
[ Modified Mon Nov 15 14:48:11 EST 2004
]
[ Modified Mon Nov 15 15:00:25 EST 2004
]
Each prototype will be larger, more expensive, able to deal
with larger waves, and be more self-sufficient. While early ones
may be built by volunteers, once we reach the Baystead or
Coaststead stage, professional engineers and contractors will be
hired. With enough interest and experienced engineers, it may be
possible to jump directly to Baystead. While this may seem
contrary to the succession idea, note that Baystead is still ten
thousand times cheaper than the Freedom Ship - so we think its a
reasonable starting point.
Source: http://seastead.org/commented/paper/happen.html#Each_prototype_will_be_larger_more_expensive_able_
Add a comment
Comments:
[Tue Dec 9 16:33:16 PST 2003-342] James:
I don't think that's the right way to bootstrap the whole thing. Nobody is going to dump millions of dollars to make a stead, especially when they don't know how many people are actually interested in seriously steading. It all comes down to how many people in this world that we can get together to come out and start steading. The more people there are, the more likely it'll be successful, the more likely we'll get individuals with the money to invest in building steads.
It is very much a catch-22 problem. We need lots of people to make it work, but the people won't join until it's already established. The only way to fix this problem is to 1) establish a large online community interested in this 2) a list of signatures from people who are willing to drop whatever they're doing to join a viable steading project. I think a modest goal of 10 thousand people should be attained before we went forward with a large steading project.
In addition to that, an annual event should be established that involves many boats coming together at a location to simulate steading for a week. This would be a true bootstrapping operation. Overtime, more and more people would join the festitivities, and some of the more hardcore people may decide to stay attached for longer and longer periods.
[Tue Jan 6 16:15:48 PST 2004-5] Patri Friedman (NOSPAMpatri@seastead.org.NOSPAM):
I agree with you about the catch-22 problem. But I think 10,000 is way, way, way too many people. It took the FSP years to get 5,000 people to agree just to move to a state in the USA. We'll never get 10,000 people in a monolithic block willing to move to the middle of the ocean. 100, maybe. Or a few thousand timesharers for a week or two a year.
As for the annual event, I totally agree, and proposed the same idea here, called Ephemerisle:
http://patrifriedman.com/projects/ephemerisle/
[Mon Sep 27 17:27:46 EDT 2004-270] Joep (NOSPAMjoep@tetra.nl.NOSPAM):
Why the Catch-22? Other big things are build without doing it gradually. I see 2 relatively easy options. One is to find people in similar markets (hotels, cruise ships) that are willing to invest because they can make an educated guess and see a profitable venture. $3M-$15M is a big amount of money, but if someone happens to have it and sees possibilities to earn money (hotels, "fun ships", casino's) they will build it.
The other is to start selling timeshares at E-bay and let the market decide if people are willing to spend the money. This way people don't have to invest a lot, and they don't have to pay if the project -let's hope not!- fails.
[Mon Sep 27 17:31:02 EDT 2004-270] Joep (NOSPAMjoep@tetra.nl.NOSPAM):
(btw, people don't have to move to the middle of the ocean. they just have to decide if they want to be able to go on holiday after 5 years, at a cost of, let's say, $2000. That is a much smaller decision than moving to another state.)
[Thu Sep 30 23:10:15 EDT 2004-273] Patri Friedman (NOSPAMpatri@clevername.net.NOSPAM):
Joep, I certainly agree that timesharing is a good way to increase the market.
Its not that big things are never built, its that brand new big things aren't. yeah, there are skyscrapers. But first there were 2 story buildings, then 3 story, and so on. No one would bankroll a 30 story building when there weren't any taller than 5 stories.
[Fri Jun 2 13:41:10 PDT 2006-152] Unknown:
I agree with all this. very good thoughts.
But remember that the whole point of small steps towards big seasteads is that you only need 50 people max interested at thee start. When others see that it works, chances are more will join.
[Fri Mar 9 03:54:30 PST 2007-67] Jesrad (NOSPAMjesrad@gmail.com.NOSPAM):
You could skip the Bathstead step easily: I've been building a model of seastead in the Second Life virtual world (in Everlite). All the advantages of demonstration, and very low capital requirement. It even lets people work collectively on the design.
Add a comment:
We'd love to get your feedback. Name and email address are optional.
Email will be listed with the comment, but munged to foil spammers.
Comments may be deleted at the sysadmins whim.
Currently, all HTML tags are forbidden for security reasons. This
will be improved later.
Back to original paragraph
View all comments on paper/happen.html for this
day,
week,
month.
Read about the SOCS commenting package