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This next section contains our opinions about the current
state of affairs with regards to making seasteading
happen.
Source: http://seastead.org/commented/paper/happen.html#This_next_section_contains_our_opinions_about_the_
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[Tue Apr 19 09:21:46 EDT 2005-108] Mark (NOSPAMcatallarchy@polygrafix.com.NOSPAM):
Hi Patri,
I jumped to this chapter from your "Dynamic Geography" piece. I wanted to make sure you hadn't already covered the issue that has been gnawing at me ever since I followed the Oceania project back around 1999.
My position on this is: "Great Idea--How can I make it work for me?" I have this fuzzy roadmap in my mind for how I can retire to a free place. Suppose I buy a boat, sail to a nice beach for a few months and just weigh anchor whenever the rules become too onerous. What do I need?
Travel documents - I will have to cross borders often as a tourist, so I need a friendly passport with minimum visa requirements for the places I am likely to visit.
Permanent place of abode - I need to record some location both for those contracts I enter willingly and to have an easy answer to tell tax collectors I am not their subject.
Money - I can't think of any way to improve on this at the moment. I have traveled the world and can walk into nearly any shop and use a credit card. At the worst, I might have to stop in a bank and get a cash advance in local currency if I am going out in the backcountry. My capital needs to avoid countries with restrictive exchange controls and taxes, but there are many more people with much, much more money than me who are providing competitive pressure for this.
Security - My wife and I have lived in some dangerous places before, so we are comfortable dealing with security issues realistically. We don't mind arming ourselves as a deterrent to attack, but a lot of countries criminalize you for this. I wouldn't want to have to worry about the ship being searched while I'm out for dinner. It might be more useful to find a security company that can provide protection from piracy on the high seas. Failing this, we might be able to work out a defense cooperative with a couple of like-minded parties we trust where one ship can stay in international waters with the weapons while the others go ashore for a visit.
Legal services - As we cross many boundaries and legal jurisdictions, we will need international legal services. Lots of big players have already dealt with this, so it is just a matter of finding an affordable service. Hopefully, a growing market will drive prices down for small consumers.
Insurance - Again, this problem is already solved.
Medical services - We do our own emergency medicine, and would want to find doctors we trust in a fairly unregulated territory. We have our own methods of evaluating medical practitioners that usually conflicts with the regulations of the government-backed guilds. Like weapons, we may have to be careful about medicine in ports--I wouldn't want the ship impounded on drug charges because we had a vial of morphine in the medical jumpbag. If we have regular prescriptions, we would need a way to fill them.
Communications - I was about to say this couldn't be easier, but it does get easier every day. Today I would probably get a satellite Internet connection and run wireless on the ship for applications like VoIP, entertainment, and business communications, and get standard communications for navigation and emergency use.
Work - I'd find a niche in virtual services. Writing software or articles is an easy transition. Living differently gives lots of material for writing and exposes one to unexploited opportunities. Travel could work to one's advantage in setting up trade relations, say on a mom-and-pop scale of matching individual artists up with galleries and buyers. Tourism is another easy fit. We would end up doing a lot of on-line meetings with occasional on-site visits, which is no different from most of the business world.
Social ties - My wife and I would be comfortable keeping our own company for long streaches of time, punctuated with week-long visits with friends. If we made close friends with like-minded people, we would probably live on our boat, they live on theirs, we travel together when we feel like it, and we watch each other's back in weather, medical, or security emergencies.
Animals - Now things get more difficult. I really like having one or two big dogs around. The ship would have to be big enough to accomodate them, and countries like the UK and Australia make taking them ashore difficult.
Farming - My wife and I enjoy having a chunk of land (20-100 acres) to keep livestock and tinker with building projects. Maybe this is just an expression of our independent nature and we could replace it by the feeling of independence of living on the high seas. I am more convinced than she is.
Kids - Until the kids are grown (which is only a few years away), we like the stability of having them run around the farm and socialize with some fixed neighbors and community.
In short, most of the necessary infrastructure (and I mean services infrastructure as opposed to engineering infrastructure) seems to be in place. The things that keep us ashore and under the watchful eye of a government are very personal rather than anything that we have to wait for someone else to do.
A Seastead community that gave us a friendly place to dock and catered to our security, medical, and legal needs would be helpful. But I don't think a lack of sovereign floating platforms stops one from enjoying dynamic geography immediately.
Do you think you could give some thought to adding a section in your book somewhere under the "Incrementalism" level on "Doing It Today?"
Thanks,
Mark
(Frequent Catallarchy Commenter)
[Thu Jun 9 11:17:44 PDT 2005-159] Paul Spooner (NOSPAMdudecon@hotmail.com.NOSPAM):
I noticed that the "Making Money" and "market" sections, although present in the table of contents, are notably absent from this chapter. Where did they go? What IS the current plan for making money?
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