The residential groups can be roughly partitioned into political groups (e.g. libertarians [Atlantis1994], socialists, communists, etc.), religious groups (e.g. fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, etc.) , and single issue groups (e.g. drugs [Island], nudists, gun enthusiasts [FrontSight], environmentalists [Celestopia], etc.) While sometimes these groups can legally form their own land based communities, they may prefer to do so in a more isolated environment like a seastead to avoid hassles with local authorities. Some of these groups will have no legal land based option available to them, so something like a seastead will be their only option. Essentially seasteads would function as intentional communities, with far greater independence and autonomy.