Patri / Vince meeting, Puerto Rico, Feb 20th, 2009
Discussion of TSI’s engineering strategy, key points. (wish I’d written this up sooner, my notes are a bit cryptic)
Vince’s version of his key points is on this wiki page. Discussion on this forum post. Wayne & I have a number of comments here on Vince’s ideas, as you will see.
I wrote the original mission statement for The Seasteading Institute somewhat hastily while trying to get the corporate entity formed and website going on a tight deadline.
From email correspondence with Michael Schutte, CEO of Brilliant Boats LLC, about the Poseidon Underwater Resort (mentioned in the book):
As TSI grows, we plan to split off blogs by topic, so that people interested in political theory don’t have to read about engineering details, and vice-versa. As the first such forking, I am going to be spinning off the dynamic geography related posts from here to a new blog. It will be about the topic area which contains federalism, seasteading, anarcho-capitalism, Mencius Moldbug, tax competition between nations, and other structural reforms to improve competition between government.
One of our favored business models has been the CoastStead – a business park operating 12nm offshore, just outside territorial waters. Being able to draw from the economy of a first-world country makes it much easier to make money and finance a seastead.
However, our recent legal research has determined that this model may not work with existing international law. While a ship is under the flag jurisdiction beyond 12nm, artificial installations are regulated by the coastal state throughout the EEZ (200nm or more).
Phillip Greenspun has a long review of The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities, written by Mancur Olson in 1982. As you can see from this review excerpt, Olson’s model is quite relevant to seasteading.
We recently posted a possible seasteading timeline and asked for feedback on it. At some point, we intend to create a timeline reflecting a more optimistic scenario, showing how quickly seasteading might grow if circumstances line up extremely well.
From our PR volunteer Basia Montauk comes an overview of last week’s press coverage:
Original stories:
What: March Seasteading Social
When: March 28, 2009 12:00 PM
Meetup Description: Come out and socialize with your fellow seasteaders! The Starry Plough in Berkeley has graciously offered to host us from 12-4. We’ve got the place to ourselves, so we’ll have plenty of room.
Thanks to our excellent new volunteer Tyler, who found us this location!
_It sounds like the plot of a pre-Daniel Craig Bond film: an internet tycoon invests part of his vast fortune to fund a fiefdom afloat in international waters.
