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. But we’re glad to have our current timeline out there to help us and our community get on the same page about how our collective vision might unfold.
Our more observant community members may be wondering about the contradiction between our recent press coverage on CNN.com, with the headline “City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away” and our timeline which predicts only 10 full-time seasteaders in a few years.
CNN’s headline appears to stem from a misunderstanding about how big a seastead prototype is. The article cites MI&T engineer Christian Cermelli as saying “a prototype for the idea may be finished in as little as three years”. While we expect to build such a prototype sooner than that, it will only be the size of a small apartment. The headline writer seems to have missed the “prototype” part, and been under the impression that a single seastead would constitute a city, which obviously isn’t the case. (We’ve contacted them to clarify this and request a correction).
Because the history of the nation-founding and floating city movements is full of broken promises and unrealistic expectations, we think it’s important to make these types of clarifications. Realistic timelines are not as exciting, but at least we have a chance of making them. That said, the coverage was very positive and has been highly beneficial for us — our website traffic and volunteer offers went through the roof this week!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_(fictional)