TV documentary “Cybertopia – Dreams of Silicon Valley” features Seasteading

“If it’s up to Silicon Valley, we may soon be entering a new post-political era. But what might that Cybertopia– the alternative to Washington and Brussels– look like?”

The tide is turning in Europe. The Dutch, who have spearheaded the technology for floating cities, are coming around to the possibility for floating governments. Dutch viewers were recently treated to a mainstream TV documentary called “Cybertopia: Dreams of Silicon Valley” about the entrepreneurs who plan to disrupt government monopolies.

“Would you like to come to cybertopia, to the cloud with the uber-techies?” the narrator asks the TV audience. “Or would you rather stay in your old familiar nation-state, with all its compromises and imperfections? How seriously should we take these techno-optimists? They have the knowledge, the networks and the power to have real influence.”

The show opens and concludes with Randolph Hencken, Executive Director of the Seasteading Institute, while also featuring Peter Thiel, Burning Man, Googleplex, and Draper University. As a special treat, Tim Draper of the 6 California’s Initiative demonstrates his dance moves.

Favorite provocative quote? Louis Rossetto, founder of Wired:

“I think politics are a mistake. They’re the trailing edge of society. And people who go into politics do it because they have an emotional problem. It hearkens back to Wilhelm Reich talking about the mass psychology of fascism, where politics is about working out your own emotional difficulties on other people. There’s something wrong with that. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want other people to do that to me – or around society in general.

“So I think in the twenty-first century, politics has been shown to be, if not bad, at least full of unintended consequences. And so if you want to make a better world, forget about electing Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton or any of these politicians, but go out and do it yourself, directly.”

Seasteading is featured from 0:50 to 2:50, and again at 40:00.

Let us know what you think.