What do Hong Kong, Singapore, and Lichtenstein all have in common? They are home to 3 of the most free and most prosperous economies in the world. They are some of the highest ranked in terms of income and standard of living. With unemployment rates at 3.3%, 1.9%, and 1.5%, they seem to have delivered a knockout blow to poverty by simply allowing almost maximum freedom in the realm of economic behavior of their citizens.
So why hasnt every other country followed suite and adopted policies that advance human freedom? The simple answer is that almost every government in the world is trending towards becoming bigger and more invasive into peoples lives, telling free people what they can say, when they can gather and protest, how and with what can they protect themselves, etc.. Even in Singapore, there are major policies restraining personal freedom, with drug crimes even potentially carrying a death sentence.
Out of this trend, a movement has been sparked called Seasteading.The concept calls for the building of sovereign dwellings in the ocean, outside the jurisdictional reach of any nation. The 3 places mentioned above represent what proponents hope to emulate in their sea based communities. A Thousand floating Hong Kongs is how it is described in a promo video by The Seasteading Institute (TSI). TSI was formed in 2008 by Wayne Gramlich and Patri Friedman (Grandson of Nobel Prize Winning Economist Milton Friedman, and son of economist David Friedman) as an organization to help facilitate the establishment of the actual dwellings.
Founder of Paypal, Peter Thiel, has invested millions already toward the TSI in an effort to help the floating-city project come to reality. Thiel has stated thathe thinks sea colonization is an important step in securing mankinds future on Earth. Seasteading is essentially homesteading, rather its location is on the sea. A quick review of homesteading: the initiation of establishing a life-style of self-sufficiency.
When in international waters, these dwellings would be able to create their own legal systems, in effect creating competition among small, sovereign societies. Cruise ships currently take advantage of international law, as they are not tied to any one countrys laws, and they are essentially floating cities that provide everything that people need for weeks at a time. While the founders of TSI are libertarian in their beliefs, the intent is not to establish libertarian societies per se, but to allow competition, with people picking which Seasteading community fits their needs and wants. It is just as possible to have a sovereignstead, another for communist/socialist Seastead, and another for libertarians, muslims, etc. Projects and products succeed which receive the most votes: every dollar a consumer spends is a vote.
The biggest obstacle for TSI and others who hope to see functioning Seasteading operationsin the future seems to be the capital intensive nature of constructing the platforms. One possible solution could be cruise ships being retrofitted to become fully legitimate Seasteads themselves. This idea is being planned to an extent by a group called Blue Seed. The group is working towards building a start-up community for entrepreneurs, it is designed for foreigners who dont have a US work visa, and it will be located 12 nautical miles off the coast of San Francisco, in international waters.
The purpose is to bring entrepreneurs close to technology hot spots without putting them into a specific national legal framework. To some, this idea is utopic or dangerous, and therefore should not be taken seriously. But this kind of skeptical thinking has not stopped man from creating incredible technologies that have altered and improved the livesof people for generations. So will you criticize what seems unrealistic, or will you be daring enough to dream?
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Seasteading And Sovereignety - Exposing The Truth
- Seasteading Book - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Erwin Strauss - How to Start Your Own Country - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- David D. Friedman - Legal Systems Very Different From Ours - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- it's always ourselves we find in the sea - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- New Faces Mean New Developments at TSI - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- New Residential Cruise Ship - Samsung signs $1.1B LOI with Utopia Residences - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Sean Hastings - Experiences with HavenCo and SeaLand - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Ibsen on the sea - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Jim O'Neill - Health Innovation at the Frontier - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- The Seasteading Institute December 2009 Newsletter - December 13th, 2009 [December 13th, 2009]
- Russ George: Ocean Stewardship - December 22nd, 2009 [December 22nd, 2009]
- Eelco Hoogendoorn: Seastead Engineering Overview - December 29th, 2009 [December 29th, 2009]
- Happy 2009 From The Seasteading Institute! - December 29th, 2009 [December 29th, 2009]
- Mikolaj Habryn: Residential Shipsteading - December 31st, 2009 [December 31st, 2009]
- M.U.L.E. - steading - January 13th, 2010 [January 13th, 2010]
- Ephemerisle Documentary - January 13th, 2010 [January 13th, 2010]
- Jorge Schmidt - Legal Aspects of Seasteading - January 13th, 2010 [January 13th, 2010]
- James is ready to move! - January 19th, 2010 [January 19th, 2010]
- Seasteading is the cure for post-Avatar Depression? - January 23rd, 2010 [January 23rd, 2010]
- Dominique Roddier - Clubstead Engineering - January 26th, 2010 [January 26th, 2010]
- Engineering Parallels Between Ephemerisle & Seasteading - January 29th, 2010 [January 29th, 2010]
- Will Chamberlain - Thinking Structurally About Government - January 29th, 2010 [January 29th, 2010]
- Nice EEZ layer for Google Earth - February 2nd, 2010 [February 2nd, 2010]
- Na'ama Moran - Medical Tourism on Ships - February 5th, 2010 [February 5th, 2010]
- The Seasteading Institute February 2010 Newsletter - February 6th, 2010 [February 6th, 2010]
- Seoul, South Korea, Launches Floating Island - February 14th, 2010 [February 14th, 2010]
- Research Update: TSI Engineering Assessment Report (part 1) released - March 2nd, 2010 [March 2nd, 2010]
- Countries & Cruise Ships - March 5th, 2010 [March 5th, 2010]
- Viver no Mar (Living in the Sea) - March 5th, 2010 [March 5th, 2010]
- The Seasteading Institute March 2010 Newsletter - March 12th, 2010 [March 12th, 2010]
- WindWard Looks Seaward: Incremental Developments in Energy and Community - March 18th, 2010 [March 18th, 2010]
- Fun with Google Earth - March 18th, 2010 [March 18th, 2010]
- Website Downtime - March 23rd, 2010 [March 23rd, 2010]
- The Plastiki Sets Sail to Glorify Waste - March 23rd, 2010 [March 23rd, 2010]
- Internships at TSI - March 26th, 2010 [March 26th, 2010]
- Patri Friedman Appears on Freakonomics Podcast - March 31st, 2010 [March 31st, 2010]
- Seasteading R&D Company Looking For Investors - April 2nd, 2010 [April 2nd, 2010]
- The Seasteading Institute April 2010 Newsletter - April 8th, 2010 [April 8th, 2010]
- Pioneering Undersea Life in Legoland? - April 10th, 2010 [April 10th, 2010]
- TSI Argonauts: Benefits for Leading the Way - April 22nd, 2010 [April 22nd, 2010]
- Freedom in Brazil - April 22nd, 2010 [April 22nd, 2010]
- Francesca Galea Improves Understanding of the Legal Standing of Artificial Islands - April 28th, 2010 [April 28th, 2010]
- How Ephemerisle 2010 Will Bring Us Closer to Seasteading - May 4th, 2010 [May 4th, 2010]
- Learn Something New About the Ocean - May 12th, 2010 [May 12th, 2010]
- Ephemerisle 2010 tickets now on sale! - May 12th, 2010 [May 12th, 2010]
- The Seasteading Institute May 2010 Newsletter - May 14th, 2010 [May 14th, 2010]
- Let Freedom Ring! Reception and Conversation on June 9th, 2010 - May 22nd, 2010 [May 22nd, 2010]
- Container Cities - May 28th, 2010 [May 28th, 2010]
- Recommended Reading for The Seastead View Of Politics - May 28th, 2010 [May 28th, 2010]
- Recycling the gyre - May 31st, 2010 [May 31st, 2010]
- Sorry for the downtime! - June 8th, 2010 [June 8th, 2010]
- Ephemerisle: A Floating Festival of Freedom on Humanity's Next Frontier, July 22-25 - June 10th, 2010 [June 10th, 2010]
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- Ephemerisle 2010 Cancellation - June 20th, 2010 [June 20th, 2010]
- Secession Week 2010 at Let A Thousand Nations Bloom - June 30th, 2010 [June 30th, 2010]
- The Seasteading Institute July 2010 Newsletter - July 9th, 2010 [July 9th, 2010]
- Latest Seasteading Talk Video: Mises Brazil - July 13th, 2010 [July 13th, 2010]
- It's The Love Boat...For Ideas: Reason/TSI cruise - July 13th, 2010 [July 13th, 2010]
- Sink or Swim 2010 Business Contest - July 13th, 2010 [July 13th, 2010]
- Ideas wanted: Seasteading Book PR - July 15th, 2010 [July 15th, 2010]
- Seasteaders to attend the 2010 Singularity Summit - July 27th, 2010 [July 27th, 2010]
- TSI August 2010 Newsletter - August 4th, 2010 [August 4th, 2010]
- Short video from UCSD - August 13th, 2010 [August 13th, 2010]
- Documentary on micronations, featuring seasteading, premiering 9/11 at Toronto Film Festival - August 17th, 2010 [August 17th, 2010]
- TSI Welcomes its New Director of Engineering, George Petrie - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- TSI seeks Oceanography Researcher - up to $500 referral bonus - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- Answers to some basic seasteading questions about strategy - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- Patri Says: Help Us Create A Compelling Book Proposal! - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- TSI September 2010 Newsletter - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- Judges Selected for TSI's Sink or Swim Business Plan Contest - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- TSI Doubles Sink or Swim Prize Pool & Extends Deadline by Two Weeks - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- Global Wave Heatmap - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- The Seasteading Institute Fall 2010 Newsletter - October 17th, 2010 [October 17th, 2010]
- Watch Patri's Talk From The Feast - October 24th, 2010 [October 24th, 2010]
- Update To Oceanographer Position - October 24th, 2010 [October 24th, 2010]
- Seasteading: An Audacious Vision of Diversity and Innovation In Law - October 24th, 2010 [October 24th, 2010]
- Review of Micronation Film Highlights Seasteading Vision - October 24th, 2010 [October 24th, 2010]
- Reminder: Active review work happening on seasteading book! - October 24th, 2010 [October 24th, 2010]
- O. Shane Balloun on American Law Enforcement Jurisdiction Over Seasteads - October 24th, 2010 [October 24th, 2010]
- How does Patri spend his time? - October 31st, 2010 [October 31st, 2010]