The concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea
Seasteading is the concept of creating permanent dwellings at sea, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by any government. The term is a blend of sea and homesteading.
Proponents say they can "provide the means for rapid innovation in voluntary governance and reverse environmental damage to our oceans ... and foster entrepreneurship." [1] Some critics fear seasteads are designed more as a refuge for the wealthy to avoid taxes or other obligations.[2]
No one has yet created a structure on the high seas that has been recognized as a sovereign state. Proposed structures have included modified cruise ships, refitted oil platforms, decommissioned anti-aircraft platforms, and custom-built floating islands.[3]
As an intermediate step, the Seasteading Institute has promoted cooperation with an existing nation on prototype floating islands with legal semi-autonomy within the nation's protected territorial waters. On January 13, 2017, the Seasteading Institute signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with French Polynesia to create the first semi-autonomous "seazone" for a prototype,[4][5] but later that year political changes driven by the French Polynesia presidential election led to the indefinite postponement of the project.[6] French Polynesia formally backed out of the project and permanently cut ties with Seadsteading on March 14, 2018.[7]
The first single-family seastead was launched near Phuket, Thailand by Ocean Builders.[8] Two months later, the Thai Navy claimed the seastead was a threat to Thai sovereignty.[9] As of 2019, Ocean Builders says it will be building again in Panama, with the support of government officials.[10]
Many architects and firms have created designs for floating cities, including Vincent Callebaut,[11][12] Paolo Soleri[13] and companies such as Shimizu, Ocean Builders[14] and E. Kevin Schopfer.[15]
For a dozen years L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, and his executive leadership became a maritime-based community named the Sea Organization (Sea Org). Beginning in 1967 with a complement of four ships, the Sea Org spent most of its existence on the high seas, visiting ports around the world for refueling and resupply. In 1975 much of these operations were shifted to land-based locations.
Marshall Savage discussed building tethered artificial islands in his 1992 book The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps, with several color plates illustrating his ideas.
Other historical predecessors and inspirations for seasteading include:
At least two people independently coined the term seasteading: Ken Neumeyer in his book Sailing the Farm (1981) and Wayne Gramlich in his article "Seasteading Homesteading on the High Seas" (1998).[17]
Gramlich's essay attracted the attention of Patri Friedman.[18] The two began working together and posted their first collaborative book online in 2001.[19] Their book explored many aspects of seasteading from waste disposal to flags of convenience. This collaboration led to the creation of the non-profit The Seasteading Institute (TSI) in 2008.
In March 2019, a group called Ocean Builders claimed to have built the first seastead in International Waters, off the coast of the Thai island of Phuket.[20] Thai Navy officials have charged them of violating Thai Sovereignty.[21]
In April 2019, the concept of floating cities as a way to cope with rising oceans was included in a presentation by the United Nations program UN-Habitat. As presented, they would be limited to sheltered waters.[22]
On April 15, 2008, Wayne Gramlich and Patri Friedman founded the 501(c)(3) non-profit The Seasteading Institute (TSI), an organization formed to facilitate the establishment of autonomous, mobile communities on seaborne platforms operating in international waters.[23][24][25]
Friedman and Gramlich noted that according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country's Exclusive Economic Zone extends 200 nautical miles (370km) from shore. Beyond that boundary lie the high seas, which are not subject to the laws of any sovereign state other than the flag under which a ship sails. They proposed that a seastead could take advantage of the absence of laws and regulations outside the sovereignty of nations to experiment with new governance systems, and allow the citizens of existing governments to exit more easily.[23][26][27]
The project picked up mainstream exposure after PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel donated $500,000 in initial seed capital[26] (followed by subsequent contributions). He also spoke out on behalf of its viability in his essay "The Education of a Libertarian".[28] TSI received widespread media attention.[29][25][30][31][32]
In 2008, Friedman and Gramlich said they hoped to float the first prototype seastead in the San Francisco Bay by 2010[33][34] followed by a seastead in 2014.[35] TSI did not meet these targets.
In January 2009, the Seasteading Institute patented a design for a 200-person resort seastead, ClubStead, about a city block in size, produced by consultancy firm Marine Innovation & Technology. The ClubStead design marked the first major engineering analysis in the seasteading movement.[25][36][37]
In July 2012, the vessel Opus Casino was donated to the Seasteading Institute.[38]
In the spring of 2013,[39] TSI launched The Floating City Project.[40] The project proposed to locate a floating city within the territorial waters of an existing nation, rather than the open ocean.[41] TSI claimed that doing so would have several advantages by placing it within the international legal framework and making it easier to engineer and easier for people and equipment to reach.
In October 2013, the Institute raised $27,082 from 291 funders in a crowdfunding campaign[42] TSI used the funds to hire the Dutch marine engineering firm DeltaSync[43] to write an engineering study for The Floating City Project.
In September 2016 the Seasteading Institute met with officials in French Polynesia[44] to discuss building a prototype seastead in a sheltered lagoon.[45] On January 13, 2017, French Polynesia Minister of Housing Jean-Christophe Bouissou signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with TSI to create the first semi-autonomous "seazone". TSI spun off a for-profit company called "Blue Frontiers", which will build and operate a prototype seastead in the zone.[46]
On March 3, 2018, French Polynesia government said the agreement was "not a legal document" and had expired at the end of 2017.[47] No action has been announced since.
A proposal to build a "floating island" with a luxury hotel in Jounieh north of the Lebanese capital Beirut, was stalled as of 2015 because of concerns from local officials about environmental and regulatory matters.[48][49]
Blueseed was a company aiming to float a ship near Silicon Valley to serve as a visa-free startup community and entrepreneurial incubator. Blueseed founders Max Marty and Dario Mutabdzija met when both were employees of The Seasteading Institute. The project planned to offer living and office space, high-speed Internet connectivity, and regular ferry service to the mainland[50][51] but as of 2014 the project was "on hold".[52]
Cruise ships are a proven technology, and address most of the challenges of living at sea for extended periods of time. However, they're typically optimized for travel and short-term stay, not for permanent residence in a single location.
Examples:
Platform designs based on spar buoys, similar to oil platforms.[55] In this design, the platforms rest on spars in the shape of floating dumbbells, with the living area high above sea level. Building on spars in this fashion reduces the influence of wave action on the structure.[36]
Examples:
There are numerous seastead designs based around interlocking modules made of reinforced concrete.[58] Reinforced concrete is used for floating docks, oil platforms, dams, and other marine structures.
Examples:
A single, monolithic structure that is not intended to be expanded or connected to other modules.
Examples:
Criticisms have been leveled at both the practicality and desirability of seasteading.
Critics believe that creating governance structures from scratch is a lot harder than it seems.[64] Also, seasteads would still be at risk of political interference from nation states.[25]
On a logistical level, without access to culture, travel, restaurants, shopping, and other amenities, seasteads could be too remote and too uncomfortable to be attractive to potential long-term residents.[25] Building seasteads to withstand the rigors of the open ocean may prove uneconomical.[64][25]
Seastead structures may blight ocean views, their industry or farming may deplete their environments, and their waste may pollute surrounding waters. Some critics believe that seasteads will exploit both residents and the nearby population.[64] Others fear that seasteads will mainly allow wealthy individuals to escape taxes,[2] or to harm mainstream society by ignoring other financial, environmental, and labor regulations.[2][64]
The Seasteading Institute held its first conference in Burlingame, California, October 10, 2008. Forty-five people from nine countries attended.[65]The second Seasteading conference was significantly larger, and held in San Francisco, California, September 2830, 2009.[66][67]The third Seasteading conference took place May 31 June 2, 2012.[68]
Seasteading has been imagined many times in novels as early as Jules Verne's 1895 science-fiction book Propeller Island (L'le hlice) about an artificial island designed to travel the waters of the Pacific Ocean, and as recent as 2003's The Scar, which featured a floating city, Armada. It has been a central concept in some movies, notably Waterworld (1995) and in TV series such as Stargate Atlantis, which had a complete floating city. And it is a common setting in video games, forming the premise of BioShock and BioShock 2, Brink, and Call of Duty: Black Ops II; and in anime, such as Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet which takes place mainly on a traveling city made of an interconnected fleet of ocean ships.
Read more:
- 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]
- Ephemerisle: Evolving Society on Humanity's Next Frontier, July 22-25 - June 10th, 2010 [June 10th, 2010]
- 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]