Category Archives: Seasteading

Robert Viglione is the co-founder of Zen, a blockchain-based private borderless decentralized platform for communications andtransactions. The technologyisdesigned to support very high data survivability even in adversarial environments. It was inspired by Bitcoin, Dash and Zcash.

The London Summit 2017 is coming, get involved!

Yesterday Viglione talked with Finance Magnates about the state of cryptocurrency adoption in different regions around the world such as Venezuela and Africa, how fast the technology could take over digital finance, the response in academia to his interest and even the possibility of new micro-nations being crowdfunded with an ICO.

The interview was broadcast live and a video recording is available here:

In addition to co-founding ZenCash and being part of its core team, Robert Viglione is a PhD candidate in finance at the University of South Carolina, doing research on crypto-finance, asset pricing, and innovation. Heteaches Intro to Investments and Bitcoin & Blockchain Applications in Finance and runs the university crypto-club.

His other crypto industry experience includes being part of the core team for ZClassic, Head of U.S. & Canada Ambassadors for BlockPay, and consultant to BitGate, a Norwegian exchange. He has written for CoinDesk and Bitcoin.com.Viglione says that one of the most fun projects he isworking on at the moment is helping with the development of the blockchain strategy for the Seasteading Institute aPeter Thiel backed venture tocreate permanent settlements at sea outside the control ofany government.

Robert is also a former physicist, mercenary mathematician, and military officer with experience in satellite radar, space launch vehicles, and combat support intelligence.

Read the rest here:

ZenCash's Robert Viglione Talks Borderless Cryptocurrency and More - Finance Magnates

Illustration of a seastead, modeled after a local flower to honor the Polynesian culture. Photo courtesy of Joe Quirk/Seasteading Institute.

While some people are planning for life on Mars, theres a new movement of so-called Seasteaders planning to colonize a frontier a lot closer to home.

Quirk: Seasteading is building politically independent cities that float on the ocean.

Thats Joe Quirk with the California-based Seasteading Institute.

He believes that man-made islands will someday be home to independent communities where people can experiment with new forms of government and launch innovative businesses. He says these islands may also have value for places threatened by sea-level rise.

Quirk: The immediate imperative is to provide a solution for these Pacific Island nations that are sinking below sea level.

As its first project, the Seasteading Institute plans to build a cluster of island platforms in a French Polynesian lagoon. Quirk says the technology to build the islands exists, and if all goes well, construction will start next year.

Theres still widespread skepticism about the feasibility of Seasteading, let alone its ability to provide an affordable solution for people displaced by rising sea levels.

But as we face a world changed by global warming, projects like this remind us that there are ground-breaking ideas waiting to be explored.

Reporting credit: Sarah Kennedy/ChavoBart Digital Media.

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As sea levels rise, are floating cities the future? - Yale Climate Connections

By 2020, Blue Frontiers, our for-profit spinoff from The Seasteading Institute, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, plans to provide fresh jurisdictions on floating sustainable islands designed to adapt organically to sea level change. These will be privately financed and built by local maritime construction firms employing the latest in sustainable blue tech.

Of course, the need for seasteads could not be greater. Americans are fed up with their government -- in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly two-thirds of Americans reported that they trust neither the Democratic or Republican establishment to represent them.

A modular wavebreaker shelters Artisanopolis, a model seastead, in shallow coastal waters. Greenhouse domes will provide locally grown food. Courtesy of Gabriel Scheare, Chile.

Fast-forward over two hundred years, and most land has been claimed by governments established in previous centuries -- leaving the high seas to serve as the latest frontier for innovation.

That same year, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Peter Thiel and Patri Friedman, co-founded The Seasteading Institute to bring a startup sensibility to the problem of government monopolies that are too big to succeed.

The first permanent businesses on the high seas could be sovereign floating hospitals that provide cutting-edge care to patients who choose them. Design concept by Edward McIntosh, 2014, Ecuador.

So where will the Wozniaks of governance go?

Gather your kindred spirits, forge a business plan to sell a unique service to the world and entice people to choose your floating island. If immigrants arrive and create a thriving community, your floating town could expand and grow into a city. If your floating island goes bankrupt, it will be disassembled and sold off to competing seasteads.

Seasteads 3D-printed on the ocean will not resemble skyscrapers rooted in bedrock. The City of Meriens follows the form and function of a manta ray. Jacques Rougerie Architecte, France.

There's no shortage of innovators who believe they can create better societies, and no shortage of funders who want to invest in the New Blue World. Since people will be able to select and reject seasteads voluntarily, an evolutionary market process that will discover better ways of living together will naturally emerge.

Residents will have more direct influence over their floating society of a few hundred than they would have over an old nation of hundreds of millions. Also, unlike present governments, floating islands are no threat to other nations.

Small floating cities already proliferate on our oceans. Oil rig workers typically work two weeks out of every four in floating accommodations that meet hotel standards, where they enjoy saunas, gyms, maid and laundry services and satellite TV. Their platforms, each the size of one or two football fields, are frequently stable enough to play ping pong.

Metropolis 2055: Modular neighborhoods can detach and move to other seasteads or form new seasteads. These are the fluid mechanics of voluntary societies. Courtesy of Tyler Kreshover, USA.

Meanwhile, French Polynesia has offered to host the first pilot seastead. This ancient culture of navigators has been choosing among islands and founding new societies for millennia. Leaders in French Polynesia reached out to The Seasteading Institute to let us know they possess all the features seasteading needs to get started: calm warm waters, natural wave breakers and a youth culture eager to work in incubation hubs for blue tech.

On January 13, 2017, French Polynesia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with The Seasteading Institute, agreeing to work together on legislation for a "special governing framework," so pioneers can offer innovative societies in a protected Tahitian lagoon.

The prototype for their floating islands has already been built in the Netherlands by our Dutch engineers at DeltaSync in partnership with Public Domain Architects. The Floating Pavilion in Rotterdam is sustainable, solar-powered and mobile, a sterling example of what the Dutch call "climate-proof architecture."

So let's let a thousand nations bloom.

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How to build your own country - CNN

Here on land, the seasteaders propose, ideas about how to govern societies have stagnated. Politics is too entrenched; societal change comes slowly, if at all. Our terrestrially trained minds are blind to the terrifying potential for tyranny in the power to claim landfixed, immobile, where people have no choice but to live, write the authors. Seasteads would upset this dynamic, since each floating city would be small enough and modular enough that individuals could come and go freely, shopping for governments and social structures. If residents didnt like one utopia, they could simply sail off to a new one.

Theres something seductive about this idea. Its the inverse of Francis Fukuyamas proposition, in his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man, that global liberal democracy was the end point of politics and the world would seethe no morea notion at once comforting and deflating. The Seasteaders imagine the opposite: an endless flowering of new power structures. At a TEDx talk in 2012, Friedman likened the seasteading movement to the Cambrian Explosiona moment in evolutionary history when the globs and mollusks of the primordial soup gave way to a diverse array of complex organisms. Not only humans, but human societies evolve, Friedman asserted. We need new places to try new rules.

The authors dont say which new rules, exactly, they hope to try, and the Seasteading Institute makes clear that it will not be operating the cities itself. The particulars of each seasteads political system should be determined by its inhabitantsor an oligarch, if thats the way it turns out. Any set of rules is OK, the organizations FAQ page emphasizes, as long as the residents consent to it voluntarily and can leave whenever they choose.

Quirk and Friedman insist that their movement is apolitical: Seasteading is less an ideology than a technology, they claim. But the ability to choose among societies at sea is itself political, the expression of a belief that free markets are the ultimate guarantee of happiness. Whats more, the pitfalls of the free market seem even more dire when the commodity being produced is governance itself: In a world where citizen-consumers can move between societies as they choose, the poorest and most vulnerable could easily be priced out and left adrift. As with so many consumption choices on the free market, the choice is only available to those with means, while those with limited purchasing power are constrained and even coerced.

This might sound silly: Seasteading, of course, would be an option, an add-on to land-based societies, and those who dont want to go could simply stay on the shore. But if seasteading is also a grand thought experiment about decentralizing power and increasing mobility, it has to consider how those dynamics work for everyone. And that, by definition, means the nature of the endeavor is inherently political.

It is not hard to see why this free-market vision appealed to libertarian backers like Thiel. Libertarianism prizes freedom and autonomy, expressing skepticism of taxes, regulations, and any other version of state power that impinges on individual sovereignty. In 2009, with the world reeling from the subprime mortgage crisis that ballooned into a global banking meltdown, Thiel wrote that the crisis had been caused by too much debt and leverage, facilitated by a government that insured against all sorts of moral hazards. The response, he warned, would be even more government intervention; believers in the free market were screaming into a hurricane. The essay, The Education of a Libertarian, is also an elegy, lamenting the lack of truly free places left in our world.

Democracy did not strike Thiel as a path to the freedom he seeks. At the Seasteading Institutes conference in 2009, he spoke about his own intellectual development. Where he once saw political argument as a way to solve problems, he now viewed it as a problem in itself. It is not only ineffective at making the world freer, its also unpleasant: All the fighting over political ideals reminded him of trench warfare. As he had put it in his essay, he wished to escape, not via politics, but beyond it.

For Thiel, seasteading represented one of the few arenas in which individuals might still act free from any government restriction or regulation. Unlike the world of politics, in the world of technology the choices of individuals may still be paramount, he opined in his essay. The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism. This is more or less what Quirk and Friedman have in mind with their vision of life at sea. We dont trust people with power, they write. We trust them with freedom.

In 2011, Thiel funded Blueseed, which was to be a floating tech incubator based in international waters off the coast of Northern California, a short ferry ride from Silicon Valley. The idea was to provide a base of operations for entrepreneurs who wanted to bypass the hassle of U.S. immigration lawsan immigration hack, as Atossa Abrahamian put it in a Quartz op-ed. The idea eventually fizzled out when Blueseed was unable to raise enough money to get its business hub for cruise ships off the ground. The companys final missive, in January 2015, was a retweet: When 99% of people doubt your idea, youre either gravely wrong or about to make history. It closed, touchingly, with #inspiration and #start-up.

For all its failures, Blueseed did achieve one thing: It exemplified the impracticalities and contradictions of the seasteading movements anti-political vision. To dream up a cruise ship business hub that parks just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge and sails under a Bahamanian flag, allowing for easy international movement free of immigration laws, is both truly innovative and deeply political. Its political to value open borders and internationalism, and to strive to create a center for innovation that would benefit from a particular system of governance.

The same can be said of the whole seasteading project. A nation where citizens can come and go freely, detaching their modular floating living quarters and sailing off to a better floating town, untethered by anything but their means and their free will, is not an island without politicsits an island with a very particular set of politics. I am, for instance, all for a carbon-negative island that floats over the ocean, clearing marine dead zones with its vibrant, submerged kelp forests and aquaculture structures, producing its own food in towering hydroponic gardens and recycling its desalinated seawaterall ideas put forward by Quirk and Friedman. But thats because of my politics.

Technology can do many things, many of them verging on the miraculousbut it cannot bypass values, commitments, interests, and beliefs. Hearing the language and philosophy of tech disruption applied to governmentwhen so many of the amazing technological advances that have fueled recent disruptions have done so at the expense of labor rights and individual privacywe landlubbers are right to be wary. Government is not simply an albatross around the neck of otherwise free individuals. When it works, it protects the vulnerable and guards the commonsessential tasks at which the free market so often fails. Ocean dwellers will also need those protections. Much as we might like to, we cant escape the political, even by walking into the sea.

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Libertarians Seek a Home on the High Seas - New Republic

A French Polynesian environmentalist helping proponents of a floating island in the territory says there's likely to be little harm to the environment.

Pauline Sillinger is assisting with community outreach for the experiment which involves designing and building a floating sustainable community off Tahiti.

She said the most reassuring thing was that the team involved was eco-friendly.

"Everything is already being thought of and really when we say this is an ecological project, it's also showing there are technologies that exist that are better than fossil fuels and that are better than all the technologies that we're using now that are environmentally destructive," Pauline Sillinger said.

Artist's impression of "Artisanopolis" one of the winning architectural concept designs in a Seasteading Institute design competition for a floating city. Photo: Seasteading Institute/Gabriel Sheare, Luke & Lourdes Crowley, and Patrick White

Ms Sillinger said a floating island was better for the marine environment than reclamation.

She said the impact on things like marine animals, currents, and micro organisms would be minimal.

Ms Sillinger has studied the impact of the territory's alluring over-water hotel bungalows which can deplete the sunlight necessary for micro-organisms in the water.

"From what I have heard from the environmental impact assessment of the floating island project it seems that it should not be that much of an issue because they've actually found a way to have little platforms that are going to let the sunlight penetrate," explained Ms Sillinger.

She said the project was like a high tech "eco-village" which tried to close the loop environmentally and economically.

"It doesn't mean that they live by themselves and they're completely secluded from the rest of society. It means that they're making the maximum amount of effort in order to have their own energy production in order to deal with their own waste , in order to deal with their grey water, to collect it, to treat it so everything is already being thought," she said.

Ms Sillinger said many locals were sceptical about the project but more information could convince them of its benefits.

Minister Jean-Christophe Bouissou (right) with Randolph Hencken (left) of the Seasteading Institute at the signing of the memorandum of understanding of the floating island project. Photo: Prsidence de la Polynsie franaise

"We're a country that has undergone colonialism so hearing about a bunch of Western people coming from Silicon Valley, they might be rich and they might be libertarian ... it's threatening to us," Ms Sillinger explained.

She said once people got more details from those behind the pilot, the Silicon Valley-based group, the Seasteading Institute, they would realise the threats are minimal.

"We are having a negative reaction from the population which I completely understand but the truth is if the Polynesian people really really do not want the project after really learning all the components of it, so after making an informed decision, let's say, then the Seasteading Institute will decide to go somewhere else because they're not invaders right?"

Artists impression of "Storm Makes Sense of Shelter" a winning entry in the Seasteading Institute's design competition for a floating city. Photo: Seasteading Institute/Simon Nummy (Atkins)

Excerpt from:

Floating island off Tahiti won't harm says environmentalist - Radio New Zealand

Transcript

PAULINE SILLINGER: i know from the environmental impact assessment that they have ordered that the impacts should be fairly low. I also know that the team is pro eco-friendly and for me this is the most reassuring thing, you know, the fact that you have a team of people who not only want to impress the society with good deeds, I would regard, to the environment, they also want to do the best for the environment because they truly believe it is a cause that is worth supporting

SALLY ROUND: So what are the environmental challenges that you can see that need to be taken into account?

PS: There are many. If we only talk about the biophysical environment let's say ... the platform is going to be over the water. We have a lot of luxury tourism in French Polynesia and we have a lot of over water bungalows . I know that there are some environmental impacts from those over water bungalows, for example, because they impact the amount of sunlight that penetrates the micro column and then all the micro organisms are affected in terms of photosynthesis but from what I have heard from the environmental impact assessment of the floating island project it seems that it should not be that much of an issue because they've actually found a way to have little platforms that are going to let the sunlight penetrate so this is one challenge, you know, maybe the impact on the coral environment , the impact on the marine animals and stuff like this but they are really being taken into account. Floating structures are so much better than reclamation so if we compare it's better for the marine environment and even without the comparison I think the environmental impacts on the marine animals and all the micro organisms in the water, on the water currents , on the water temperature and things like this are going to be very small.

SR: And they talk about it being sustainable so I guess any waste to be dealt with on the floating island. Is that possible?

PS: Of course it's possible. I'm very interested in how eco-villages work. What really caught my attention in this project in the beginning is that for me it was like creating a high tech eco-village. You know an eco-village really tries to close the loop either in terms of environment, or in terms of our economic system and they do not want to depend on the outside. It doesn't mean that they live by themselves and they're completely secluded from the rest of society. It means that they're making the maximum amount of effort in order to have their own energy production in order to deal with their own waste , in order to deal with their grey water, to collect it, to treat it so everything is already being thought of and really when we say this is an ecological project, it's also showing there are technologies that exist that are better than fossil fuels and that are better than all the technology that we're using right now that are actually environmentally destructive and we can use them. It's not that much of a challenge.

SR: You say you're involved with doing some outreach work for the Seasteading Institute. What sort of reaction are you getting from the community there in French Polynesia?

PS: Already now I can tell you the reaction from the Polynesian population. What we see on social media is that the population really doesn't agree with the project. They really don't want it. I think there are two main reasons for that. The first is an historical reason. We're a country that has undergone colonialism so hearing about a bunch of Western people coming from Silicon Valley, they might be rich and they might be libertarian, I don't know how you say that in English, it's threatening to us. So we're very sceptical as Polynesians because we are afraid that what we have lived in the past with all those invasions, let's say, that Westerners deemed so good for the Polynesian people, we're afraid that this is going to happen again. The second reason why people are so sceptical about the project and really don't welcome it so far is because there is such a lack of information. If the Polynesian people was more interested in knowing about the details of the project, the political details, the social details, the environmental details, the economic details, you name it, they would realise that all the details they are afraid of have already been thought of and the solution is a better option than they can imagine. So for now we are having a negative reaction from the population which I completely I understand but the Seasteading Institute is really trying to work towards raising awareness with regard to this project but the truth is if the Polynesian people really really do not want the project after really learning about all the components of it, so after making an informed decision, let's say, then the Seasteading Institute will decide to go somewhere else because they're not invaders right?

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Floating island off Tahiti aims to be eco-friendly - Radio New Zealand

Two-thirds of our globe is Planet Ocean, not Planet Earth.

Imagine a vast new source of sustainable and renewable energy that would also bring more equitable economies. A previously untapped source of farming that could produce significant new sources of nutrition. Future societies where people could choose the communities they want to live in, free from the restrictions of conventional citizenship. This bold vision of our near future as imagined in Seasteading attracted the powerful support of Silicon Valleys Peter Thieland it may be drawing close to reality.

Our planet is suffering from serious environmental problems: coastal flooding due to severe storms caused in part by atmospheric pollution and diminishing natural resources among them. But the seas can be home to a new breed of pioneers, seasteaders, who are willing to homestead the Blue Frontier. Oil platforms and cruise ships already inhabit the waters; now its time to take the next step to full-fledged ocean civilizations.

Joe Quirk and Patri Friedman show us how cities built on floating platforms in the ocean will work, and they profile some of the visionaries who are implementing basic concepts of seasteading today. An entrepreneurs dream, these floating cities will become laboratories for innovation and creativity. Seasteading may be visionary, but it already has begun proving the adage that yesterdays science fiction is tomorrows science fact. Welcome to seavilization.

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Seasteading by Joe Quirk on iBooks - itunes.apple.com

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Activity: 1512

Concrete hulled pontoon boats would be good if they are separate from each other. But concrete is fragile when it bangs against concrete over and over. It would be very difficult to attach them together for a large platform. Anything that would be flexible and strong enough to separate the units would likely degrade in salt water over time.

Steel has been used for ship building for decades. It can also bang against each other over and over without degradation. Also, polyurea adheres best to steel, which is what I would use for coating to protect from salt water. I address the reason for steel in my design outline: https://discuss.seasteading.org/t/my-viva-vivas-seastead-design/921/2

For comparison, look at SCRAP prices here:

http://www.scrapmonster.com/scrap-prices/category/Stainless-Steel/151/1/1

Activity: 1470

Your country may be your worst enemy

Thailand is already well developed, you may consider its neighbor, Burma. I was talking to a Vietnamese friend not long ago, and she's investing in Myanmar. The country's opening up, and there is plenty of opportunities for foreigners with cash in hand.

Also a certain nation in Asia(North Korea) has reports of abducting people from boats in sea, they may attack you and the outside world would never know what happened.

And I don't think the nations and people fleeing to live outside their jurisdiction, I think even the "host" nation would be a threat

If any project starts out with "we have to be able to defend ourselves against nations" then it's dead from the start. Imagine if everyone considering buying a boat thought "I can't buy this boat, Korea may attack me".

You have a brilliant idea however you can only realize your idea if you have billions of dollars to construct a community floating in the ocean. Aside from creating a community you must also consider the hazards such as big waves and huge storms that your community will be facing. Your structures must be tough to meet those conditions. Lastly, I can say that your ideas are good but I can foretell that you do not have the resources to make your plans a reality.

These things have been taken into account.

It is true that without people joining the project, or without some wealthy benefactor, the project will fail. But this is the same for any large project.

This is a positive project. It can be made to work. Join us, add your funds, and secure a place. This is only the beginning.

Also a certain nation in Asia(North Korea) has reports of abducting people from boats in sea, they may attack you and the outside world would never know what happened.

And I don't think the nations and people fleeing to live outside their jurisdiction, I think even the "host" nation would be a threat

If any project starts out with "we have to be able to defend ourselves against nations" then it's dead from the start. Imagine if everyone considering buying a boat thought "I can't buy this boat, Korea may attack me".

Country that cant defend itself from something as meager as third world pirates is no country.

We dont live 1960s anymore.

Also a certain nation in Asia(North Korea) has reports of abducting people from boats in sea, they may attack you and the outside world would never know what happened.

And I don't think the nations and people fleeing to live outside their jurisdiction, I think even the "host" nation would be a threat

If any project starts out with "we have to be able to defend ourselves against nations" then it's dead from the start. Imagine if everyone considering buying a boat thought "I can't buy this boat, Korea may attack me".

Country that cant defend itself from something as meager as third world pirates is no country.

We dont live 1960s anymore.

The compound is always transforming; the couple add structures and repair damage from storms, which can be quite severe

Freedom Cove runs on solar energy and generators and a fresh water system Wayne constructed

The couple make trips to land every two weeks and joke about feeling 'landsick' when they leave their beloved floating paradise

The compound includes gardens, a dance floor, a garage for boats, living and artistic space

Wayne and Catherine operate an open-door policy and invite curious tourists into their home, showing them around Freedom Cove and giving them homemade candles as parting gifts

They say their lifestyle has been a 'learn by doing' experience - teaching them, for example, to anchor Freedom Cove with weighted ropes during storms

Much of their daily routine focuses on maintenance and the couple say they were aware of hardships and risks, but they would not want to live any other way.

Also a certain nation in Asia(North Korea) has reports of abducting people from boats in sea, they may attack you and the outside world would never know what happened.

And I don't think the nations and people fleeing to live outside their jurisdiction, I think even the "host" nation would be a threat

If any project starts out with "we have to be able to defend ourselves against nations" then it's dead from the start. Imagine if everyone considering buying a boat thought "I can't buy this boat, Korea may attack me".

Country that cant defend itself from something as meager as third world pirates is no country.

We dont live 1960s anymore.

But nobody here mentioned sea steading next to New York or Copenhagen southern Asia is still quite exciting place.

How many armed and motivated Indonesians would I need to take over this sea steading utopia and turn it into large prison for everybody? Ten? Twenty?

Or lets say, you like Metal Gear Solid and find Zanzibar to be good starting place. Somalians cant read but they sure know how to operate a rpg.

And then what? Call a mama (aka bad ol government)? You cant run on a sea and you sure as hell wont outswim speedboats of these guys.

Look at the guns in the picture 2 posts up. Look what is said about the Somalians: "Somalians cant read but they sure know how to operate a rpg."

I can read. I am reasonably intelligent. But I am not allowed in gun-loving old USA to have an assortment of guns like this. It costs too much. Same said much of western Europe. And that's besides the anti-gun laws.

Seasteading is about freedom. Who gives those Somalians their guns? If they can have them, so can we... and bigger and better guns... out there where nobody denies us our rights.

The types of people doing this type of thing tend to be focused on being entirely self sufficient and therefore rejecting anything that comes from existing states.

I would be interested in the idea but would realize the need to import products from neighboring countries. I would be interested to know how the economy of such a nation would develop. Maybe the cost of imports would be offset by exports of fish or other aquatic agriculture? Maybe a digital economy would form, providing service through technology. (although this raises the question of how to connect)

The types of people doing this type of thing tend to be focused on being entirely self sufficient and therefore rejecting anything that comes from existing states.

I would be interested in the idea but would realize the need to import products from neighboring countries. I would be interested to know how the economy of such a nation would develop. Maybe the cost of imports would be offset by exports of fish or other aquatic agriculture? Maybe a digital economy would form, providing service through technology. (although this raises the question of how to connect)

They will take out a threat. As long as we don't become a threat to them, they will let us live, even with our petty self-protection from people like Somalian pirates.

The types of people doing this type of thing tend to be focused on being entirely self sufficient and therefore rejecting anything that comes from existing states.

I would be interested in the idea but would realize the need to import products from neighboring countries. I would be interested to know how the economy of such a nation would develop. Maybe the cost of imports would be offset by exports of fish or other aquatic agriculture? Maybe a digital economy would form, providing service through technology. (although this raises the question of how to connect)

They will take out a threat. As long as we don't become a threat to them, they will let us live, even with our petty self-protection from people like Somalian pirates.

The types of people doing this type of thing tend to be focused on being entirely self sufficient and therefore rejecting anything that comes from existing states.

I would be interested in the idea but would realize the need to import products from neighboring countries. I would be interested to know how the economy of such a nation would develop. Maybe the cost of imports would be offset by exports of fish or other aquatic agriculture? Maybe a digital economy would form, providing service through technology. (although this raises the question of how to connect)

They will take out a threat. As long as we don't become a threat to them, they will let us live, even with our petty self-protection from people like Somalian pirates.

The types of people doing this type of thing tend to be focused on being entirely self sufficient and therefore rejecting anything that comes from existing states.

I would be interested in the idea but would realize the need to import products from neighboring countries. I would be interested to know how the economy of such a nation would develop. Maybe the cost of imports would be offset by exports of fish or other aquatic agriculture? Maybe a digital economy would form, providing service through technology. (although this raises the question of how to connect)

They will take out a threat. As long as we don't become a threat to them, they will let us live, even with our petty self-protection from people like Somalian pirates.

The takeaway is that French Polynesia supports us building the first ever seastead in one of their protected lagoons. They are willing to set up a Special Economic Zone for the seastead that will allow us to have our own economic laws but still require following their criminal laws. So things such as taxes, labor laws, business regulation etc will be handled by us, things such as murder, rape, theft etc will be handled under the current French system. And of course, defense against pirates will fall under the French navy's responsibility.

The legislation should go through by the end of 2017 and then 2018 we can get started. Likely first seastead will be up in 2020.

I will be working with a great team of cryptocurrency experts to see how we can integrate Bitcoin and blockchain technology for things such as title management, equity investments, shares, etc.

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Seasteading - bitcointalk.org

IMAGINEa world with no musicians and no writers. A world where no news isn't good news, it's fake news. A world in which we can't even think for ourselves.

Welcome to the Information Armageddon - it's coming our way.

This is the dire prediction of US communications expert, author, film producer - and Bob Dylan's former manager - Jonathan Taplin, who has warned that tech giants who loudly proclaim to be progressive forces with such mottos as "Don't be evil" are in fact, well, evil.

Professor Taplin says that unless internet giants such as Facebook, Google and YouTube are forced to give a better deal to the people who provide all their content we will end up losing that content altogether.

Meanwhile, they are working on making us so dependent on technology and instant access to information that any collapse of the internet would render us effectively blind.

Taplin has spent years researching these companies and the men behind them and discovered that behind the funky Silicon Valley facade is a far more sinister purpose: Namely to create all-powerful monopolies that force artists and other producers to effectively hand over their work at gunpoint, while at the same time collecting vast hordes of data from the people who consume it - in other words, all of us.

And he says that unless there is a massive consumer revolution or government action, civilisation is headed over the cliff.

Speaking to news.com.au during a visit to Australia, which he says is better placed than the US to act before it's too late, the mild-mannered Taplin offers a unique vision of an information Armageddon.

"Facebook is working on a technology that can essentially read your mind," he says, referring to reports last month that the social media giant had hired 60 people to find out how to transcribe thoughts directly onto the screen.

"You wouldn't have to actually type, you would just think the thoughts and they would appear on Facebook. So it seems to me that ultimately where this goes is that you become so dependent on your devices for everything that you would have lost any critical ability to find information, understand stuff.

"And at some point if, say, there was a huge network breakdown we would essentially be like blind men stumbling around in the dark because we would have not only lost the ability to know anything we would have lost the ability to find out how we need to know something."

He holds similar fears about the so-called "Google effect", especially now moves are afoot to develop a Google Now chip that could connect to the brain.

"If you are totally dependent on Google for all your knowledge and understanding of anything such as history, maths and essentially abandon yourself to Google's knowledge engine then what happens if Google goes away. You would be like a blind, knowledge-less person. You would be like a child."

He is also highly sceptical of Google's "Don't be evil" ethos, citing its then CEO telling The Atlantic in 2010: "Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it" - which Taplin describes as "a debatable statement at best".

All this is in his book Move Fast and Break Things, named after a quote from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Taplin says tech bosses like Zuckerberg are indeed breaking things - in fact they are destroying human creativity by blasting out virtually limitless content without giving any fair compensation to the people who produce it - all the while sucking away ad dollars from other media.

The result, he says, will be the death of content itself, from music to journalism.

"First off, there won't be money to finance new content. In the US there are 50 per cent fewer people working in journalism than there were 10 years ago. It won't be a profession that anyone can go into," he tells news.com.au.

"And quite honestly, someone might be able to make music as a hobby but other than the big stars I don't think anybody could make a living out of it."

Taplin says it is up to everybody - both producers and consumers - to realise this and revolt against the tech giants in an effort to make them change their behaviour if they want to keep their reputations as progressive forces for good.

This is especially necessary because tech companies seem to resist any form of government regulation as well as a growing view that Silicon Valley is becoming more powerful than the US government anyway.

Taplin notes that Google's Larry Page has financed research on "privately-owned city states" while PayPal founder Peter Thiel has gone right into the realm of science fiction to avoid government oversight.

"Thiel has financially supported an idea called seasteading, which is the concept of creating permanent artificial islands, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by any government," he writes.

"These cloud businesses could thereby escape taxation and regulation."

Taplin has called on Australian politicians to lead the way in making giants such as Facebook and Google and YouTube pay for the content they use or face a world where that content no longer exists.

"Somehow there's this illusion that people will continue to lose millions of dollars producing newspapers or music. It is a fantasy on the part of the politicians," he tells news.com.au.

"I think a lot of them are beginning to realise that this content cannot be created for free and somehow, just for democracy's sake we have to have a vital journalism community and we also have to have a vital artistic community."

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Facebook, Google greed will lead us to info armageddon - The Reporter

A seasteading or artificial island design by Andreas Gyorfi. Picture: seasteading.com

Imagine a world with no musicians and no writers. A world where no news isnt good news, its fake news. A world in which we cant even think for ourselves.

Welcome to the Information Armageddon its coming our way.

This is the dire prediction of US communications expert, author, film producer and Bob Dylans former manager Jonathan Taplin, who has warned that tech giants who loudly proclaim to be progressive forces with such mottos as Dont be evil are in fact, well, evil.

Professor Taplin says that unless internet giants such as Facebook, Google and YouTube are forced to give a better deal to the people who provide all their content we will end up losing that content altogether.

Meanwhile, they are working on making us so dependent on technology and instant access to information that any collapse of the internet would render us effectively blind.

What the apocalypse will look like.Source:Supplied

Taplin has spent years researching these companies and the men behind them and discovered that behind the funky Silicon Valley facade is a far more sinister purpose: Namely to create all-powerful monopolies that force artists and other producers to effectively hand over their work at gunpoint, while at the same time collecting vast hordes of data from the people who consume it in other words, all of us.

And he says that unless there is a massive consumer revolution or government action, civilisation is headed over the cliff.

Speaking to news.com.au during a visit to Australia, which he says is better placed than the US to act before its too late, the mild-mannered Taplin offers a unique vision of an information Armageddon.

... and Bob Dylans former band manager. Thats Bob in the middle and Jon on the right.Source:Supplied

Facebook is working on a technology that can essentially read your mind, he says, referring to reports last month that the social media giant had hired 60 people to find out how to transcribe thoughts directly onto the screen.

You wouldnt have to actually type, you would just think the thoughts and they would appear on Facebook. So it seems to me that ultimately where this goes is that you become so dependent on your devices for everything that you would have lost any critical ability to find information, understand stuff.

And at some point if, say, there was a huge network breakdown we would essentially be like blind men stumbling around in the dark because we would have not only lost the ability to know anything we would have lost the ability to find out how we need to know something.

He holds similar fears about the so-called Google effect, especially now moves are afoot to develop a Google Now chip that could connect to the brain.

If you are totally dependent on Google for all your knowledge and understanding of anything such as history, maths and essentially abandon yourself to Googles knowledge engine then what happens if Google goes away. You would be like a blind, knowledge-less person. You would be like a child.

He is also highly sceptical of Googles Dont be evil ethos, citing its then CEO telling The Atlantic in 2010: Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it which Taplin describes as a debatable statement at best.

All this is in his book Move Fast and Break Things, named after a quote from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Taplin says tech bosses like Zuckerberg are indeed breaking things in fact they are destroying human creativity by blasting out virtually limitless content without giving any fair compensation to the people who produce it all the while sucking away ad dollars from other media.

The result, he says, will be the death of content itself, from music to journalism.

First off, there wont be money to finance new content. In the US there are 50 per cent fewer people working in journalism than there were 10 years ago. It wont be a profession that anyone can go into, he tells news.com.au.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg likes to break things. Picture: Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesSource:Supplied

And quite honestly, someone might be able to make music as a hobby but other than the big stars I dont think anybody could make a living out of it.

Taplin says it is up to everybody both producers and consumers to realise this and revolt against the tech giants in an effort to make them change their behaviour if they want to keep their reputations as progressive forces for good.

This is especially necessary because tech companies seem to resist any form of government regulation as well as a growing view that Silicon Valley is becoming more powerful than the US government anyway.

Taplin notes that Googles Larry Page has financed research on privately-owned city states while PayPal founder Peter Thiel has gone right into the realm of science fiction to avoid government oversight.

Thiel has financially supported an idea called seasteading, which is the concept of creating permanent artificial islands, called seasteads, outside the territory claimed by any government, he writes.

These cloud businesses could thereby escape taxation and regulation.

A seasteading or artificial island design by Andreas Gyorfi. Picture: seasteading.comSource:Supplied

Taplin has called on Australian politicians to lead the way in making giants such as Facebook and Google and YouTube pay for the content they use or face a world where that content no longer exists.

Somehow theres this illusion that people will continue to lose millions of dollars producing newspapers or music. It is a fantasy on the part of the politicians, he tells news.com.au.

I think a lot of them are beginning to realise that this content cannot be created for free and somehow, just for democracys sake we have to have a vital journalism community and we also have to have a vital artistic community.

While companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google promise they will take steps to reduce "fake news," Michael J. Casey and Oliver Luckett, authors of "The Social Organism," argue the first step is an overhaul of the companies' algorithm-based platforms to make them more transparent. Photo: iStock

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Facebook and Google greed will lead us to information armageddon - NEWS.com.au