Libertarian Ocean City-States: The Wave of the Future?

Sick of the government? Uninterested in moving to another country? Well, if certain Silicon Valley millionaires have their way, you may have another choice! PayPal founder Peter Thiel has invested $500,000 into an organization that aims to create an experimental ‘seastead’: a permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.

From Wired:

It might sound like the setting for the videogame Bioshock, but the institute isn’t playing around: It plans to splash a prototype into the San Francisco Bay within the next two years, the first step toward establishing deep-water city-states, or what it calls “seasteads” — homesteads on the high seas.

Instead of starting with a grand scheme worthy of a James Bond villain, the Institute is bringing an entrepreneurial, DIY mentality to creating oceanic city-states.

“There’s a history of a lot of crazy people trying this sort of thing, and the idea is to do it in a way that’s not crazy,” said Joe Lonsdale, the institute’s chairman and a principal at Clarium Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund.

In essence, the seastead would consist of a reinforced concrete tube with external ballasts at the bottom that could be filled with air or water to raise or lower the living platform on top.

The primary living space would be inside the tube, with the top platform reserved for gardens, buildings, solar panels, wind turbines and satellites. They plan to fly a ‘flag of convenience’ to protect them against governments that want to force their jurisdiction on them.

It does sound like a sci-fi movie! It’s a fascinating idea, to be sure. Starting small would certainly be the way to do it. I think a lot of environmentalists will be concerned about waste disposal and disturbing sea life, so it will be interesting to see how the ‘seasteaders’ aim to deal with those issues along with the many other obstacles they face.

Link [Wired]
Illustration by Valdemar Duran

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