The Seasteading Institute

We’re excited to announce that we’re hiring for two key positions:

[Director of Engineering](http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dck5q6sr_25ctb7xkcg) – Unfortunately, Wayne Gramlich, our co-founder and original Director of Engineering, has been unable to devote the time to TSI to continue in this role, so we’re looking elsewhere to fill his shoes. This person will provide vision and management for all of TSI’s technology initiatives, such as seastead designs and prototypes, and have some involvement with hands-on execution. Continue reading →

Here’s an update from the design contest. We have less than two weeks left before the deadline May 1st, so keep those entries coming!

We have been contacted by Will Pierce who would like to design a seastead with an architectural drawing. However, as he doesn’t have a computer he cannot digitize the design to 3-D and thus cannot compete in the contest.

Continue reading →

I have a follow-up essay at Cato Unbound, [THE IMPORTANCE AND LIMITATIONS OF GROUNDWORK](http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/16/patri-friedman/the-importance-and-limitations-of-groundwork/).

> The implication of a “long, slow…slog” are a line that is slowly and steadily trending upwards. If someone has such a line for the libertarian movement, I would love to see it, but I do not believe it is an accurate assessment of our history.

> …

> With that said, here is a critical difference between an inchoate individualist mass and an organized, self-identified group. Continue reading →

April 15th, 2009 – Palo Alto, CA — The Seasteading Institute Announces Membership Program; Annual Report

Continue reading →

We have a higher-resolution version of the flyby video posted awhile back. You can [download it](http://seasteading.org/files/videos/clubstead_flyby_hdtv.mp4) or watch it on YouTube below. Continue reading →

I’m reading Atlas Shrugged for the first time, and I’ve been thinking about the economic tradeoffs involved in a movement like Galt’s Gulch or seasteading, where you take an initial charge in order to achieve higher long-term growth rates due to more efficient government.

I decided to model the costs of Gulching as an initial cost to wealth, and the gains as a higher exponential growth rate. To make the graphs easier (by making it wealth-invariant, and thus not having that extra variable), I modeled the initial cost as simply being a fraction of wealth. Continue reading →

On Tuesday, April 7, I gave a talk on seasteading at the Cato Institute’s Policy Forum, followed by comments by Doug Bandow and Arnold Kling. The presentation was recorded and is available for viewing at the Cato Institute’s website. We also recorded a short podcast afterwards.

As always, you can find recordings and material about talks on the Past Talks page. Continue reading →

The final engineering report is just about done, it will probably go up on Monday. Just wanted to update y’all with the cost numbers. The final design has 368,200 ft^2 of area, and 160,000 ft^2 of footprint (400×400), at a total cost of $95,300,700. This cost includes all structural elements, the hotel, generators, thrusters, fire safety, HVAC, fresh water system, and sewage.

That works out to $258/ft^2 of area, or $600/ft^2 of solar footprint, which is in line with our initial estimates. Continue reading →

AMW sends us this video making it clear that cities on the sea are possible – they are being built every day. Like Royal Caribbean’s new ship – the biggest cruise ship ever:

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We’ve long been talking about seasteading chapters around the world, and I am coming to see them as more and more important. [Dan B's BaseSteading proposal](http://wiki.seasteading.org/index.php/User:DanB/BaseStead_Strategy), and my recent visit to Europe, inspired me to start a wiki page on [Seasteading Outposts](http://wiki.seasteading.org/index.php/User:Patri/SeasteadingOutposts). I discuss the reasons for concentrating our numbers in a few places, some ideas for what chapters can do, and my thoughts on good locations for chapters. Continue reading →