The Seasteading Institute

Sean Hastings‘ presentation on his experiences with HavenCo and SeaLand is now online:

Sean Hastings – The Seasteading Institute Conference 2009 from The Seasteading Institute on Vimeo.

Sean Hastings came to SeaLand to pioneer HavenCo, the first hosting company on a seastead, and arguably the first viable business operation on a seastead. Devoting roughly equivalent time in this thirty-minute talk to politics, lifestyle, and the technical realities of putting high-availability server systems on a tiny metal island, as well as bravely kicking off with a clip from the Daily Show, Hastings delivers a well-rounded, amusing, and wholly informative presentation.

Sovereignty enthusiasts in particular should find very interesting the political circumstances and events by which SeaLand, the famous Principality-on-a-platform technically within England’s territorial waters (but only as of 1987, as Hastings points out), came to the position of recognized nationhood.

For those interested in the pragmatics of running a business and living on a seastead, Hastings cautions “safety third”; in other words, safety is certainly important, but if it’s your primary concern, you’re unlikely to get anything interesting accomplished. Other handy advice: on a platform, cats make better pets than dogs.

Read more about HavenCo and other organizations and businesses on seasteads in Patri Friedman’s Seasteading book (beta).