Conference Talks – J. Kalani English, Tua Pittman, Lelei Lelaulu

Who are the original seasteaders? Get ready to be astonished by the Polynesian perspective. It’s like nothing else I’ve ever heard.

Our next round of talks from the First Tahitian Seasteading Gathering is live, featuring three prominent and well-respected Polynesians: the State Senate Majority Leader in Hawaii, a leading Master Ocean Navigator, and a former Special Advisor for the World Bank.

It’s heartening to recieve so much support for seasteading from every level of the local community— from the presidency right down to the people.

Check out quotes from the speeches below, then watch the complete talks by following the links:

J. Kalani English Hawaii State Senator Mokulana: Sacred Floating Islands of Hawaii
The floating islands ideal in the Polynesian worldview is an ancient one…What does this mean for us today? Implementing ancient Polynesian concepts through modern technology… We have to create new lands, to create the Mokulana, the floating islands that are ancestors saw, and go to them as the final refuge for our people. So as sea levels rise and take our lands, we look to innovation and modern technology to create the mystical lands that our ancestors talked about, and make that our
reality.
Tua Pittman Master Ocean Navigator E Va’a E Motu, E Motu E Va’a (My Canoe is My Island, My Island is My Canoe)
 

This whole ocean here belongs to a family of very proud and powerful people that had no boundaries…We traveled from one island to another over the years, raising land from within the sea, bringing those islands to life, creating communities… These canoes were our floating islands…

“Seasteading is offering us the opportunity to start all over again. Senator Kalani, he said it. We go back to our past to understand our future. These floating islands that are about to approach our shores must live in harmony with everything around us. We have to be the example to the outside world, and this is the start. This is how it can work.”

 
Lelei Lelaulu World Bank IFC Advisory Panel on Business and Sustainability Beyond Moana
 

“We should be developing programs for Masters of Ocean Business Administration…We want to produce mandarins of the marine. Let’s own the ocean intellectual space… Seasteading is capable of solving the grand challenges facing the seas, problems that used to only be addressed only by nation-states…”

“Seasteaders are Polynesians, I would say. Look at Venice. A small group of people trying to escape the violence, corruption, and deadly crippling bureaucracies of the land masses went to a lagoon, built platforms and houses on small Islands. Sound familiar? These were the seasteaders of the West…

“In Venice they controlled the money. Venice became a fiscal machine and ruled the West for a thousand years…Consider that we have a new form of money…If blockchain becomes the financial system of seasteading, this will give us the fiscal engine…We might look to build commercial revolutions of trust…

“We have the possibility to build islands of excellence and archipelagoes of enlightenment….the technology we have available in this room…will allow us to not look at sinking islands, but a brilliant future of floating islands.”

 
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