Making It Happen

This next section contains our opinions about the current state of affairs with regards to making seasteading happen.

Ways That Don't Work

There is a common element which shows up over and over in the new-country projects which have failed (almost all of them). It is unrealism, such as denial of current international policies, dependence on a nonexistent technology, and so forth. Some typical examples are:

Antarctic Homesteading: A 60-page single-spaced typescript prospectus for this project was forwarded by the editor of Free Country Newsletter...The basic concept is for people to go to Antarctica and settle. A scenario is laid out to start unfolding in 1981, beginning at a Southern California conference, with growth from 1,000 people to 4,000,000 by 1985, but there is no indication that anything was every done. The financial base was to be concerts by John Lennon (no indicating that he was ever contacted), films in the Jacques Cousteau genre of Antarctic sunrise and sunset, and international conferences on religion and war and liberty...This is a typical example of new-country projects that are mainly used as vehicles for the organizers' daydreams (a practice by no means limited to the political left, as others of these case histories shows), with little regard for the harsher realities of the world - such as the fact that the great powers are unlikely to permit claims to Antarctic territory to become established facts (just recently, the British forcibly removed an Argentine weather station in the Antarctic).
[Strauss1984, p. 54-55]

Oceana: The idea germinated in 1969, among an Americal college group oriented to the Objectivist writings of Ayn Rand...This can be viewed as an illustration of the problem of attracting too many chiefs, and not enough Indians. Because Oceana was essentially a zero-dollar operation, and thus couldn't offer immediate material incentives, it fell naturally (though inadvertently) into the trap of gaining recruits by (implicitly) offering them a full voice in the running of the venture. Thus a high proportion of people were attracted whose main interest was in endless fantasizing and dickering over details. When the time came for a commmitment to be made...the idle bull-session types took their leave.
[Strauss1984, p. 111-112]

These stories are common, and while we hope that the organizers enjoyed their daydreams, we seek a more tangible payoff.

The most common form of unrealism is probably scale, visions which are huge and expensive. Given enough money and will it is possible to build just about any kind of structure in the middle of the ocean that you can think about. Unfortunately, the tough part is coming up with enough capital to make it happen. Let us examine the state of a few relevant projects which attracted a fair amount of interest.

There has been very little visible progress with the Atlantis project for quite a while. Their webpage states that the project is defunct.

The Aquarius portion of the New Millennium project seems to have gone through a number of phases:

Phase 1 (Enthusiasm):

Initial enthusiasm and excitement

Phase 2 (Replan):

Several replans to reduce project costs

Phase 3 (Bummer):

The growing realization that even the rescaled plans are still too expensive

Phase 4 (Slow Death):

Growing disenchantment with the whole project and a slow exodus of people working on the project. (This last part is still a bit speculative.)

Similarly, New Utopia seems to have gone through some phases of initial enthusiasm, planning, and then the realization that it wasn't going to happen. The realists then left, leaving the project in the hands of those unable or unwilling to acknowledge the facts. Ian Sawyer's comments are a good indication of this:

I was involved with the project as one of the Board of Governors from early 1998 through to late 1999, resigning after very major problems started appearing in the whole basis of the legality of New Utopia and Prince Lazarus' dogmatic and dictatorial approach to them. Unfortunately I am restricted somewhat on what I can say as the result of a court ruling following a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt by Lazarus to sue me and a colleague for $10 billion, however there are copies of all the correspondence, which include the legal basis for the reasons I resigned from the project and all the subsequent comments by Lazarus and others, on the New Utopia Discussions Group with Yahoo at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new-utopia, starting in October 1999. There have been further exchanges on the present position of New Utopia as late as the end of 2000 when it seems to have regrettably become little more than a scam.

Other nation founding groups seem to have similar lifecycles, where an initial burst of enthusiasm gives way to a growing realization that it will be impossible, or at least a huge amount of work, to turn vision into reality. Basically, the amount of capital (billions) required to build these places is simply too high to be obtainable. It is awfully hard to make a business case for something new, huge, and expensive. This is why we've chosen an approach which reduces the required capital by several orders of magnitude.

Incrementalism

Incremental Prototypes

Large things tend to grow organically, rather than being monolithically designed and built. We believe that focusing on grand results has two detrimental effects on a project: it distracts people with fantasy and it intimidates them from doing real work. By dividing our vision into workable chunks, each of which builds on the last, it has a much better chance of becoming reality. By keeping the initial costs low, it is possible to build the initial versions and show potential investors what they are getting into at each step of the way.

We see the succession of seasteads as something like:

Bathstead

This is little more than a small model that floats in a bathtub or an aquarium. It is useful to provide people a visual model of what is being attempted. The total platform area is about 100 cm². It can be brought to talks and conferences. If there is interest, a number of small models could be produced and sold to enthusiasts.

Poolstead

This a 1-2 m² platform that floata in a pool. It demonstrates basic stability and flotation principles. Wayne and Patri have experimented with building a Poolstead, although the design has since changed.

Baystead

This is the first habitation-sized platform, which is designed to live in sheltered waters such as the San Francisco Bay. While it would generate its own power and water, and grow some food, the residents could still buy propane and go to the grocery store for food. It is small enough to be easily funded by the residents ($25K-$100K each), and will serve as a demonstration of the concept. This is big enough to get signifcant publicity.

Coaststead

This is a tall, multi-level platform that can be towed out to the coastal regions of the ocean (international waters). In the event of a major storm, the owners may elect to have the device towed back into sheltered waters. It does not need to be fully self-sufficient. A detailed proposal for Coaststead can be found below. We expect it to cost between $400K and $1M dollars, and have room for 5-15 people. Coast may not be necessary along the path to autonomous territory, for there is a good chance of going from Bay directly to Lite. However there will be locations and uses for which Coast is the best size, so it will eventually be a seastead model.

Seastead Lite / Medstead

Locations such as the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas are partially sheltered, and an excellent place to build a stead that is large, but not able to handle the 100+ foot waves that sometimes occur in the deep ocean. These areas are large enough that a large floating community could form, but small enough that trade with many other nations is quite feasible. Lite has a top deck of 5,000 m², and will cost $3M - $15M.

Deep-Seastead

This is the final version with a column hundreds of feet long and lots of living area, intended to live out in the deep ocean. It should be almost entirely self-sufficient for necessities, and able to withstand any storm. A proposal for getting to the first Deep-Seastead can be found below.

Each prototype will be larger, more expensive, able to deal with larger waves, and be more self-sufficient. While early ones may be built by volunteers, once we reach the Baystead or Coaststead stage, professional engineers and contractors will be hired. With enough interest and experienced engineers, it may be possible to jump directly to Baystead. While this may seem contrary to the succession idea, note that Baystead is still ten thousand times cheaper than the Freedom Ship - so we think its a reasonable starting point.

If we had to select an initial site for a prototype seastead to be anchored, we would probably select either the San Francisco Bay Area or the Puget Sound. Why? The computer industry has generated a simply astonishing number of individual multi-millionaires in the San Francisco Bay and Seattle areas. The future phases of seastead development could definitely benefit from the positive attention of a few millionaires. By locating the initial seastead prototype in one of these two areas, it is far more likely that one of these multi-millionaires will become interested in the seasteading project. Also two of the papers authors, Wayne and Patri, live in the SF Bay Area.

For credibility reasons, it is crucially important to have a large, self-funded prototype like Baystead or Coaststead before trying to attract people interested in larger platforms. There have been so many failed nation-founding projects that we must make a concrete demonstration that seasteading is different if we expect anyone to take us seriously. Such a prototype is likely to result in a lot of media attention. For example, Andrea Zittel described her Pocket Property experience in an interview:

AZ: Another problem was that I had fantasized about being completely alone on it in order to recover from a really hectic year. Instead, when I got out to the island, it seemed like every single boat owner in Denmark came out to circle my island while drinking a six-pack of Danish beer Every time I came out, they would all wave and ask what I was doing. After a while I just felt so overexposed that for the next project I've chosen a piece of land out in the desert, where no one will see me and I can finally be completely alone.

SB: You thought you were hiding, or going away to be alone, and all of a sudden you were on display and less alone than had you just stayed at home.

AZ:I was like a freak show out there!

[Bomb2001]

Incremental Infrastructure

It is not only the seastead structures which will proceed incrementally. Part of the essential nature of a seastead is to provide infrastructure where it previously did not exist. But to build infrastructure takes infrastructure, so this process will also be incremental. By infrastructure we don't just mean utilities, but all of the services which help a city to function.

Initially, the level of infrastructure on a seastead will be low, and services will be expensive. Thus it behooves the developers to start with the businesses which least rely on infrastructure, or benefit the most from the seastead environment. With these businesses operating, the seasetad can expand. Now experience and economies of scale will lower the infrastructure costs, allowing a wider range of businesses to be cost-effective. And so on.

This is the same organic way in which real cities grow. New York did not start with skyscrapers, it started with pioneers. Seasteads will be able to progress much more quickly, but they must still go through the same incremental process. If it sometimes seems like we focus overly much on the initial, rough levels of infrastructure, its not because we don't want to build a floating Hong Kong. Its because this is what's required at the beginning, and the beginning of nation-founding appears to be very difficult. We believe its vital to focus on starting the process, and not be too distracted by visions of the end results.

Eric Hunting suggests an interesting strategy for incremental growth of a floating city. Rather than building the city all at once and immediately towing it into location, build it piece by piece close to a major city. Residents slowly and steadily move on-board, while still having access to the infrastructure of civilization, which serves to supplement and back up the developing infrastructure of the new colony. This allows people to get to know each other, get used to self-sufficiency technology, and steadily transition their work to the new economy. As various milestones are reached, the growing structure can be moved farther away. Eventually, when it is complete enough, the colony can be towed to its final location.[Hunting2001]

A possible variation is that instead of moving away the entire colony, the initial "seed" unit could remain behind, to start the growth of another city. People who were not yet ready to leave could stay with the seed.

Incremental People

The same ideas that apply to incrementally growing infrastructure apply to growing the seastead population. The initial seastead environment will be high in freedom but low in infrastructure. Thus we must start out with the few enthusiasts willing to trade comfort for freedom. They will create an environment of higher comfort, and can bring in those who need that higher level. The process repeats, with each expansion lowering the costs and increasing the comfort, and thus making possible the next expansion.

Similarly we anticipate that many of the initial residents will live onboard only part-time. (Many more people vacation in rustic cabins than live in them year-round). But their presence and economic contributions will allow the colony to grow, and thus make it more suitable for full-time residence. While seasteads are not terribly expensive compared to first world housing, timesharing aids with two potential financial roadblocks.

One is that mortgages will not be available for quite awhile, so individuals will proably need to pay up front. Timesharing means that they can steadily pay for more and more shares until they are full-time. This is not as convenient as a mortgage, since the person can only live there as often as they've paid for instead of moving in at the beginning and paying interest. But its still better than having to pay the whole thing before enjoying any of it.

The second is that the number of jobs onboard will be limited at first. This especially applies to high-paying jobs, which tend to be in specialized fields which require a large population to support. So the prospective full-time seasteader must either be independently wealthy or be able to run a business on board. While there will be some people like this, its a small market. Timesharing lets people earn their main income elsewhere while the internal economy develops.

Our Proposal

We now proceed to get more detailed, and describe the specific approach we feel is the best way to make seasteading happen. While this particular plan will take a lot of work and needs a lot more fleshing out, we do not believe that it involves any miracles. It does not require a billion-dollar investor or loan. It does not require ten thousand (or even a thousand, or a hundred) people to leave their lives and move permanently into the middle of nowhere. It does not require the technology of tomorrow, only of yesterday and today. Nor, we must humbly add, is this because of any particular brilliance on our part. We've simply done the research, evaluated the alternatives, and made our choices based on realism, not romance.

We propose the founding of the Seastead Development Corporation, whose goal will be to make money by building seasteads. A small group of devoted people, including SDC's founders, will be its first customers, buying the Coaststead prototype. SDC's capitalization beyond this will be quite small.

Coastsead will be permanently moored, most likely in the San Francisco Bay. It will be open to tours by those who are interested in learning more about this new way of life. The goal is publicity and creating a market for the next product, timeshares on Seastead I, a full-size self-sufficient deep-ocean platform. Think of Coaststead as a floating Goodyear Blimp. Having built an actual structure, we will have made more progress than 99% of all nation founding attempts, which gives us credibility.

We believe that there is a substantial market for timeshares in Seastead I. We will not be requiring a whole-life committment, a large amount of money, or dedicated volounteer labor from our customers. We will not ask for a major leap of faith on their part, as a 1,000,000 pound token of the practicality of our vision will be floating under them while they ponder the idea.

When enough deposits have been made and contracts signed with residents, construction on Seastead I will begin. At this point, with the first seastead funded, the hardest part of the work has been done, and the movement can take off on its own steam. Once an operating Seastead I is demonstrating that seasteading is technologically, financially, and politically feasible, interest will continue to grow.

As seacities develop, the seaconomy will grow, and seasteading can become a full-time way of life for an increasing number of people. Different political and legal systems will be experimented with, and the most succesful emulated. Seasteads will have become, not a utopia (which is impossible), but an incremental improvement, a freer and more adaptable form of life. That is our goal. But while we must keep it in the back of our mind, our focus should be on the next couple steps. Thus we proceed to your contribution and then a more detailed business plan.

The Choice Is Yours

Let us compare this strategy with the strategies being employed by the Atlantis, Millennium, and New Utopia projects. All three of these projects require significant up front investment from investors. Which strategy do you think has a greater chance of happening? A bootstrapping process from small prototype seasteads or going straight to the ultimate city on an artificial island that skips all the intermediate steps? Our opinion is that the bootstrapping process is far more likely to succeed.

How Can I Help?

{Wayne}

{ I've been doing some work on this section - P }

We'd like to start by thanking you for your interest. In order to make the tough transition from dream to reality, the seasteading movement needs supporters. People who understand that talk is cheap, that it takes a lot of time, effort, and money to create a new way of living, but still agree that it will ultimately be worthwhile. If you are a realistic visionary like ourselves, hard-headed and open-minded, we'd love to have you participate.

For the project to work, however, we think its important to expand steadily and gradually. That incremental approach is at the core of our philosophy. Its a huge project, and will require labor and money from lots of people to achieve true success, but we think its important to go step-by-step. Committees don't govern effectively, and effort spread too widely tends to be poorly focused. We want to weld our group of supporters and volunteers into a solid structure, but rushing will only result in a disorganized and vaguely committed crowd. For this reason, we prefer to slowly bring people into well-defined roles.

Here are some of the ways in which we envision people contributing time, money, and professional skills. They are listed in approximate order of when the help will be needed.

• Paper Review
  The current stage of the project consists of performing the fundamental research which will guide our choices later on. Helpful comments, constructive criticism, and pointers to relevant information are all useful. Send us email, or utilize the commenting system.
• Baystead - Founders
  Baystead requires a small group of founders to fund its construction and then live on board. While we can take this role entirely ourselves (and will if necessary), for a number of reasons we'd prefer to share it. The cost will be on the order of $50K - $250K per person, most likely about $100K/p. Unlike normal real estate, there are no seastead mortgages and the market for baysteads is not yet liquid, which means this is more of a financial commitment than buying a house. Interested individuals should be enthusiastic about running their own infrastructure, experimenting with a new lifestyle, and sharing that lifestyle with visitors. They must also want to live in the SF Bay area. Useful skills, experience with communal living, and a desire to help achieve the larger vision are a plus. We are likely to be somewhat picky in order to make sure incompatibilities don't cause problems.
• Baystead - Supporters
  As a trial version of the seastead timeshare system, we plan to have a Baystead Supporters program. Basically, Supporters would donate some time or money, and have the right to come stay on Baystead some number of days a year. While we are leery of anything which seems like asking for money or could be construed as being a scam, we have personal acquaintances, at the least, who have expressed interest in such a plan. And since Supporter money is not required for construction, skeptical individuals are welcome to wait until they've seen a built Baystead with their own eyes. { This will be written up in more detail elsewhere and referenced here - P }
• Baystead - Builders
  Just like building a house, there will be a lot of work involved in building baystead. While the superstructure will likely be built professionally, there will be tons of flooring, plastering, piping, painting, etc. We've had several people offer to help with this stage already, and will gladly accept volunteer labor. This will be another way to achieve Baystead Supporter status, as described above.
• Seastead Research Team
  There are lots of research experiments to be done on various aspects of seastead life. In fact, we expect this to be the case for pretty much the foreseeable future, even when there are many seasteads. Unlike the academic world, much of this research should be perfectly doable by ordinary folk. Baystead is a great place for research, by the residents and by visiting Supporters. But research can also be done by interested people anywhere else in the world. We're holding off on creating a research program until we've built Baystead, which we see as a higher priority. (Though if someone else wants to do the work now...)
• SDC - Founders
  When it comes time to found a Seastead Development Corp., we'll need some business partners / investors / employees. When the time comes, we'll announce what skills we are looking for. We're likely to be very picky, as with any business venture.
• Seastead I - Principals
  The first sovereign seastead will need a core group of full-time residents. This group will likely serve multiple roles as residents, employees (doing the jobs needed to keep things running) and investors (since they will own much larger shares than a timeshare residents, and are the most likely people to own multiple shares for rent or later sale).
• Seastead I - Timesharers {We need a cleverer name for part-time residents }
  While the Principals are the depth of membership, Timesharers are the breadth. This is a vital role, and will likely make up the bulk of seastead funding, and certainly the largest number of residents. Most people will begin by participating in this manner, because they are interested in someday becoming full-time seasteaders, but are not yet ready to move their whole lives (which we find perfectly reasonable). Seasteading will be driven by demand from customers. The sooner we can get people to sign up, the sooner it will happen. People willing to put down deposits count for much more than those who just express interest. We'll let you know when we're in a position to accept them.

If you are interested in one of these roles, drop us a line and we'll put you on our lists.

{ This is an older version, will be revised and merged}

Skills we'll need: . Lawyer (general - contracts, IBC's, escrow). Lawyer (International maritime law). Researcher (good academic credentials, knowledge of grant practice, relevant research. Basically, ability and reputation to get grants to do research on Coaststead). Teacher/Tour guide (ability to design and lead tours of Coaststead's science). Gardener (knowledge of hydroponics, ability to design, put together, and then maintain. Perhaps experiment too). Engineer (marine). Engineer (relevant infrastructure: renewable energy generation, sewage, water, etc.). Perhaps just a general maintenance handy-man. Sales/Marketing. Ship captain (preferably w/ tugboat experience). Hotel Management experience. Timeshare sales or financing. If you fit one of these categories, or think that your skills would be useful, drop a resume (or short description of your experience) to employees@seastead.org. Let us know when you'd be ready to work and whether you are interested in a land, Coaststead, or Seastead position.