The Seasteading Institute

Reply To: Dynamic geography

[quote=shredder7753]the reason for this change is that i want the bergs to be tile-able. so with this design i can build them all the same and not have to put doors on different sides of the islands depending on where they are located in the pack. and with that enhancement we now have what Patri described as geographic... i cant remember what he said. but people can up and leave and go wherever they feel like when their neighbors suck.[/quote]

I've said it before, I don't see how dynamic geography would work in this situation.

Let's say you have a block of 100 Bergsteads arranged in a 10x10 tile. If your Bergstead was one of the 36 on the outer ring then I can see how you could detach and move somewhere else. But how does a Bergstead on the inside leave?

You can't just submerge. First, I don't know if your design would even be capable of horizontal motion while submerged. And even if it could, how would you move between all the mooring/anchor lines of all the other Bergsteads around you?

This is why I have never bought into the dynamic geography idea, there is no viable method for connected modular units to easily detach and move away if they are inside the cluster.

The only two ways dynamic geography could work would be if the modules were not connected together and just floated near each other in a loose formation, or if you could airlift modules (via crane or helicopter) out from the middle and deposit them outside the cluster.

Reply To: Dynamic geography

[quote=i_is_j_smith]

I still don't buy the whole "dynamic geography" thing. I don't think it's any easier to leave your established situation as a seasteader.

Whose to say your entire network of friends and family will want to leave with you? Maybe they are quite happy where they are?

[/quote]

The point is not that it is easy to move although I believe it is important that developments in information technology are gradually making it easier and easier to build and maintain relationships across long distances. The point is that it will be easier (and a lot less expensive) to move to a new location if you home is mobile than if your home is not mobile. See below.

[quote=i_is_j_smith]

It's pretty simple to sell everything you own and buy a plane ticket to some other country.

[/quote]

It is not simple to sell a building if it has been stolen/expropriated/nationalized or is just about to be stolen/expropriated/nationalized. At least not for a sum near what it previously could have been sold for. In such a situation your building is basically lost. Most governments don't outright fully steel/expropriate/nationalize buildings on a large scale. They typically do it gradually/piecemeal using taxes. Those taxes lower the value of your building. It is like a partial expropriation. You can most likely avoid that partial expropriation if you can move your building.

Someone who systematically moves away from and sells buildings where the rules have turned bad and moves to and buys buildings where the rules have turned good will systematically be selling at North Korea/Zimbabwe/Venezuela price level (ie near worthless) and buying at Hong Kong/Singapore/Monaco price levels (very expensive). He will have to take capital losses again and again.

Maybe the point is easier to see, if you see it from the side of the one who somehow confiscates. If the confiscator puts taxes on a non-mobile asset which has a remaining lifetime of 100 years he can tax (or use) it for 100 years before his way of making an income falls apart. If the asset can physically be moved out of his jurisdiction the situation is completely different. His way of making a living will fall apart as soon as the asset leaves.

Reply To: Dynamic geography

[quote=Ellen Re-Generate] you can literally weigh anchor and motor away to find a society that respects your rights......For land-lubbers, it's a chore, if you need to break camp and leave the geopolitical jurisdiction that has become anathema to your interests.[/quote]

I still don't buy the whole "dynamic geography" thing. I don't think it's any easier to leave your established situation as a seasteader.

Let's make some assumptions first. Let's assume we are talking about a clump of single family seasteads instead of a large city. Let's also assume that each seastead is completely self-sufficient in power and other requirements and does not rely on a central seastead-wide infrastructure. Another assumption is that the single family seasteads are spread out far enough from each other so that each individual module can move away with ease.

First, I don't really consider that a seastead. More a gypsy caravan. But forgetting that, there are still social and family connections that make motoring away not that easy. Whose to say your entire network of friends and family will want to leave with you? Maybe they are quite happy where they are?

And if you negate those connections as a hindrance to leaving, then it's no harder to leave when you are on land. It's pretty simple to sell everything you own and buy a plane ticket to some other country.

So I don't see "dynamic geography" as being the silver bullet many think it is.

Reply To: Dynamic geography

You would have to arrange the Single Family Seasteads in a seastar grid that looks similar to palm dubai so that each single familiy platform has access to the open ocean or to a lagoon that leads to the ocean. So each seastar could leave the grid when the need comes up.

The outer ring would consist in a double line of specially tough built "wavebreaker seastars" while the inner platforms could relay on breakwater protected waterspace.

Reply To: Dynamic geography

Do you plan on supporting "dynamic geography" with these seastar platforms?

You mention that single family seasteads in a seastar design can come along and connect to the larger structure. Can you see any way for single family seastars on the inner part of the structure to detach and move to other larger structures? Or is it that only single family seastars on the outer edge can detach?

Reply To: Dynamic Geography

The basic idea is dynamic geography. This envisions large numbers of small, single-family seasteads that are all self-sufficient (to a point) floating around on the ocean. Several of these seasteads come together into colonies of like-minded people. If, at any time, you and your family no longer enjoy being part of that colony (the government has become too strict, they put in place policies you don't care for, they choose to move to a new location you don't like, etc) you simply disconnect from them and float off to join another colony somewhere else.

The idea is to put free-market ideas to government. Yes, as you said, there could eventually be dozens upon dozens of these floating colonies...each with their own form of government. Some will be anarchist, some fundementalist libertarian, some secular, some strictly theist. Seasteads that have governments which are "not good" would die off as people fled them for other seasteads. So you would not see many totalitarian seasteads since all their colonists would just drift to other places.

I have never been a believer in this ideal, mainly because I don't believe you will ever see small, cheap, self-sufficient, easily-connectable-yet-easily-disconnectable seasteads and that is the only way dynamic geography could work.

But I don't believe that TSI has ever "endorsed" libertarianism...or any one type of government at all. I believe that TSI would be happy if, as you say, "other types of governments would be formed, like very anti-libertarian ones." The point is to try out new forms of government...to "throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks".

Reply To: dynamic geography

I have never bought into the "dynamic geography" ideal, and I don't believe that nomadic seasteads will ever appear. The people who want this kind of lifestyle have already sold all their possessions and bought nice big boats and are currently port-hopping and sipping Coronas and not posting on seasteading forums.

If you want to travel and move around on a houseboat, what are you waiting for? Why spend years trying to design a seastead when you can get a boat right now and travel?

I've said it before: seasteading is homesteading on the sea. Homesteading is not nomadic. It means taking a piece of undeveloped land and improving it. See the Homestead Act. In the case of seasteading, it means that you acknowledge there is no more available land to homestead. So instead we take a piece of undeveloped ocean and improve it. You claim territory as your own and work it to provide some measure of self-sustainability.

All of the existing attempts at seasteading have been stationary systems. Granted, most have failed. But I haven't seen any communities of lashed-together boats and yachts springing up anywhere, and that is do-able RIGHT NOW without any need for wave tank tests, expensive marine design firms, or discussions on forums.

Reply To: Dynamic Geography

Here is why I think your theory of dynamic Geography is wrong:

Let us assume that a single residence is the smallest unit. This seastead must be able to be self sufficient. That means it must generate its own power for movement, its own food, its own water, it must maintain its integrity as a shelter, it must perform its own maintenance, etc. All of these things and more it must do to maintain its autonomy, its “freedom of physical association.”

The problem with self sufficiency is that it is not very efficient. All of these things take resources that could be used in other more efficient ways. Everything is a trade off, power for food, food for water, etc. There are so many things to know and do in order to be self sufficient that nothing is done to its full potential, a jack of all trades and an expert at none. Self sufficiency has traditionally been a subsistence living, meaning the minimum necessary to support life.

Now lets move up to the next level, multiple single residences linked together, and the basis of a community. When you take a group of people and put them together nobody is the same, I mean some work harder, some know more, etc. So what happens, people begin to specialize in order to improve their lives. If Sally is better at growing plants then Bob, it makes sense that in this community Sally would begin to take over growing food, she can do this because Bob, who now gets his vegetables from Sally can devote more time to fishing, thus he will catch more fish and provide Sally with fish in exchange for vegetables and so forth and so on. The end result is that everyone finds their niche because it is more efficient to do so, creating a spider web of supply and demand, interlocked goods and services.

As the community grows so do the amount and type of goods and services and again the only way to be good at any thing is to specialize in it. So say you now have an international banking platform, a food producing platform, a production/manufacturing platform, an energy producing platform. These platforms would each be specialized because it does not make sense to do it any other way, and now though they may be individual entities they cannot survive without each other. For example the banking platform, I guess you could distribute the work and whatever computer systems over multiple platforms and if someone did not want to participate they could take their portion of the bank with them, but who would put money in a bank that by its very nature could be here today and gone tomorrow. Self sufficiency has been lost, meaning autonomy has been lost, meaning that no individual entity can leave without losing what it needs to survive. Leaving is no longer easy.

Feel free to tell me I am wrong, or stupid, or misunderstanding what you are saying, but please... please, explain why!