The Seasteading Institute

Reply To: Michael Hawkins

[quote=Michael Hawkins]

Well, there are many ways of tapping into geothermal heat.

One thing I've come up with is to anchor above an underwater hot spring or bubble of hot water and to sink a heat conducting cable down. Artificial diamond fibre wrapped in areogel would be ideal for this purpose. The energy can be "processed" on the confort of a seastead then, without the need for large complicated underwater machinery.

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So, instead of large complication underwater machinery, we go for the large complicated and not yet invented machinery of producing artificial diamond fibre?

Im not quite sure thats an improvement.

Reply To: Michael Hawkins

[quote=Michael Hawkins]

Producing a new paper curnecy seems like a lot of work to me. You'd need to get licenced and recognised internationally as a bank (?), then you need to have the actual notes produced, can be outsourced I suppose ...

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It certainly wouldnt be my first priority. And notes are a thing of the past, in my opinion.

The important thing is that I wouldnt want to store my wealth in terms of any fiat currency, and i wouldnt want to denote my long term contracts in any fiat currency either. The former is already possible ofcourse: the latter is not, but seasteading would make it so.

Reply To: Michael Hawkins

[quote=Michael Hawkins]

One set up a small area of water surrounded by floating wave breakers to provide for a strip of calm water where an aircraft could land.

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Small floatplanes (Cessna 182 type, 4 passengers or maybe 500 lbs of cargo) take around a thousand feet of water to land and take off (into the wind, also), Bigger float/sea planes took a couple of miles. The modern (turboprop) Canadair CL-415 takes around 2700 feet in ISA (cool air). Thats a big breakwater.

I think maybe something like a tilt-rotor is a better technology.

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I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

Reply To: Michael Hawkins

[quote=Michael Hawkins]

Hey, I agree with most of that, the state should be cut out as much as possible. That's why I advocated arbitration so that acts of wrongdoing can be setteled peacefully between the parties involved.

Most crimes to be expected aren't exactly "kill or die" scenarios. Drunken fights, theft, debts, fraud ... sit yourself down with a neutral party and work it out.

There might be more serious matters such as piracy or murder (piracy/robbery goes wrong, things escalate ...) that might call for some vigillante justice, but I think arbitration can somve most everything.

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I agree - and the arbiters should be members of common society agreeable to each side, not some special class of people (lawyers, judges). People who actually have to live with the results of their decisions, if for example they decide that a bully who terrorizes weaker people is just a misunderstood kid. Well, let the arbiter be at as much risk of that bully beating the crap out of HIM, next.

Such a system also has the advantage of actually delivering restitution to the injured party. Today if someone starts a fight and gets arrested, the loser is still hurt (potentially with medical bills, loss of work, etc) and the criminal gets free legal advice, room and board, and possibly a graduate level education in a penitentary for being a more effective criminal - all at the expense of the society he assaulted.

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I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

Reply To: Michael Hawkins

[quote=Michael Hawkins]

Desalination through distillationg is very simple and incredibly cheap if you actually have a purpose for the heat that ends up in the steam/water.

A simple still requires inredible amounts of energy to produce a little water, but it can be economised greatly. The first step would be to use the distillate as well as the waste fluid to pre-heat the feed water. What heat remains in the "now fresh water" may be used for heating if required, perhaps fed into thermal batteries for the night (that would be done before pre-heating the feed, not after).

I don't intend to give up hot showers in the long run either ...

The waste product (water with a highly elevated salt content) may be used to produce salt. We will most certainly have some need for salt ourselves, but I doubt it would make a good export product. Dumping the waste back into the ocean may be more economical, we are just talking about salt into the ocean here. We exhale, vapor forms clouds and the rain dilutes the ocean back.

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Hmm. Like cooling a nuclear plant?

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I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

Reply To: Michael Hawkins

[quote=Michael Hawkins]

[quote=libertariandoc]

If two people get into a fight, why should it be the concern of the state or any state-actor? Let the aggreved party seek out whatever retribution or recompense they desire, using what ever means are at hand. If someone uses excessive means, the rest of the society, through the friends/family of the newly injured person(s) will settle it.

As far as getting into fights in the first place: "An armed society is a polite society".

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Retribution is not something to be left to one party. E.g. suppose you antagonise somebody with a background in biochemistry and he thinks that a botulin shell would be an adequate form of retribution. Fast forward a bit and there's a seastead with a couple of hundred corpses and no friends and familly to do anything about it. Not how I would picture a proper seastead.

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Retribution is left to only one party now - the state. The victims have little to do with the process, and receive nothing from the guilty.

If people were armed, however, after a few shootings of truly stupid people the rest would decide that life was easier elsewhere. Criminals are lazy, but not usually stupid.

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I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

Reply To: Michael Hawkins

[quote=Michael Hawkins]

I hope by the time things get going, stereo lithography and 3D-printing will have advanced to the level (and cost) to make metal obsolete for all but the most -subjected to stress- parts and bits.

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In my experience, when you are at sea, everything falls under the category of "most -subjected to stress". The ability to cast and machine metal to produce bolts, cleats, gears will be important if you plan on spending a significant time without coming back to shore. I don't foresee seasteads being held together with plastic and having spare parts for anything beyond the most critical pieces would be overwhelming. And spares can only get one so far and keep us afloat for so long. CNC machines that work in wood and plastic can be used on metal too so there can be some overlap in workshop tools. It may not be the first thing that gets included but I would think it would be very handy to have.

My small metal casting equipment can fit in a few square feet of space (not including my lathe).