The Seasteading Institute

Oh, I don’t know about that. I know that I’ve argued for processes like thermal depolymerization (powered by GenIV nuclear reactors) to process waste into something useable, etc.

I know that I’m not happy with the depletion of fisheries, the way that short-sighted economic practices damage the land, etc.

But to answer your question, the only sure way I can envision to “…ensure that this expansion onto the sea doesn’t have equally catastrophic effects” is to develop extra-terrestrial habitats (on Mars, for example) and the required space transportation systems to make it practical. Once resources on earth are less dear, and there is less population pressure due to outmigration, the pressures here decrease.

And the issues involved in space travel are simply engineering – actually less involved than massive seasteads.

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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.

As somewhat of a tree hugging lefty, I’ll say that realistically humans are likely to screw up whatever environment they come into contact with. The ocean’s no exception. So why would a tree hugging lefty support seasteading? I see it as inevitable, and one day there will be societies on the ocean, whether they’re new, innovative ones or just extensions of the old.

However, some of us do want to live in an place where environmental considerations take a high priority, and where the biosphere isn’t considered subservient to human needs. Current nation’s have an extremely poor track record of this. Let them continue along their paths and this world is sure to be a big parking lot within a hundred years, with only creatures that have adapted for city life able to survive in it (rats, pigeons, etc.). As I see it the only hope for protecting the oceans at all lies in the new groups that are founded out there actually caring enough to find sustainable modes of living. I originally envisioned ocean colonization as something that could be good for the environment, although that original vision was much different from the one I have today due to a better understanding of the difficulties involved in building seasteads.

To give an idea of what I mean, one of the new societies could easily be one dedicated above all to environmental protection, animal rights, etc. I’m sure there are enough people around who care strongly about such issues that they could form their own nation. With their own territory, artificial land mass and diplomatic instititions they could protect the environment strongly within their own area, and at least try to prevent others from needlessly screwing up the biosphere out of their own ignorance or laziness.

Will that happen though? Beats me. Environmentalists are certainly a minority group, and I know that some would prefer to create societies where they can do whatever they want to the natural world with impunity. A better question, since environmental destruction seems inevitable by current trends, would be how can we encourage new societies to live sustainably? For the ancap guys, it would probably require convincing them that eco-friendly living is more profitable than the other options, for example. But that may be difficult/impossible to do, and in any case that only takes care of one other minority group, so what other options are there? It does seem like not nearly enough thought has been put into this.

Actually I see Seasteading as the solution to many of the environmental problems we’re facing today. The seasteads, and the surrounding territorial waters, will provide breeding and hunting grounds for many species of fish that are being fished to extinction.

At the same time, the platform itself(see “Modular Island Design”), it’s it’s one of the cheap equatorial designs, will be home to several species of endangered or endemic animals that the seastead could then use as trade commodities. Much like the Czech Republic did when they sold the last 4 White Rhinos back to Kenya a few months ago.

Coral reefs around the fringe could be carefully managed to preserve biodiversity as well as being used to attract tourists.

And the fact that most seastead designs float means that we can happily ignore the effects of rising sea levels. Even now, rising sea levels are good for my floating fish farm.

King Shannon of the Constitutional Monarchy of Logos.

First the rhino thing:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/4-of-the-last-8-white-rhinos-on-planet-flown-home-to-kenya.php

Now imagine that applied to sumatran elephants & tigers, aye-ayes, Orang Utans, Gorillas. Basically any megafauna sub-species or any third world endemic that doesn’t attain “media-darling” status like the @#%ing Panda and will undoubtedly be whipped out in several decades. Heck, if you want to get crazy about it, get a river built into your stead and get some river dolphins.

Next, Seasteads are basically giant fish aggregation devices, They provide spaces for marine life to lay their eggs and for fry to shelter where none existed before. I’m seeing this happen on a small scale around the farm, cephalopods are laying eggs on my mooring ropes, mullet fry, spawned under our fish pens, are able to reach adult size faster since they can hide from predators and there are several large reef predators living below my living room.

As for the “coral” reefs, your view on reef management seems quite contradictory to mine, though what I have are mostly sponges, seafans and a few hard coral. I regularly have visitors and the occasional spear fisherman, the mussels and oysters still spawn, fish still swim by to feed on the gametes and yes, my hard corals are still growing, very very very slowly. Though perhaps you were referring to existing reefs. In which case I need to ask if you know of any that exist outside an EEZ, because I’ve been searching :p

As for my own project, the objective would be to buy several thousand tons of scrap iron, and just dump it on the submerged part of the seastead. Photosynthetic life will develop from there with little problem, and then will come the zooplankton and fish.

King Shannon of the Constitutional Monarchy of Logos.

I’d say you need to consider exactly why this makes sense ecologically.

I agree with this, however…

This is not only going to ensure you can live on the oceans for posterity, but also will decrease pressure from mainland governments. If you cannot do that, you are doomed to fail (eventually) just as the others before you have tried.

No ocean colonization or new country project has ever failed due to environmental dangers or repercussions, as far as I know. Screwing up the environment on land has yet to really put a dent in mankinds desire to continue doing so. The chances of seasteading failing due to environmental repercussions vs. the ocean environment getting completely devastated seem to favor the the latter.

I am being a little defensive, since I see this as someone simply suggesting we impede progress rather than look for solutions. Several of us have offered possible solutions as to how seasteading can (and hopefully will) protect the environment. Considering that no such 100% fool proof solutions exist for protecting the environment on land, and seasteads have the potential to make much more efficient use of the world’s resources than current modes of living, I don’t see how waiting for a flawless theoretical solution while the rest of the planet continues to get trashed is actually helping.

Btw, Xns, I had no idea your project had gotten so far along! Gets me excited just hearing about it, especially since you seem to be taking a very eco-friendly route. You should post some pictures sometime, if you have time.

The response I was hoping to get here was one in which someone had carefully considered the environmental effects of seasteading and could provide a detailed explanation about why it makes sense to conserve the environment you are moving into instead of mindlessly pillaging it as our ancestors did.

That is why seasteading offers such an incredible opportunity. When building a seastead society you can design it from the ground up to make better use of our world…learning from the mistakes of the past.

Existing developed nations are built on the foundation that was laid during the Industrial Revolution…that is, grab whatever resources you can and use them up because there’s no way we can ever deplete them. We now know this to be false, and are starting to realize what a pickle we’re in. But the mindset is too entrenched to do anything about it. And even when a small group tries to raise awareness and change the mindset they encounter enormous resistance from extremely powerful and wealthy groups who have made ginormous amounts of money and power and want to keep the status quo at all costs.

It’s just like living in a 80-year-old house. The wiring, plumbing, heating, cooling, and insulation are all horribly inefficient compared to modern standards. You’d love to update everything but you have two problems. First, you live in a community where you need permission from a board to make any changes to your house. Second, all the contractors who you pay to fix your substandard house sit on the board. They make plenty of money from fixing all the things that go wrong with your house, so they are quite happy with the status quo and don’t want you upgrading. You can fight all you want, but the entrenched power centers don’t want change.

So what do you do? You move and build a new house based on current technologies and more enlightened design/environmental philosophies. That’s what seasteads have to offer.

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Is there a design for a seastead that can be 100% non polluting while remaining free from land (ie the transport/fuel costs would certainly outweigh any benefits if not)? Is this design legal on land or illegal? If the latter, then I can see the logic. I just didn’t see any reference to this in the seasteading book (although it very well may exist).

Who said anything about 100% non-polluting? You just said “instead of mindlessly pillaging it as our ancestors did” which is a lot different from “non-polluting”. I believe seasteads can be designed that don’t pillage the environment but instead use natural resources in a mature and sustainable way.

Plus, it depends on what you mean by “polluting”. Is dumping processed solid human waste into the ocean depths “polluting”? Does it mean complete closed-cycle sustainability, where nothing leaves the seastead but everything is reused/recycled?

Who cares? Again, that’s the beauty of building something new. The kinds of sustainable, environmentally-friendly policies that would never get enacted on land in existing societies can be implemented when building a new society. We can lead the way…