The Seasteading Institute

We’ve completed our analysis of the responses to our community strategy survey, [originally posted here](http://www.seasteading.org/interact/forums/community/feedback-tsi/survey-feedback-wanted-accelerated-strategy-options). Thanks to all of you who took the time to respond!

**Based on the feedback from the poll and our own analysis, we’re going to immediately commence planning for the following projects:**

* A **ship-based ocean venture,** incorporating one or more of the business offerings covered in the survey, and launched with additional outside funding
* **Single-family seastead construction,** focusing initially on community-driven development via TSI-sponsored grants and/or contests
* **Deep-ocean breakwater research,** for its potential to drastically reduce the cost structure of large-scale seasteading

Expect to see more developments on these initiatives announced in the near future, including more details about a SFS grant program later this week!

The survey results also illustrate something we already know: there are many different perspectives about the best way to advance the seasteading movement. Not everyone will agree that these paths are the best ones, or the ones most suited to their personal goals. Fortunately, our movement is large enough to foster multiple groups pursuing multiple paths, such as the promising [Seasteading Outpost: Belize](http://wiki.seasteading.org/index.php/User:Pastor_Jason/Seastead_Outpost:_Belize#General_Vision_for_the_First_Two_Years) project that [we've blogged about before](http://www.seasteading.org/stay-in-touch/blog/3/2009/05/21/some-take-low-road-some-take-high-road), to name just one. And as always, TSI looks forward to maintaining an ongoing dialogue with you, our community, about which of our strategies are working well, and where we need to change course.

Details about the survey results, including raw data, are available below:
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Highlights:

* Large ocean ventures:
* There was very strong support for a large ocean venture (> 80%).
* Among the supporters, ships were a preferred platform over ClubStead by almost 2 to 1.
* The most often cited factors in favor of ships were cost and incrementalism.
* ClubStead supporters tended to feel that a ship would not be sufficiently different from what’s already out there.
* There was majority support for several different business offerings: condos/timeshares, casino resorts, medical services, aquaculture, and software development firms.
* Some people pointed out conflicting needs between different businesses potentially sharing space: e.g. condos or a casino/resort would want to travel, a medical facility would want to stay put.
* A couple of people seemed to be turned off by the idea of the government innovation center / think-tank based on a misunderstanding that it would be funded by existing government(s).
* One alternative suggestion was an ocean-based research facility, for research, education, and enterainment about ocean-related sciences.

* Single-family seastead construction:
* A notable portion of the community (33%) wasn’t in favor of pursuing SFS’s at this time.
* “SFS are already available. They are called boats.” was a common sentiment from this group.
* Supporters were more in favor of rapid prototyping (42%) than meticulous design (25%).
* Some people commented that they were in favor of both approaches (this was not a selectable option in the poll.)
* TSI-driven projects and community-driven development were both quite popular (> 60%).
Many people suggested some sort of hybrid approach, where TSI does what is necessary to support the community, who in turn makes the bulk of the actual progress. Suggestions included:
* TSI building a variety of prototypes which the community could then iterate on
* TSI providing funding for community projects, through grants or prizes
* TSI paying consultants to quickly crunch through specific, tough “sticking points” the community runs into

* R&D
* A strong majority (63%) was in favor of researching artificial breakwaters.
* People felt breakwaters could prove to be an important factor to make seastead communities more affordable.
* Some people questioned weather seasteading communities would be practical at all without a breakwater
* No other R&D projects had strong (> 33%) community support.
* The point was made that some alternate technologies (e.g. VersaBuoy) might be applicable in the context of SFS design.

* Other comments
* There was quite a bit of appreciation expressed that we were doing a poll and having this be an open process.
* Some good praise for TSI in general, and next to no negative feedback. Nice to see. Nonetheless, we continually strive to improve!
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[Here are the raw survey results](http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=BnnJxtOOQuvKhYTN0U552c52RGH5fVJNKkdks_2ff7fGU_3d). We had a total of 36 responses, and they were of high quality — every question had 40-70% of the participants submit additional written comments.

For reference, the original forum post outlining the strategy options is [here](http://www.seasteading.org/interact/forums/community/feedback-tsi/survey-feedback-wanted-accelerated-strategy-options). The link to the survey was only accessible from this post to try to ensure that participants were well-informed about the matters they were voting on.

Note: For question 2, the “software development house” option was added after the poll had already begun. Had the option been available to all participants, the extrapolated response rate would have been 20 votes in favor of this option.