What about using seasteading to construct refugee havens?

Imagine: a seastead, 1939. The infamous SS St. Louis, containing Jews from Nazi Germany, is turned away from port after port in the New World. Headlines broadcast t the problem to the world, but no one is willing to do anything about it. Then: a group of seasteads offers to give haven to the refugees, in return for some requirements about work. Enthusiastic, the frightened refugees agree to stay in return for two years of work per person.

It's highly doubtful, of course, that the technology in 1939 would have been up to par - both seasteading and the international trade patterns necessary to get jobs for people living on boats. But consider if seasteads had been around two years ago, with liberals making all the noise about Darfur. If someone stepped up and said, "I'm willing to do something about that - send them here!" - it seems quite possible the NGOs and hired locals could have helped refugees get to the seastead.

Provided, of course, the whole plan is a money-making operation.

That's the biggest problem. What kind of business could utilize uneducated, non-English-speaking, Third-World labor in a profit-making enterprise?

Data entry? Native handcrafts? Garment sweatshops? No, we don't have to call them that. But any such project - explicitly providing homes and jobs for refugees - could build off existing Fair Trade infrastructure. Alternately, it could provided very good PR for a large company with PR problems - even if said company might have to pay more for their product.

Imagine the following commercial: Here at Wal-mart, we're known for our low prices and friendly service. But did you know that when you buy our products, you're helping save international refugees from violence sweeping their homeland?

<points to woman wearing traditional Nubian dress.>

Meet Salma Khoudm. Salma grew up and was living in the village of Wartsi in Sudan (display map). That it, before her village was burned to the ground and both of her parents killed. With a militia threatening the lives of Salma, her husband Wadid, and their two small children, a Wal-mart partner helped them escape the country before they, too, were killed. And in return, the couple now works to produce the shovels sold at Wal-marts nationwide.

Wal-mart: Where we help people.

One problem is how likely are refugees to hang around on ships when better emigration opportunities become available, or if their homeland suddenly returns to peace.

Polycentric law helps us out a lot here: we can take a page out of American history and bring back indentured servitude. Given that we'd be saving people from likely death, this shouldn't be too much of a PR problem.

Besides, if it would work, the entire thing would be a big PR move for seasteading. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddling masses yearning to break free. I lift my lamp beside the golden door." The other big problem I can think of (well, a good thing, but a problem for this idea) is that crises severe enough to make large numbers of people willing to leave their homeland forever are sporadic. In the last decade and a half, we're probably limited to Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Darfur, perhaps Liberia or Sierra Leone, possibly Iraq for Christians? If we're willing to majorly piss off a nation-state, we could park boats to transport refugees three miles off of Cuba's coast. Or Haiti's.