The Seasteading Institute

From [Patri's blog](http://patrissimo.livejournal.com/1260782.html):

> Since hiring nthmost, eelcoh, xleste, radiantsun, and Max to work for TSI (offices are a bit busier these days!), I’ve been able to delegate lots of major projects and get lots of writing time in on the book, yay!

> As a result, I’m getting close to the point where I’ll be ready for feedback on the new version of the seasteading book. If you’re highly interested in the topic and motivated to read rough prose and give substantial feedback, read and summarize relevant books in our area, that sort of thing, … Continue reading →

The suggestion of recycling the North Pacific Garbage Patch into building materials gets made a lot. While creative and elegant, with a little examination it turns out to be completely economically unfeasible, and actually wasteful of resources.

Think of it this way. Suppose it were possible to profitably turn trash into building materials. The most efficient way to do this would be to buy a landfill and recycle it. Compared to this strategy, using trash from the garbage patch has a number of major disadvantages:

1) Operating at sea is **very** expensive.

Continue reading →

One of my major projects during the summer and fall of this year will be getting the seasteading book in shape for publication (initially via POD). I have a giant pile of links and ideas about little sections to write – there is an arbitrary amount of nuance, fun speculation, and neat technologies that could go into the book. But I don’t have time, and even if I did the final result would be hugely bloated. So I need to start by 80/20ing the book – nuance and fun can be added later.

I want your help. Continue reading →

One of my major projects during the summer and fall of this year will be getting the seasteading book in shape for publication (initially via POD). I have a giant pile of links and ideas about little sections to write – there is an arbitrary amount of nuance, fun speculation, and neat technologies that could go into the book. But I don’t have time, and even if I did the final result would be hugely bloated. So I need to start by [80/20ing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle) the book – nuance and fun can be added later.

I want your help. Continue reading →

DanB’s [Realist and Idealist Views of Basesteading](http://wiki.seasteading.org/index.php/User:DanB/BaseStead_Strategy#Realist_and_Idealist_Views_of_Basesteading) addition to the wiki reminded me of the classic low-road vs. high-road distinction which always seems to come up when talking about seasteading strategy. I think this distinction and terminology is useful, so here’s a crack at a book section on it. Continue reading →

A new section for the Extended Q&A in the book:

Related to transparency is openness – being public about our existence, goals, and methods.

A number of TSI community members have expressed concern about our policy of operating openly, stating our goal to create new governments on the internet and in public interviews. They worry that it could bring us to the attention of governments before we are ready, allowing them to quash our nascent movement, and suggest that it might be better to keep everything quiet until a large seastead community is operating. Continue reading →

There has been a long and active debate about the relative merits of different structures for seasteading, such as [spar platforms](http://seasteading.org/book_beta/Above%20Water.html#floatingsparplatform), [breakwaters](http://seasteading.org/book_beta/On%20The%20Water.html#breakwaters), SFS (ranging from SWATH to spars to Water Walkers), sailing ships, or retrofitted cruise ships. Continue reading →

Wed: Yale – good. Had dinner w/ ~12 students beforehand, ~25 came to talk (during midterms week, not bad). Seemed to like it. Several enthusiasts who want to come to Ephemerisle. New parts of talk (what does TSI do, ranting about libertarianism) went over pretty well. Should have an MP3 up sometime.

Thu: NYC. Met w/ book agent, I got the feeling she gets pitched at a lot. She had some good advice – the wider the potential audience, the more publishers will be interested, and pioneering will sell better than politics. Continue reading →

I’ve gotten this question several times recently, so I’ve drafted an answer for the book’s extended Q&A. Feedback would be welcome.

Some people’s instinctive reaction is to question why we need new countries when bad laws can just be dealt with by ignoring them, hiding illegal activities. What would you want to do on a seastead that you can’t just do in your own home? There are a number of serious problems with hiding as a solution to bad laws:

* **Integrity**. Continue reading →

Eliezer writes on Overcoming Bias:

One of the primary principles of evolutionary psychology is that "Our modern skulls house a stone age mind" (saith Tooby and Cosmides).  You can interpret all sorts of angst as the friction of a stone age mind rubbing against a modern world that isn’t like the hunter-gatherer environment the brain evolved to handle.

Continue reading →