Hello Seasteaders!
We want to say ‘Thank you!’ to the many generous supporters who have donated to The Seasteading Institute in the closing days of 2011. If you haven’t yet contributed, we hope you will consider making a generous tax-deductible donation to support our programs for 2012. Your gift will be matched dollar for dollar by the Thiel Foundation. This is a great opportunity to fund our efforts towards a drastically improved world.
Our mission to open a new frontier through seasteading is urgent. The budget crisis in the United States and slow motion unraveling of the currency union in Europe are just two examples of failures of existing political systems to cope with the challenges of the 21st century. There is good reason to believe the next generation of governance will look substantially different than it does today, and progress is not guaranteed. We believe experimentation is the source of improvements: to find something better, we have to try something new, even when it comes to government. Since there is no unclaimed land where people can go to experiment with new governments, we’re working to enable floating cities in international waters. This will allow people to peacefully test different forms of governance, inspiring change around the world.
It has been a banner year for the Institute. In 2011 we accomplished the following:
- Published seven groundbreaking research papers:
- Parametric Analysis of Candidate Configurations for Early Seastead Platforms (Petrie)
- Charting the Course: Toward a Seasteading Legal Strategy [PDF] (Mutabdzija, Borders)
- Building the Platform: Challenges, Solutions and Decisions in Seasteading Law (Mutabdzija, Borders)
- Seasteading and Institutional Evolution (Friedman, Taylor)
- Barriers to Entry and Institutional Evolution (Friedman, Taylor)
- Seasteading Business: Context Opportunity and Challenge (Marty, Borders)
- Seasteading Engineering Report: Floating Breakwater and Wave Power Generators (Elie Amar and Jorge Suarez)
- Got a paper accepted in a peer-reviewed economics journal, which will be published in 2012
- Presented our public choice economics papers at the Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE) conference in Nassau, The Bahamas
- Reached audiences around the world through speaking engagements and countless mentions in news media
- More than doubled our newsletter readership and tripled our Facebook fan base
- Launched our volunteer ambassador program and recruited 34 individuals from across the globe
- Hosted a community of seasteading enthusiasts on our online forums, and at in-person gatherings, many of whom are actively preparing seasteading related projects
- Teamed with academics/academic institutions to conduct seasteading related research
Perhaps most remarkable of all, and thanks in large part to supporters like you, we inspired the creation of Blueseed, the first official seasteading business! We have ambitious plans to enable the creation of more seasteading ventures, to engage more people with the seasteading vision, and to research solutions to challenges facing seasteaders, but we need your support in order to progress.
Please give a generous donation today.
The high seas are waiting,
Michael Keenan, President The Seasteading Institute www.seasteading.org
