Will Seasteads just end up like Waterworld?
Waterworld is what you imagine when you bring your land-based assumptions to the ocean. The movie opens to a world in which fresh water is a precious commodity.
But the first single-family seastead produced 60 gallons of fresh water every day, powered by just a few solar panels. On many ships today, desalinated seawater is used for drinking, showering, cooking, laundering, and even swimming.
Soil is also precious commodity in Waterworld, but why? 10,000 species of edible algae don’t need soil to grow.
Seasteaders plan to grow ocean crops along with fish and shellfish farms to create closed-loop food systems that improve water quality.
The bad guys in Waterworld, the Smokers, control an oil tanker. It’s the source of their wealth. The Smokers would need refineries to convert crude crude oil into gasoline. But that’s only a land problem.
On the ocean, energy is everywhere in the form of wind, wave, and solar power.
Algae fuel and solar energy are already powering boats and drones. The technology is getting cheaper and should beat the price point of oil long before humanity evolves gills.
OTEC is already proven green technology that uses the temperature difference between deep cold water and warm surface water to run a heat engine to produce electricity. The first OTEC plant is providing power to homes in Hawaii right now.
And why is everybody in Waterworld fighting? Wars on land are often fought to control resources.
On the sea, there is little reason for war.
Cruise ships are self-governing societies that have sailed the seas for decades, and so far battles between cruise ships have not emerged as a business model. Instead, they compete to serve superior governance to their customers and employees who are free to choose among them.
Next time somebody asks you, “Haven’t you seen Waterworld?” ask them, “Have you sailed with Disney cruises?”
If you’d like to learn more about civil society emerging on more another two-thirds of of the earth’s surface, go to Seastading.org and read Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity from Politicians.
Created by Joe Quirk, Jackson Sullivan, and Carly Jackson.
