The Seasteading Institute – July 2011 Newsletter

Greetings Friends of Seasteading,

Our vision for seasteading is to improve government through competition, and my personal talents lie in seeing possibilities and starting initiatives. Many groups and organizations in the past have tried their hand at the audacious task of creating innovative societies, and I saw the possibility for seasteading to powerfully advance this idea with our unique approach. Thus was born The Seasteading Institute in 2008, as a marvelous addition to the practical politics portfolio.

Much important movement-building and research work remains here at the Institute, and we believe there is also important work to be done in the commercial sector, by creating businesses that benefit individuals through better laws. From both a personal and organizational standpoint, the time is right for me to pursue the vision of government innovation by shifting my primary focus to creating new commercial ventures that will complement the work here at the Institute. I look forward to sharing more details about my projects as they become more solid.

I’m excited to announce that I've found a great executive team to take over and continue to grow The Seasteading Institute: Michael Keenan and Randy Hencken. I will stay significantly involved as Chairman of the Board, media and diplomatic spokesperson, and strategic advisor, as well as promoting seasteading through our in-progress book Seasteading: How Ocean Cities Will Reinvent Politics. While it is a bittersweet moment for me, I believe my talents are best suited to continuing to expand our portfolio of ventures, while Michael and Randy have the passion and talent to take The Seasteading Institute to the next level.

Similarly, two other staff members—Max Marty, Director of Business Strategy and Dario Mutabdzija, Director of Legal Strategy—are wrapping up their research and preparing to start Blueseed, a shipsteading venture, as their contribution to expanding the movement. A commercial sector is vital to seasteading progress, and so we’re thrilled that Max and Dario are helping lead the charge to this next frontier for seasteading, and we’re excited to see where their adventure takes them.

As you can see in this newsletter, we have lots of great progress to report, and Michael and Randy will continue to add new programs to advance the seasteading mission. If you’re interested in reading about the details of our motivation for this expansion, the staff and program changes, and the new ventures, this page has more information.

In service of seasteading,
Patri Friedman

Table of Contents

• Engineering Report Released: "Parametric Analysis of Candidate Configurations for Early Seastead Platforms…"
• First Legal Research Report Released: "Charting the Course: Toward a Seasteading Legal Strategy"
• San Francisco Bay Summer Meet-Up, August 17
• Featured Ambassador: Julian Le Roux
• Featured Donor (and Ambassador!): Paul Martin
• Welcome Engineering Interns: Jorge Suarez and Elie Amar
• San Francisco Chronicle Placed Us on the Front Page
• Ephemerisle Demonstrates Success in Crowd-Sourcing a Seasteading-Esque Event

The Seasteading Institute September 2010 Newsletter

Table of Contents

• In the World

  • FDA Halts Stem Cell Research – Trouble For America, But A Good Case For Seasteading

• What’s New at The Seasteading Institute

  • TSI Welcomes Its New Director of Engineering, George Petrie

• Sponsor Profile: Kresten Buch, Sink or Swim Sponsor

• Call to Action

Recently, Portuguese reporter Vitor Hugo Alvarenga contacted us to find out more about The Seasteading Institute, as part of a feature for high-profile news outlet TVI24.pt about the seasteading movement. Entitled “Viver no Mar”, the three-piece feature focuses on The Seasteading Institute, on SeaLand, and on the concept of seasteading in general.

Well, the Discovery Channel show was pretty disappointing, they only used 5 seconds of the hour+ they filmed of me, although some ideas from the book were featured. I will restrict my comments here to saying that I do not favor many elements of their floating city design. The Reason Magazine article, on the other hand, is excellent! Mainstream vs. niche media? TV vs. print? Who knows. But we will not be posting a video of the Discovery Channel cameo, you should just [go read the Reason article instead](http://www.reason.com/news/show/133865.html).

Reason Magazine has published an in-depth story about seateading, _[20,000 Nations Above the Sea: Is floating the last, best hope for liberty?](http://www.reason.com/news/show/133865.html)_, which begins:

> Ideas evolve quickly along the Friedman family tree. The late Milton Friedman, an economist at the University of Chicago, was one of the 20th century’s most respected and influential advocates for classical liberalism.

Set your DVRs to record [The Discovery Channel](http://dsc.discovery.com/) at 10PM on Monday June 8th (check local listings for local times). The series is Mega Engineering, and the episode is City At Sea. Note that they are putting the first 3 episodes of this new series into a 3 hour block, City At Sea is the 3rd of these 3 episodes. It covers several projects besides seasteading. We will try to get a video of our segment up.

We recently posted a [possible seasteading timeline](http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dck5q6sr_11fcftn966) and [asked for feedback](http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dck5q6sr_11fcftn966) on it. At some point, we intend to create a timeline reflecting a more optimistic scenario, showing how quickly seasteading might grow if circumstances line up extremely well.

From our PR volunteer Basia Montauk comes an overview of last week’s press coverage:

Original stories:

* [City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away](http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/03/09/floating.cities.seasteading/), By Shelby Erdman, CNN, March 9, 2009
* ABC radio (Australia), [Life on the ocean waves](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/futuretense/stories/2009/2509637.htm), March 12, 2009, Antony Funnell interviews Patri Friedman
* The Sunday Times, “[Welcome aboard a brand new country](http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5901235.ece)”, Alex Pell, March

[Welcome aboard a brand new country: A utopian project part-funded by a dotcom tycoon aims to build a giant platform off the coast of San Francisco where people can live free of government regulation](http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5901235.ece)

> _It sounds like the plot of a pre-Daniel Craig Bond film: an internet tycoon invests part of his vast fortune to fund a fiefdom afloat in international waters.

[This segment](http://www.cnn.com/services/podcasting/popups/spec.prog/spec.prog.4.html) has been in the works for quite awhile. I’ve gotten better at giving radio interviews since then, so I kind of wince when I hear it, but hey, all press is good press :). And it’s great to hear MI&T engineer Christian Cermelli speaking as well.