Seasteading

[Elwar]

what i saw was grating and a fuel powered blue generator
but it was pretty interesting in another youtube video how you tried to denounce how involved you were by saying it never intended to be  seastead/micronation. it wasnt your project and how you were just a guineapig couple who volunteerd to stay there now and again

The generator was necessary for running the water pumps that we used to pump the water out of the spar after lowering it to put the platform on top. We used it for some welding as well and decided to keep it there as a backup generator.

You like to mix the 3 different projects I've been involved in to somehow be one project. I worked with a couple of guys about 6 years ago on a project called Marinea. The plan for that was initially to build a large concrete seastead in the Bahamas, we spent about a year planning the design and working on things like "how do we get water, Internet, electricity, food, waste disposal, etc."...typical stuff you discuss when talking about seasteading. We sent letters to some people in government of the Bahamas (by "we", I don't mean we all sat there writing a document). The architect and construction guy had a disagreement with the marketing guy who was in charge so the marketing guy shifted focus to buying a floating hotel that he had been researching for years (he sent his brother down to Florida to inspect it, I saw it once as I drove by but never got on it). With all of the SEC laws that prevent people from raising money, the strategy for raising funds to buy the boat was through some sort of membership deal. Pay $100 for membership and you get some sort of benefits at the hotel (free night, etc.). The marketing guy had big dreams that we'd get tens of thousands of people joining up. Once we were ready to move forward on it I posted a couple of times about the idea (which Franky immediately attacked). I was the only one in that project that actually put money into it. I did not have a huge amount of money but I put $10k toward the project so we could get the website going and pay for things like establishing a company, opening a bank account, paying for some professional renderings of our final design, etc.
They only had about 5 people buy membership which were all refunded after we realized we would not raise the $10 million or so needed to make things work.

Marinea is still trying to exist but it's just one guy and his wife with the dream of buying that floating hotel.

Taking the lessons learned from that experience I moved on to the more prominent project from the Seasteading Institute of Blue Frontiers. I flew to Tahiti to meet everyone involved at their conference. There were about 100 people at the conference and there was a great energy of people wanting to make this happen. So I jumped into that project as a volunteer focusing on blockchain solutions for the seastead. With all of the very intelligent people involved and the Memorandum of Understanding with French Polynesia I was confident that this project would actually happen after 10 years of seastead talk. Fortunately at that time the bitcoin price was going up to $20k and I no longer needed to work at my day job and I was able to retire thanks to bitcoin. I did invest about a quarter million into Blue Frontiers but was only one of several major investors. My role in that company was as a volunteer because I wanted it to work out and put my money where my mouth was. They spent about 10 months working on the funding strategy working with lawyers and ICO companies, they had a call with Vitalik, they were spending a lot of money so they had a lot of high profile individuals involved trying to figure out the whole situation of building in French Polynesia while trying to raise money from every nation in the world, including the US and its draconian laws. Their final solution was a token called Varyon which would be a token used as payment for anything related to Blue Frontiers (an Ethererum smart contract), Blue Frontiers would be in charge of the sea zone so this would allow them to charge for use of the sea zone. I promoted Varyon as much as I could as one of hundreds of people promoting it (everyone else was getting paid to do so, I did it out of passion for the project).
The ICO went live as bitcoin was crashing and the ICO bubble had popped. Part of the smart contract included a signed contract that refunded all of the money if they did not reach X number of varyon purchased. They raised almost a million dollars but fell short of the goal by about $50k (not many people knew about the refund until it was too late). All of the money was refunded (except us initial investors who were left with nothing).

Blue Frontiers still has the occasional meeting and I believe they are still trying to find a country that will give them a sea zone, but they are likely out of money by now.

As I was wrapping things up with Blue Frontiers I met this german aeronautical engineer in Bangok (Rudiger). He had already begun working on his floating platform and explained that his ultimate goal is to build a launch loop for launching payloads into space. I left Tahiti and went to see what he was working on in Thailand. He had the spar and platform being built by two separate companies. The spar was being built by a steel company that was used to building large pontoons for gold mining rigs. The platform was being built by a french boat builder who specialized in large party catamarans.
I arrived in Thailand and stayed on Rudiger's yacht as we discussed seasteading and the idea that if he wants to build a launch loop in middle of the ocean he'll need a full city of floating homes for the workers as well as supporting businesses and structures, etc. He liked that he would be able to go back to his home town and work on his superconductors while my girlfriend and I stayed on the seastead (which was initially meant just as a watch tower for his launch prototype). He thought it would be a good idea to replicate these things and sell them. His goal not being to make any money off of them (he's Vladmir club wealthy), but to get things built up so he can have homes for the workers of the launch loop. I volunteered to help, my gf speaks Thai and English so she was useful in translating with the steel workers. We would visit the sites when he was off working on his superconductor experiments and give him status reports. I brought my full SCUBA gear and he had plenty of his own so we would go diving at the site and sailing, I began some biorock experiments because he wanted to build large structures in the water and we felt that biorock was a viable option as the price of solar comes down. He paid for the full build of the platform and spar. I would catch a check here and there as he was letting me stay on his boat but it was Thailand so I was hardly spending any money (fortunately since the bitcoin price had dipped). I put Rudiger in contact with everyone he needed to talk to through my contacts with Ocean Builders and the Seasteading Institute. After having seen so many crypto projects get started promising the world only to never deliver I stressed that we should not advertise the sale of any of our seasteads until we had one in the water. We were excited about the project as it moved forward but kept it under wraps publicly because we did not want to promise something only for the thing to fail and disappoint a lot of people (like with Blue Frontiers). We also didn't want to waste money on advertising and marketing (avoiding all of the failures of Blue Frontiers) and lawyers and endless money pit meetings, etc. We did contact a few lawyers in Thailand and spoke to the harbor master about what we were doing. Each lawyer told us that because what we were doing was 12nm out Thailand had no say in it. The harbor master didn't want to be bothered by it (it didn't fit into any category he knew how to deal with). So our plan was to prove ourselves to Thailand by building the first structure then getting 20 orders to show Thailand that we would be bringing money to their country. We planned on taking a 1% deposit keeping the first 20 homes at or below the cost to build them. We brought out a group of people from Blue Frontiers who were likely customers to show them the launch of the seastead. Unfortunately the biggest storm in 60 years hit on the week we planned to launch so we had to postpone (still not going public). Joe Quirk brought a camera crew for the event and got plenty of good footage for his videos. Once we got it in the water I started posting blogs and contacting friendly independent media (I had been talking to Reason about it for a while and we've been talking to a journalist at Wired who is still working with us). I posted on bitcointalk but of course Franky attacked me talking about Blue Frontiers and Marinea and how we don't know what solar panels are and have no idea that there are off the shelf water makers that our boat manufacturer has been installing on boats for years.
That venture left me down about $100k worth of stuff in Thailand (my boat, vehicle, all of my possessions on the seastead, etc.).

So now we move forward in Panama. At this point I am more than a volunteer. I am now one of the founders along with our CEO that joined us to move forward on the business side. We are still only taking deposits toward peoples' homes. Refundable $100 deposit which will require 20% deposit when we begin building the customer's actual home (likely to take place this summer). We already have a few people that have reserved their SeaPods. Each of the founders plans on buying one, we have the eco resort guy and we've actually not even started advertising that we are taking deposits yet outside of Anarchapulco and silently updating our website. I have an e-mail list of about 1000 people who have expressed interest on the website that I have not updated yet. We're all still getting back from travel before we begin letting them know. We are busy setting up our factory (the building material just arrived last week). The concrete has been poured for the footings and we pour the floor next week. Our 3D printer has been delayed but we will finally get that in about a month (we've been waiting for that for a while to get moving forward). The coronavirus has delayed our rolling machine and crane for the factory but we're hoping they all get here around the beginning of April (hopefully the factory is finished by then).

Ocean Builders' ultimate goal is a space launch, it always has been. That's why in Thailand I knew that when they were charging us with trying to create a new nation they would not find any evidence of it because that was never the goal. Sure, as a libertarian I am in it for the ability to live somewhere away from territorial law, but as I have stated many times, a seastead nation makes about as much sense as a bitcoin bank. It seems people who supposedly understand Bitcoin don't even grasp that concept.

We're moving forward, all with our own money. We don't actually need investors and Rudiger does not want any (until he's built his small scale launch loop prototype). We've spent around half a million of our own money so far moving this project forward in Panama. Workers are happy, Panama is happy, we are going to make sure our customers get the most awesome homes they've ever seen. If the bitcoin price hits $40k or higher...this project is going to be crazy funded (we are all bitcoin hodlers).

Not sure what to tell ya, we're going to make it happen. You'll just have to sit back and witness history being made from behind your computer screen.

[BADecker]

^^^ Thanks for the history and update, Elawr.     

[franky1]

and there it is history
starting websites advertising, bank accounts, ICO's, tokens, fundraising.
just proves that was elwars  historical plans. money money money

and nice back track how your now saying the thailand pod was not some part of advertising seasteads sales pitch. but was a already in the works space launch. now saying intended only as pods for workers wanting to work on a space launch project.. hmm.. yet you been advertising it as part of your seasteading projects.

and yes that $10m floating hotel.. only a couple dozen rooms but wanting thousands of investors. promising them rooms for the night. .. can you even basic math that.
especially how you wanted them rooms also available for your project crew as a HQ. meaning less 'guest' rooms available. cold you even basic maths that back then. or was the fake promise worth more to you financially than to actually articulate the problems you'd have if people actually wanted to get what you promised

come on lets use elwar maths
say 5 rooms spare for guests. thats less than 10k nights spread over 5 rooms over 5 years. where each guest wants 1 night only. yep allowed only 1 night. and may have to wait upto 5 years
you want people to invest $1k for 1 night each... and may not even see a night on the boat for upto 5 years
.. oh and thats best case numbers.
needing 10,000 investors and no gaps inbetween where by the staff, cleaning lady and repair guy dont have any delays

...
and again back tracking the promises of the creating a 'self governing cities'
oh and the whole 12nm.. ha ha ha
ill draw it again
______|     O      |______  12nm line
            \ ~~~~ /
________\____/________ land line
(hint. building at 12mn then has a overlap(~) because the 'self governing cities' 12nm overlaps(~) thailands 12nm)
meaning need to be 25nm away to have no overlap(~) and atleast 1nm gap between to have a buffer
heck im not even an expert. nor lawyer but i seen that problem coming up as soon as i heard the distance it was being built at.
it took me 10 seconds of basic maths and no costs to work that one out(and you said you seeked out experts and lawyers who said it was fine)

just like i see your lack of addressing the sanitation problems
i know your more into the desires of real estate profits. you need to really think more about environmental impact of such as that is starting to become the priority number one stumbling block of getting things greenlighted.
for years i have tried to question you on that and you have always failed the test of explanation.

yea you are great at buzzwords and gimmicks to sound good. making it sound like everything is planned. but end results show the opposite.
have you even looked at the hint i gave you about the wood through the forest poke
or are you still just concentrating on getting mailing lists of people wanting to throw money at you
seems thats all you want to highlight mostly. the money side

[Elwar]

and there it is history
starting websites advertising, bank accounts, ICO's, tokens, fundraising.
just proves that was elwars  historical plans. money money money

and nice back track how your now saying the thailand pod was not some part of advertising seasteads sales pitch. but was a already in the works space launch. now saying intended only as pods for workers wanting to work on a space launch project.. hmm.. yet you been advertising it as part of your seasteading projects.

and yes that $10m floating hotel.. only a couple dozen rooms but wanting thousands of investors. promising them rooms for the night. .. can you even basic math that.
especially hw you wanted them rooms also available for your project crew as a HQ. meaning less 'guest' rooms available. cold you even basic maths that back then. or was the fake promise worth more to you financially than to actually articulate the problems you'd have if people actually wanted to get what you promised

and again back tracking the promises of the creating a 'self governing cities'
oh and the whole 12nm.. ha ha ha

ill draw it again
______|     O      |______  12nm line
            \           /
________\____/________ land line
(hint. building at 12mn then has a overlap because the 'self governing cities' 12nm overlaps thailands 12nm)
meaning need to be 25nm away to have no over lap and atleast 1nm gap between to have a buffer
heck im not even an expert. nor lawyer but i seen that problem coming up
it took me 10 seconds of basic maths and no costs to work that one out

just like i see your lack of addressing the sanitation problems
i know your more into the desires of real estate profits. you need to really think more about environmental impact of such as that is starting to become the priority number one stumbling block of getting things greenlighted.
for years i have tried to question you on that and you have always failed the test of explanation.

yea you are great at buzzwords and gimmicks to sound good. making it sound like everything is planned. but end results show the opposite.
have you even looked at the hint i gave you about the wood through the forest poke
or are you still just concentrating on getting mailing lists of people wanting to throw money at you
seems thats all you want to highlight mostly. the money side

[franky1]

lots of concept art, lots of memes, lots of buzzwords.
but have you even got a tape measure out to see if a pod can even be forklifted into a proposed wooded area you advertise
or are you just highlighting the mailing list of $100 deposit requirements

[Elwar]

I am very fond of 3D printers and nowadays there are very few good options, but I have a very good option for you, look ender 3d printer review this will help you a lot)

Ocean Builders is getting an Erectorbot 3D printer. One of the largest 3D printers in the world.

http://www.erectorbot.com/

[BADecker]

I am very fond of 3D printers and nowadays there are very few good options, but I have a very good option for you, look ender 3d printer review this will help you a lot)

Ocean Builders is getting an Erectorbot 3D printer. One of the largest 3D printers in the world.

http://www.erectorbot.com/

Are you getting investment funds to buy this, or are you using your own funds like before? Is this what you are going to use to build your seastead/landstead structures. Please pardon me for sounding like I mean you personally. You have previously explained that you are not part of the business, at least formally.

[Elwar]

I am very fond of 3D printers and nowadays there are very few good options, but I have a very good option for you, look ender 3d printer review this will help you a lot)

Ocean Builders is getting an Erectorbot 3D printer. One of the largest 3D printers in the world.

http://www.erectorbot.com/

Are you getting investment funds to buy this, or are you using your own funds like before? Is this what you are going to use to build your seastead/landstead structures. Please pardon me for sounding like I mean you personally. You have previously explained that you are not part of the business, at least formally.

Ocean Builders' engineer, Rudiger, bought it with his own funds. He is a big bitcoin holder.

As the bitcoin price rises, our project will thrive with it.

[BADecker]

I am very fond of 3D printers and nowadays there are very few good options, but I have a very good option for you, look ender 3d printer review this will help you a lot)

Ocean Builders is getting an Erectorbot 3D printer. One of the largest 3D printers in the world.

http://www.erectorbot.com/

Are you getting investment funds to buy this, or are you using your own funds like before? Is this what you are going to use to build your seastead/landstead structures. Please pardon me for sounding like I mean you personally. You have previously explained that you are not part of the business, at least formally.

Ocean Builders' engineer, Rudiger, bought it with his own funds. He is a big bitcoin holder.

As the bitcoin price rises, our project will thrive with it.

Thanks, Elwar.     

[Elwar]

Here is the latest video in the series: "The First Seasteaders"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OovkeOuZsqU

[TECSHARE]

I am very fond of 3D printers and nowadays there are very few good options, but I have a very good option for you, look ender 3d printer review this will help you a lot)

Ocean Builders is getting an Erectorbot 3D printer. One of the largest 3D printers in the world.

http://www.erectorbot.com/

Is it possible to build boats with that thing?

[franky1]

$10k for 1 week time share... are you kidding me
you havnt even bought a single one and already want to grab money and not even let people own a hole pod in full.

and.. you think you can then get the investor to sub-let that to a airBnB customer for that week
seriously you need to sack your accountant. and project manager. and fundraiser. and lawyer

elwar even now you still just aint getting the point are you
stop stroking your ego trying to make out your sacagewea of the lewis and clarke expedition
not only is it a bad reference. but just .. no.. you aint

to be honest you latest video where you tag the guy 'sea jobs' has a bit more rep then you. maybe its time to take a step back and let people with a real eco-sea passion take over a eco-sea project.

i cant believe you presented the latest video as a anti-gov propaganda piece without realising how legally you were in the wrong, and thinking you were just a couple living in their home being free. .. then getting people around you to then say you didnt build it, own it, you were just staying there a while..
dang. even now you cant even edit a straight narrative together.

i say all this because seasteading and eco projects actually fascinate me both personally and professionally. and years ago i was looking for investments and hobbies. but you elwar have been the thorn in the project that has detracted me from it and even times i thought of suggesting a few things to help.. i then rethought my thoughts and decided you were not worthy of the tips.

but anyways. i digressed.
lets get back to my initial thought of the latest project you are trying to promote.
again dang your time shares are ridiculous especially when your hoping for those investors to make their money back from airBnB.
i still think you need a math teacher
its just as bad as your previous project of wanting millions to buy a boat to use as a HQ/office and occassional one night-guests

seriously try any let someone else be the front man of the project. even that 'sea jobs' guy(grant romundt) sounds better than you

[BADecker]

$10k for 1 week time share... are you kidding me
you havnt even bought a single one and already want to grab money and not even let people own a hole pod in full.

and.. you think you can then get the investor to sub-let that to a airBnB customer for that week
seriously you need to sack your accountant. and project manager. and fundraiser. and lawyer

elwar even now you still just aint getting the point are you
stop stroking your ego trying to make out your sacagewea of the lewis and clarke expedition
not only is it a bad reference. but just .. no.. you aint

to be honest you latest video where you tag the guy 'sea jobs' has a bit more rep then you. maybe its time to take a step back and let people with a real eco-sea passion take over a eco-sea project.

i cant believe you presented the latest video as a anti-gov propaganda piece without realising how legally you were in the wrong, and thinking you were just a couple living in their home being free. .. then getting people around you to then say you didnt build it, own it, you were just staying there a while..
dang. even now you cant even edit a straight narrative together.

i say all this because seasteading and eco projects actually fascinate me both personally and professionally. and years ago i was looking for investments and hobbies. but you elwar have been the thorn in the project that has detracted me from it and even times i thought of suggesting a few things to help.. i then rethought my thoughts and decided you were not worthy of the tips.

but anyways. i digressed.
lets get back to my initial thought of the latest project you are trying to promote.
again dang your time shares are ridiculous especially when your hoping for those investors to make their money back from airBnB.
i still think you need a math teacher
its just as bad as your previous project of wanting millions to buy a boat to use as a HQ/office and occassional one night-guests

seriously try any let someone else be the front man of the project. even that 'sea jobs' guy(grant romundt) sounds better than you

What are you even yammering about. All of us who have an opinion that we express here in the forum are stroking our own egos at least a little.

Does it make you feel good that you can stroke your ego in ways that nobody else even knows what you are talking about? Are you so jealous of Elwar and his successes that you can't even recognize the tremendous stuff that he does? Did you get slapped down so badly by a UK court one time, that all you can do now is yammer and babble, and babble against others?

It seems that you like your comfortable slavery. Is it really comfortable being a slave? Most people have places to go, people to see, and things to do. But all we see from you is places to stay away from, things to remain in the dark about, and people to do.

[franky1]

badecker. your the one in the dark
i go places. i do my research. i invest. and i do things.
just take a look at elwars supposed successes
day one im living free on a seastead. im sacagewea
day 60 i didnt own it i didnt make it i was just a temporary vacation guest, a no body, please dont imprison me for breaking the law

by the way even in the 2 months t was at sea. elwar couldnt even manage to stay there for 60 nights.
he just wanted to borrow a completely different project. fame it up as being the seastead project for a money grab

[BADecker]

badecker. your the one in the dark
i go places. i do my research. i invest. and i do things.
just take a look at elwars supposed successes
day one im living free on a seastead. im sacagewea
day 60 i didnt own it i didnt make it i was just a temporary vacation guest, a no body, please dont imprison me for breaking the law

by the way even in the 2 months t was at sea. elwar couldnt even manage to stay there for 60 nights.
he just wanted to borrow a completely different project. fame it up as being the seastead project for a money grab

All you said was a bunch of stuff you don't know about Elwar. Elwar is great. He isn't lying. All the things he says, he says in such a way that he expresses what he wants people to know... without expressing lies, but at the same time keeping his private life private.

With regard to Elwar's high speed, most of us, and especially you, should speed up to stop a little.

[Elwar]

We made Grant our CEO a few weeks ago. The plan is to transition things to him as the face of the company for things moving forward in Panama. I am certainly happy to be out of the spotlight. I was more protecting our engineer from the spotlight as he is socially...well, he's a great engineer.

If you want to create your own business and believe you can do it better then great! We are open sourcing our design, we want these in the water. All of us involved just want to live on the ocean so if someone else does it better then that makes our lives easier. I am retired so this is just my passion project.

I would hope that other companies would sprout up creating great homes on the ocean but having been involved in seasteading for a dozen years now I know that it is mainly people just talking on the Internet and nobody actually doing anything. So until that time, we will be the ones actually doing anything while the arm chair quarterbacks sit back and talk about what we should have done while they don't do anything at all.

[franky1]

having been involved in seasteading for a dozen years now I know that it is mainly people just talking on the Internet and nobody actually doing anything.

im glad you finally see my point by your own admissions. that even after a dozen years. all you managed to achieve was to be a guest on a space research pod that was not an actual 'seasteading/bluewater/oceanbuilder' project
(remember you yourself denounced association with its funding/designing/involvement)

so im glad your finally realising your lack of results even after all them investment campaigns and world wide conference tours

[Elwar]

having been involved in seasteading for a dozen years now I know that it is mainly people just talking on the Internet and nobody actually doing anything.

im glad you finally see my point by your own admissions. that even after a dozen years. all you managed to achieve was to be a guest on a space research pod that was not an actual 'seasteading/bluewater/oceanbuilder' project
(remember you yourself denounced association with its funding/designing/involvement)

so im glad your finally realising your lack of results even after all them investment campaigns and world wide conference tours

I never claimed that I built/designed/funded the first seastead. I'll wait while you provide proof to the contrary.

There is a world outside of Bitcointalk. I seem to be the only seasteader on this forum but there are a lot of people involved in the different projects going on. And our project is certainly not the only one.

Somehow you believe I am the only person controlling all projects and speak for all seasteaders. Big praise but I am not worthy of such a high regard.

I wonder how much you hounded the first guy to test drive a Tesla, telling him he hadn't thought about driving distance or where to charge his battery.

[BADecker]

having been involved in seasteading for a dozen years now I know that it is mainly people just talking on the Internet and nobody actually doing anything.

im glad you finally see my point by your own admissions. that even after a dozen years. all you managed to achieve was to be a guest on a space research pod that was not an actual 'seasteading/bluewater/oceanbuilder' project
(remember you yourself denounced association with its funding/designing/involvement)

so im glad your finally realising your lack of results even after all them investment campaigns and world wide conference tours

Thank you, franky1. You have given me the best laugh I have had in a while.

Come on. Fess up. You are really notbatman, aren't you.

If you had listened to what Elwar said in other posts and in his videos, you would have caught the point that living out on a spar for months isn't something people generally desire. His boat was always there, to take him to an island that was visible on the horizon (sorry about using "horizon," notbatman).

Real seasteading includes island-like living, only man-made... you know, with grass, and trees, and hills, and rocks, and gardens, etc.

Look at how long it is taking Dubai to build its floating paradise. And they have $billions to work with... maybe $trillions. Do you really want to live on a spar? People who don't have Dubai $billions are simply starting where they can. Have you applied for a job with Elwar's people, yet?

LOL.

[Febo]

I just found out about it. I heard a long time ago about casino ships in countries where casinos are prohibited, but I hear about accommodation for the first time. If you do this, you need to carefully consider where to get food, where to take out the garbage, etc. But the idea is good!

The casinos on ships are not in the countries. The ships might be registered with a country. But when they do their casino activities, they do it outside of the 12-mile limit, so that they are in international waters.
Many governments want to legalize international waters. The UN has been trying to do this for years. The point is that legal anywhere is important only when there is military or police strength to uphold and enforce the legal activity.
Might doesn't always make what is right, but it always makes what exists.

Yes it is not about prohibited or not but about paying taxes. There are casinos in Florida so should be slowed also in Miami port. But If ships would allow gambling close to Florida coast then they would need to follow Florida gambling regulations and pay taxes there. 15 years ago I worked on a cruise ship and casinos simply started working after ship go to international waters. Same with the shops. On cruise ships that also makes sense. When on sea everything is open, when the ship dock then people go off the ship. So there is not even need to have casino and shops open. Even most bars are closed during port days. And crew members can go off the ship or take a long sleep.