Bitcoin Island/City and More

[FinShaggy]

i could maybe even make a viable business model out of renting it out for libertarian related stuff. Parties or speaking events or festivals.

And just parties in general. I could see rich people renting a place in the middle of the ocean to bid on slaves and do coke off dead prostitutes asses.

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[Alex Zee]

no way oil platforms are bolted down

Better buy one close to the Caribbean then

[psybits]

I have long fantasized about an artificial island nation state adopting BTC as its national currency - perhaps complete with solar powered next gen ASIC miners, BTC funded space exploration program, researching into the cutting edge of human endeavor such as renewable energy, space exploration, 3D printing, supporting itself economically as a tax haven and entrepreneurial incubator, refusing to acknowledge or ally with the current corrupt nation states which drag us into pointless wars, using BTC funding to mine Helium 3 on the moon (generating even more wealth for our country as well as helping humanity as whole), building a space elevator, the list goes on...

Replying to watch this topic closely  

[FinShaggy]

I have long fantasized about an artificial island nation state adopting BTC as its national currency - perhaps complete with solar powered next gen ASIC miners, funding a space exploration program, funding research into the cutting edge of human endeavor such as renewable energy, space exploration, 3D printing, supporting itself economically as a tax haven and entrepreneurial incubator, refusing to acknowledge or ally with the current corrupt nation states which drag us into pointless wars, the list goes on...

Replying to watch this topic closely  

That beautiful vision sounds like it will end with "Then America stepped in".

[FinShaggy]

I am totally for it though.

[psybits]

I have long fantasized about an artificial island nation state adopting BTC as its national currency - perhaps complete with solar powered next gen ASIC miners, funding a space exploration program, funding research into the cutting edge of human endeavor such as renewable energy, space exploration, 3D printing, supporting itself economically as a tax haven and entrepreneurial incubator, refusing to acknowledge or ally with the current corrupt nation states which drag us into pointless wars, the list goes on...

Replying to watch this topic closely  

That beautiful vision sounds like it will end with "Then America stepped in".

Just edited it to add a little more - but didn't add that to the end

[FinShaggy]

I have long fantasized about an artificial island nation state adopting BTC as its national currency - perhaps complete with solar powered next gen ASIC miners, funding a space exploration program, funding research into the cutting edge of human endeavor such as renewable energy, space exploration, 3D printing, supporting itself economically as a tax haven and entrepreneurial incubator, refusing to acknowledge or ally with the current corrupt nation states which drag us into pointless wars, the list goes on...

Replying to watch this topic closely  

That beautiful vision sounds like it will end with "Then America stepped in".

Just edited it to add a little more - but didn't add that to the end

I hope that one day Texas can be something like this The WORD Texas comes from the Caddo language, and literally translates into "Friends" or "Allies". Yet it is a state that capitalizes on putting its own citizens in cages.

[cryptoanarchist]

If there is going to be a bitcoin city, I suggest the San Juan mountains in SW Colorado.

That area is rock solid for a SHTF scenario. It's physically isolated from major population centers, but it has its own local resources for survival.

• The mountain water there is some of the cleanest in the nation.
• For hunting the area is incredible. You could feed a large population with just the elk and deer there. However, there are also many cattle ranches in the area.
• The mountains themselves are full of useful minerals - like gold and silver.
• 300 days of sunshine a year. It can get really cold in December and January, but snowfall generally comes in a storm followed by several days of clear, cobalt blue skies. Power from solar and wind is easily attainable.
• The scenery is unparalleled. Head down the "million dollar highway" on youtube or google earth to see what I mean, but video clips really don't give it the justice it deserves.
• Oh yeah, and the area boasts the second largest hot spring pool in the world (Ouray).

[ewitte]

If your successful the US will bomb you and make it sound like your some kind of terrorists.

[cryptoanarchist]

If your successful the US will bomb you and make it sound like your some kind of terrorists.

There would have to be a strategy that employed anonymity. Maybe even a whole new blockchain.

[TomUnderSea]

I am on,  in and under the ocean on a daily basis.  I have experience with a variety of energy sources at sea ranging from nuclear power to sail and including a variety of combustion engines and even various energy extraction systems using wind, wave and solar sources.  I have been at sea in conditions that were not survivable for any surface craft. 

If that's the case, would you care to share your opinion on this debate? http://www.seasteading.org/2012/02/the-seasteading-institute-policy-on-submersible-seasteads/

As I know bullocks of naval engineering, I can only watch the discussions and can't make any opinion out of them. It would be nice if submersible seasteads could be made as cheap and reliably as their supporters claim they can be, since that would allow a much more incremental approach (you could have "family-sized seasteads"). If that's not the case - and TSI is emphatic when it says it is not -, then the only alternative left are big structures which would need to be shared among hundreds or even thousands of people - no small group of "normal" (not billionaires) people would ever be able to buy a ship or platform capable of resisting open sea waves, AFAICT.

The discussion you linked to is closed.

In my personal experience being able to dive deeper than 400 feet for a period of a week is essential if you plan to avoid the worst of a hurricane or similar storm.

Living in a submarine requires an entirely different mindset with regard to personal space.  Not many people handle that well.

The complexity of what is required to make a submarine work should not be underestimated.  The systems on a modern submarine are equal in number and complexity to a surface ship with four times the crew and space.  Everyone on a submarine is an expert in multiple systems and is qualified to operate _any_ system.  That is not a trivial level of training.

To be honest, the whole discussion of platforms for seasteading is rather premature.  I would start with energy budgets, economic models, business plans and social engineering before even worrying about the configuration of the platform.

[TomUnderSea]

2) It would be totally awesome though. I'd hang out there for more than a weekend, I'd spend summers and shit there. Maybe even retire in the ocean.

Well, yeah, if it's in Caribbean Could be a nice vacation. Can it be towed?

Not so great if it's somewhere in Alaska, though...

I don't think they can be moved, I may be wrong though.

Oil rigs move.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_IPZX1n_gnIM/S9z-MKYdxJI/AAAAAAAAFew/VdquJpKXRdw/s1600/Deepwater+Horizon+transport.jpg

Not easily but they move.  The deep water ones actually are floating.  That would be why the Deep Horizon oil rig could sink after the fire and explosion.

[TomUnderSea]

If your successful the US will bomb you and make it sound like your some kind of terrorists.

A bit of a pessimistic view.

If you were bombed I would suspect the grammar police first.  Nothing pisses them off more than confusing "your" with "you're".

[Elwar]

To be honest, the whole discussion of platforms for seasteading is rather premature.  

How low do oil rigs submerge during storms?

I would start with energy budgets, economic models, business plans and social engineering before even worrying about the configuration of the platform.

http://seasteading.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Engineering-Development-Plan_GLP_2012-08-08-alt-3.pdf

At the bottom is the 2012 to 2017 plan which explores energy sources, structures, breakwater structures, modularity/scalability, materials, mooring systems, dynamic positioning systems, and station keeping.

There are several business plans out there including an offshore medical treatment center which would garner about $29 million per year on a ~$100 million investment. They are also looking at fish farm/aquaculture, algae production and processing, offshore tech center, offshore data haven.

Social engineering they have begun interviewing potential seasteaders to get a good idea of the requirements (I personally spoke to one of their reps for about 45 minutes over the phone).

[TomUnderSea]

How low do oil rigs submerge during storms?

They don't submerge.  They are evacuated.
http://www.weather.com/news/oil-companies-pull-back-isaac-20120826

I doubt that is a reasonable model for an autonomous nation built on a seastead.  "Excuse me mister land dweller, but hurricane season has arrived so we are going to evacuate all of our women and children to your cities."

http://seasteading.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Engineering-Development-Plan_GLP_2012-08-08-alt-3.pdf

At the bottom is the 2012 to 2017 plan which explores energy sources, structures, breakwater structures, modularity/scalability, materials, mooring systems, dynamic positioning systems, and station keeping.

Bluntly, anyone can make a chart with lots of tasks and little yellow boxes.  Attempting to harvest energy from the ocean in useful quantities, store it and then have it available when desired at a useful power level is not trivial.  Just to make the challenge more interesting, do it without depending on importing lots of manufactured goods or raw materials.  If the seastead is depending on PV panels with an effective life time of 10 years, it needs to have an intrinsic ability to build them or the ability to stock pile a significant quantity of replacements so it can deal with an embargo.  All of a sudden wind mills made from woven seaweed and whale bone that lift water to a reservoir to run a turbine to make electricity seems like state of the art technology...

Don't get me wrong.  There are very clever devices out there.  I personally like this one: 
http://liquidr.com/technology/wave-glider.html

There are also really cool efforts to convert wave energy to stored energy like this one:
http://scitechdaily.com/floating-power-buoy-creates-electricity-from-ocean-waves/

Notice that they are at the bleeding edge of engineering and dependent on a pretty massive shore based infrastructure.

There are several business plans out there including an offshore medical treatment center which would garner about $29 million per year on a ~$100 million investment. They are also looking at fish farm/aquaculture, algae production and processing, offshore tech center, offshore data haven.

Why would any of those business models not be more successful on land?  Cuba already does the "offshore medical treatment" for anyone looking for an alternative to western medicine.  Fish farming or aquaculture either require expensive structures (remember everything on a seastead will cost more than similar structures on dry land) or require control over the surrounding ocean.  Does the seastead intend to claim a 200 nm EEZ around whereever it happens to be?  Will it have the military muscle to be able to even symbolically enforce such a claim?  Even the "offshore tech center" and "offshore data haven" concepts are better served by Greenland, Sri Lanka or Tasmania

A successful economic model for a seastead has to be built on what a seastead provides for less than any other reasonable competitor, without becoming a target for those bent on "law enforcement".  Pirate havens attract negative attention.  Ones that sink will be sunk. These means a seastead has to be a model of "good society" to those who control the sea and produce something of value for less than the same item in the homelands of those who control the sea.  Attempting to be an outpost for extra-legal operations is just inviting the folks who enforce the laws to come pay a visit.

Social engineering they have begun interviewing potential seasteaders to get a good idea of the requirements (I personally spoke to one of their reps for about 45 minutes over the phone).

Not quite what I mean by "social engineering".  Successful organizations don't happen by accident.  Either they evolved in a forgiving environment (not seastead land) or they were planned by really smart people.  How a seastead deals with the need for an executive power to keep the infrastructure working with out either becoming subjects of that power or making the executive so weak it is unable to attract the people needed to keep the thing afloat is a huge challenge.  The age old ship captain concept works because eventually the voyage is over.  Anything less than a ship captain concept can be very risky.  A legislative discussion about the merits of expending energy to avoid a storm may still be in the planning stages as the category 5 hurricane starts ripping parts off the seastead.  Finding the balance between these levels of societal control can be tricky.

If we toss in the idea of "family unit" seastead conglomerates, it gets even more challenging.  If the Minnowites don't get along with the followers of Sharkaria, how does the seastead maintain a critical mass of people?


Finally, the idea of what it takes to make a nation is pretty clear in the eyes of the world.  A shared language, a shared heritage, a shared living space (land or seastead) are all starting points.  These are necessary but not sufficient.  What is really necessary is generational self sufficiency.  If your state is not self sufficient in the long run, you fail.  The long run this means a minimum viable breeding population.  I would look at Nauru as a minimum population size.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru

Nauru might also be an example of the challenges faced by a seastead except their island is not in daily danger of sinking.  BTW, it seems a bit ironic that the only thing Nauru seems to be able to offer on the world market today is a detention facility.  Perhaps the seastead community should approach the Naura government about setting up a seastead in ocean around Naura.  They seem to be willing to cut a deal on just about anything that will keep their children from starving.

[Elwar]

Bluntly, anyone can make a chart with lots of tasks and little yellow boxes.

Your responses sound like you think that nobody has thought of everything you are talking about already. It would be like someone hearing about Bitcoin and saying "What about double spends? You need to think about people's private keys getting stolen. Nobody accepts them so they're useless. It's a ponzi scheme.".

The seasteading concept has been around for almost a decade. They have forums just like this where people have addressed these questions. They have Peter Thiel donating several million dollars towards research, they have patented one of their initial concepts, they are moving from the research phase to the testing phase by using a cruise ship to test business models. They are taking baby steps, most likely starting by working with a government under their flag within their EEZ and in more hospitable waters.

Pirates, social structure, materials that can last in salt water, structures that can handle 100+ foot waves (rogue waves), EEZ, different temperatures, weather patterns currents throughout the world. Several prototypes of different concepts including submersibles and concrete submarines have been attempted.

Seasteading is not a new concept.

http://www.seasteading.org if you want answers to your questions. Their FAQ addresses almost every question you posed: http://www.seasteading.org/about/faq/

[caveden]

In my personal experience being able to dive deeper than 400 feet for a period of a week is essential if you plan to avoid the worst of a hurricane or similar storm.

But what if you just avoid such dangerous places? Hurricanes don't happen everywhere. The South Atlantic for example is calmer. The Mediterranean too.
How deep would you need to go to avoid the most dangerous waves a sea like the Mediterranean may hit you with?
Obviously by avoid I don't mean 100% ignore it, but just resist it without having your "house" rolling/turning strongly (or breaking apart!) and without getting seasick.

Living in a submarine requires an entirely different mindset with regard to personal space.  Not many people handle that well.

The supporters of the idea claim that most of the time the ocean is calm enough so that you can leave your submarine afloat. The top of the submarine would be like a balcony. It wouldn't be much different from an apartment after all.
Once in a while you'd have to sink for protection though.  I wonder how sudden would that happen. I mean, if you left your home floating and went to work nearby, do you have enough time to come back to it and sink before things get serious?

The complexity of what is required to make a submarine work should not be underestimated.  The systems on a modern submarine are equal in number and complexity to a surface ship with four times the crew and space.  Everyone on a submarine is an expert in multiple systems and is qualified to operate _any_ system.  That is not a trivial level of training.

That's part of the argument of the seasteading institute (which is against submersible designs).
Those for it claim that such complexity is not necessary in a seastead use case. They say, for example, that you'd never need to sink deeper than what a snorkel can reach, so no need for fancy equipment to get oxygen from the sea water. Most of the military grade equipment available in modern submarines would also not be necessary either, according to them.

If I remember well, they claimed that you'd be able to have a concrete submarine with available inner space comparable to that of a 60m² apartment for something like 200k€, what would make it comparable to the costs of a house in the French Riviera for example. Do you agree with this assessment?

The main supporter of this idea has already produced private concrete submarines: http://concretesubmarine.com/

To be honest, the whole discussion of platforms for seasteading is rather premature.  I would start with energy budgets, economic models, business plans and social engineering before even worrying about the configuration of the platform.

TSI has already published many research papers on these topics. See: http://www.seasteading.org/overview/

There are several business plans out there including an offshore medical treatment center which would garner about $29 million per year on a ~$100 million investment. They are also looking at fish farm/aquaculture, algae production and processing, offshore tech center, offshore data haven.

Why would any of those business models not be more successful on land? 

Because they would not be crippled by regulations and taxation. That's the whole point: the freer the economy, the more potential it has. A seastead based on libertarian principles would likely be freer than any other economy in this world.

Finally, the idea of what it takes to make a nation is pretty clear in the eyes of the world.  A shared language, a shared heritage, a shared living space (land or seastead) are all starting points.

Most american nations didn't have a shared heritage or shared language when they started. Same goes for Australia and other 'new world' nations.

[TomUnderSea]

My design was using ferrocement spheres built at a low enough cost that you could have thousands of them interconnected which could distribute the impact of the waves. As enough are built it becomes a sort of floating island that can keep expanding. Similar to the guy who made an island out of plastic bottles but more long term and at a higher volume.

How much time have you spent at sea?  Have you ever watched barnacle growth sink a float?  Ever seen a boat sunk by sea lions climbing up on it?  This is the daily stuff that happens at the water front.

Ever watch storm waves bend steel?  Ever see waves sweep decks clear of protecting bulwarks?  When the sea decides to take something there is nothing you can do.

That is not the scary part.  The scariest part of the ocean is the part we don't know.  Rogue waves were a myth when I first went to sea.  Now we know they are real.  Giant squid were inventions of map makers when I first started looking at charts.  Now we have pictures of them.

We know so little about what is out there that ships and submarines run into (submerged) mountains where none are supposed to exist.  Even in well charted waters, reefs are recorded miles away from where they actually are.  We are just starting to get a handle on what kind of risks are entailed by subsea land slides.   This stuff is just starting to be figured out (http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/).  Kind of hard to engineer for risks that are not even well understood.  Makes me think of this kind of problem .(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TankerSchenectady.jpg)


I have looked through the seastead literature several times in my life.  If it had as much reality to it as this design  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Artisan_(AFDB-1)) I would be a little less skeptical.  At least AFDB-1 could lift up it's own parts for maintenance without depending on running back to land.

Everything that goes to sea will break.  If your life depends on it, it needs to have two separate backup systems, a full load of spare parts and smart people maintaining who can make capacitors out of tin foil and wax paper.  The discussion about submersible habitats discussed having manual bilge pumps in case of system failures.  I'm trying to imagine a manual bilge pump that can generate a discharge pressure in excess of 500 psi at a flow rate that could actually keep up with a leak.  Then I'm trying to imagine the genetically modified gorilla necessary to operate such a thing.

Don't get me wrong.  I would love to live on the ocean for the rest of my life, raise my children and grand children there.  I grew up next to the sea, had my first boat before my first bike and spend my life focused on the ocean.  

Seasteaders who don't know if oil rigs can be moved, think that floating concrete balls are a stable surface to build a city on or believe they will be exempt from the laws of all nations if they are just a few hundred miles out to sea are the folks who make it sound like the seasteading ideas are not well thought out.

I'll take bitcoins over seasteading any day of the week.  Bitcoin is based in solid mathematics.  At present seasteading is encrusted with the masturbatory fantasies of a bunch of -topians who think someone else will clean the bilge when things start to go wrong.  Good luck with that.

[TomUnderSea]

But what if you just avoid such dangerous places? Hurricanes don't happen everywhere. The South Atlantic for example is calmer. The Mediterranean too.
How deep would you need to go to avoid the most dangerous waves a sea like the Mediterranean may hit you with?
Obviously by avoid I don't mean 100% ignore it, but just resist it without having your "house" rolling/turning strongly (or breaking apart!) and without getting seasick.

I would go twice the depth of the longest period wave known to have happened in the region and in water at least 10 times as deep as that period.  Anything less and life could get interesting.  I remember a storm where at 200 feet down, the low pressure area between the wave crests pulled our submarine up to the surface.  It was interesting getting back down.  Luckily there were no broken bones and all the gear was repairable.

If your goal is to avoid seasickness, I recommend staying on dry land.  IF that is a dominant concern in your design for a seastead, you really should not be going to sea.  Not everyone should go to sea.

The supporters of the idea claim that most of the time the ocean is calm enough so that you can leave your submarine afloat. The top of the submarine would be like a balcony. It wouldn't be much different from an apartment after all.
Once in a while you'd have to sink for protection though.  I wonder how sudden would that happen. I mean, if you left your home floating and went to work nearby, do you have enough time to come back to it and sink before things get serious?

You would contemplate commuting from your seastead to where???  You would allow the systems you depend on to protect your family and all you possess to be in anything less than perfect working order?  Please don't seastead and if you must, please don't do it near me.

That's part of the argument of the seasteading institute (which is against submersible designs).
Those for it claim that such complexity is not necessary in a seastead use case. They say, for example, that you'd never need to sink deeper than what a snorkel can reach, so no need for fancy equipment to get oxygen from the sea water. Most of the military grade equipment available in modern submarines would also not be necessary either, according to them.

A 400 foot snorkel?

That "military grade" equipment is actually SUBSAFE grade.  Go read about SUBSAFE and the USS Thresher for a better understanding of why SUBSAFE is not cheap.  Those CO2 scrubbers and O2 generators are not military luxuries, they are what allow you to live long enough that you can fix the crap that put you at the bottom of the sea.  Besides, what is so fancy about purifying water and splitting it to get O2?  If that is not a simple process you can sketch out on a napkin over beers with your neighbor, you might not want to be going to sea in a submarine.

If I remember well, they claimed that you'd be able to have a concrete submarine with available inner space comparable to that of a 60m² apartment for something like 200k€, what would make it comparable to the costs of a house in the French Riviera for example. Do you agree with this assessment?

The main supporter of this idea has already produced private concrete submarines: http://concretesubmarine.com/

I will not go to sea in a concrete vessel ever again.  Please never mention that idea again.

TSI has already published many research papers on these topics. See: http://www.seasteading.org/overview/

They appear to be worth every dollar that was paid for them.

Because they would not be crippled by regulations and taxation. That's the whole point: the freer the economy, the more potential it has. A seastead based on libertarian principles would likely be freer than any other economy in this world.

How does that freedom from non-libertarian regulations and taxes compare to the increased taxes and regulations that will be part of keeping the seastead floating?  We _know_ there will be an increase in cost to do anything at sea.  You _hope_ that libertarian regulations and taxes will be more efficient and effective in an at sea environment than _any_ current system anywhere on land and that the increase in efficiency will offset the increase in cost.

Even if you are correct that libertarian regulations and taxes are dramatically better than anything we have today, as soon as Nauru decides to emulate you, your competitive advantage is gone.

Most american nations didn't have a shared heritage or shared language when they started. Same goes for Australia and other 'new world' nations.

The organizing force of most new world nations shared a heritage and language.  The individual national histories are how they consolidated the people around them to that heritage and language.  That process (and conflict) continues today.  Ideally your seastead won't have to deal with a civil war over debt based labor slavery or "Indian wars" over land use or religious wars between the Minnowites and the Sharkafians.  Of course, if you are not careful about making sure you have "common ground" with your neighbors you may find they will take your ground and leave you "treading water".

[caveden]

If your goal is to avoid seasickness, I recommend staying on dry land. 

Inhabitable dry land is all taken over already, you know...

as soon as Nauru decides to emulate you, your competitive advantage is gone.

But that's the whole point! Seasteaders don't want to live in the sea for the sake of it. Of course that if this is the only parameter, no doubt that I prefer to live on dry land like our species was meant to be.
The idea, though, is to bring competition to governments, and eventually "persuade" them to improve themselves - and consequently the life standards of all would improve as well.


You seem to be quite a problem-oriented person. Instead of focusing on potential solutions, you immediately see the difficulties and dismiss the entire thing. Many people regret having treated Bitcoin this way in the past.

Anyways, thanks for taking your time to address my questions.