We should build a seastead

[HALLASTERA]

The Bitcoin price is amazingly high, and it has stayed amazingly high for quite some time. I've been expecting it to crash for the last year, and I was especially expecting it to crash in response to the various B2X nonsense, but it's still quite high. These high prices may well be long-term-stable. Therefore, since we gentlemen are in fact the new wealthy elite, I think that the time has come to work toward a project that I know a lot of early Bitcoiners (including myself) have always dreamed of: a mostly-sovereign libertarian seastead. There must be a lot of Bitcoin millionaires who would be willing to work toward this.

The Seasteading Institute (TSI) has an example seastead design with a total estimated cost of $115 million with room for 270 people. So that'd be an average of $425,000 per person up-front, plus a yearly maintenance cost of $13,000 per person. IMO it should be fairly easy to fund something this size from Bitcoiners, and you could probably go even bigger/better. TSI has already done a ton of research/engineering work and built a ton of connections, so a project to actually build something like this would have a great head-start.

The main goal of seasteading is to have a jurisdiction with minimal-possible regulation and government involvement, creating a space for extreme innovation. Like Hong Kong, but even better. At least to start with, you'd probably have to officially be under some government's jurisdiction (via a special agreement with that government), but it will hopefully be possible to keep this very minimal. TSI has already had some success in negotiating this stuff with some governments. Another goal would be to create a good environment for the people living on the seastead: fast Internet (maybe via laser links), high security, overall good facilities, etc.

Who here is interested in participating in this, and what would you want a seastead to have before living on one? I'm not going to collect any money from people, but if there's enough interest (maybe $75 million or so), we can hire some people who actually know what they're doing and create a proper company with a board of directors, etc. Maybe it could even be made into an ICO, though I'm pretty skeptical of those in general.

I think you need to create ICO because most people who want to help good projects from kickstarter or real-life. Ofcourse most people not a millioners but have a strong desire to help anothers.

[Phil_S]

Seems complicated. Just find some island and develop it into something like this:

Duck Key, FL, population 443

[Elwar]

Who here is interested in participating in this, and what would you want a seastead to have before living on one? I'm not going to collect any money from people, but if there's enough interest (maybe $75 million or so), we can hire some people who actually know what they're doing and create a proper company with a board of directors, etc. Maybe it could even be made into an ICO, though I'm pretty skeptical of those in general.

Theymos, glad you brought this up because this is exactly what is being worked on and has been in the works for the past year.

In January of this year The Seasteading Institute was able to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of French Polynesia to build the world's first seastead in a protected lagoon of the main island of Tahiti granting a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) which would allow for some leeway on most economic laws while still being under the criminal code of French Polynesia. The Seasteading Institute, being a non-profit, split off a for profit company called Blue Frontiers ( http://www.blue-frontiers.com ).

Blue Frontiers has been working on this full speed ahead, I started volunteering with them in June and they have been laying the ground work for an ICO since then ( https://www.blue-frontiers.com/en/token/ ). The plan and what is currently going through the legal process is a Security token which would give each token holder shares of the Blue Frontiers company. We explored every other way of doing an ICO and it appears that following the letter of the law with the SEC is the best approach.

The ICO should go live around the same time the French Polynesia legislation goes through in Q1 2018.

Here is an updated image of the actual pilot seastead that will be produced, we have a firm from the Netherlands that has built floating structures before and a team of over 50 people working on every aspect of the seastead from food systems to energy, Internet, blockchain governance, etc.

 

https://www.facebook.com/Blue-Frontiers-255004088265639/

[theymos]

Theymos, glad you brought this up because this is exactly what is being worked on and has been in the works for the past year.

Excellent news! I had heard about the French Polynesia thing, but I didn't know that construction was so close. That may be the first ICO I actually buy.

[freebutcaged]

Who is going to manage the whole project? only if you create a special blockchain to track and record every single dollar, what it was used for and

Who used it, who received it etc. maybe if we wait for another month or so, I could be a part of this with my 4.1BTC.

[BenOnceAgain]

This is certainly a very promising idea, and I am quite sure that you'd be able to negotiate with a number of countries for favorable terms provided you offer them the prospect of stable GDP growth in some way.  Not necessarily taxation, but some economic tie-in to their economy, maybe by using local vendors for supplies or transport.  Countries are eager to do deals and joint ventures, and while this is a pretty extreme example of such an arrangement, I have no doubt you could get countries bidding for your business, similar to how Amazon recently set up a competition between cities to offer them the most favorable terms for their second headquarters.  There are many countries with coastlines around the world and if done properly you could essentially be granted "territory" status of the country, similar to how Guam, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico are for the United States.

As society moves forward, decentralizing everything, starting first with money as Bitcoin has made possible, but all legacy structures of power and control is very viable with technologies such as blockchain distributed ledger.  I'm going to look at the Seasteading Institute website closer and their spin-off Blue Frontiers.  This project in French Polynesia merits further review.

It's a great idea and please do keep posting your progress!

[BenOnceAgain]

Excellent news! I had heard about the French Polynesia thing, but I didn't know that construction was so close. That may be the first ICO I actually buy.

I saw a news article about this just now, here's the link:

Incredible images reveal a futuristic vision inspired by Polynesian traditions for the world's first floating nation planned for the Pacific Ocean by 2020
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5190277/Concept-images-reveal-worlds-floating-nation.html

[drmilind2004]

https://2oxut21weba5oivlniw6igeb-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/02.jpg[/img]

Strictly speaking from a military pov, that's a very close cluster of money-rich targets.  While one assumes there will be some form of military protection, this is too luscious a temptation to ignore for mercenaries and pirates.

Expect pirate attacks, pay through the nose to deter, or pre-empt them. If you expect the established nation-states to help you out with their Navies, shell out some more, lots more moolah.

Even if it proves workable on ALL other fronts, it most certainly fails this military protection test, especially in this post-modern world of drones, unmanned subs, and robot soldiers.

Your only hope then would be for the Bitcoin (and allied crypto) price to crash through the roof; and this seastead to turn too poor to pay ransom or protection money. That won't stop the pirates from trying to abduct seastead 'citizens' for human trafficking purposes. Only solace then would be that they won't be using Bitcoin or Monero, coz they'd have crashed.

Sounds harsh, but it's a necessary reality check.

[Elwar]

https://2oxut21weba5oivlniw6igeb-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/02.jpg[/img]

Strictly speaking from a military pov, that's a very close cluster of money-rich targets.  While one assumes there will be some form of military protection, this is too luscious a temptation to ignore for mercenaries and pirates.

Expect pirate attacks, pay through the nose to deter, or pre-empt them. If you expect the established nation-states to help you out with their Navies, shell out some more, lots more moolah.

Even if it proves workable on ALL other fronts, it most certainly fails this military protection test, especially in this post-modern world of drones, unmanned subs, and robot soldiers.

Your only hope then would be for the Bitcoin (and allied crypto) price to crash through the roof; and this seastead to turn too poor to pay ransom or protection money. That won't stop the pirates from trying to abduct seastead 'citizens' for human trafficking purposes. Only solace then would be that they won't be using Bitcoin or Monero, coz they'd have crashed.

Sounds harsh, but it's a necessary reality check.

Interesting take on the conceptual design. Any number of theories could be created for something that does not yet exist. Even pirates 

That's why I'm supporting the project that will approach seasteading incrementally instead of starting out in middle of the ocean.

Blue Frontiers currently has a pilot project which will be built in a Special Economic Zone in a protected lagoon close to the coast of a French Polynesian island. This will allow them to work out most of the kinks of seasteading under the full military protection of French Polynesia (a place with no pirates, low crime, no hurricanes and will not likely be going to war any time soon). They will also have the full criminal justice system of French Polynesia so thinks like building prisons or courthouses and worrying about what to do in case of theft or at the worst, murder, has already been figured out by the host nation.

They are currently putting together an ICO that is in pre-sale right now: https://www.varyon.io
The public sale will be in early June.

You can join the discussion here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3708700.msg36961869

Or ask any questions you have here. I've been volunteering for them for a year now so I'm up to speed on most things going on with the project. I even retired and moved to Tahiti to have a front seat at making history with the first seastead.

[darkangel11]

I'm pretty sure that the minimum security would have to be provided, but let's talk about another aspect first. Every year thousands of people are boarding their yachts to visit some tropical islands like the Seychelles (near a popular somali pirate fishing area ) and live to tell the tale. Nothing happens. And in most cases they have no hired guards or anything like that. Those pirate hits and abductions that you're talking about aren't that common.

That said, there are many ways of making the platforms secure, starting from installing a radar and a sonar to monitor the traffic around the seastead and ending with automated water canons able to sink a boat if needed. Of course, if you're expecting a whole invasion of some third worlders armed with RPGs, not many things are able to stop it, but French Polynesia is inviting tourists every year, and most of them are rich for pirate standards. Are they being abducted or robbed at gunpoint? Not really, if you trust the reports.

[drmilind2004]

I'm pretty sure that the minimum security would have to be provided, but let's talk about another aspect first. Every year thousands of people are boarding their yachts to visit some tropical islands like the Seychelles (near a popular somali pirate fishing area ) and live to tell the tale. Nothing happens. And in most cases they have no hired guards or anything like that. Those pirate hits and abductions that you're talking about aren't that common.

That said, there are many ways of making the platforms secure, starting from installing a radar and a sonar to monitor the traffic around the seastead and ending with automated water canons able to sink a boat if needed. Of course, if you're expecting a whole invasion of some third worlders armed with RPGs, not many things are able to stop it, but French Polynesia is inviting tourists every year, and most of them are rich for pirate standards. Are they being abducted or robbed at gunpoint? Not really, if you trust the reports.

I entirely agree with your data. Nevertheless, you must understand that such a seastead/ micro-nation is a new, innovative and disruptive entity on the global horizon. Several minds are going to be perturbed, and a few of them might even drift toward some decisive action.

When I say 'pirates' the image that immediately comes to mind is the impoverished Somali pirates. But, anybody operating outside a national setup is a 'pirate'. Consider the legendary pirates of the sailing ship, colonial era!

In fact, that very same seastead/ micro-nation, on account of its disruption of the world order, would be considered a pirate of sorts. Such an outlook toward the seastead would attract buccaneering mindsets currently serving in various national Navies to plot their own disruptions.

When that occurs, they would be no Somali pirates, but mostly indistinguishable from standard Navymen, as most if not all of them will be erstwhile Naval personnel drawn from various national Navies, now come together for this lucrative mercenary op for what to them seems like some noble action to save the world order against a borderline 'pirate' state.

If you think this is far-fetched, read the rosters of mercenary ops in Africa, where the governments of whole countries have been rudely overthrown, because of the lucrative mineral wealth. The pretext: poor integration with, and attempt to disrupt, the global order, exactly what an upstart seastead would be accused of. The subtext: lucrative riches on offer, whether in Africa, or on a seastead.

These ops would be full-fledged invasions, using the latest naval weaponry 'borrowed' from 'somewhereland'. Does the seastead/ micro-nation have the stomach to even contemplate such an eventuality of overwhelming warfare, let alone plot counter measures?
 

[Elwar]

Blue Frontiers actually gets the whole "pirate" question a lot. So much that they added it to the bitcointalk ICO thread:

[darkangel11]

I entirely agree with your data. Nevertheless, you must understand that such a seastead/ micro-nation is a new, innovative and disruptive entity on the global horizon. Several minds are going to be perturbed, and a few of them might even drift toward some decisive action.

When I say 'pirates' the image that immediately comes to mind is the impoverished Somali pirates. But, anybody operating outside a national setup is a 'pirate'. Consider the legendary pirates of the sailing ship, colonial era!

In fact, that very same seastead/ micro-nation, on account of its disruption of the world order, would be considered a pirate of sorts. Such an outlook toward the seastead would attract buccaneering mindsets currently serving in various national Navies to plot their own disruptions.

When that occurs, they would be no Somali pirates, but mostly indistinguishable from standard Navymen, as most if not all of them will be erstwhile Naval personnel drawn from various national Navies, now come together for this lucrative mercenary op for what to them seems like some noble action to save the world order against a borderline 'pirate' state.

If you think this is far-fetched, read the rosters of mercenary ops in Africa, where the governments of whole countries have been rudely overthrown, because of the lucrative mineral wealth. The pretext: poor integration with, and attempt to disrupt, the global order, exactly what an upstart seastead would be accused of. The subtext: lucrative riches on offer, whether in Africa, or on a seastead.

These ops would be full-fledged invasions, using the latest naval weaponry 'borrowed' from 'somewhereland'. Does the seastead/ micro-nation have the stomach to even contemplate such an eventuality of overwhelming warfare, let alone plot counter measures?

Fine, I see your point, but there are multiple questions that one might ask, like why would they choose an nation that uses cryptocurrency, which is far harder to steal than fiat money? You actually have to make them give it up, which is doable with enough "persuasion" but takes more time, and has lower chances of success compared to a normal robbery.
Another thing is the lack of acceptance for piracy around the world. Living in a seastead doesn't immediately make you throw away your passport, and you will be having  guests. If EU or US citizens get abducted or killed, even being a collateral damage of a raid on some wealthy bitcoiner, those pirates are going to have a hard time.
Last thing, some resorts don't really have an army, all you get is a police station, but they have a lot of wealthy tourists. And those tourists don't get robbed at gunpoint on a daily basis. It happens from time to time, but the crime rates are much lower compared to the mainland. I know that you'll respond with "it could not be typical pirates but state supporters", but why would they travel to some remote island paradise to show the world that they are against monetary freedom and science projects made by nerds? If they really wanted to manifest something they could have attacked Sealand long ago.

[buwaytress]

I might also add here to the above discussions (now aware that am on both discussion threads) on piracy that very little is actually known about the motives behind modern piracy, as well as the targetting criteria. What is known is that it isn't actually as random as we'd like to think, nor completely driven by wealth acquisition.

I would suggest though, that integration of foreign communities should be a very high priority. Often, in impoverished countries I've lived in, you get these little expat "enclaves" where the residents play little to no role in the host community. When they did, it was almost lip service, and regarded by host communities as condescending (wealthy white people making small donations to orphanages, for example).

If anything, the increased security and protection afforded to them makes them even more of a target. In my previous community work with non-profits, we had very different ideas of protection... for example, guards, armoured protection, weapons, even bullet proof vests - we didn't use them. If you act like you could be attracting threats, the threats will come.

Every action or inaction has a lot of social and psychological meaning...

[drmilind2004]

Who here is interested in participating in this, and what would you want a seastead to have before living on one? I'm not going to collect any money from people, but if there's enough interest (maybe $75 million or so), we can hire some people who actually know what they're doing and create a proper company with a board of directors, etc. Maybe it could even be made into an ICO, though I'm pretty skeptical of those in general.

Looks like this Seasteading project of Yours is getting fair coverage in the Futures community Press:

https://futurism.com/floating-island-project-high-seas/

Futurism's Instagram poll reveals that a full 76 percent of their followers are interested in this idea of living on a floating island.

Congratulations on a good PR, from a fellow hustler; and Best Wishes for Your Seasteading Project!

btw, You can always consult me for the White Hat hacking tests on Your Seasteading project's physical Security.  

[Elwar]

Who here is interested in participating in this, and what would you want a seastead to have before living on one? I'm not going to collect any money from people, but if there's enough interest (maybe $75 million or so), we can hire some people who actually know what they're doing and create a proper company with a board of directors, etc. Maybe it could even be made into an ICO, though I'm pretty skeptical of those in general.

Looks like this Seasteading project of Yours is getting fair coverage in the Futures community Press:

https://futurism.com/floating-island-project-high-seas/

Futurism's Instagram poll reveals that a full 76 percent of their followers are interested in this idea of living on a floating island.

Congratulations on a good PR, from a fellow hustler; and Best Wishes for Your Seasteading Project!

btw, You can always consult me for the White Hat hacking tests on Your Seasteading project's physical Security.  

Also made MSNBC today:


A floating Pacific island is in the works with its own government,...

The Floating Island Project is a pilot program in partnership with the government of French Polynesia, which will see 300 homes built on an island that runs under its own governance, using a cryptocurrency called Varyon.

[2342q6tegw]

How about funding moon,space and mars colony next? BTC O'Neill cylinder one.

[Elwar]

How about funding moon,space and mars colony next? BTC O'Neill cylinder one.

If we can't colonize the water, how are we supposed to concur space?

[Vod]

How about funding moon,space and mars colony next? BTC O'Neill cylinder one.

If we can't colonize the water, how are we supposed to concur space?

Agreed - it's a thousand times cheaper.

[eternalgloom]

Would it be possible to build these islands from recycled materials?
I know that there have been a few pilot projects testing this out, but I wonder if it's feasible to do on such a grand scale.

This is an article from 2015, but it gives you an idea of what I mean:
https://www.livingcircular.veolia.com/en/recycled-floating-islands

Just for the record, I'm not talking about something amateurish like this:
http://www.earthporm.com/environmentalist-builds-floating-island-100000-plastic-bottles/

I doubt that would survive the constant onslaught of the high seas.


Perhaps it might be better to just create a cooperative, instead of an ICO? What's the benefit of one over the other?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative