Full book available free on line
If you love living in boats (or think you might)
http://www.seasteading.org/book_beta/full_book_beta.pdfMark Twain: \Buy land. They've stopped making it."
Seasteaders: \Production Resuming."
In this paper, we'll demonstrate that a combination of technologies has nally given the
lie to Mark Twain's famous line about the real estate business. Imagine the tremendous
possibility of being able to create new acreage on the vast and empty oceans. The environ-
ment may be less friendly, but the increased freedom will appeal to a motivated minority
who are fed up with terrestrial politics. These aquatic pioneers will settle civilization's next
frontier through the unusual merger of green technology and free enterprise. Once there,
they will experiment with new social, political, and economic systems, adding much-needed
variety and innovation to the stagnant business of government.
As the earth's population steadily increases, so does the pressure to open new frontiers.
While the oceans have long been used for transportation, this book is an extended thought
experiment about how they could support permanent settlements. Considering these issues
will be invaluable no matter which way humanity next expands. In particular, the ocean
bears some definite similarities to space: the final frontier, which will surely be an important
part of our near future.
For background, we'll review the conventional water-based lifestyles like
oating homes,
sailboats, cruise ships, and oil platforms. You'll also learn about some of the other ways
people have successfully leveraged international waters for political freedom, like the eu-
ropean pirate radio movement of the 60's and 70's. We'll describe some of the scores of
colorful new-country projects proposed and attempted over the years. While the ideas are
wide-ranging, including ships, reefs, spars, hexagonal cells, reeds, and tetrahedrons, they all
share one thing in common - utter lack of success.
While this is an unfortunate trend, we'll explain how we've learned from these past mis-
takes. Far from being dreamy-eyed utopians, we are serious planners with realistic principles
for bringing this strange vision to life. This realism dictates an incremental approach, mod-
est political goals, reliance on mature technology, self- nancing, and a willingness to make
compromises.
While we're practical-minded and most of this book is dedicated to the how of seast-
eading, its crucial to also explain why people are interested in small-scale sovereingty. In
perhaps the most vital section, we'll outline the simple economic theory which suggests that
ocean-based societies will actually work better than terrestrial ones. The relative ease of
moving around entire buildings on the water means that political units will be dynamic,
and so governments must be responsive and ecient or they will lose citizens.
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