Through my years of service in the United States Navy, I have had the… I guess “privilege” is the right word… of experiencing, first-hand, just how unforgiving the oceans of our world are. I have been on a 250-foot ship while it was riding through 40-foot swells and gale-force winds. I have conned the same ship when part of its hull literally came undone and we were taking on somewhere in excess of 200 gallons a minute into one of our primary engineering spaces. I have dealt with wrecks and safety of life at sea emergencies. I have launched and recovered (and been launched and recovered in) more small craft than I care to count, in conditions that, looking back on them, were… interesting. I have executed so many UNREPs and man-overboard drills that they are all a blur. I have drilled for fires, flooding, gas attacks, boarders, small boat swarms, and pretty much every other major event you could probably think of. I have dealt with cranky, archaic machinery and electronics for which spare parts basically do not exist and against which salt water is constantly fighting.
And with all of that said and experienced by me, while this idea unquestionably appeals to me, I will remain skeptical:
It goes like this: Friedman wants to establish new sovereign nations built on oil-rig-type platforms anchored in international waters—free from the regulation, laws, and moral suasion of any landlocked country. They’d be small city-states at first, although the aim is to have tens of millions of seasteading residents by 2050. Architectural plans for a prototype involve a movable, diesel-powered, 12,000-ton structure with room for 270 residents, with the idea that dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of these could be linked together. Friedman hopes to launch a flotilla of offices off the San Francisco coast next year; full-time settlement, he predicts, will follow in about seven years; and full diplomatic recognition by the United Nations, well, that’ll take some lawyers and time.
Power. Fuel. Drinking water. Food. Waste management. Communications. Maintenance. Security. Transportation. Legalities. Medical emergencies. Oh God, the headaches…
To begin with, all countries that can own the waters, in their entirety, from the upper atmosphere down through the ocean floor, 12 nautical miles out from their shore. If you are inside of those 12 nautical miles, you are inside of whatever country is nearby… which is why those “gambling” cruises head straight out and dawdle at 13 miles. However, even more complicatedly, all countries have Economic Exclusion Zones that extend another 188 nautical miles out from that 12 mile marker, which basically means those countries have exploration, maritime resources, and various other rights to things in that area, but not legal jurisdiction over the water (like I said, it is complicated). This means you could set up a gambling island 13 miles off the coast of Long Island, but you would not be able to set up a sovereign fishery until you hit 200 miles. Bit of a commute, that.
Speaking of, office complexes off the coast of San Francisco? I am really hoping that Patri Friedman is talking about doing that inside of national waters, because even with the quickest personnel ferry scooting along at somewhere around 35 knots, you are still considering at least a 30 minute commute from the dock to the platform, not counting whatever time people will need to get from home to the ferry… And that is all assuming calm waters and no weather. And that people do not get seasick. Which they do.
Again, please do not misunderstand me – I absolutely love this idea, and I do believe that a lot of the societal problems facing us at the moment stem from the cold reality that there are no more undiscovered countries, so there is nowhere for folks to run from the creeping authoritarianism that is slowly infecting our country. However, as much as I know that this idea, at its ideal, would provide that outlet, I also know that the technology and willpower are at least a few decades behind the curve. Of course, they are talking a few decades in the future, so maybe their predictions are spot on.
I mean, hell, what are they going to do about one of the most-basic aspects of any seagoing vessel – fire prevention and combatting? Despite being metal, there are so many things on a modern ship that burn, and burn hot, the last thing you want is an uncontrolled flame scooting around your boat. I am not sure how commercial vessels do it, but every single sailor on every single USN ship is a firefighter, period. Sure, some of us still had to drive the boat, and some of us had to man the sound-powered phones, and so on, so forth, but all of us had basic training with extinguishers, hoses, and Halon, and could wade into the scene and drench the decks if we had to. So are the seafarers going to make firefighting training a requirement for all residents, with the additional mandatory requirement to respond in case of an emergency, or are they going to pay the megabucks to fund an offshore firefighting department?
Dunno. That is apparently not a frequently asked question (though they do touch on the “pirates” topic, but I believe they are being a bit short-sighted on that as well…).
I wish Peter Thiel (though the irony of the founder of notoriously-anti-firearms PayPal founding an offshore libertarian experiment is not lost on me) and Patri the best of luck with their Seasteading Institute, but it is going to take a lot more than a few pretty pictures and some carefully content-free marketing documents to convince me it is going to float…
I remember hearing about this. I also remember hearing it instantly compared to Rapture from the Bioshock games.
While the game comparison is cute and makes me smile, it also makes me wonder: just how long would it take for some seriously horrible crap to happen to any *real* version of this. Like you said, the small details are do-or-die here, and with “tens of millions” of people living on something like this, how long will it take for enough incompetent people to screw up enough that a good chunk of the population dies in a disaster?
I don’t even want to think about the political shitstorm this would invoke. Seems to me that people who like these futurist ideas are liberally bent, while really independent pioneer types probably lean conservative (or at least really individualist). Authoritarianism creeps, so eventually these 2 groups would clash, maybe violently, and they’re doing it on floating platforms 200+ miles away from land and real safety.
But yeah, it is definitely a cool idea. Let’s see how far private money takes this!
The Navy didn’t used to train all the sailors as firemen. Then one day John McCain jet let loose a rocket on a fully loaded flight deck, causing a fire. The ship fire crew rushed to put out the fire… When a 500lb bomb cooked off and killed them. All of them.
Then they had a burning aircraft carrier and no one who knew how to use the fire equipment.
Even if there were undiscovered countries, that’d only delay the problem, not solve it. We’d go out there, and render them “discovered.” Eventually you have to stand and fight for the world you believe in, and there’s no time like the present.
That said, I watched a BBC documentary called “The Human Planet.” It’s basically like a nature show, except it’s about different populations of humans instead of some other animal. One of the episodes was about a society who spend almost all of their lives in a fleet of boats. They follow the schools of fish through the Pacific, and only make landfall to trade for fuel and other such things that they can’t get for themselves. When they do go ashore, they often get landsick. Seems to me that the ability to follow your food gives live on a ship a huge advantage over life on a platform.
Okay, I have spent most of my life turning a wrench or tool of some type. This just seems like one heck of a nightmare.
Still I think it could be interesting and useful.
Who knows 30 years from now.
I thought of Bioshock when I read about this seasteading movement too. Ayn Rand might approve of the effort, but she’s not high on my list of people whose opinions I trust.
Seasteading’s goal is to make nations “free from the regulation, laws, and moral suasion of any landlocked country.” But people drawn to that kind of society won’t want to attend mandatory firefighter training.
The number one issue — which is never adequately addressed, ever — regards exactly how you are going to convince every nation in the nations of the world club to let you join.
Let’s see how this latest gang of dreamers plan to deal with this issue:
Sweet, except there is a precedent. Sealand was founded years before United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, yet no one recognizes it. No one. Not even the Norks, not even Zimbabwe. No one wants to take a 200 mile diameter slice away from the open seas that would surround this planned platform.
Without being in the nation club, you will have no way to issue passports or offer your residents any type of diplomatic protection. You will run into issues trading with recognized nations. You will have to build a self-sustaining nation-state with next to zero outside help and if you start to look like a threat you will have to fight off a military attack from some nation willing to expand its territory. Other nations might just sit back and watch it happened if, for instance, doing nothing would buy themselves a vote from one of the temporary members of the UN Security Council.
I hate to be such a neg, but until you are willing to face simple facts like this and can come up with a viable plan your enterprise is doomed to failure. Get back to me when you are willing to address the “Republic of Minerva” scenario.
All I can think of is “Waterworld”.
I’m just gonna keep saving for my ticket to Grainne. I keep asking Mike Z when he’s going to start the preorders and let us book space on the ship to get there, but he wno’t answer me.
…
That FAQ really doesn’t say anything about the pirate and weapons question, just a rosy tinted implication that the place’ll be to big to rob. I’m sure no group of gangs would ever band together long enough to loot and burn the place, oh heavens no. And the Titantic was unsinkable, too.
All it would take is pissing off one nation with even a pissant navy. They wouldn’t even have to waste ammunition on the platforms. A simple blockade would starve out the entire population in short order, because such a platform would have little to no food production ability beyond fishing and seaweed harvesting – and a fishing/harvesting boat inside of a blockaded area is called “target practice”.
Fuel for power generation (required for potable water production) would be another point of vulnerability.
It’s an interesting idea, but probably not workable.
Looks like some guys from the Seasteading institute have formed a for-profit entity and are actually taking a first step, just off the coast of California. Godspeed Blueseed, but you’ll have some pretty big waves in that part of the Pacific.
@ the Dude: Even discounting the inevitability of accidents and mishaps occuring on these vessels, sabotage would be so mind-numblingly easy that a caveman could do it… Stationary targets, far from any shoreside assistance, and probably complacent (or cheap) enough to not mount a 365-degree, 24-hour security watch… Yeah, there is absolutely no way I would take a job as security on one of those things.
That said, I still wish them the very best of luck – it is an ingenious idea, and one whose time is coming, I just wonder if it is really quite here yet.
@ wizardpc: You do know that McCain’s aircraft was the one the rocket hit, right?
But, yeah, that was the USS Forestfire… er… Forrestal, and the full documentary of it is still aired at every Navy boot camp I am aware of, and I had to sit through it at Surface Warfare Officer School, and the lessons are definitely appropriate for this seasteading venture as well.
@ Dreaded Claymore: Unfortunately, history has taught us time and time again that “liberty” is always trapped in a holding action against “oppression” – there are simply people who cannot stand the thought of other people doing as they please, and are willing to do anything to stop it.
And, by the same token that we want to live our lives our way, we should permit those who want to be controlled to be controlled. Until now, the way that problem was solved was the former went and found some new place to call home. Unfortunately, we have run out.
That floating community brings to mind the monstrosity from Snow Crash built up around the carrier… I think the Seasteaders were talking about building up fisheries, but, yeah, some degree of mobility if only to avoid storms would seem like a good thing.
@ Terriligunn: Most new ventures give engineers like us a raging case of the heebie jeebies, and there is no way I would invest money in a first generation version.
I still hope they succeed, though.
@ Dave H: And that is the clincher… There is a reason most ships, be they military or be they civilian, have a very strong and well-laid-out chain of command – when the gos-se hits the rotary air impeller, you really do not have time to argue. Will the same kind of individuals who are attracted by this kind of thing be willing to submit to actual orders?
To be fair, their lives would hang in the balance, so I dunno.
@ Standard Mischief: In all honesty, Sealand was never much more than a garage project by an arguably unbalanced family, with no redeeming use, functionality, or purpose aside from sticking it to the English government (which, really, is a purpose I can wholeheartedly support just on its own merits, but that is beside the point). It was also further complicated by previously being property of the Crown and being well within the 12 nautical mile territorial water area.
This project will avoid all of those problems, and thus fall outside of the precedent previously set.
Still not convinced it will work.
With enough people, and, more importantly, money floating around on the platforms, things might change… but those “things” might be that new Chinese carrier pulling off a few miles and manning its catapults.
@ Braden Lynch: Someone had to bring it up
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@ Ted N: I know exactly how much money it took to protect KAAOT and ABOT, and I am pretty solidly certain that these Seasteaders will not be able to field it. That said, they will not exactly be in “hot” combat zones, but once all of that aforementioned money starts washing around in its holds, the gap between “worth a target” and “being able to afford a defensive force” is going to be too large to overcome.
And those oil terminals were wee compared to what these folks are talking about.
@ Jake: Hell, given that you are in international waters, find someone to sell you a baby reactor… all the power you need
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But, yeah, these folks are going to need something more than guns to keep themselves afloat and intact, and I am just not seeing what they have to offer.
@ Matt: Ayup, that is the one I obliquely mentioned in my post, where I did not think they were adequately thinking about the necessary commute costs.
However, as a trial run of the larger exercise, it will be interesting to watch. Me, I give it two years, assuming a keel is ever laid.
@Linoge
At the time of founding, Sealand was in international waters, because at the time the limit was 3 miles. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea pushed the limit out to 12 miles.
Furthermore, The treaty states that only existing nations may build new sovereign territory. So Sealand should be grandfathered in. (This other project would not be. They must have missed that point in their FAQ.;-) Sealand has also been visited by diplomats and declared outside of UK territory by a British judge.
You are correct that the tower was formally crown property, abandoned. Once they decided to ignore Sealand, the British went around and destroyed the remaining unoccupied towers to prevent any copycat nation-builders from doing likewise.
I’m not even slightly convinced that this is a marginally good idea. Buy an island and form your new country.
@ Standard Mischief: I sit corrected then
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Still, given that nation-creating is not something we have been in the habit of doing of late (though nation-fracturing is, so I wonder if this could count as that… ala Bosnia-Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, etc.), the rules are either absolutely against, or annoyingly vague. It will be entertaining to see how it plays out regardless.
@ Ken Rhanek: Know any countries selling? Bit easier to build than buy these days.