Slashdot Log In
Paypal Founder Puts a Half Million Dollars Into Seasteading
Posted by
timothy
on Wed May 21, 2008 12:45 PM
from the liberation-seaology dept.
from the liberation-seaology dept.
eldavojohn writes "Wired is running an informative article on Paypal Founder Peter Thiel's investment in seasteading. There's a great graphic indicating how the spar design helps platforms weather rough seas with a ballast. There's a lot more than just Thiel throwing the half million towards this and they hope to pitch this to San Fransisco for a bay pilot. Ocean colonies can be both liberating and also downright human-rights-lacking scary."
Related Stories
[+]
News: Pirate Bay to Purchase Sealand? 703 comments
paulraps writes "Notorious Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to get around troublesome international copyright laws. The organization, the world's largest bit torrent tracker, has set its sights on Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation' and claims to be outside UK jurisdiction. With a target price of £500m it won't be cheap, but Pirate Bay says contributors will become honorary citizens."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Pacific Gyre / Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Score:5, Informative)
and somehow make it out of all this crap. [wikipedia.org] Now that would be
worthwhile.
Parent
Re:Sweet (Score:5, Funny)
//got nuthin
Parent
Re:Sweet (Score:4, Interesting)
The real scary proposition represented in these platforms is the further breakdown of human society. The haves and have-nots of existing bad urban planning will be magnified. "Haves" on clean, platforms with exploited labour imported sans regulation and protection from the Philippines. "Have-nots" on the toxic-waste dumps of continental land - allowed to degrade and suffer.
This is a vision from H.G. Wells "The Time Machine". The moral problem with "Transhumanists" is that they regard human beings as expendable - in much the same way that 19th-century industrialists viewed drayage horses.
Parent
Best current bet for utopia (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Best current bet for utopia (Score:5, Insightful)
Living in a society is about compromise and respect for other peoples opinions and beliefs. Groups inside a society who have no tolerance for other views are a serious issue. Most of the problems societies have are when these groups get too powerful.
Frankly sending them all out into the middle of the ocean sounds like a great idea. Living accommodations optional.
Parent
Re:Best current bet for utopia (Score:5, Insightful)
The inverse, groups that cannot be tolerated by society can be problematic as well. Giving the Puritans land far far from the rest of England was just as much a blessing to England as the Puritans. Any modern day cult that builds a compound in the middle of nowhere could be said to tolerate other's views, but they don't really fit in so well when we find that they are like to marry 14 year old girls to 45 year old men. But out in the middle of the ocean, it wouldn't really bother us anymore. Or would it? Would the American people allow such a society to sit just off our shores? What about a cannabis farming floating island anchored just north of Bermuda, do you think Uncle Sam would let them alone? I don't think these floating islands are going to be the escape from global government/society that many want them to be.
Parent
Re:Best current bet for utopia (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Some would like to ban any oppression by religious groups. But they feel that the mention of religion or the statment that my religion is better than yours or your lack of religion is oppressive. Of course they themselves have no problem with people saying that a total lack of religion is better than having one.
Just about everyone's vision of Utop
Re:Best current bet for utopia (Score:5, Informative)
You are aware that the word "Utopia" means "Nowhere", right?
Parent
Re:Best current bet for utopia (Score:4, Insightful)
Enlightenment aside, human nature is not static. We have several stable states, selfishness being one of them. In a society that encourages selfishness, does not allow the common person the ability to easily punish unfairness. If everyone around you is being selfish, chances are you will be, too, because you have to, or be taken advantage of. But if everyone around you is being cooperative, you most likely will act that way, too. So human society has an impact on human nature. Which is the point of utopias.
Parent
Re:Best current bet for utopia (Score:5, Insightful)
By encouraging greed and discouraging cooperation, a free market system ensures that everyone will have to act in a greedy and selfish fashion in order not to be taken advantage of by the greedy and selfish.
Parent
no thanks (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:no thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
You'd have low volume, high cost, and high reliance on imports, with little to nothing to export, except perhaps intellectual property (with no means to protect), assuming you even believe in IP as a libertarian. Satellite internet is high latency, low bandwidth, and most people would probably be dissatisfied with such limited connection to the outside world.
Cabin fever is all but guaranteed, and an active social life is basically out of the question. You'd have to worry about mutiny, sabotage, fires, fresh water supply, leaks, maintenance, and all the other concerns of a seagoing vessel, without the convenience of being able to pull into a port if things get hairy. In short, it seems like the disadvantages seriously outweigh any advantage of pseudo-independence (pseudo, since you're still reliant on the outside world to A) play nice, and B) supply you with durable goods and consumables).
But what do I know? I've only spent 6 years in the Navy, and 6 years living on a small island.. not like I've had any relevant experience.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And this would be worse than a boat. At least a boat is designed to go somewhere else.
Unless you can somehow boot strap this into some huge city sized complex ($$$, 500K isn't even earnest money), it's not g
Re:no thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
The concept also involved leveraging temperature differentials in seawater to generate electricity, and using the immediate vicinity of colonies to farm algae, etc. Using these colonies as a hub of a hydrogen economy was also envisioned.
These ideas made it into a website for the Living Universe Foundation, but I don't recall if the book had any connection to them or not.
Parent
The Millennial Project (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Confirmed shipping addresses... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You shouldn't move much more than an island does so long as the length of the total surface is dozens of typical wavelengths long. About the only thing you'd have to worry about would be a tsunami.
Re:Confirmed shipping addresses... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Did anyone read that as.... (Score:5, Funny)
Would have been oddly suiting....
"fraternal religious order" (Score:4, Funny)
Attn: Slashdot,
Please block this post from reaching the UK [slashdot.org]
infrastructure + risk / population (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to compute the value, whenever looking at new commune/ collective/ arcology/ society construction. This is in some ways a non-numeric computation, but you should at least look at the basic per capita cost, e.g., cost(infrastructure + risk) / population. Many managers focus on one but ignore the other, but any cost-benefit study must look at both. One offset to the cost would be the value of goods or services produced by the population.
A yurt in a comfortable biome houses a small self-sufficient family at nearly no cost. A small crew can man an offshore oil rig (at least, in moderate shifts) because of the immense value of the product. A commune living in a multi-hundred-ton cylinder of concrete and steel floating a dozen miles offshore had better have some damn valuable product to overcome the huge costs of infrastructure and risk.
get real (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, nations don't even have to do anything about their landmass, they can simply apply their laws to their citizens in international waters, and they can enforce them there too. So, if you are a US or European citizen, you'll still be subject to DMCA, high taxes, and drug laws. Of course, you can give up all your citizenships, but then you'd have a hard time doing business with anybody on land.
This kind of escapism just doesn't help. Either fix your own nation or stop complaining. Running away stopped being an option when the West was settled, and it won't be an option again until we figure out FTL travel.
Re:get real (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You can wave your Panamanian flag around all you want to. Any armed naval vessel that takes an interest in you might giggle a bit, but I don't think it would slow them down much.
Nope, you need sharks. With lasers.
It's the only way to be sure.
Re:get real (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, for many people it simply isn't an option any more. What are the legal means you have in the USA - you can vote locally, for congress senate and the President.
Let's face it, for all federal elections (where most power is concentrated these days) you get two choices, which are virtually the same person when it comes down to it.
If you really intend to "fix your own nation" you virtually have to dedicate your entire life to doing so.
It is simply unfair to condemn people because they haven't "fixed their own nation" in the face of their compatriots' ignorance and big-government vested interest. It could be argued that it makes more sense to run away to sea - it may be more efficient!
Parent
Re:get real (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:get real (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
not a new idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdot Whipping Post Du Jour (Score:3, Insightful)
Haveing worked the Micro$oft / Windoze pithy witty digs to death, the nut-jobs are the new Slashdot Whipping Post Du Jour?
Or is there some mysterious eBay-PayPal-Scientology connection I'm ignorent of?
Re:Slashdot Whipping Post Du Jour (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is there some mysterious eBay-PayPal-Scientology connection I'm ignorent of?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This absolutely boggles the mind... (Score:4, Interesting)
While he article touches on a lot of the obvious issues (piracy, sovereignty, etc), they seem to have missed this episode of Family Guy.
For the purpose of discussion, here's a short list of other issues that don't seem that trivial to me:
1) No natural resources. Or in other words, there's nothing there that anyone wants. You might be able to grow your own food and harvest the necessities from the sea, but you can basically forget about having any exports. This would be a deficit economy just about any way you shake it.
2) Environment is fatal to humans. Should the platform sink, everybody dies. Few of the places on earth with this level of lethality house humans for any real length of time without some really compelling reason to be there (see above...)
3) 'Nation problems'. Without any allies, any nation can declare war on you and sink you. You're a nation now, so you're expected to play at that level. Likewise, your neighbor on his own platform can declare war on you - he's running a nation, too. PirateBay platform, meet the RIAA platform... Do you plan to appeal to the United Nations? Can you even do that if you're not a member? What about trade agreements? There's really a LOT to consider here.
4) 'Hot button' nations. Can Osama float a platform and no longer be considered a terrorist, rather a dictator? What about those pedo-polygamists? Can't they just float a platform and go right on forcing marriage and sex on pre-teens? And if this is possible, wouldn't others want desperately to sink them? Or, if not sink you could they not simply blockade you, or otherwise apply pressure to cut you off from the outside world?
I guess what I'm trying to say is: Nations are nations because of where they are and what they have, not merely because of their desire to be independent.
Peter eventually caved. He didn't even manage to get an ink-pen for his trouble...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He touches on them, but he doesn't address them to any degree. Which isn't surprising because many of the proponents of these projects are a bit vague and handwavish on the details themselves. To take the two issues you mention:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
1) No natural resources.
Not true. Such a platform could be built around OTEC structure that would provide fresh water and power. It's conceivable that they could export energy. Other forms of energy production could include wind, solar, wave, and perhaps even hydrocarbon (farming seaweed and such for combustion and/or fuel creation).
Imagine a platform that made diesel from harvested seaweed (which would be plentiful around an OTEC device) via TCP and sold the diesel to passing ships. The ships could get by with less fuel stored u
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The Dutch have been living below sea level for a long time. New Orleans has, too. Both have suffered great casualties because of it. I guess it depends on what you mean by "really compelling reason."
Keen Insight (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA:
So, to be clear, the idea's not crazy, just everyone who's tried it so far. Hmmm.
Deep Libertarianism: Human Ecology (Score:5, Insightful)
If all you do is ensure that anyone can leave any time they want, then you have only one remaining ingredient to support this most fundamental human right:
Somewhere to go.
With the current, very limited, number of territories world-wide, the choices available to refugees is limited not only by the number of territories that would welcome them, but by the absolute number of territories.
Increase the baseline number of territories and freedom reigns.
The problem with current conceptions of "human rights" is they are enumerated in some sort of unstructured laundry list which results in the entire edifice crumbling under stress. Its tragic because the more you "feel" various things are "rights" -- the more "rights" you put on your wishful-thinking-list, the more "righteous" you sound to the intellectually handicapped. This creates a terrible situation for humanity -- where facades of "human rights" displace the need for territory -- the need for carrying capacity -- that forms the real foundation of life hence humanity hence their rights.
I've written up some thoughts on the nuances of a more rationally architected system supporting human rights in Deep Libertarianism: Human Ecology [majorityrights.com] that allows jurisdictions to become as "tyrannical" as they want over their territory, so long as they let people leave at will and support the creation of carrying capacity for the formation of volulntary association.
Seasteading is an important potential in this direction.
Unfortunately, Google's Patri Friedman, while far better than most, is indulging in more of the sloppy thinking that endangers human rights when he says things like "You can change your government without having to leave your house" or implies the assumption that seasteading jurisdictions will not exclude immigrants at their whim. We live in a physical universe with ecologies that operate in space. Attempting to deny spatial structure because you find it inconvenient or even "oppressive" is simply fantasy.
Libertarianism can not work. (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then again, maybe societies designed to be in constant flux would be easier to leave. It depends on how much your life is attached to the physical location of where you live, and the people who share it with you. The latter is w
Why would you want to live like this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Where would you go if you wanted to walk on a hill? Frankly I'd rather be part of a "Red Mars" mission than this.
It's kind of a sad reflection on the kind of society we would live in if Ayn Rand inspired techno-geeks ruled the world. Do none of them appreciate the social infrastructure than allowed them to spend their time inventing stuff, instead of living the life of a frontiersman foraging for food and dying of disease. Private 737 anyone?
Spend the research money on tech to save the environment we have. If we were meant to live ON the sea, god would have given us gills and a taste for our urine...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Seasteading could be a very interesting social experiment, especially to anyone with libertarian leanings.
Re:heh (Score:5, Interesting)
The ocean is full of tasty critters.
The critters dump their organic waste into the water, where it is recycled by other critters. Why shouldn't the humans? (They already do it on ocean-going vessels. Blackwater is an issue on land and enclosed waterways, not in mid ocean.)
For non-biodegradable waste: Jetsam dumped overboard in deep water won't be an issue for geologic time. That leaves flotsam, which would have to be dealt with in more ordinary ways. (Fortunately, that's a small amount of the waste and mostly imported anyhow. So it can be shipped out to some place that can handle it.)
At most latitudes there's lots of wind available, with no mountains, trees, and buildings to slow it down. (Sometimes there's a bit more wind than you'd like.)
If you want to settle the "horse latitudes" (where there's rarely wind), there's plenty of solar power. And a handy way to tap it is to pump up cold water from deeper down and run a heat engine on the temperature difference between it and the upper-level water. Then you dump the nutrient-rich deep water locally and farm the resulting massive explosion of plants and critters.
The idea that purchasing a flag of convenience will providing meaningful protection seems a bit naive..
Flags of convenience are a protection against GOVERNMENT predation. (Which is essentially the point of this whole exercise.)
Will every citizen be a trained firefighter? Who will provide emergency medical services?
The same sort of people who provide such services on ocean-going vessels or in houses in very rural areas. These are already solved problems - with solutions that vary depending on the size of the community and the degree of its location's isolation.
Parent
Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Score:5, Interesting)
Word is there exists the Great Pacific Garbage Patch [google.com] which is the accumulation of seaborne trash into a blob somewhere on par with Texas in size.
Now work with me here
That's a whole lotta floating stuff already in a relatively stable position (occupying a major ocean current vortex); surely an inventive aspiring frontiersman could turn that mass of materials into an inhabitable floating island. Material acquisition & relocation is already mostly taken care of, as there's a Texas-sized mass of it already there. Much of it is plastic, which should be easily (for the "news for nerds" crowd) reformed on-site into more suitable structures. It's already in a stable vortex, so it's not going to be unmanagably mobile, and remains well outside any nation's claimable waters. There may already be sufficiently compacted sections to stand on & start work from.
Thoughts?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For several years ocean researcher Charles Moore has been investigating a concentration of floating plastic debris in the North Pacific Gyre. He has reported concentrations of plastics on the order of 3,340,000 pieces/sq km with a mean mass of 5.1kg/sq km collected using a manta trawl with a rectangular opening of 0.9m x 0.15m at the surface.
5.1kg/km is not much. You'd have to scoop a hell of a big area just to get as much mass as the boat you're scooping with. I think you're overestimating the amount of debris and the size of the pieces.