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Comment by ramanujan | Hacker News Reader

Much of the commentary on seasteading is underinformed. It doesn't have to be "libertarian", as the concept can just as equally be used to build states for progressives, or North Korean refugees, or any displaced or oppressed people.

The engineering issues exist, but cruise ships are a pretty good proof-of-concept. Cruise ships show that we can get stable, luxurious accomodations at a per-day cost that is on par with an expensive hotel (2-3X SF Bay Area daily rent). The only question is the extent to which we can improve on that.

Hacker News will get a lot out of the full Seasteading book, which anticipates most arguments and goes through many interesting details, from structural engineering through power, water, food, and cost.

http://seasteading.org/book_beta/full_book_beta.html

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I'd take this book with a grain of salt. I don't think they've consulted with an IL/maritime lawyer (or a lawyer at all?). Seasteading might sound like a hacker's dream but there are a lot of issues not explored in this book that would be incredibly important for anyone considering investing in this idea.

1. EEZ is not 200nm from the territorial sea. It's 200nm from land, they didn't read the UNCLOS definition properly "The exclusive economic zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured." (Article 57, UNCLOS).

2. The contiguous zone is not "pretty much the same" as the territorial sea.

3. They don't really seem to understand what sovereignty is or how the international legal system works... a common theme of people who've previously tried to start their own countries. It's important to understand how flags work WRT sovereignty.

I just read the whole book. Here are my comments:

1. "Pilgrims." The author consistently makes comparative references to pilgrims to the American continent. This is disingenious. For the homesteaders, the cost of expansion was very low. Their technological advantage allowed them to drive out the native inhabitants with relative ease. Their infrastructure requirements were minimal, but most importantly, there was fruitful land to be taken at very low cost.

Not so with seafaring. Your "land" must be planned and built up-front at substantial cost. Once you've built your "land", you're stuck with that design. You can't just take more "land", since it would require building an entire new platform, once again at substantial cost. What happens when your platform capable of supporting 1000 people can no longer support its growing population? Do you kick people off? Who decides who stays and who leaves? And who would be willing to live with the sword of Damocles over their heads, knowing that at some point in the future, they could be ousted by the council of elders, forced to leave their home and friends, to fend for themselves?

2. Maintenance. The author is very opposed to taxation, and yet the very nature of seafaring incurs substantial maintenance costs. Who will bear those costs? Who will collect the funds? How will you handle disputes over the taxation rate, or people who refuse to pay?

3. Wealth generation. This one was particularly poorly thought out. Tourism? The amount of space dedicated to tourism would have to be so huge to offset the living costs that I don't see this contributing in any meaningful way to economic surplus. Manufacturing dangerous goods? Space ports? Who would want to live near such places? All of the possibilities offered were of small economic value. Any balance of trade would tilt massively in favor of land based economies.

4. Expulsion. How and when do you expel members of the community? Do you write a set of laws, with the more severe prescribing exile? How about people who fall behind in their financial obligations (i.e. taxation) for one reason or another (for example, someone gets sick and can't pay their bills on their salary)? That works well for those on the top, but for those at the bottom of the totem pole, it would be intolerable.

5. Government. I realize that the author is a libertarian, but this worship of the "corporate" government as some sort of panacea is really naive. A corporation is a despotic form of government. Despotism is very well suited to small communities, but still suffers from the flaws of all governments: tyranny. Anyone who has spent time dealing with corporate politics will know how much it resembles swimming in shark infested waters. Political rot builds up, and is all but impossible to remove. Psychopaths make their way to the top and rule with an iron fist, making the company financially profitable, but a nightmare for those who work there.

6. War. The author glosses over arguments of war by hand waving that it might not be as bad as with historical autonomous governments, or that "war drives away trade". Historically, this has not deterred those who bear a grudge. Furthermore, outright armed conflict is unlikely to be the norm. Far easier to simply sabotage the rival platform, since damage to a sea platform is orders of magnitude more devastating than damage to land.

7. "You can just leave if you don't like it." This always makes me laugh. Leaving is not something simple like changing washing powder brands. Leaving involves uprooting your entire life, leaving friends & family, giving up all agreements, titles and numerous other intangible benefits, and then starting over with only whatever money you have in a new place where you don't know other people. The barrier is actually quite huge, especially when the community is small. It's even worse for people who are born on the platform, but don't agree with its politics. You know, just like libertarians who are born in a country but don't like its politics. You can always just leave, right?

1) Pilgrims. I would imagine moving to a foreign land full of potentially hostile natives is a bit riskier than living at sea. So that cost needs to be factored in. For certain purposes we already know that people are willing to pay a premium for living in a more friendly jurisdiction. For example, there's a huge premium for living in Bermuda. As for deciding who goes and who leaves? That's for the owners of the seastead. I can't imagine it will be as bad as what governments do now.

2) Maintenance. There are lots of options. My guess is that maintenance will be baked into rents or usage fees, just like in every other line of business. As for enforcing contracts, that's where the owner of the seastead will be careful about who they allow in.

3) Wealth generation. There's a few ideas here. First is simply regulatory arbitrage. Just like tax/regulatory havens like Bermuda, Caymen's etc. This could take the form of housing immigrant workers (like Blueseed) or financial firms (like the CBCs) or medical tourism (which might not work because the AMA will crack down on it).

4) Expulsion. That's a good point and would have to be addressed in the contracts signed by the customers of the seastead. I don't think "Expulsion" is the problem here, I think it's more an issue of contract enforcement. My guess is the seastead would have to be very careful about who they grant access to. This isn't a problem of early adopters. This is a problem of scale. But it is a very legitimate concern.

5) Government. I deal with corporate politics everyday. I would prefer to deal with corporate politics over any interaction with the federal government or the state of California any day. Just going to the DMV is a nightmare. As for greedy executives making companies a nightmare to work for. My recommendation is simple. Get a job at one that is not. That's my plan. Unfortunately, I can't do that quite as easily with the state or federal government.

6) War. If you're talking about wars between firms, a much bigger problem is rival firms hacking one another's computer systems. I'm sure that happens now and how do we address that problem? Through security measures. Likewise on seasteads. There's just no way to live in a perfect world, we don't now and seasteads won't solve that problem. If you're referring to actual armed conflicts, that's not a big problem with island westernized technologically advanced island nations now, why would it be under seasteading. My guess is that the early adopters will be silicon valley tech types and other high skilled workers, not crystal meth gangs.

7) "You can just leave" Yes, leaving is sometimes hard. That's called "life" and it's no different than the way things are now. I left my friends, family, and work colleagues to move to the SF Bay Area. It was the best decision of my life. Yes, I left a lot behind, but I gained a lot more. In case you haven't noticed, there's a whole country built on this concept...I'll let you guess which one it is (hint: it's flag is red, white, and blue).

Honestly, I appreciate your critique. I am disappointed in the book. It is not doing it's job of clearly communicating the pros and cons of seasteading. If it did, I think you would have more thorough answers to the concerns you raise.

"I would prefer to deal with corporate politics over any interaction with the federal government or the state of California any day. Just going to the DMV is a nightmare."

Yes, but this is not a problem of government type, but rather of population size. I've worked in 10,000 person corporations before, and interactions are so full of bureaucratic nonsense that it's amazing you're able to get anything done at all. This is a human problem, not a political system problem. Once you go over the human capacity to know everyone (107 people), you get bureaucracy. This is why ancient tribes would split soon after passing around 120 people. Of course back then the cost of splitting was low since there was plenty of land to go around, and you could just kill anyone who hunted in your territory without worry of an international community.

"If you're talking about wars between firms, a much bigger problem is rival firms hacking one another's computer systems."

Actually, I'm talking about destroying a platform's economic foundation by causing physical damage to the platform that's expensive to fix. A man made floating platform is far more susceptible to attacks of this nature than land based communities. Furthermore, a community with no form of taxation would be ill equipped to deal with this sort of thing since the costs could exceed the amount in the contractual agreement.

"Yes, I left a lot behind, but I gained a lot more. In case you haven't noticed, there's a whole country built on this concept."

What I'm getting at is this: YOU might be happy uprooting yourself and seeking greener pastures, but do not make the mistake of assuming that everyone else thinks the same way you do or would enjoy it if they just gave it a chance. The vast majority of people don't want to move. They want to stay right where they are. It's only when things become so intolerable at home that moving seems the less painful choice where these people move (and indeed that was quite often the case with people choosing the "new world"). You might argue that this sort of person wouldn't move to a sea platform to begin with, but I'm talking about people born on the platform, who wish to remain rooted, and know no other life.

The author critiques the social contract with the following words: "Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small wages which he acquires? We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean and perish, the moment he leaves her."

I'd argue that after a generation or two of people born there, platform life will be no different.

In fact, most of my argument is not regarding people MOVING to a sea platform, but rather for people born there, and what choice they have.

Where exactly would one put a space port on a seastead? The minimum safe distance for a launch at Kennedy is something like 2 miles. And launching anything into space from a floating platform . . . let's just say that the basic laws of the universe are not on your side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey_(launch_platform)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broglio_Space_Centre

A detachable or detached launch platform would be trivially feasible -- at least at the scale of triviality in which one envisions seasteads in the first place.

We've been launching ballistic rockets from submerged platforms for ... oh, a half century or so now. Space launches for most intents.

> The engineering issues exist, but cruise ships are a pretty good proof-of-concept. Cruise ships show that we can get stable, luxurious accomodations at a per-day cost that is on par with an expensive hotel (2-3X SF Bay Area daily rent). The only question is the extent to which we can improve on that.

I Ctrl-F-ed both the article and the comments and I was sad not to see any reference to Jules Verne's "Propeller Island" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propeller_Island)

""" It was first published in 1895 as part of the Voyages Extraordinaires. It relates the adventures of a French string quartet in Milliard City, a city on a massive ship in the Pacific Ocean, inhabited entirely by millionaires. """

But WHY not build it on land? Find a remote piece of land and build your progressive city or refugee center at a quarter of the cost, with much easier access to food, building materials and other stuff. There are thousands of acres of land around the world that are perfect for establishing a new settlement, far away from any civilization, if that's your thing.

It'd be easier to create a sort of enclave state (like Lesotho, but smaller, for example) than a seastead...

all land on earth is claimed by a state in some fashion, its much easier to sea stead than to deal with the politics of claiming political independence.

But that's exactly it - if you build a seastead, you will also have to abide by some country's laws. Otherwise you'll most likely find it very difficult to do business and acquire anything from anywhere, and if you do anything illegal in say, the United States or Spain, they'll send a vessel to take you into custody... so what's the point of spending a ton of money on a ship that is always in the same location?

Perhaps I'm ignorant, but the major problem with seasteading I find is when you have your first pirate attack or your first natural disaster. Defense/rescue are expensive and would increase the daily costs significantly. In my biased opinion, seasteading sounds neat until you let reality get in the way.

Please refer to the book linked to above, the seasteaders are pretty good at anticipating every possible critique and presenting the counterargument, which is often pretty well thought out.

Off the top of my mind, I would say the pirate attacks wouldn't be a big deal. Advanced detection and defense systems could be put in place to warn of uninvited vessels approaching. Remember piracy is a big deal precisely in those places least likely to have seasteads (why would someone build a resort, hospital, or tech incubator off the shores of Somalia?).

Natural disaster is of course and issue, but I don't know if the probability of natural disaster would be any higher on a seastead versus on land. Natural disasters frequently aren't natural at all, at least the consequences aren't. Just compare the consequences of the Haiti earthquake versus Fukushima. When there are incentives to protect property, it will be protected. The probability of a disaster is uncontrollable anywhere you live, the extent of devastation is controllable.

I will look into the book linked above.

> Natural disaster is of course and issue, but I don't know if the probability of natural disaster would be any higher on a seastead versus on land.

It's not the probability of a natural disaster happening that is a problem, it's the impact. One of the main reasons for a seastead from what I've heard of seasteaders is to avoid paying taxes they don't believe in. But it costs money to rebuild these things and/or to have another nation-state evacuate them. My impression, admittedly not based on in-depth research, is that seasteaders are after all the benefits that nation-state can offer without paying the taxes for it. But I'll be happy to be proven wrong because I think the idea is really cool.

While with enough force you could pirate a sea-stead, bear in mind that it would be a lot harder than the piracy you hear about in the news. Part of the reason dirt-poor Somalians can have success pirating is that technology has made it possible to staff a massive sea-going structure with the outline of a skeleton crew, possibly under a dozen people, which can be overrun by six armed guys on a boat. Piracy against a sea-stead would be more like mounting an armed assault on a remote village at the very least, with an existing police force, one probably created with awareness of the possibility of piracy. You can't just grab a gun and clean out your local downtown without encountering some... issues.

And if the floating sea-stead is a libertarian paradise, everybody's probably armed in which case your cost/benefit odds are pretty bad....

The real threat is less random piracy than sovereign invasion. The good news is that the list of countries with a credible ability to mount a military assault on a seasteading platform is short. The bad news is that it is also basically the exact list of countries that the seasteading effort is trying to get away from. To me, that's the biggest problem with the idea, it is intrinsically based on the sufferance of the very entities you are putatively trying to avoid, and that's basically true regardless of the politics of the platform.

Presumably any pirates need only make a credible threat of doing costly damage to or destroying the seastead in order to extort payment. Damaging a seastead seems easier to do than damaging a city-state atop a hill.

Maybe, but presumably pirates could do that now to deepwater oil rigs or cruise ships, but I haven't heard of it.

Oil rigs and cruise ships are high-risk targets because both have the implicit protection of some extant nation-state. Which is the point here, I think.

Agreed about the overriding concern of sovereign invasion, and the motivations for a potential invader are myriad: claimed "humanitarian" intervention, desire to repatriate lost citizens, trade disputes. The fact a seasteading vessel will have to trade with conventional nation states exposes it to the risk of invasion, since eventually one nation state may decide that benefits to invasions are not outweighed by its counter-arguments (international UN-style law, ethics, etc).

Perhaps a comparison may be drawn to China's ongoing desire to repatriate Taiwan.

Cruise ships already face these issues successfully.

No doubt in part because they benefit from the protection afforded by nation-states. Cruise ships tend to be filled with the citizens of powerful countries (or countries allied to powerful ones).

Mostly governments have done very little about piracy in Somalia.

Also at the scale you're talking about, small fast boats, a well armed private militia would be just as effective, as a billion dollar destroyer.

A few 3" guns will stop anything a pirate can throw at them.

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