Nah. We aren't creating rutters to navigate tough waters for enforcing colonialism. Sometimes the past doesn't predict the future with much confidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Seabed_Authority
I'm not sure this adds anything to the observation that there's a distinction between this and British empire colonialism.
What's driving our current exploration binge? Land for development and resources for extraction.
Regardless of intent, they share many of the same incentive structures.
That being said, I'm quite surprised by the partner list from the project website. I may be discounting conservation from my analysis.
From that perspective, comparing it to subjugating human populations seems like a non-sequitur, though one I respect.
The good news is that the impact of sea bed mining on the human population of the deep ocean appears negligible! The bad news is that the environmental impact is still quite uncertain, and the lack of resident humans could make advocacy more challenging.
From the Wikipedia article I linked about the ISA:
> The ISA is funded by UNCLOS members and mining contractors and led by Secretary-General Michael Lodge, a British barrister who oversees a 47-member administrative body and has come under criticism for close ties to the mining industry and support for deep sea robotic exploration to develop renewable energy.
Also, I feel compelled to respond to to the comment that it's "incredibly non-invasive," as I'm not sure that's how it actually works out. In theory, we can simply pluck the nodules from the seabed. In practice this requires sending a multi-ton robot vacuum cleaner down to suck up and sift through the top layer of the seafloor, pump the chunks back to the surface for processing, and spit the silt back overboard. Here's a video of how we currently mine shallow-water deposits by hand. (Deep sea nodules are a bit different, they sit on the surface, so less disruption to the seabed is required. Less isn't none though, and surface is where life concentrates.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYAw26nSzBA
In this light I'm actually quite enheartened by the partner list of the Seabed2030 project.
It's colonialism and exploitation of a different kind.
I'm not expecting you to single handedly put a stop to it or anything but it's not unreasonable to expect that you can recognize and acknowledge it instead of pretending it doesn't exist and saying that those sort of things only happened a long time ago.
Besides, maps are very much about taxation, balistics, and administration. Much more than just ownership.
...you've never used a map in a different way? When we draw maps of the galaxy, are we imminently planning on dividing it up?
Sure. But the USGS doesn't publish precise up to date topological maps of every square inch of the United States for the purpose of guiding backpackers with compasses. They do it to divide up political boundaries, delimit resource rights, and guide commercial activity. This goes for just about any other large scale mapping effort (on earth).