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Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel...has teamed up with the grandson of libertarian icon Milton Friedman, Patri Friedman, to try and develop a “seastead,” or a permanent and autonomous dwelling at sea. Friedman formed the “Seasteading Institute” in 2008, and Thiel has donated more than a million dollars to fund its creation...
they claim a floating city could be just years away. The real trick is finding a proper location to build this twenty-first century Atlantis. Currently, they are attempting to find a host nation that will allow the floating city somewhat close to land, for the calm waters and ability to easily travel to and from the seastead.
In recent years there have been reports of similar efforts, like the Freedom Ship, a floating city designed to house 50,000 people, with a landing strip on top of the vessel.
Such concepts raise the questions, "Can these communities create new social structures when the subconscious societal norms we all grow up with have such a powerful influence on our expectations?" and "Is the ocean really the best place to site these communities, given how powerful, treacherous, and corrosive an environment the sea is?"
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Thursday March 19 2015, @02:27AM
And why is that? Why is all the land claimed by governments that maintain diplomatic relations with other nations that at least tenuously respect their borders while the sea is governed by international agreements which are in turn enforced by governments operating ports?
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday March 19 2015, @09:11AM
And why is that? Why is all the land claimed by governments that maintain diplomatic relations with other nations that at least tenuously respect their borders while the sea is governed by international agreements which are in turn enforced by governments operating ports?
Because of Hugo de Groot [wikipedia.org], a Dutch lawyer who escaped his government inside a box of books. That's his claim to fame, what I learned in school as a child.
Oh, he also co-invented international law, especially "The Freedom of the Seas" (1609) [wikipedia.org], but that was probably too difficult to explain to Dutch school children.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Spook brat on Thursday March 19 2015, @09:50PM
Why is all the land claimed by governments that maintain diplomatic relations with other nations that at least tenuously respect their borders. . .
Short answer? Because the local government has enough guns and guts to tell the people outside their borders to stay away.
. . . while the sea is governed by international agreements which are in turn enforced by governments operating ports?
Similar reasoning. The sea is big, and defending large areas of it is difficult. A floating city on the sea sounds like a fun idea, but it would be very vulnerable to air, surface, and undersea attack from foreign powers wanting to challenge the city's sovereignty and/or raiders wanting to come grab stuff from rich idealists.
My advice? If you want to try this add the cost of a surface fleet (including carrier group), some attack subs, and a net of sonar buoys to the startup costs.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]