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U.S.-Thai pair facing death for 'sea home' should fight charge, Thailand says
- thinkingkong 8y agoI mean. Dont take it sitting down but also get the hell out of Thailand if you can (and you can).
- Luc 8y agoSome pictures of the underwater construction (a hollow 'weighted spar'): https://ocean.builders/a-view-from-below-the-seastead/ https://ocean.builders/a-view-from-below-the-seastead/
- lostlogin 8y agoI like that they were trying to create a reef-like environment.
- nabla9 8y agoIt always astonish how little preparations people do before start projects like this where they throw money away. if you have extra money building that kind of construct is not significant, but it's wasted effort nevertheless. - Just cursory skimming of Wikipedia of laws of the sea would be enough to reveal that the place where they build their hut is within region of the sea where Thai government has the final say. - China recently lost the South China Sea Arbitration where tribunal decided that construction of installations and artificial islands does not give rights to claim any sovereignty. If China can't win a arbitration, neither can some Bitcoin Joe. - There already exists practical way seasteading outside the government if you have they money. You buy yachts registered in offshore accounts. You can also buy a citizenship for tiny island nations that leave you totally alone. Rich people store their valuables in freeports or in their yachts. There are superyacht art collections that rival big museums floating around the world. - Another example is floating armouries that private military companies have. They those ships to store military grad weapons.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoWe don't know how much preparation they actually made. Based on the link that Luc posted[1] I don't believe this to be all that money consuming of a project. It appears to be a large steel tube (possibly quire cheap if you aren't in a hurry) with a small structure living on top. I'm figuring $20k USD assuming you sub out the welding at far east labor rates. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19700655 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19700655]
- TheOtherHobbes 8y agoI suspect most people would be more worried about the practicalities. It doesn't look like the cosiest living space, unless you're particularly fond of eating fish. It's also not obvious that it would provide much protection from a typhoon, or even a large storm.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoTo live Stiltsville you have to be in the right frame of mind and arrange yourself with the authorities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiltsville https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiltsville Carl Hiaasen writes about it in Skin Tight and Stormy Weather, that's enough for everyone to know.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>It's also not obvious that it would provide much protection from a typhoon, or even a large storm. So long as the structure on top holds up a floating post with a bunch of weight in the bottom should basically laugh at any storm. It can't roll. It just moves up and down with the waves. It's like a winter mooring buoy. The stability is exactly why this method of construction is chosen.
- Scoundreller 8y agoThey're 12mi offshore: they can re-supply by canoe if the water's still enough. Better yet, a squanoe (square-backed canoe) with an electric trolling motor that they can recharge at base.
- jaytaylor 8y ago"Please return, fight it in Thai court!" Said the official. Why should they voluntarily return to be evaluated against the existing law where the punishment is death!?
- wavefunction 8y agoThey're presumed to be hiding inside Thailand at the moment so their options are to continue hiding, attempt to escape the borders of Thailand or turn themselves in.
- dontbenebby 8y agoConsidering IIRC both Laos and Vietnam have visa on arrival and highly bribeable border guards, they should be able to escape relatively easily.
- itake 8y agoVietnam doesn't share a land border with Thailand. I think you mean Cambodia.
- craftyguy 8y agoWho said they are restricted to land travel?
- weaklearner 8y agoless id checks-probably easy to bribe past any border guards-easier to get informal cash based transport. If I was one of these people I'd find the cheapest bus I could find and get into cambodia asap. I would also wear a very large hat and sunglasses. Then I'd go asap to the us-cambodia embassay.
- Canada 8y agoThailand has exit controls, so he would have to sneak through some remote area to get out. Anyway, I really doubt the Thais will sentence him to death or some crazy life term if they do catch him.
- duxup 8y agoI get some of the appeal to some extent but let's say you could just build something out on the ocean and claim some sort of sovereignty. What protection do you have from someone just coming along and taking it from you? Do they imagine some sort of everyone has sovereignty paradise, when a Mad Max / Waterworld type result seems just as likely?
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoWhat is there to take? It's not like their floating tube with a house on top is worth a lot or efficient to liquidate.
- drivingmenuts 8y agoYou don’t have to have anything. All it takes is for som one to think you have something. If they can afford to build a hut on a tube, someone, somewhere will likely take an interest.
- ragesh 8y agoI'd imagine that one of the perks of sovereignty is that no one, other than your own army, is obliged to protect you.
- Causality1 8y agoThey're explicitly not claiming sovereignty.
- duxup 8y agoWhat do they feel they get out of being in international waters?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- seszett 8y ago> What is there to take? Well, their house to begin with.
- rayiner 8y agoThis is a really good illustration of the fundamental nature of law: > The pair are part of a “seasteading” movement that advocates the building of floating communities in international waters beyond the bounds of any national laws. > But the Thai navy raided their home this week and authorities revoked Elwartowski’s visa and charged them. Law doesn't exist in the aether. It's an organized way to control the use of force, and to get other people to use coercion and the threat of force on your behalf. If you can't use force yourself, or convince someone else to do it on your behalf, you're in trouble. These seasteaders aren't "beyond the bounds of ... national laws" they're beyond the borders of a sovereign entity that is willing to use force on their behalf.
- throwaway2048 8y agoOr not, as it may be.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y agoThis is the first thing that occurred to me when I heard about them a couple days ago. They may think they have discovered a utopia, but what do they do after they have something worth stealing and pirates show up?
- randyrand 8y agoHave an army and munitions? I don't think Seasteaders are opposed to defense.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoBut at that point to really be effective you're probably going to need to recreate the governmental structures you're trying to escape from.
- klipt 8y agoRight, but apart from the national defense, hospitals, schools, roads, subways, water, electricity, sanitation, and public order - what has the government ever done for us?
- Scoundreller 8y agoFixedSeaStead:Sailboat::TinyHome:RV ? I appreciate their interest in building such a thing, but what does it do that a 30' sailboat doesn't do? Is it more stable? I guess as area gets bigger, you need less material with more square/circular designs.
- aaronarduino 8y agoA seastead it probably a lot cheaper than a 30' sailboat.
- Scoundreller 8y agoNew, probably. But used sailboats aren't hard to find at good prices. Something about there being two great days for boat owners: the day they buy it and the day they sell it. They go for US$20k-US$30k if you're okay with a 30 year old one. https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/Sail/Cruiser%252FRacer/Catalina/30 https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/Sail/Cruiser%252FRacer/Cata...
- alsobrsp 8y agoGood 30' boats aren't that expensive. We got our 43' sailboat for $49k, needed a little work, but moved aboard for 4 years. The hut on a spar idea doesn't appeal to me at all. Boats provided mobility, are well established tech, and have legal protections.
- logfromblammo 8y agoThailand, that is not how the contiguous zone is supposed to work. Sovereign territory stops at the 12 NM limit. The contiguous zone extends up to 12 NM beyond that, for the purposes of enforcing sovereign powers within the territorial zone. A permanently stationed vessel at 14 NM from shore cannot violate sovereignty, because sovereignty does not exist there, and to claim such is to violate the Law of the Sea Treaty. And to violate the Law of the Sea Treaty is to invite Chinese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Burmese fishermen to scoop out everything in your 200 NM EEZ and take it home.
- throwaway2048 8y agoThe question, as always is, who is going to stop them? "international law" exists only up until the point that nations respect it. I doubt any other nations are going to launch a formal complaint on the couple's behalf.
- weaklearner 8y agoat least one is an american national. I'd support the united states sanctioning the ever living hell out of the Thai government if they executed an american national for building a buoy.
- _bxg1 8y agoThis. The appropriate response is "Nah, you can't do that, please leave and we're going to tear that thing down." Construing it as a threat to the country's sovereignty is lunacy.
- weaklearner 8y agoprecisely.
- bruceb 8y agoHe isn't ever being put to death or life imprisonment. He may get deported.
- mikeash 8y agoWhat exactly is the crime they’re charged with, and how is death a possible penalty for building a house where you’re not supposed to?
- wavefunction 8y agoRead the fine article and find the answers in the first sentence.
- mikeash 8y agoI did and I didn’t, respectively.
- sixstringtheory 8y agoNot the first sentence, but: > They have been charged under a law on the violation of sovereignty, which stipulates punishment of life in prison or death.
- mikeash 8y agoI saw that. My question is, which law specifically, what exactly is the crime, how do you break this law by building a house, and why does the death penalty provision apply in this case? I see now why HN guidelines say you shouldn’t tell people to read the article. You ask a question which is vaguely addressed in the article, and people just assume you’re an idiot.
- sixstringtheory 8y agoI did a little googling and found this story: https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1661300/seastead-couple-in-crosshairs https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1661300/seastead-co... Which refers to Thailand’s criminal code section 119: > Section 119. Intent to cause injury to the Nation > Whoever, does any act with intent to cause the Country or any part thereof to descend under the sovereignty of any foreign State, or to deteriorate the independence of the State, shall be punished with death or imprisonment for life. From http://library.siam-legal.com/thai-law/criminal-code-offense-internal-security-sections-119-124/ http://library.siam-legal.com/thai-law/criminal-code-offense...
- MaupitiBlue 8y agoWhy not just buy a 46’ catamaran?
- Scoundreller 8y agoThat's what I'm thinking. An old enough and used one is like an old diesel car. As long as it still runs, it will still be worth what you paid for it.
- AWildC182 8y agoThe floating weighted tube is designed such that it's not influenced by wave action. To oversimplify, the proportion of overall volume/buoyancy that a wave covers and uncovers is insignificant and so even in somewhat rough seas, the platform probably feels like solid land, not bouncing up and down or rocking side to side.
- noneeeed 8y agoThanks for the explanation. I hadn't considered the length of the tube in the this setup. Is this how floating oil rigs work?
- AWildC182 8y agoYea, generally oil rigs have a similar design with most of the buoyant volume underwater. There are a few different designs to achieve this but ultimately the goal is the same. You can also do something similar with boats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-waterplane-area_twin_hull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small-waterplane-area_twin_hul...
- ghaff 8y agoI’ve been out of the business for a long time, but in addition to the fact that semi-submersibles pump in ballast and partially submerge when operating, they’re generally anchored using 8 or so anchors. There have been dynamically rigs for deep water drilling but I’m not as familiar with current details. I assume with current oil prices deep water drilling is pretty unattractive.
- everyone 8y agoI do understand the sea-steaders POV. It is annoying how when you are born, you are born into a pre-existing system of corporations and government over which you have little to no say in. One must get some pointless job in order to pay rent and not be homeless. For large sections of our evolutionary history humans lived in small groups and were nomadic. I reckon we still have instincts to explore and be self-governing and independent which are utterly stymied in the current milieu. ps. I'm not intending to romanticize the past, which was pretty much chronic warfare and disease.
- Tomte 8y agoThey found the way out! Unfortunately, they also found that unless you are part of a pre-existing societal organisation, you're vogelfrei.
- everyone 8y agoI had to look up 'vogelfrei' " Vogelfrei in German usage denotes the status of a person on whom a legal penalty of outlawry has been imposed. However, the original meaning of the term referred to independence, being "free as a bird"; the current negative meaning developed only in the 16th century. " The way the meaning has changed is kinda poignant.
- Tomte 8y agoI was actually looking in Wikipedia what the English word is, but the German lemma Vogelfrei corresponds to the English lemma Vogelfrei. So it's actually a rarely used loanword, it seems.
- voldacar 8y agoThe fact that this is even happening shows that the Thai state is seriously quaking in its boots. In a certain sense, I guess they accomplished their goal
- reading-at-work 8y agoHow do you figure? What does the Thai state have to be afraid of in these two? Do you think they're gonna start some movement to populate the Thai seas while the government just watches in dismay? Seems like the state has a pretty firm grip on the situation.
- voldacar 8y agoI know it seems unrealistic, but if they didnt feel threatened in some way there wouldnt have been much of a reason to crack down on something so apparently innocuous (and legal)
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoSecure nations don't have to behave like this, and usually don't. Nations that feel like they're right on the edge of losing control behave like this. What specifically does (the government of) Thailand have to be afraid of? I have no idea. Looking weak to their own population? Looking weak to the king, which will make him question whether he really needs the military to run the country for him? I don't know.
- hash872 8y agoAre there are any structures for large numbers of people to live on the ocean that are actually.... practical? Not an engineer, but it seems like quite a challenge. I'm sure it's possible to come up with something that's stable most of the time, but edge cases like hurricanes/typhoons would seem to be tough to plan for? I'd imagine that having a few wealthy backers who buy a used cruise ship would be more practical than trying to build a quasi-permanent structure out on the exposed ocean. The ship could just continuously idle in one place, preferably a pirate/bandit free sort of area near the US. Of course, ships require an absolutely staggering amount of maintenance, which would probably require some form of collective taxation among the residents to pay for it.... you'd have to have marine engineers on payroll, or fly them out at enormous expense etc. But that just gets to how silly these libertarian ideas are in practice
- michaelt 8y agoAre there are any structures for large numbers of people to live on the ocean that are actually.... practical? Would an oil rig count? Some of them have 150 berths - although presumably if you're rich enough to think this is a good idea, you'd want more than a bunk in a shared room.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>Are there are any structures for large numbers of people to live on the ocean that are actually.... practical? Oil drilling platforms have refined the concept pretty well. 1. Replace the drilling stuff with a casino to make money. 2. Park it somewhere nobody cares about. 3. "Import" your groceries. 4. ????? 5. Live peaceably in your utopia.
- tomatotomato37 8y agoI would replace the casino with a PMC headquarters, if only because the resource cost to annex you when you inevitably piss of some country is dramatically higher
- qnsi 8y agothere is VC backed Blue Frontiers, funded by wealthy donors. But I don't follow how they are doing https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-30/floating-island-project-pushes-on-without-peter-thiel-s-support https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-30/floating-...
- axaxs 8y agoI'm not on Thailand's side here WRT punishment, that seems a bit ridiculous. That said, 'international waters' are not the place to build semi-permanent housing. If everyone did that, where/how would ships even operate? How long until Somali pirates show up, murder you, and take all your possessions with no 'government' to protect you? I tend to side with Thailand basically telling them to sod off, just not with the threat of death/imprisonment.
- return0 8y ago> How long until Somali pirates show up, murder you, and take all your possessions with no 'government' to protect you? I assume most somali pirates do operate in international waters, which are not officially protected by anyone. wiki: > Piracy off the coast of Somalia refers to criminal violence and threats by Somalian pirates in the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel and Somali Sea, in what some say are disputed territorial waters.
- jtms 8y agoWhen the pirates come you just shout that it’s illegal for them to be there through a megaphone
- bluntfang 8y agoman this comment feels so helpless. Oh no! what if x happens?! The answer is you deal with it. Will it be rainbows and farts? probably not, but I assume these people want to abandon their home governments because they didn't like the way they were treated. What's wrong with autonomy? What's wrong with facing hardship like our ancestors did?
- gorbypark 8y agohttps://youtu.be/c83TiSJ6sfA?t=64 https://youtu.be/c83TiSJ6sfA?t=64 How sad :(
- return0 8y agoThailand's government is a dictatorship. They are BSing, the seastead was beyond their territorial 12 miles, in the contiguous zone in which they have limited power. The exclusive economic zone is not territorial waters either. They have charged the couple with ridiculous "violation of sovereignty" at a place where they dont have sovereignity.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- shmerl 8y agoReminds me Waterworld.
- _bxg1 8y agoA death sentence? Excuse me?
- aloer 8y agofrom the article: > The group said in a statement the home was in a so-called contiguous zone of 12-24 nautical miles, where very limited Thai regulations applied, and they had no intention of setting up any independent state or “micro nation”. from the two people charged themselves: https://youtu.be/8bceePdFruU?t=77 https://youtu.be/8bceePdFruU?t=77 > ...will be better governance > mumbling about living in a "smart system" > as opposed to [...] that current governments have And if you watch a bit further he's going on about how the FDA takes years to approve drugs and somehow living on the ocean would fix that
- blackflame7000 8y ago“Thai sovereignty by raising a small cabin on top of a big, weighted spar in what they say are international waters, 14 nautical miles off the west-coast Thai island of Phuket.” I wonder if the location was intentional or just great irony
- trickstra 8y agowhat's so ironic about it? His girlfriend is Thai. And that part of the sea has very low waves.
- blackflame7000 8y agoThat they moved away from the jurisdiction of the government in a town that in english looks like it could be pronounced “Fuck it”
- csours 8y agoThis really reminds me of the game Subnautica