23 ms·

Seasteading Creates RPG

49 points by keiferski 5y ago

echelon 5y ago
Really dumb idea here. > Seasteading is building floating societies with significant political autonomy. Nearly half the world’s surface is unclaimed by any nation-state, and many coastal nations can legislate seasteads in their territorial waters. > The Seasteading Institute is a nonprofit think-tank promoting the creation of floating ocean cities as a revolutionary solution to some of the world’s most pressing problems: rising sea levels, overpopulation, poor governance, and more… Seasteading is not a solution to any real problem. It's like colonizing Mars or the moon - human bodies aren't evolved for either of those environments, and it won't make sense until we're post-biology to inhabit those places at any appreciable population volume. Seasteading actually makes less sense than visiting Mars. Beyond living on an oil rig or research platform, there's only downside to life at sea: upkeep of the rig, importing resources, lack of fresh water, medical, and sanitary supplies. What you do have are rusting, corrosion, barnacles, bad weather, sea sickness, etc. There's nowhere to go and nothing to do. Just ask oil rig personnel how much fun their lives are. What about trash and refuse? I imagine that's dumped right back into the ocean. Or damaged, partially submerged rigs that serve as shipping hazards? There are so many negative externalities. Humans are terrestrial, and we're suited to live on land. All of our advantages are here. It's like the 70s returned and they want people to live in biodomes. There's no point! No rationale worth any of the innumerable downsides. We're not facing overpopulation. If anything, population growth in the 1st world needs to accelerate to match declining replacement rates. The earth has a much larger carrying capacity, and we're not even close to hitting it. Sea level changes aren't stopping people from moving to Miami and investing in real estate there. We're not going to see millions of people living "Principality of Sealand" style. It's as obtuse an idea as NFTs.
- nscalf 5y ago
  Uhh, we also weren't evolved to read books. We're post-evolution, even if we're not post-biology. There are plenty of people thinking through how we could have a sustainable society on Mars, not really sure why people couldn't do the same thing here. You're assuming negative externalities without seeing what people could think up. Also, as far as the Earth's carrying capacity goes, the footprint per-individual is much larger than it used to be. The traditional statement of carrying capacity seems to need some reassessment, because there's a really good argument to make that global climate change is evidence that we are past our current carrying capacity. I personally don't find the idea of Seasteading compelling.
  - echelon 5y ago
    > Uhh, we also weren't evolved to read books. We're post-evolution, even if we're not post-biology. Reading doesn't pose a challenge to our basic needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation), whereas Mars and seasteading do. The hill climbing barrier was considerably lower for our species. Outside of the accomplishments for science and engineering, there is likely little benefit in building up Mars as a habitable destination for humans to live at scale. Unless the economies of space mining can support it, there's really no reason to be there beyond a thousand or so individuals. I don't buy the astroid survival argument either. In the near term, putting humans on Mars does not de-risk the potential for an asteroid to cause human extinction. Mars colonies will likely still be reliant upon Earth for survival for a hundred years to come as they will not have adequate resources, support, or manufacturing capabilities for self-sustenance let alone growth. It's unlikely that a small colony could Matt Damon themselves back from the brink without a large industrial civilization backing them. Research into enhancing human lives here on earth and protecting our environment will pay greater dividends. I'd even wager that advances in AI/ML, BCI, and biology outpace space colonization tech due to their immediate applications and inherent venture capital fundability. (SpaceX will be funded because of the DoD, NASA, and terrestrial communications. Mars not so much.) > global climate change is evidence that we are past our current carrying capacity. The current economic and political regime doesn't curtail dumping carbon into the atmosphere. The correlation with population is complicated. China and the United States, two of the largest contributors to CO2 emissions, have slowing population growth if you discount immigration.
    - rtkwe 5y ago
      I'm convinced he biggest benefit to colonizing Mars if we have the technology is that there won't be as many people there. If you can make Mars livable you can make anywhere on Earth livable even post climate crisis. The real thing that goes away is there won't be 7ish billion other people who also want to keep living trying to copy the tech and competing for those resources.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      > Mars colonies will likely still be reliant upon Earth for survival for a hundred years to come as they will not have adequate resources, support, or manufacturing capabilities for self-sustenance let alone growth. It'll take a hundred years after we start for the asteroid survival argument to be valid. A hundred years is too long, so let's never start.
- tdy721 5y ago
  It’s a game! What is not fun about the scenario?
  - echelon 5y ago
    Look at the main website. They built a game to support and draw interest to their ideological cause.
    - Kinrany 5y ago
      Games are great because they are terrible propaganda tools. With a game it's no longer enough to write a compelling story: it must be self-consistent. It may be a model that doesn't represent important parts of the world, but that's still better than a narrative.
      - ludamad 5y ago
        That's an interesting thought. However, inconsistency in propaganda is real if you consider embellishments can differ greatly. The key is to control the conversation. You can easily censor an RPG chat, for example, to the same effect
        Kinrany 5y ago
        Games are also bad propaganda because it costs little to try different things. So censorship, while possible, cannot be hidden behind plausible deniability. Similarly, a game implies a set of rules that can be criticized and cannot be made vague on purpose -- as required by motte-and-bailey and similar rhetorical tricks.
      - ska 5y ago
        > Games are great because they are terrible propaganda tools. c.f. "Monopoly" (originally Georgist propaganda iirc)
        munk-a 5y ago
- btilly 5y ago
  I agree. They literally want to create floating cities spewing pollution wherever they drift under the excuse that nobody else can legislate what they do.
cardanome 5y ago
Seems like this is some kind of political movement to create autonomous floating mini states. Have these people never played BioShock? This is basically the same naive libertarian ideas going wild. For such an project to be successful you need to have some serious funding. Why should anyone fund this? Any legitimate industry will have a hard time on the ocean where you have horrible logistics, nearly no access to resources and are miles away from potential clients.At best I could maybe see a niche for some gimmicky tourism. So what would it be used for? Let's be honest: Tax evasion, human trafficking and gambling. It would be way too expensive to live there for normal people. Plus it would more oppressive. You can at least flee from a tyrannical government on land. If you are in the middle of the ocean? Good luck. Though I dig the futurism. As long a they keep larping, good for them. Just hope they don't think it is a good idea in real life.
- pochamago 5y ago
  There are other laws libertarians would like to circumvent. Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs, civil asset forfeiture spring to mind. Starting a new country on the ocean is a pretty drastic way to fight back, but i can't deny the impulse to opt out when change appears impossible.
  - cardanome 5y ago
    > Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs, civil asset forfeiture spring to mind. Just out of interest: What kind of problem do you, personally, have with these that you are considering starting a new country? And isn't it the issue that the rich can already circumvent laws just fine? How is all this going to help the poor who have to stem the main bulk of the tax burden while the rich use loop holes and tax havens? They ware not the ones that are going to live on the ocean.
    - golergka 5y ago
      > How is all this going to help the poor who have to stem the main bulk of the tax burden Are you not aware of libertarian views on said tax burden?
petermcneeley 5y ago
"The Co-op" scenario sounds a bit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  A lot of libertarian paradise pitches wind up looking a lot like a company town yeah.
  - golergka 5y ago
    The "libertarian paradise pitch" is the other one.
dang 5y ago
Past seasteading threads, in case anyone's curious. Others? The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21866017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21866017 - Dec 2019 (255 comments) Seasteading - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082483 - June 2019 (222 comments) A pilot project for a new floating city will have 300 homes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17478300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17478300 - July 2018 (90 comments) Floating city project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9519863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9519863 - May 2015 (76 comments) Charter the Seasteader I - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435994 - Aug 2012 (37 comments) Seasteading: Cities on the ocean - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3310873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3310873 - Dec 2011 (112 comments) Building a new society on a free floating platform in the high seas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1088570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1088570 - Jan 2010 (25 comments) City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=510984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=510984 - March 2009 (16 comments) The next frontier: 'Seasteading' the oceans - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462278 - Feb 2009 (26 comments) Live Free or Drown: Floating Utopias on the Cheap - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=441310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=441310 - Jan 2009 (36 comments) Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=194028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=194028 - May 2008 (29 comments)
- mariojv 5y ago
  This only has 7 comments, but the article is relevant: Bitcoin couple face death penalty for 'seastead' in international waters https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19691294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19691294
jeffbee 5y ago
Seasteading is the ultimate display of how moronic a Libertarian can be. If you're flying some made-up flag on the high seas there is no reason that the navy of some actual county can't just roll up and sink your stupid dinghy. The long-wished-for Libertarian paradise where barbers don't have licenses and you can marry an 8-year-old is going to have to be brought about on dry land.
- golergka 5y ago
  > If you're flying some made-up flag on the high seas there is no reason that the navy of some actual county can't just roll up and sink your stupid dinghy. There are two. On the level of rights and legality, there's non-agression principle. On the level of realpolitik, there's you being prepared to sink them first.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    The NAP is a fiction made up by American libertarians. It is not a doctrine adhered to by the Russian navy. The reality of the matter is that any vessel not flying a real flag enjoys no standing whatsoever in the laws or treaties of the seas. Freedom of navigation is a right of states, not individuals. If you are not a state or under the protection of a state (a real one, not a comic book one) then you do not have the right to navigate the high seas.
    - laverya 5y ago
      Which is why so many ships sail under the flags of states with the ability to protect them, like the USA, Great Britain, Russia or China, and not Panama, Liberia or Bolivia.
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        If you sink a ship registered in Panama, you have made war against Panama and transitively against the United States of America and all other signatories of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance.
d_burfoot 5y ago
As someone who supports seasteading, I want to emphasize that it is NOT about libertarianism or any other political belief system. It is about competitive governance. If your political system, implemented on a seastead cluster, provides a better quality of life to its members, it will attract more citizens; if not, it will lose people, money, and influence. If you want to implement a religion-based society, you can do that; if you want to implement Marxism, you can do that; if you want to build Hong Kong 2.0, you can do that.
- Jolter 5y ago
  You don’t think the idea of competition as the dominant force in society has an inkling of libertarianism to it?
  - kmeisthax 5y ago
    I'd argue it's more of a right-wing idea than a lowercase-l libertarian idea. Libertarianism (left or right) argues for reducing coercion in society; right-libertarianism wants to focus on property rights as the basis of that liberty (even though we already know where that leads). Hence why they have this idea of creating closed-off separate societies based on property rights that can internally structure their economies how they wish. The cruel irony of right-libertarianism (at least, the stateless-capitalist kind) is that it's not terribly difficult to imagine a sequence of events by which one could construct the same arrangement of coercive governments through property rights rather than conquest. In other words, the ancap argument against sovereign nations is that the US didn't get clean title to it's land, not that it's inherently illegitimate or coercive to have one person control the land that another lives upon. After all, what's the difference between a government charging taxes and a landlord charging rent? Likewise, the only reason why we don't have competition between governments to provide services to citizens is because sovereign nations collectively decided to not play such games. If you want to switch governments, you need to make an immigration case for yourself to another government, which involves fitting into a small number of restrictive visa categories with yearly quotas on how many new migrants come in. You are not allowed to "just leave" without having somewhere to move to, which is where most of the restriction comes into play. This is, again, not materially different from a landlord who refuses to provide housing to people who don't make a certain amount of money. Something that, again, is very much up right-wingers alley. Hell, you can do this the other way around, too - high housing costs are effectively a small-scale shadow immigration system. If I want to move to California, I have to be fantastically wealthy, while long-term residents have the advantage of rent control.
jordanpg 5y ago
The inability of seasteaders to see how the scope and might of modern Naval power is going to get in the way of this little fantasy is breathtaking.
- nradov 5y ago
  The inability of seasteaders to see how storms and corrosion are going to get in the way of this little fantasy is breathtaking. I doubt any of them have ever personally sailed a boat through bad weather. The moment conditions get a little rough they'll be begging the Coast Guard for rescue.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    This, I think, is the true defeat of SeaSteading - most of the original proposals came around in an era of booming economies when Strong Towns wasn't even a consideration and maintenance cost for infrastructure was written off as inconsequential. Maintaining a city partially submerged in sea water is going to cost far more than maintaining a boring one built on land. You'll be paying Hawaii prices for meat, and likely need to import either soil or nutrients (if going hydroponic) to grow any fresh fruit - otherwise you'll need to hover near large ports of entry to leech off the existing supply lines for produce. Shipping companies will happily deliver container on container of fresh diverse fruit to LA, Seattle or Vancouver to sate the known demand of millions of residents - it'd be far less appealing to supply the one seasteader who has a hankering for dragon fruit with his weekly fix of... like three dragon fruits. Absolutely everything about SeaSteading is predicated on the idea that everything would be cheaper without taxes... while also marking up the price of everything. I too would love not to pay for the military, but that's about the only service of significant cost you're effectively dodging while accepting so many other fees and expenditures.
    - klipt 5y ago
      > Absolutely everything about SeaSteading is predicated on the idea that everything would be cheaper without taxes... Just wait until they find out US citizens have to file income taxes no matter where they live.
keiferski 5y ago
The seasteading idea makes me wonder how much it would cost to run an actual state (with a military/sufficient protection) based on distributed platforms/boats. Assuming said state could negotiate deals with ports around the world, it doesn’t seem that absurd. A few billion, maybe? There is something of a historical basis for this, although of course without the tech and still based primarily on land. It’s called a thalassocracy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassocracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassocracy The Hanseatic League was something of a similar phenomenon and actually not completely alien to what I’m proposing. As were a lot of pirate Freeport-type cities in the 1600s Caribbean. Medieval/Renaissance Venice probably counts too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League In any case, the idea is fascinating and I applaud them for even considering it.
- Jolter 5y ago
  The Hansa of the Baltic sea had their income from monopolizing trade routes across the sea. Freeport-type cities in the 1600s Carribean were parasitical on surrounding societies by enabling and profiting from piracy. What are the citizens of your modern distributed platform society going to live off?
  - keiferski 5y ago
    Finance? Crypto? Just software in general? Development of technologies that are somehow hampered by regulations in larger states, but not ethically questionable enough to get invaded over. Or, said research could itself be funded by a larger state. The last one is a plot point in a Ghost in the Shell episode, if I remember correctly.
    - rtkwe 5y ago
      > Development of technologies that are somehow hampered by regulations in larger states What's actually on that list though? That you can't find somewhere with actual land that's will allow it so you don't have to build the entire infrastructure from the ground up where you could also put this lab.
camgunz 5y ago
Aside from all the focus on the politics of seasteading, I think this actually sounds fun, very much like a D&D campaign. Maybe it's a little euphemistic about libertarian ideas but like, isn't that kind of the point of games?
neilk 5y ago
Given the wide range of styles, I would guess the artwork for these cards was lifted from various places around the internet. I see no artwork credits, and found the source for at least one image: the character "Feng Bai" is an image of Esther Quek that's been put through some filters. http://www.artofwore.com/blog/2012/11/19/girl-crush-esther-quek.html http://www.artofwore.com/blog/2012/11/19/girl-crush-esther-q...
- munk-a 5y ago
  There isn't anything quite as true to the seasteading ideal as stealing someone's artwork and refusing to attribute or pay them for it. Don't you dare tax me - but when it benefits me I'm happy to view all property as communal.
  - vmception 5y ago
    OG sovereign citizen
  - canadianfella 5y ago
    Most people don’t consider real property and intellectual property to be equivalent.
- homarp 5y ago
  Veronica Marianna Yavin is from Warren Louw: https://www.deviantart.com/warrenlouw/art/Jinny-258350800 https://www.deviantart.com/warrenlouw/art/Jinny-258350800 Izabel Hashimoto Belluci is from Maaria Laurinen https://imgur.com/ozlewix https://imgur.com/ozlewix
apocalypstyx 5y ago
I refer to this every time seasteading is mentioned: https://inthesetimes.com/article/floating-utopias https://inthesetimes.com/article/floating-utopias
mekkkkkk 5y ago
I'm only vaguely familiar with the seasteading idea in general, but this page was a whole other level of confusing. Is it some sort of role playing scenario to test the viability of different forms of governance at sea? Is it for fun? Science? Profit?
- rtkwe 5y ago
  Promotion mostly would be my guess.
zero_deg_kevin 5y ago
Are Seasteaders fleeing specific laws or do they intend to just sit around contemplating their on-paper freedom?
- rtkwe 5y ago
  It's a libertarian movement at the heart of it so most laws really. Taxes (especially taxes), drug regulations, finance, etc are the classics that get brought up.
david_shaw 5y ago
As someone not familiar with "Seasteading," this was a very confusing site visit. I couldn't understand if the "game" took place on a cruise ship, or what the objective of the game was. At first, I thought this might have been an in-person LARP-style event at sea (which sounded interesting), but after reading the commentary here, I think it's just a way to promote their actual Seasteading fantasy.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Are you saying that it'd be rude of me to show up to their event as a level 13 half-orc cleric of pelor with a pouch full of foam balls to properly target my spell effects? That actually sounds like a lot more fun and gosh I've missed LARPing over the past year.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    They'll need a cleric when a blight hits their hydroponics or the virologist decides that a good way to make money is to poison the group and sell a cure. You could make good money fleecing them!
learn_more 5y ago
Where can I read comments/discussion about interesting topics like this without all the naysaying and snark? (honest question)
- crummy 5y ago
  there's a discord linked on their site: https://discord.com/invite/bwHJm7QNnK https://discord.com/invite/bwHJm7QNnK
- joemi 5y ago
  Sadly this used to be a fairly good place for mostly-snark-free discussions, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. At least for some topics of discussion.
  - snares 5y ago
    As well as more obvious motivations, it seems often used to preemptively strengthen the perception of an argument. There's obviously demand for wildly partisan positions on just about any subject online; Going straight to derision gets people otherwise disinterested in the topic "on your side".
- BelenusMordred 5y ago
  HN has a bizarre nasty streak when it comes to seasteading. These disparate groups of people are trying to hack together a nation from scratch yet all you'll mostly find here is hate and derision for these dreamers. My theory is there's something very primal in people's brains when others try to leave the tribe, they'll find any reason to castigate it, no matter how irrational.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Honest answer: In the past. A lot of snark is because the people being snarky already had long discussions in the past. Looking up old topics is probably a good place to read the comments/discussion. That doesn't help you participate however.
beerandt 5y ago
The number of people that laugh at even the idea of seasteading, yet can't wait to colonize Mars is confounding.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Colonizing Mars is probably more realistic, because of the difficulty of existing countries to invade. But many of the same problems exist, like the libertarian dystopia that they want to put in place.
zarakshR 5y ago
Under the description of The Co-Op it says "Players pay a membership fee to access resources like food, lodging, clean water, etc." Did anybody think this through more than once?
rfwhyte 5y ago
Seasteading (at least in its current libertarian guise) has always seemed to me like a bunch of rich people just wanting to run (float?) away from the problems they themselves helped create. Like how about instead of spending billions on floating company towns, you spend some of that money on helping the billions of people globally who are sick, homeless or hungry? But no, they just want private floating pleasure palaces where they can avoid paying taxes and do drugs, while the rest of us schmucks stuck on land continue to subsidize their "Entrepreneurship" by paying taxes that support the infrastructure their businesses exploit, and paying for the negative externalities their "Disruption" creates.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  There is a solution for us schmucks too. Vote a government that reduce spending, and eventually remove taxes and the government itself. Let infrastructure (health care, police && safety insurance, court system, roads, banking, army) gradually become private services you need to pay to use. Companies won't be able to exploit infrastructure anymore, nobody gets their profits forcefully stolen by politicians on threat of violence (albeit some of the bureaucracy and management overhead will move to private companies).
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I (and, reading their comment, the poster you are responding to) doesn't see that as a "solution for us schmucks". Instead, a solution for us is a government with more spending, higher taxes on the rich, and halting the privatization of government services (and in some cases reversing it, like healthcare).
smackeyacky 5y ago
None of the game proposals seem to be any kind of libertarian ideal - they all have governance and taxation of some kind. Reading between the lines it seems that the seasteading game proposals are about trying to simulate what might happen under each scenario. If true, this is a surprisingly unsure approach to something like Seasteading which to me requires a huge leap of faith. Is the game meant to be an educational tool or is it meant to trial human nature to test the assumptions of each of those scenarios?
aaron695 5y ago
The entire world of space science fiction is based on Seasteading like communities. Along with a lot of other fiction. Are we that afraid of leaving the basement that we have to put down even a RPG based on the idea? A real seasteading community or two around the place is enough to create a wealth of new fiction. You don't have to leave home to benefit. We've had real sea communities 'outside' the law already. Some were blown up (Rose Island - Netflix), some not. But they contributed a real thing to this world, they were interesting.

49 points by keiferski 5y ago

Really dumb idea here. > Seasteading is building floating societies with significant political autonomy. Nearly half the world’s surface is unclaimed by any nation-state, and many coastal nations can legislate seasteads in their territorial waters. > The Seasteading Institute is a nonprofit think-tank promoting the creation of floating ocean cities as a revolutionary solution to some of the world’s most pressing problems: rising sea levels, overpopulation, poor governance, and more… Seasteading is not a solution to any real problem. It's like colonizing Mars or the moon - human bodies aren't evolved for either of those environments, and it won't make sense until we're post-biology to inhabit those places at any appreciable population volume. Seasteading actually makes less sense than visiting Mars. Beyond living on an oil rig or research platform, there's only downside to life at sea: upkeep of the rig, importing resources, lack of fresh water, medical, and sanitary supplies. What you do have are rusting, corrosion, barnacles, bad weather, sea sickness, etc. There's nowhere to go and nothing to do. Just ask oil rig personnel how much fun their lives are. What about trash and refuse? I imagine that's dumped right back into the ocean. Or damaged, partially submerged rigs that serve as shipping hazards? There are so many negative externalities. Humans are terrestrial, and we're suited to live on land. All of our advantages are here. It's like the 70s returned and they want people to live in biodomes. There's no point! No rationale worth any of the innumerable downsides. We're not facing overpopulation. If anything, population growth in the 1st world needs to accelerate to match declining replacement rates. The earth has a much larger carrying capacity, and we're not even close to hitting it. Sea level changes aren't stopping people from moving to Miami and investing in real estate there. We're not going to see millions of people living "Principality of Sealand" style. It's as obtuse an idea as NFTs.

nscalf 5y ago
Uhh, we also weren't evolved to read books. We're post-evolution, even if we're not post-biology. There are plenty of people thinking through how we could have a sustainable society on Mars, not really sure why people couldn't do the same thing here. You're assuming negative externalities without seeing what people could think up. Also, as far as the Earth's carrying capacity goes, the footprint per-individual is much larger than it used to be. The traditional statement of carrying capacity seems to need some reassessment, because there's a really good argument to make that global climate change is evidence that we are past our current carrying capacity. I personally don't find the idea of Seasteading compelling.
- echelon 5y ago
  > Uhh, we also weren't evolved to read books. We're post-evolution, even if we're not post-biology. Reading doesn't pose a challenge to our basic needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation), whereas Mars and seasteading do. The hill climbing barrier was considerably lower for our species. Outside of the accomplishments for science and engineering, there is likely little benefit in building up Mars as a habitable destination for humans to live at scale. Unless the economies of space mining can support it, there's really no reason to be there beyond a thousand or so individuals. I don't buy the astroid survival argument either. In the near term, putting humans on Mars does not de-risk the potential for an asteroid to cause human extinction. Mars colonies will likely still be reliant upon Earth for survival for a hundred years to come as they will not have adequate resources, support, or manufacturing capabilities for self-sustenance let alone growth. It's unlikely that a small colony could Matt Damon themselves back from the brink without a large industrial civilization backing them. Research into enhancing human lives here on earth and protecting our environment will pay greater dividends. I'd even wager that advances in AI/ML, BCI, and biology outpace space colonization tech due to their immediate applications and inherent venture capital fundability. (SpaceX will be funded because of the DoD, NASA, and terrestrial communications. Mars not so much.) > global climate change is evidence that we are past our current carrying capacity. The current economic and political regime doesn't curtail dumping carbon into the atmosphere. The correlation with population is complicated. China and the United States, two of the largest contributors to CO2 emissions, have slowing population growth if you discount immigration.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    I'm convinced he biggest benefit to colonizing Mars if we have the technology is that there won't be as many people there. If you can make Mars livable you can make anywhere on Earth livable even post climate crisis. The real thing that goes away is there won't be 7ish billion other people who also want to keep living trying to copy the tech and competing for those resources.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > Mars colonies will likely still be reliant upon Earth for survival for a hundred years to come as they will not have adequate resources, support, or manufacturing capabilities for self-sustenance let alone growth. It'll take a hundred years after we start for the asteroid survival argument to be valid. A hundred years is too long, so let's never start.
tdy721 5y ago
It’s a game! What is not fun about the scenario?
- echelon 5y ago
  Look at the main website. They built a game to support and draw interest to their ideological cause.
  - Kinrany 5y ago
    Games are great because they are terrible propaganda tools. With a game it's no longer enough to write a compelling story: it must be self-consistent. It may be a model that doesn't represent important parts of the world, but that's still better than a narrative.
    - ludamad 5y ago
      That's an interesting thought. However, inconsistency in propaganda is real if you consider embellishments can differ greatly. The key is to control the conversation. You can easily censor an RPG chat, for example, to the same effect
      - Kinrany 5y ago
        Games are also bad propaganda because it costs little to try different things. So censorship, while possible, cannot be hidden behind plausible deniability. Similarly, a game implies a set of rules that can be criticized and cannot be made vague on purpose -- as required by motte-and-bailey and similar rhetorical tricks.
    - ska 5y ago
      > Games are great because they are terrible propaganda tools. c.f. "Monopoly" (originally Georgist propaganda iirc)
      - munk-a 5y ago
btilly 5y ago
I agree. They literally want to create floating cities spewing pollution wherever they drift under the excuse that nobody else can legislate what they do.

cardanome 5y ago

Seems like this is some kind of political movement to create autonomous floating mini states. Have these people never played BioShock? This is basically the same naive libertarian ideas going wild. For such an project to be successful you need to have some serious funding. Why should anyone fund this? Any legitimate industry will have a hard time on the ocean where you have horrible logistics, nearly no access to resources and are miles away from potential clients.At best I could maybe see a niche for some gimmicky tourism. So what would it be used for? Let's be honest: Tax evasion, human trafficking and gambling. It would be way too expensive to live there for normal people. Plus it would more oppressive. You can at least flee from a tyrannical government on land. If you are in the middle of the ocean? Good luck. Though I dig the futurism. As long a they keep larping, good for them. Just hope they don't think it is a good idea in real life.

pochamago 5y ago
There are other laws libertarians would like to circumvent. Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs, civil asset forfeiture spring to mind. Starting a new country on the ocean is a pretty drastic way to fight back, but i can't deny the impulse to opt out when change appears impossible.
- cardanome 5y ago
  > Occupational licensing, over scheduling of drugs, civil asset forfeiture spring to mind. Just out of interest: What kind of problem do you, personally, have with these that you are considering starting a new country? And isn't it the issue that the rich can already circumvent laws just fine? How is all this going to help the poor who have to stem the main bulk of the tax burden while the rich use loop holes and tax havens? They ware not the ones that are going to live on the ocean.
  - golergka 5y ago
    > How is all this going to help the poor who have to stem the main bulk of the tax burden Are you not aware of libertarian views on said tax burden?

petermcneeley 5y ago

"The Co-op" scenario sounds a bit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town.

rtkwe 5y ago
A lot of libertarian paradise pitches wind up looking a lot like a company town yeah.
- golergka 5y ago
  The "libertarian paradise pitch" is the other one.

dang 5y ago

Past seasteading threads, in case anyone's curious. Others? The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21866017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21866017 - Dec 2019 (255 comments) Seasteading - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082483 - June 2019 (222 comments) A pilot project for a new floating city will have 300 homes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17478300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17478300 - July 2018 (90 comments) Floating city project - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9519863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9519863 - May 2015 (76 comments) Charter the Seasteader I - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4435994 - Aug 2012 (37 comments) Seasteading: Cities on the ocean - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3310873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3310873 - Dec 2011 (112 comments) Building a new society on a free floating platform in the high seas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1088570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1088570 - Jan 2010 (25 comments) City floating on the sea could be just 3 years away - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=510984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=510984 - March 2009 (16 comments) The next frontier: 'Seasteading' the oceans - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=462278 - Feb 2009 (26 comments) Live Free or Drown: Floating Utopias on the Cheap - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=441310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=441310 - Jan 2009 (36 comments) Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=194028 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=194028 - May 2008 (29 comments)

mariojv 5y ago
This only has 7 comments, but the article is relevant: Bitcoin couple face death penalty for 'seastead' in international waters https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19691294 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19691294

jeffbee 5y ago

Seasteading is the ultimate display of how moronic a Libertarian can be. If you're flying some made-up flag on the high seas there is no reason that the navy of some actual county can't just roll up and sink your stupid dinghy. The long-wished-for Libertarian paradise where barbers don't have licenses and you can marry an 8-year-old is going to have to be brought about on dry land.

golergka 5y ago
> If you're flying some made-up flag on the high seas there is no reason that the navy of some actual county can't just roll up and sink your stupid dinghy. There are two. On the level of rights and legality, there's non-agression principle. On the level of realpolitik, there's you being prepared to sink them first.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  The NAP is a fiction made up by American libertarians. It is not a doctrine adhered to by the Russian navy. The reality of the matter is that any vessel not flying a real flag enjoys no standing whatsoever in the laws or treaties of the seas. Freedom of navigation is a right of states, not individuals. If you are not a state or under the protection of a state (a real one, not a comic book one) then you do not have the right to navigate the high seas.
  - laverya 5y ago
    Which is why so many ships sail under the flags of states with the ability to protect them, like the USA, Great Britain, Russia or China, and not Panama, Liberia or Bolivia.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      If you sink a ship registered in Panama, you have made war against Panama and transitively against the United States of America and all other signatories of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance.

d_burfoot 5y ago

As someone who supports seasteading, I want to emphasize that it is NOT about libertarianism or any other political belief system. It is about competitive governance. If your political system, implemented on a seastead cluster, provides a better quality of life to its members, it will attract more citizens; if not, it will lose people, money, and influence. If you want to implement a religion-based society, you can do that; if you want to implement Marxism, you can do that; if you want to build Hong Kong 2.0, you can do that.

Jolter 5y ago
You don’t think the idea of competition as the dominant force in society has an inkling of libertarianism to it?
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  I'd argue it's more of a right-wing idea than a lowercase-l libertarian idea. Libertarianism (left or right) argues for reducing coercion in society; right-libertarianism wants to focus on property rights as the basis of that liberty (even though we already know where that leads). Hence why they have this idea of creating closed-off separate societies based on property rights that can internally structure their economies how they wish. The cruel irony of right-libertarianism (at least, the stateless-capitalist kind) is that it's not terribly difficult to imagine a sequence of events by which one could construct the same arrangement of coercive governments through property rights rather than conquest. In other words, the ancap argument against sovereign nations is that the US didn't get clean title to it's land, not that it's inherently illegitimate or coercive to have one person control the land that another lives upon. After all, what's the difference between a government charging taxes and a landlord charging rent? Likewise, the only reason why we don't have competition between governments to provide services to citizens is because sovereign nations collectively decided to not play such games. If you want to switch governments, you need to make an immigration case for yourself to another government, which involves fitting into a small number of restrictive visa categories with yearly quotas on how many new migrants come in. You are not allowed to "just leave" without having somewhere to move to, which is where most of the restriction comes into play. This is, again, not materially different from a landlord who refuses to provide housing to people who don't make a certain amount of money. Something that, again, is very much up right-wingers alley. Hell, you can do this the other way around, too - high housing costs are effectively a small-scale shadow immigration system. If I want to move to California, I have to be fantastically wealthy, while long-term residents have the advantage of rent control.

jordanpg 5y ago

The inability of seasteaders to see how the scope and might of modern Naval power is going to get in the way of this little fantasy is breathtaking.

nradov 5y ago
The inability of seasteaders to see how storms and corrosion are going to get in the way of this little fantasy is breathtaking. I doubt any of them have ever personally sailed a boat through bad weather. The moment conditions get a little rough they'll be begging the Coast Guard for rescue.
- munk-a 5y ago
  This, I think, is the true defeat of SeaSteading - most of the original proposals came around in an era of booming economies when Strong Towns wasn't even a consideration and maintenance cost for infrastructure was written off as inconsequential. Maintaining a city partially submerged in sea water is going to cost far more than maintaining a boring one built on land. You'll be paying Hawaii prices for meat, and likely need to import either soil or nutrients (if going hydroponic) to grow any fresh fruit - otherwise you'll need to hover near large ports of entry to leech off the existing supply lines for produce. Shipping companies will happily deliver container on container of fresh diverse fruit to LA, Seattle or Vancouver to sate the known demand of millions of residents - it'd be far less appealing to supply the one seasteader who has a hankering for dragon fruit with his weekly fix of... like three dragon fruits. Absolutely everything about SeaSteading is predicated on the idea that everything would be cheaper without taxes... while also marking up the price of everything. I too would love not to pay for the military, but that's about the only service of significant cost you're effectively dodging while accepting so many other fees and expenditures.
  - klipt 5y ago
    > Absolutely everything about SeaSteading is predicated on the idea that everything would be cheaper without taxes... Just wait until they find out US citizens have to file income taxes no matter where they live.

keiferski 5y ago

The seasteading idea makes me wonder how much it would cost to run an actual state (with a military/sufficient protection) based on distributed platforms/boats. Assuming said state could negotiate deals with ports around the world, it doesn’t seem that absurd. A few billion, maybe? There is something of a historical basis for this, although of course without the tech and still based primarily on land. It’s called a thalassocracy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassocracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalassocracy The Hanseatic League was something of a similar phenomenon and actually not completely alien to what I’m proposing. As were a lot of pirate Freeport-type cities in the 1600s Caribbean. Medieval/Renaissance Venice probably counts too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League In any case, the idea is fascinating and I applaud them for even considering it.

Jolter 5y ago
The Hansa of the Baltic sea had their income from monopolizing trade routes across the sea. Freeport-type cities in the 1600s Carribean were parasitical on surrounding societies by enabling and profiting from piracy. What are the citizens of your modern distributed platform society going to live off?
- keiferski 5y ago
  Finance? Crypto? Just software in general? Development of technologies that are somehow hampered by regulations in larger states, but not ethically questionable enough to get invaded over. Or, said research could itself be funded by a larger state. The last one is a plot point in a Ghost in the Shell episode, if I remember correctly.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    > Development of technologies that are somehow hampered by regulations in larger states What's actually on that list though? That you can't find somewhere with actual land that's will allow it so you don't have to build the entire infrastructure from the ground up where you could also put this lab.

camgunz 5y ago

Aside from all the focus on the politics of seasteading, I think this actually sounds fun, very much like a D&D campaign. Maybe it's a little euphemistic about libertarian ideas but like, isn't that kind of the point of games?

neilk 5y ago

Given the wide range of styles, I would guess the artwork for these cards was lifted from various places around the internet. I see no artwork credits, and found the source for at least one image: the character "Feng Bai" is an image of Esther Quek that's been put through some filters. http://www.artofwore.com/blog/2012/11/19/girl-crush-esther-quek.html http://www.artofwore.com/blog/2012/11/19/girl-crush-esther-q...

munk-a 5y ago
There isn't anything quite as true to the seasteading ideal as stealing someone's artwork and refusing to attribute or pay them for it. Don't you dare tax me - but when it benefits me I'm happy to view all property as communal.
- vmception 5y ago
  OG sovereign citizen
- canadianfella 5y ago
  Most people don’t consider real property and intellectual property to be equivalent.
homarp 5y ago
Veronica Marianna Yavin is from Warren Louw: https://www.deviantart.com/warrenlouw/art/Jinny-258350800 https://www.deviantart.com/warrenlouw/art/Jinny-258350800 Izabel Hashimoto Belluci is from Maaria Laurinen https://imgur.com/ozlewix https://imgur.com/ozlewix

apocalypstyx 5y ago

I refer to this every time seasteading is mentioned: https://inthesetimes.com/article/floating-utopias https://inthesetimes.com/article/floating-utopias

mekkkkkk 5y ago

I'm only vaguely familiar with the seasteading idea in general, but this page was a whole other level of confusing. Is it some sort of role playing scenario to test the viability of different forms of governance at sea? Is it for fun? Science? Profit?

rtkwe 5y ago
Promotion mostly would be my guess.

zero_deg_kevin 5y ago

Are Seasteaders fleeing specific laws or do they intend to just sit around contemplating their on-paper freedom?

rtkwe 5y ago
It's a libertarian movement at the heart of it so most laws really. Taxes (especially taxes), drug regulations, finance, etc are the classics that get brought up.

david_shaw 5y ago

As someone not familiar with "Seasteading," this was a very confusing site visit. I couldn't understand if the "game" took place on a cruise ship, or what the objective of the game was. At first, I thought this might have been an in-person LARP-style event at sea (which sounded interesting), but after reading the commentary here, I think it's just a way to promote their actual Seasteading fantasy.

munk-a 5y ago
Are you saying that it'd be rude of me to show up to their event as a level 13 half-orc cleric of pelor with a pouch full of foam balls to properly target my spell effects? That actually sounds like a lot more fun and gosh I've missed LARPing over the past year.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  They'll need a cleric when a blight hits their hydroponics or the virologist decides that a good way to make money is to poison the group and sell a cure. You could make good money fleecing them!

learn_more 5y ago

Where can I read comments/discussion about interesting topics like this without all the naysaying and snark? (honest question)

crummy 5y ago
there's a discord linked on their site: https://discord.com/invite/bwHJm7QNnK https://discord.com/invite/bwHJm7QNnK
joemi 5y ago
Sadly this used to be a fairly good place for mostly-snark-free discussions, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. At least for some topics of discussion.
- snares 5y ago
  As well as more obvious motivations, it seems often used to preemptively strengthen the perception of an argument. There's obviously demand for wildly partisan positions on just about any subject online; Going straight to derision gets people otherwise disinterested in the topic "on your side".
BelenusMordred 5y ago
HN has a bizarre nasty streak when it comes to seasteading. These disparate groups of people are trying to hack together a nation from scratch yet all you'll mostly find here is hate and derision for these dreamers. My theory is there's something very primal in people's brains when others try to leave the tribe, they'll find any reason to castigate it, no matter how irrational.
HWR_14 5y ago
Honest answer: In the past. A lot of snark is because the people being snarky already had long discussions in the past. Looking up old topics is probably a good place to read the comments/discussion. That doesn't help you participate however.

beerandt 5y ago

The number of people that laugh at even the idea of seasteading, yet can't wait to colonize Mars is confounding.

HWR_14 5y ago
Colonizing Mars is probably more realistic, because of the difficulty of existing countries to invade. But many of the same problems exist, like the libertarian dystopia that they want to put in place.

zarakshR 5y ago

Under the description of The Co-Op it says "Players pay a membership fee to access resources like food, lodging, clean water, etc." Did anybody think this through more than once?

rfwhyte 5y ago

Seasteading (at least in its current libertarian guise) has always seemed to me like a bunch of rich people just wanting to run (float?) away from the problems they themselves helped create. Like how about instead of spending billions on floating company towns, you spend some of that money on helping the billions of people globally who are sick, homeless or hungry? But no, they just want private floating pleasure palaces where they can avoid paying taxes and do drugs, while the rest of us schmucks stuck on land continue to subsidize their "Entrepreneurship" by paying taxes that support the infrastructure their businesses exploit, and paying for the negative externalities their "Disruption" creates.

jokethrowaway 5y ago
There is a solution for us schmucks too. Vote a government that reduce spending, and eventually remove taxes and the government itself. Let infrastructure (health care, police && safety insurance, court system, roads, banking, army) gradually become private services you need to pay to use. Companies won't be able to exploit infrastructure anymore, nobody gets their profits forcefully stolen by politicians on threat of violence (albeit some of the bureaucracy and management overhead will move to private companies).
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I (and, reading their comment, the poster you are responding to) doesn't see that as a "solution for us schmucks". Instead, a solution for us is a government with more spending, higher taxes on the rich, and halting the privatization of government services (and in some cases reversing it, like healthcare).

smackeyacky 5y ago

None of the game proposals seem to be any kind of libertarian ideal - they all have governance and taxation of some kind. Reading between the lines it seems that the seasteading game proposals are about trying to simulate what might happen under each scenario. If true, this is a surprisingly unsure approach to something like Seasteading which to me requires a huge leap of faith. Is the game meant to be an educational tool or is it meant to trial human nature to test the assumptions of each of those scenarios?

aaron695 5y ago

The entire world of space science fiction is based on Seasteading like communities. Along with a lot of other fiction. Are we that afraid of leaving the basement that we have to put down even a RPG based on the idea? A real seasteading community or two around the place is enough to create a wealth of new fiction. You don't have to leave home to benefit. We've had real sea communities 'outside' the law already. Some were blown up (Rose Island - Netflix), some not. But they contributed a real thing to this world, they were interesting.