5 ms·

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.
    - Taniwha 5y ago
      And that they have to pay thousands to renounce their citizenships
    - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
      You have to file, but you don't pay anything on the first $100k/yr when filing as non-resident.
- amalcon 5y ago
  Somewhat telling how none of the characters they offer have jobs that would actually be important here. You really need things like "general contractor", "boat mechanic", or "welder". Instead, they have things like "maritime lawyer", "encryption" (whatever that means), "zoologist", which would be almost useless.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    Hard to become the megacapitalist most libertarians want to be (and assume they'd be) selling just your labor. There's only so much of you to go around, much better to be the capital class and push around ideas and people to make money.
- variaga 5y ago
  The fact that most people interested in Seasteading are the kind of libertarians who think things like "building codes", "safety inspections", "occupational licensing of marine engineers" and "paying taxes to fund a water rescue service" are all unconscionable restrictions on their personal freedom is just the icing on the cake. You couldn't pay me to set foot on whatever floating death traps they might manage to cobble together.
  - yongjik 5y ago
    Well that does sound like it will make the game more interesting, though... Maybe all they need is a psychedelic-mushroom-inhaling plumber experienced in dealing with death traps?
    - WorldMaker 5y ago
      They could use their flexibility on scientific ethics from their libertarian values on hypnosis drugs and steroids (and weirder super power drugs) to maintain an (at first) easily controlled slave labor force to keep themselves safe (at least until the inevitable rebellion and/or disintegration of the society). Such a drug-based culture might be quite the shock to the bio-logy.
    - moomin 5y ago
      I see what you did there.
stale2002 5y ago
Do you think that governments are just going to start killing people just because they decided to live on a boat somewhere? There are lots of things that many governments could do right now. But there is really very little reason for most governments to just start sinking ships, at random, even ships that aren't affiliated with a country that could protect them. In practice, I would expect a sea steading "nation" to work out similar to any other tiny nation. There are lots of tiny nations, around the world, but we don't see them getting nuked by the rest of the world, for no reason.
- smogcutter 5y ago
  The issue is that the answer to the question of how the “nation” will support itself is inevitably some version/combination of: A) tax shelter for money earned in the real world B) doing crimes on the internet …neither of which real states are generally a big fan of.
  - jokethrowaway 5y ago
    There is plenty of legal remote enterprises that could be done from a small nation (seasteading or not). Think a bunch of engineers, creatives, managers, traders working remotely.
- smolder 5y ago
  Right, nuking a small country would be pretty wasteful and politically expensive compared to a more usual tactic like propping up an oppressive regime who supports cheap export of natural resources, or in the case of a country with few resources, mostly ignoring them.
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > mostly ignoring them. Exactly. That is what would happen. Small nations exist all over the world. And the reality is that they mostly just get ignored. We don't really see these video game plots being acted out in real life. Seasteading would result in the same situation, as what happens to modern day, tiny nations. It would be ignored, beyond, of course, arm chair internet comments that fantasizing about the horrible things that people want to do against their political opponents (as usually happens, in threads about this stuff). But the actual consequences would not amount to much.
abdullahkhalids 5y ago
There are plenty of island states and micronations in the world today. Some of them, make money be letting corrupt people from other countries deposit money in their hidden bank accounts, or create shell companies to get around tax and finance laws etc. These countries continue to flourish, even though any of the top 50 armies in the world could clean them up in half a week without breaking a sweat. Why do you think a few thousand people floating out into open seas will be invaded, if they are not threatening physical violence against any other state in any way?
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > Why do you think a few thousand people floating out into open seas will be invaded, if they are not threatening physical violence against any other state in any way? Well, the mere existence of another state tends to lead to a diminution of whatever states are close by (within 200 miles). That's why in 2019 there was a seastead that got destroyed by the closest government (Thailand) because, even though it was in international waters, it was an affront to their sovereignty: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-18/bitcoin-couple-face-death-penalty-in-thailand-for-seastead/11031336?pfmredir=sm https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-18/bitcoin-couple-face-d... Although they were less "invaded" and more "arrested"
fighterpilot 5y ago
Why would a seasteading nation be inherently more vulnerable than a preexisting tiny nation? Couldn't the same bilateral relationships with large states be developed by the former that afford the same level of protection that's currently enjoyed by the latter? And if you think not, how is that not merely a failure of imagination? I do agree however that a venture like this would be much, much more likely to succeed on land. I just don't see your retort as a foregone conclusion.

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.
  - Taniwha 5y ago
    And that they have to pay thousands to renounce their citizenships
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    You have to file, but you don't pay anything on the first $100k/yr when filing as non-resident.
amalcon 5y ago
Somewhat telling how none of the characters they offer have jobs that would actually be important here. You really need things like "general contractor", "boat mechanic", or "welder". Instead, they have things like "maritime lawyer", "encryption" (whatever that means), "zoologist", which would be almost useless.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  Hard to become the megacapitalist most libertarians want to be (and assume they'd be) selling just your labor. There's only so much of you to go around, much better to be the capital class and push around ideas and people to make money.
variaga 5y ago
The fact that most people interested in Seasteading are the kind of libertarians who think things like "building codes", "safety inspections", "occupational licensing of marine engineers" and "paying taxes to fund a water rescue service" are all unconscionable restrictions on their personal freedom is just the icing on the cake. You couldn't pay me to set foot on whatever floating death traps they might manage to cobble together.
- yongjik 5y ago
  Well that does sound like it will make the game more interesting, though... Maybe all they need is a psychedelic-mushroom-inhaling plumber experienced in dealing with death traps?
  - WorldMaker 5y ago
    They could use their flexibility on scientific ethics from their libertarian values on hypnosis drugs and steroids (and weirder super power drugs) to maintain an (at first) easily controlled slave labor force to keep themselves safe (at least until the inevitable rebellion and/or disintegration of the society). Such a drug-based culture might be quite the shock to the bio-logy.
  - moomin 5y ago
    I see what you did there.

stale2002 5y ago

Do you think that governments are just going to start killing people just because they decided to live on a boat somewhere? There are lots of things that many governments could do right now. But there is really very little reason for most governments to just start sinking ships, at random, even ships that aren't affiliated with a country that could protect them. In practice, I would expect a sea steading "nation" to work out similar to any other tiny nation. There are lots of tiny nations, around the world, but we don't see them getting nuked by the rest of the world, for no reason.

smogcutter 5y ago
The issue is that the answer to the question of how the “nation” will support itself is inevitably some version/combination of: A) tax shelter for money earned in the real world B) doing crimes on the internet …neither of which real states are generally a big fan of.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
  There is plenty of legal remote enterprises that could be done from a small nation (seasteading or not). Think a bunch of engineers, creatives, managers, traders working remotely.
smolder 5y ago
Right, nuking a small country would be pretty wasteful and politically expensive compared to a more usual tactic like propping up an oppressive regime who supports cheap export of natural resources, or in the case of a country with few resources, mostly ignoring them.
- stale2002 5y ago
  > mostly ignoring them. Exactly. That is what would happen. Small nations exist all over the world. And the reality is that they mostly just get ignored. We don't really see these video game plots being acted out in real life. Seasteading would result in the same situation, as what happens to modern day, tiny nations. It would be ignored, beyond, of course, arm chair internet comments that fantasizing about the horrible things that people want to do against their political opponents (as usually happens, in threads about this stuff). But the actual consequences would not amount to much.

abdullahkhalids 5y ago

There are plenty of island states and micronations in the world today. Some of them, make money be letting corrupt people from other countries deposit money in their hidden bank accounts, or create shell companies to get around tax and finance laws etc. These countries continue to flourish, even though any of the top 50 armies in the world could clean them up in half a week without breaking a sweat. Why do you think a few thousand people floating out into open seas will be invaded, if they are not threatening physical violence against any other state in any way?

HWR_14 5y ago
> Why do you think a few thousand people floating out into open seas will be invaded, if they are not threatening physical violence against any other state in any way? Well, the mere existence of another state tends to lead to a diminution of whatever states are close by (within 200 miles). That's why in 2019 there was a seastead that got destroyed by the closest government (Thailand) because, even though it was in international waters, it was an affront to their sovereignty: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-18/bitcoin-couple-face-death-penalty-in-thailand-for-seastead/11031336?pfmredir=sm https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-18/bitcoin-couple-face-d... Although they were less "invaded" and more "arrested"

fighterpilot 5y ago

Why would a seasteading nation be inherently more vulnerable than a preexisting tiny nation? Couldn't the same bilateral relationships with large states be developed by the former that afford the same level of protection that's currently enjoyed by the latter? And if you think not, how is that not merely a failure of imagination? I do agree however that a venture like this would be much, much more likely to succeed on land. I just don't see your retort as a foregone conclusion.