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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 sur

by 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.
  - mechagodzilla 5y ago
    I think genetically modifying human embryos (think “designer baby clinic”) could plausibly fall in this category. Rich people (and their surrogates?) show up, get baby IVF’d and then go back to their home countries. Potential clientele, small high tech industry, not quite distasteful enough to attract a cruise missile or two.
    - janee 5y ago
      Haha given the sea aspect of this, your post makes me think of BioShock
      - HWR_14 5y ago
        BioShock was inspired by the seasteading movement.
    - rtkwe 5y ago
      Maybe the initial experimentation where we have to figure out the actual genes to tweak for these things but once that's through I think it'll be quietly everywhere.
    - imtringued 5y ago
      Ah yes, secret cloning facilities for the rich.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Development of technologies that are somehow hampered by regulations in larger states, but not ethically questionable enough to get invaded over. If its that consistently regulated, there's likely to be sufficient will to come up with an excuse to take action against a vulnerable violator. And a nation of boats doesn’t need to be invaded, they just need powerful nations to impose sanctions (including second-order ones on trade partners) on them.
  - keiferski 5y ago
    Not if the larger states want to benefit from the research without legalizing it themselves. E.g. Guantanamo for research. Or Project Paperclip. The criticism that smaller states will just get invaded makes no geopolitical sense. If that were the case, the entire world would be divided into 3 countries.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Not if the larger states want to benefit from the research without legalizing it themselves. If the larger states wants to benefit from research without legalizing it...they’ll just do it covertly, without legalizing it. The reason to not want to legalize it is to prevent other people from exploiting it, which is definitely going to extend to anti-authoritsrian seasteaders and their other potential customers. And if they did want to tolerate an external third-party for deniable benefit doing something the major state felt the need to keep illegal...well, historically (even when the minor partner has the resources of a traditional nation-state) that’s often a transitory relationship that ends poorly for the minor party. Ask Manuel Noriega—or Saddam Hussein—about it sometime. > Guantanamo for research. Or Project Paperclip. Yeah, Guatanamo-for-Anything and Operation Paperclip are the kinds of things states (even if they involve things the state wants to pretend to prohibit) really want to keep tight, direct control over.
      - keiferski 5y ago
        You are labeling all SeaSteaders with the anti-authoritarian libertarian types. This is not what my comment stated. Right now, states use each other to circumvent domestic laws. It really doesn’t seem far fetched that a larger state would allow a smaller one to exist if it were geopolitically/economically/etc. in its (the larger state) interest. If anything, it’s more likely, because they can be more easily controlled. “Sure, we won’t invade your scientific seasteading research nation, as long as you share the results with us. “ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
BelenusMordred 5y ago
> What are the citizens of your modern distributed platform society going to live off? Hook up a subsea cable and plenty could make a living just fine. Starlink itself might just be enough. The only actual bandwidth needs I ever have is for conference calls, my actual "work" can survive off dialup speeds for the occasional SO search. Other than that setting up a port for sailors would probably bring in some retail cash, marinas around the world often cost a pretty penny to moor in.
beaconstudios 5y ago
A better example would be the Phoenicians, who were a thalassocratic civilisation based around all edges of the Mediterranean Sea (North Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe) who (IIRC, not a historian) were predominantly traders. If I were to guess at how seasteaders would make money? Bringing things to you that you'd normally have to travel for (or are illegal) and pay a lot of money - medical and cosmetic tourism, gambling, that sort of thing.

by Jolter 5y ago

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.
- mechagodzilla 5y ago
  I think genetically modifying human embryos (think “designer baby clinic”) could plausibly fall in this category. Rich people (and their surrogates?) show up, get baby IVF’d and then go back to their home countries. Potential clientele, small high tech industry, not quite distasteful enough to attract a cruise missile or two.
  - janee 5y ago
    Haha given the sea aspect of this, your post makes me think of BioShock
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      BioShock was inspired by the seasteading movement.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    Maybe the initial experimentation where we have to figure out the actual genes to tweak for these things but once that's through I think it'll be quietly everywhere.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    Ah yes, secret cloning facilities for the rich.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Development of technologies that are somehow hampered by regulations in larger states, but not ethically questionable enough to get invaded over. If its that consistently regulated, there's likely to be sufficient will to come up with an excuse to take action against a vulnerable violator. And a nation of boats doesn’t need to be invaded, they just need powerful nations to impose sanctions (including second-order ones on trade partners) on them.
- keiferski 5y ago
  Not if the larger states want to benefit from the research without legalizing it themselves. E.g. Guantanamo for research. Or Project Paperclip. The criticism that smaller states will just get invaded makes no geopolitical sense. If that were the case, the entire world would be divided into 3 countries.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Not if the larger states want to benefit from the research without legalizing it themselves. If the larger states wants to benefit from research without legalizing it...they’ll just do it covertly, without legalizing it. The reason to not want to legalize it is to prevent other people from exploiting it, which is definitely going to extend to anti-authoritsrian seasteaders and their other potential customers. And if they did want to tolerate an external third-party for deniable benefit doing something the major state felt the need to keep illegal...well, historically (even when the minor partner has the resources of a traditional nation-state) that’s often a transitory relationship that ends poorly for the minor party. Ask Manuel Noriega—or Saddam Hussein—about it sometime. > Guantanamo for research. Or Project Paperclip. Yeah, Guatanamo-for-Anything and Operation Paperclip are the kinds of things states (even if they involve things the state wants to pretend to prohibit) really want to keep tight, direct control over.
    - keiferski 5y ago
      You are labeling all SeaSteaders with the anti-authoritarian libertarian types. This is not what my comment stated. Right now, states use each other to circumvent domestic laws. It really doesn’t seem far fetched that a larger state would allow a smaller one to exist if it were geopolitically/economically/etc. in its (the larger state) interest. If anything, it’s more likely, because they can be more easily controlled. “Sure, we won’t invade your scientific seasteading research nation, as long as you share the results with us. “ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

BelenusMordred 5y ago

> What are the citizens of your modern distributed platform society going to live off? Hook up a subsea cable and plenty could make a living just fine. Starlink itself might just be enough. The only actual bandwidth needs I ever have is for conference calls, my actual "work" can survive off dialup speeds for the occasional SO search. Other than that setting up a port for sailors would probably bring in some retail cash, marinas around the world often cost a pretty penny to moor in.

beaconstudios 5y ago

A better example would be the Phoenicians, who were a thalassocratic civilisation based around all edges of the Mediterranean Sea (North Africa, the Middle East and Southern Europe) who (IIRC, not a historian) were predominantly traders. If I were to guess at how seasteaders would make money? Bringing things to you that you'd normally have to travel for (or are illegal) and pay a lot of money - medical and cosmetic tourism, gambling, that sort of thing.