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Ironic is the wrong word. But the whole point of building a city on a ship was to avoid any national law. If you want to partner with a real country, then migh
by devinhelton 11y ago
Ironic is the wrong word.
But the whole point of building a city on a ship was to avoid any national law. If you want to partner with a real country, then might as well build the city on sparsely populated piece of land, and save on the expenses and inconveniences of ship based living. Charter cities and special economic zones seem like a promising idea to me, but seasteading always struck me as very silly.
- jdreaver 11y agoGreat point. I think they are trying to eventually become independent. I think of this as a kind of bootstrapping procedure, where they start off inside the waters of a nation, and eventually move into international waters once they are established. Indeed, staying inside a nation's waters indefinitely would be counter to their stated goals. If these ships are movable, then one advantage over a land-based city is they could even change nations when they felt like it.
- nmrm2 11y ago> I think of this as a kind of bootstrapping procedure Sure, but a lot of the reasons they list are essential. E.g., calmer waters near large bodies of land and therefore in sovereign water. Proximity to supply chains that lead to/from large land-based populations. Etc. > If these ships are movable, then one advantage over a land-based city is they could even change nations when they felt like it. notahacker's sister post is spot on.
- notahacker 11y agoAs far as I can see, the only notional advantage gained from being based just offshore is that they can theoretically leave, though that does seem to be (i) vastly underestimating the complications involved in sailing to whichever other country will have them and (ii) vastly overestimating the difficulty of selling up and leaving under a more regular land-based arrangement.
- cantankerous 11y agoThey could theoretically leave, but if they have serious unresolved disputes with their host country, it could very well prevent them from leaving by using force. What then?
- mlinksva 11y agoThe ironic thing is that if the technology is successful, it'll be used by nation states to claim more territory. Spratly Islands made to order, on crack. Not that a very brief frontier period couldn't be interesting on its own account, but it'll be brief if it happens at all.