Fascinating piece up by Brian Doherty on “seasteading” the anti-government project being pursued by grandson of economist Milton Friedman, Patri Friedman, to create modular, stateless “seasteads” on the ocean. The question that leaps to mind, of course, is once a colony on the sea is realized, won’t the natural next step be to form some sort of governing body – some, dare I say, government? I’m not saying that this is the desired outcome, but isn’t this the likely one?
You can learn more about seasteading at Friedman’s institute homepage. Personally, I’ve always thought it would be neat to live in a houseboat at a harbor – or harbors – which isn’t quite the “government-free” zone that Friedman envisions, but would be kind of liberating nonetheless.
I remember China Mieville wrote an essay about the last time someone tried this: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/floating_utopias/
This looks like a different project in its particulars – a conscious attempt not to fall into the same traps – but the ideology isn’t so different, and Mieville’s a fascinating read nonetheless.Report
I blame Johnny Depp.Report
“A seastead without laws would be like Burning Man without art” :).
The point of seasteading is not to get away from laws or government, but to have the power to create and experiment with our own systems on a small scale.Report