User:Vincecate/SeasteadingViews

Patri suggested that I try to write down my views on Seasteading as a sort of manifesto. I said I think my wiki home page and the links from there sum up my views. He said it could be good to have it in one place. So here goes.

1. I think the combination of business model and engineering of the structure are the problems we should focus on at this point. These two are tied together, as the business model will put requirements on the structure design and a structure puts constraints on the business model. I think we should also think some about how things would evolve over time (what outsiders will do as well as what we could do) and if that could get to a new country.
2. I think Low Cost Wave Tanks and natural waves can let amateurs test how models will react to waves with accuracy close enough to what professional engineers can do for now. Scale models are really good for testing ideas. All you need to do is slow down the video by the square root of the scaling factor. So for 1:25 scale models you want to slow the video down by 5.
3. I think we should encourage amateurs to explore the design space. Probably the best way to do this is to have contests and prizes. Some day when we are ready to build a full scale structure we should have a real engineer work over the design to make sure it is strong enough and will last.
4. I think a seastead design needs to "beat a boat" for some combination of price/living-area, safety, comfort, ease-of-use, and operating costs. They can sacrifice speed to win in other areas. If they don't beat a boat, then there is no reason for people to buy a seastead structure, a boat is better.
5. I think it is easy to beat a boat in the single-family size range. Small blue-water boats are not that cheap, safe, stable, or roomy. I think in the cruise ship size range it is very hard to beat a boat. A single-family size seastead could also take 1/100th the funding. So I think we should first try to design single family seasteads.
6. The wind and currents will be trying to push your seastead. Seems the best thing to do is have a migratory route where this push moves you in the direction you want to go. Then you are not fighting the wind and currents. It also lets you use a kite and seaanchor to move you on the right path. And a good route can avoid the places/seasons with bad weather in the same way that birds avoid winter storms and hurricanes by migration. Going past lots of islands should make life on the seastead fun and interesting. Also makes getting supplies easy.
7. Most of the stuff inside a seastead, sinks, water makers, showers, beds, fridge, solar panels, generators, etc. will just be stuff that regular boats or houses use and are easy to buy. Discussions of anything that you can just buy on westmarine.com seem like a waste of time at this point. Only the structure is different from a boat or house, not the kitchen sink.
8. The single family seasteads can each have a flag of convenience till there are enough of them that you start getting stores and other things. Then some won't bother going to land any more. Then after some size people will want to form some joint security. And there will be need for a counsel to arbitrate problems. And it will be like a government.
9. This can start small. Maybe my family would kick it off. Then if it works we can get plenty of publicity in magazines and TV. Could probably do a reality TV show if we had a design that worked. So once the engineering is such that we beat a boat, the rest will follow.
10. It could also start with sort of 1:2 scale seasteads as floating villas a bit like houses on the water in Tahiti. Two people visiting for a week don't need nearly the space a family living fulltime would. If located a few miles offshore the maximum wave can be much lower than out in deep water. So a smaller seastead could work.
11. I think 3 of the single family seastead designs I have would be more comfortable in large waves and be able to handle larger waves than ClubStead (WaterWalker, Tension Circle, BallHouse).
12. It would be nice if single family seasteads could tile together, and I think WaterWalker could. But computers controlling the position is probably good enough to make a community. We can work out ways to go between two seasteads that are very near each other.
13. I laugh when I see a new country plan with 10 steps where step 1 is "raise a billion dollars". I laugh 1/5th as much when I see a plan where step 1 is "raise $0.5 million" and step 2 is "raise $200 million". But deep down I am thinking, infinity divided by 5 is infinity. Things have not really improved. I also don't think there is a realistic business model that evolves into a new country for a large structure. They are too easy a target to mess with. For example, California might just say "no boats can go from California to that evil seastead structure because they are smuggling drugs" and cut off all your customers. Funding single family seasteads is much more realistic. I think the evolutionary path to "new country" for single family seasteads is more realistic too.
14. There are many families that would like to travel around on a boat for a year if they could afford it. If a seastead makes that more affordable it will have a market. Some people after trying it for a year will want to keep living on a seastead. We can also charter seasteads between any 2 islands in the migration route, so we can appeal to the less than year charter market as well. This will compete with normal boat charter for customers. If we have beat a boat in some way, we should be able to get some customers.
15. After you get enough people, life in the flotilla will be interesting enough that you won't need to keep dropping in on islands to make life interesting. With enough people staying far from land you can experiment with new types of governance.
16. I think Patents don't really apply to ships passing through a country and that seasteaders should not worry about them and work on open source designs for seasteads.
17. I think oil platforms are always tied to the bottom and so seasteads are not like oil platforms. If you are tied to the bottom it is easy to not bob up and down. There are oil drilling boats that use dynamic positioning.
18. I think most seasteading.com readers don't have enough respect for the power of waves and should watch big wave videos from time to time.
19. I like the idea of large wavebreaks protecting an area so that regular boat or even floating homes could be inside and not have to worry about waves. But I think this is also a larger thing that is not good place to start. Again, if you have 100 times the money of a single family seastead, this is good. But we should start small.
20. I think that acceptable motion for a tourist seastead with short term visitors is much less than a seastead where people live on it long term. A couple days getting used to the motion is a big deal if someone is there for a week but no trouble if they are moving there for good.
21. I think kites are progressing fast and that for a 5 to 10 year timeframe it is reasonable to plan on computer controlled kites.
22. I think operating costs are a very important issue, maybe more important than capital costs.
23. I think at the moment there are no seasteading experts, only amateurs. It may turn out that seasteads need plastic or concrete experts if we do a BallHouse, or aluminum truss experts if we do WaterWalker, or something else altogether. I think it is too early to hire a specialist. I would recommend an engineer with a broad background who was interested in learning more. A background including model testing in water would be good too. Even 1 day a week exploring ideas would be good. They should be willing and able to help educate TSI management as well as people on the forums. I think the engineering problem is the most important one, but that this is a new wide-open designs space that needs to be explored more before a specific design is chosen.
24. I fully believe that dynamic geography, where people can move their house to associate with a governing system they agree with, will change the pressures on governments in a really good way. If a government starts to get to big, people can just leave. Should keep governments in check and help keep people free. So I am in full agreement with the main thesis of seasteading. I think this works better with single family seasteads where a family can move when they want, and not have to wait till 200 other families agree it is time to move.
25. I think a family moving between islands can pick which ones treat visitors well, and start using "dynamic geography" from day 1.
26. I think if we get students working on seastead contests and our kids playing with our models, that even if we don't move onto seasteads we have increased the chance that the next generation does. If we made it so the next generation lived on seasteads, that would be much more success than anyone else has had.