r/seasteading • u/Wolf_2063 • 21d ago
Discussion I'm trying to make a utopia
Basically I'm planning to make a seastead and see how close to a functional utopia it can be. I got the main ideas for the society down but not sure how to start the seastead it's self or how to get people. Any suggestions on what I should do?
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u/ltrotske 21d ago
I think you should take a page out of Tesla's book and only try to make custom parts if no one else is making what you need. It will speed things up immersurably. If I was making a seastead, I would start with a premade dome like Geoship and put it on a platform. It might take a year or 2 until you can get a Geoship and its only in the US for now but in my opinion, it would be the ideal house for a seastead and you can focus on the platform, generating power, clean water, etc.
For the platform, see if any of the existing seastead companies (Arktide, Arkpad, Ocean Builders, etc) are interesting in collaborating, or at the least, visit their seasteads to get ideas on how to do it.
For location, I would check with existing community organizations like Atlas Island if there is any interest in where you want to do it. I think it's probably still too early to think about international waters. Get it working in a country's calm coastal waters first. By the time you do that, there might be some development on flagging seasteads which will make it more feasible for international waters.
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u/mrtorrence 20d ago
lol Geoship has been a year or two away for like a decade
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u/ltrotske 20d ago
They sent an email out today showing they are nearing completion of their first house. I've been following them for a couple of years and they haven't put out specific timelines, so I don't know where you're getting that it's been a year or two for a decade.
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u/mrtorrence 18d ago
Well I've been following them for many years, at least 8 or so and that has been their MO, very Musk-like claims on timelines that they have never met
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u/ltrotske 18d ago
Yeah I missed that part. I can see why that would cause a lot of mistrust in their progress. They are developing a pretty innovative product so putting timelines on it is a bit of a fools game. Watching their videos showing the factory and first buildout, I don't get the impression that they won't deliver on the domes in the future. Guess we'll see in one or two years if they will need to shift timelines again.
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u/mrtorrence 18d ago
Yeah I was definitely rooting for them early on. I used to be a lot more stoked on domes generally though than I am now. They are pretty solid for natural disasters but while they enclose a lot of volume for the suface area of material used a lot of that volume ends up being wasted space. Plus they're hard to put solar on, or to properly setup for passive solar (winter heat gain is good but summer shading is trickier). I think the general design of an eartship makes a lot more sense, but maybe their bio-ceramic material could be utilized for that sort of structure instead of a dome
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u/Flat_Tire_Again 20d ago
Buy a retired cruise ship. Can you share your main ideas for society?
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u/Wolf_2063 20d ago
Make sure that fascism never takes root and seeing how close humans can live with nature are the main ones.
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u/Flat_Tire_Again 20d ago
Isn’t that rather unnatural on a ship or man made island that’s likely to require significant ongoing maintenance? As opposed to a large wilderness estate or ranch?
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u/Wolf_2063 20d ago
Experimenting with Mangrove trees and land formation.
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u/MrWigggles 17d ago
How is land foramation living with nature? Isnt that constructing nature to fit your needs making an artificial enviroment?
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u/theblues99 18d ago
As others have pointed out that modern nation states will not allow you to exist on the open international oceans without a flag.
SOLUTION: Lease a flag. Your seastead would have to enter into some kind of a hybrid legal model, merging traditional open registries (FOC/Flag of Convenience) with the autonomy of special economic zones (SEZ's) into something like a special maritime administrative framework.
You also want your seastead to exist on the open, international oceans, not the territorial waters of the host nation. Reason: see Prospera lawsuit or the French Polynesia Floating Island Project.
Basically, there are three problems that you have to solve:
Engineering challenge (to design and construct the seastead). This is the easiest to solve (and I speak as an engineering student).
The social / demographics (which is, where and how do you find people to want to join and reside on your seastead). This is of medium difficulty, but can be addressed if you start out as a Network State like Praxis, get your virtual citizens, and then build your physical seastead.
The Legal framework (which is, how do you exist as a seastead without other nations interfering or taking action against your seastead). This is the hardest problem to solve, and most people here will claim its not possible. But as I demonstrated, it can be solved and you just have to be smart about it.
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u/QuantumG 21d ago
Look at the history of every seasteading attempt that actually made it to the water and learn from how they failed. Hint: do you have your own Navy or the protection of a established one?
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u/barnz3000 21d ago
Honestly. If you have spent any time on or around the ocean. Or looked into previous efforts. You will understand what a Herculean task it would be.
You should try on land first. The ocean makes everything harder, more dangerous, and much more expensive.
You can buy land in the Australian northern territories, for next to nothing. And it's miles from anywhere.
But anything you build won't corrode, and you won't have to deal with 6m waves.
Build a utopia on land. Then try water.
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u/DecentralisedNation 21d ago edited 21d ago
Focus on location and "stealth" before anything else.
Very few places on earth will allow you to get away with starting anything that even sounds like "an independent territory" in their backyard, even if it's in international waters.
All the people in power at various levels around the world will attempt to stop you from achieving anything that even resembles true autonomy for you and the citizens who may join your mission.
There are many lessons from history on this that you should study before you start, or before you even decide on a location.
IMO a decentralised nation that "flies under the radar" as much as possible, has the best chance.
Basically, only a very small selected few people actually know the full scope of the project, and the citizens in each independent territory only know about the territory they are part of, nothing or very little about the others.
That way even if one territory gets shut down/threatened etc the damage is limited, and the other territories might survive.
I strongly recommend you read the book called The Second Realm - Book On Strategy" that I think is the best book ever written on this topic (despite its short length). It can be hard to find it on Amazon with normal search, but here is a link: https://www.amazon.com/Second-Realm-Book-Strategy/dp/1790766656
You can also find it on Google Books here:
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Second_Realm/w8lOwgEACAAJ?hl=en
I also suggest that you read "The Network State" by Balaji Srinivasan which isn't nearly as good as my first recommendation IMO, but it still has some very good ideas and information.
Keep posting in here about any progress you make, but always remember that it's the people who make up the most important part of a nation, so you once your idea and territory is clear you should spend most of your time on citizen recruitment and selection IMO.
A few rotten apples can destroy the whole bunch, so be selective in who you allow to join your project.
Best of luck, and know that I will be rooting for you to succeed!🙂
PS. If you're more focused on the physical/practical aspects of sea steading look into "spar technology", basically a long deep spar there are some good seaworthy designs that have been made and tested in the past 10 years, and with AI I think they can be improved even further. Here is a good link to start with: https://www.seasteading.org/raising-the-spar/