Do you yearn to live in your own supervillain lair? And are you tired of waiting for somebody to build a practical seaborne arcology? Then seasteading might be for you! Sure, it’s not exactly supervillainy. But this writeup in Wired does makes it sound like a step in the right direction. And best of all? People have begun to invest in this idea.
Why become a seasteader? Patri Friedman — an engineer from Google, grandson of a Nobel Laureate, and Executive Director of the brand-new Seasteading Institute — says:
Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry. […] You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That’s a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it’s got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship.
Wow. When you have dot-com billionaires throwing money behind statements like, “Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry,” can death rays and hollowed-out volcanoes be far behind? Seriously.
Of course, the Institute’s extensive literature on the subject of seasteading doesn’t mention death rays and world domination. (Yet.) It does, however, mention pirates, and the possibility of rogue seasteads turning mercenary.
Huh.
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Maybe next year’s Rio Hondo should be in the South Pacific, seasteading.
I’d vote for that. Rather than hiking to waterfalls, we can take afternoon side trips on inflatable Zodiacs to local atolls.
And battle robot sharks instead of Gorhana!