Seasteading
Seasteading , a suitcase word from English. sea and homesteading , is the concept of creating permanent habitats and habitats at sea, called seasteads , outside of the areas claimed by the governments of any nation.
Origin of the term
At least two people independently coined the term: Ken Neumeyer in his book “Sailing the Farm” (1981) and Wayne Gramlich in his article “Seasteading - Homesteading on the High Seas” (1998). Occasionally the synonymous term "Seahme" appears in German, which was created based on Landnahme .
Legal
Outside the exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles (370 km), which the countries can claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea , the high seas are not subject to any laws other than those of the state under whose flag a ship sails. Examples of organizations that make use of this possibility are Women on Waves , which enables women to have an abortion, in whose countries abortions are subject to stricter rules than in the Netherlands , and Radio Veronica , a pirate station in the North Sea , which started in the 1960s was aimed at the Netherlands. Like these organizations, a sea-head could take advantage of the loose laws and regulations that exist outside the sovereignty of nations and are largely self-governing.
The Seasteading Institute
The Seasteading Institute was founded in Sunnyvale, California on April 15, 2008 by Wayne Gramlich and Patri Friedman with the aim of facilitating the establishment of autonomous, mobile communities on floating platforms in international waters . Gramlich's article "SeaSteading - Homesteading on the High Seas" from 1998 explained affordable settlement and attracted Friedman's attention with his proposal for a small project. The two began working together and published their first joint plan on the Internet in 2001. It covers every imaginable aspect of sea reading, from waste disposal to flagging out .
The authors Julian Dörr and Olaf Kowalski see this phenomenon of the artificial islands as a very explicit vision of "Californian liberalism", a special form of libertarian ideology in Silicon Valley , which ostensibly aims to find solutions to poverty, hunger and waste through less regulation and Looking for politics: "Because thinkers and companies like Google, Apple or Facebook based in this valley in the San Francisco Bay Area combine a philanthropic approach to improving the world and a specific concept of order in society with a belief in the emancipatory power of technology."
The project became known to the general public in 2008 after PayPal founder Peter Thiel became aware of it, invested US $ 500,000 in the project and campaigned for its realization, most recently in his essay The Education of a Libertarian , published by Cato Unbound.
“(...) Unlike the world of politics, in the world of technology the choices of individuals may still be paramount. The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism. For this reason, all of us must wish Patri Friedman the very best in his extraordinary experiment. "
“(…) Unlike in the world of politics, in the world of technology, the decisions of the individual can still be of primary importance. The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person to build or disseminate the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism . For this reason we must all wish Patri Friedman the best on his extraordinary experiment. "
The Seasteading Institute has therefore received widespread media attention from sources such as CNN and Wired Magazine .
"If sea-heading becomes a viable alternative, all you have to do to switch from one government to another is sail to the other and not even leave your house."
Since 2011, the Seasteading Institute has had an ambassador program with which local, certified ambassadors are supposed to spread the idea worldwide. The Seasteading Institute held its first annual conference on October 10, 2008 in Burlingame, California . 45 people from 9 countries took part. A second sea-reading conference was held in San Francisco from September 28th to 30th, 2009. Another conference was held from May 31 to June 2, 2012 in San Francisco, which mainly focused on the economic possibilities of sea-reading.
Designs
Most of the proposed seasteads are modified cruise ships . Other proposed structures include refitted oil rigs , decommissioned anti-aircraft platforms, moveable floating islands, and bespoke man - made islands . The Seasteading Institute is working on a new approach that involves communities floating above the sea on spar buoys , similar to oil rigs . The project would first start small, with proven technology as much as possible, and then try to find viable and sustainable ways to run a seastead. Innovations that make it possible to live at sea all the time would have to be developed. The development of the cruise ship industry suggests that this is possible.
One proposed design for a bespoke seastead is a floating dumbbell in which the living area is high above sea level, which minimizes the influence of the waves. For the past few years, the research has been documented in an online book on life in the oceans.
The Seasteading Institute focuses on three areas:
- First: building a community,
- Second: research,
- Third: support for the construction of the first seasteads.
The Seasteading Institute itself does not plan to build its own Seastead, as it sees itself as a non-profit organization that is unsuitable for building and operating Seasteads for business. This task should fall to entrepreneurs and companies.
In January 2009 the Seasteading Institute patented a design for a Seastead, called ClubStead. This would be the size of a residential area and offer living space for 200 people. The design was produced by the consulting firm Marine Innovation & Technologie. ClubStead is the first major evolution of sea-reading movement in design, from extensive analysis to simulation.
Ephemerisle
Ephemerisle is an arts and culture festival on the water. It has been held in Mandeville Tip County Park in the San Joaquin River Delta since October 2009. The first event attracted around 150 visitors. One of the co-organizers was one of the founders of the Burning Man Festival. The aim of the Ephemerisle Festival is to create a community of individuals temporarily living on the water, who meet year after year for increasingly longer periods of time and form a condensation core for a sea-reading culture and community.
In 2010 there was no official Epehemerisle Festival because the previous year's organizer did not want to operate again without insurance, but shied away from the very high insurance premiums. Therefore, the participants who had traveled to the festival ran the festival themselves under the name Non-Ephemerisle. From 2011, the event, which continued to run independently, was allowed to carry its original name again.
Sink or Swim Business Plan Contest
The Sink or Swim Contest was a 2011 competition for the best sea-reading-based business concept.
- 1st prize: Delishus Fishes. A concept for deep sea fish farms.
- 2nd prize: Boundless Talent Consulting Services - A concept for a visa-free office and residential eastead for non-American professionals who are looking for contact with the American market.
The Poseidon Award
The Poseidon Award is a prize for establishing the first independent seastead and the seeds for the world's first ocean city. It is a milestone for the sea-reading movement.
Part of the Poseidon Award is the presentation of the Poseidon Monument, a statue, as a tribute to the first sea-reading pioneers. This will have the names of the Seasteading Argonauts carved into it, large donors who have helped make Seasteading a reality with their donation.
The Poseidon Award is given to the first seastead that:
- has at least 50 permanent residents,
- is financially independent,
- offers real estate on the free market,
- de facto enjoys political independence.
The aim was to present the Poseidon Award by 2015.
Projects
The most advanced project so far is the Blueseed Venture. The founders originally wanted to operate a converted ship as a Seastead off the coast of California in the course of 2012, which is designed as a residential, office and business center for non-American entrepreneurs and professionals who still have the visa approval of the American Authorities wait and have to stay outside American waters for as long. However, the project is still waiting for full funding. The Blueseed managers had envisaged autumn to winter 2014 as the start date.
Current situation
No one has so far succeeded in establishing a state on the high seas that has been recognized as a sovereign nation. The Principality of Sealand , a controversial micronation on a discarded anti-aircraft platform off the Thames estuary near Suffolk , England, comes closest to this goal . A comparable project was the micronation New Atlantis on one half of a 30 m² raft around 15 kilometers off Jamaica . Founded on July 4th 1964 by Leicester Hemingway , it suffered the same fate as its mythical model two years later; it sank in a storm.
Seasteading in Fiction
- Jules Verne describes in his novel Die Propellerinsel an artificial floating island Standard Island and the city of Milliard City on it . It is oval-shaped, 5 × 7 kilometers in size and divided into a northern and a southern district.
- Also divided, but in an American and a Soviet District, the International Republic of Artists and Scientists (IRAS) in the novel The Republic of Letters of Arno Schmidt . It is an artificial floating island in the horse-breadth of the Pacific . Scientific and artistic achievements should be safe from future world wars on it. The design of the IRAS was taken from Jule Verne's propeller island, which is also explicitly mentioned in the novel.
- Sealand is the theme of the novels Polyplay by Marcus Hammerschmitt and The Aurora Effect by Rainer Wolf .
- The television series SeaQuest DSV and SeaQuest 2032 are set in a future where sea-reading will be common.
- The computer games BioShock and BioShock 2 are played in an underwater sea head, which also appears briefly in the third part of BioShock Infinite .
literature
- Tomasz M. Froelich: Farewell to the mainland! In: Henning Lindhoff (ed.): Freiheitskeime 2013. A libertarian reading book. Norderstedt 2012, ISBN 978-3-8482-5247-3 , pp. 45-56.
Web links
- Entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy .
- Website on the subject
- Press reviews:
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Julian Dörr / Olaf Kowalski: From the valley to the island? From Californian Liberalism to Social Utopia Seasteading. in: "Insel" - Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (APuZ), issue 32–33 / 2018, pp. 16–21, here p. 16., accessed on October 25, 2018 .
- ^ Seasteading Institute About Us. ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved October 1, 2011.
- ↑ Seasteading Book ( Memento of the original from October 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Peter Thiel: The Education of a Libertarian. Response essays. April 13, 2009. From Cato-Unbound.org, accessed on January 22, 2019. Own translation into German.
- ↑ Friedman there in the video , 26 min
- ↑ Ambassador program
- ↑ Seasteading Conference 2009 ( Memento of the original from August 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Newsletter, October 2011. October 2, 2011. From SeaSteading.org, accessed January 22, 2019.
- ↑ Ephemeris
- ^ History of Ephemerisle. Internet presence of the event (English), accessed on April 6, 2016 .
- ↑ Sink or Swim Business Plan Contest ( Memento of the original from October 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Delishus Fishes
- ↑ Our Strategy ( Memento of the original from October 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Blueseed - Home ( Memento of the original from October 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Seception
