Most likely because
seasteading—creating new and politically independent communities on
artificial islands in the ocean—has been proven to be a practical
engineering challenge, the once-wacky idea is back in the news.
Bloomberg published a half gee-whiz, half
oh-shit-this-might-happen piece that quoted critics of the idea
while conceding the technical barriers are falling away. And
seasteading is now being assailed with arguments that would just as
handily condemn any sort of emigration by dissidents seeking a
better life elsewhere.
For Bloomberg,
Edward Robinson wrote about the efforts of the Seasteading
Institute to develop floating micro-nations:
Forget funky houseboat communes: DeltaSync’s 85-page
blueprint lays out a watery metropolis worthy of a Roger Moore-era
Bond film. (“Live and Let Dive”?) Residential districts, hotels,
aquaponic farms for vegetables and fish, and algae-based biofuel
refineries would all float on 2,500-square-meter
(27,000-square-foot) caissons — hollow platforms made of concrete,
plastic and steel. Arranged in circular clusters, these
square-and-pentagon-shaped bases could be disassembled and towed to
other seasteads, or to safety in the event of a storm. Indeed, the
technology already exists. In 2011, DeltaSync designed a movable
dome-shaped conference pavilion that currently floats in
Rotterdam’s harbor.“Floating architecture is rapidly becoming a realistic option
and not just a crazy futuristic idea,” says Rutger de Graaf,
DeltaSync’s director and managing partner.
Robinson quotes a geography professor calling the idea “crazy”
without saying just where it goes off the rails. Maybe that’s
because, as mentioned in the article, Dutch engineering firm
DeltaSync
says it really can be done.
Criticism of seasteading now takes on an oddly strident tone,
and from unusual sources.
A week after
reporting on DeltaSync’s Seasteading Implementation
Plan, Global Construction Review, an online publication of
Britain’s Chartered Institute of Building,
ran an attack on the idea as an abandonment of social
responsibility. The publication’s editor, Rod Sweet, took time away
from the business of covering engineering and construction to “to
lay bare the motivation behind the movement—the libertarian urge
for the freedom to profit without having to contribute to the
social conditions that make profit possible.”
Escapism and laziness are in there as well. “Why not reform
existing political systems?” the institute asks itself on its FAQ
page. The answer is revealing: “It is extremely difficult and
costly to significantly impact political outcomes,” they write.Well, yes it is, but the real answers to the world’s problems
are far duller and more difficult than the backers of seasteading
are likely to have the stomach for: negotiated settlements,
enlightened governance, strong civil society and political
will.Politics is messy, boring and a blunt instrument, but it’s all
we’ve got, and if we want a better world, business elites should
have to muck in with their time, effort—and, yes, taxes—like the
rest of us.
Got it. So leaving a place behind because you find the political
system frustrating, the conditions unpleasant, and the local
officials avaricious, is unacceptable. You’re expected to stay,
make the best of it, and “contribute to the social conditions,” no
matter what you think of them. Well, so much for emigrating. Hell,
so much for loading a van and moving house from California to
Texas, or the other way around, if that’s what suits you.
This isn’t new. Much the same sentiment must have dogged the
Pilgrims, who had to sneak
out of England to settle first in Holland, and then America.
They didn’t want to stick around hoping for “negotiated
settlements”—they figured they’d have better luck elsewhere.
India’s last health minister, Ghulam Nabi Azad,
pushed to force physicians to post a bond before permitting
them to leave the country; it would be forfeited if they failed to
return. Indian Doctors, it seems, have been settling in the United
States and elsewhere in search of better opportunity and greater
chances for prosperity.
And the United States itself now punishes people who leave the
country in an effort to
escape what they find to be overly burdensome taxation. Many
politicians want to do worse;
while unsuccessfully pushing punitive legislation, Sen. Jack Reed
(D-R.I.)
warned, “it seems that a privileged few are trying to game the
system by accumulating wealth and benefiting from the greatness of
the United States and then renouncing their citizenship to avoid
paying their fair share of taxes.”
The entire world has been settled by people looking for a better
situation—and very often the situation they sought to improve upon
was created by whoever was in charge of the old place. No doubt,
those left behind have frequently resented those who left.
Given the
history of human settlement, even Rod Sweet’s ancestors
certainly indulged in “escapism” from another place they found less
attractive.
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