Seasteading Funded
Paul Rosendberg wrote, “THE GOOD NEWS!
Finally, a rich guy doing something bold with his money!
Peter Thiel (and I don’t think I’ve ever met the gentleman) has put up $500K to get a Seasteading Institute started. Good for you, Peter!
And… They will be building their first seastead in San Francisco Bay!
HISTORY
Sean (who is being uncharacteristically humble at the moment) was one of the early originators and proponents of this project. Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich are now running the Institute, and there are many others who have provided both engineering and moral support over the past several years.
My deep thanks to you all!
NOW…
Now, let’s see where this goes! Seasteading could be a huge benefit to the world, and especially to those of us who do not appreciate enforced mediocrity.
So, if you are able to contribute in any way to this project, please do so!”
For the record, I am so humble that I often brag about it. ;-)
But my involvement in Seasteading truly has not been all that great, other than talking about it a lot with the guys who will (I hope) actually make it happen – and laying out the general case for doing it in GWYD that Wayne, Patri, Andrew and I developed in many conversations and emails over the course of 5 years from 2002 to 2007, in which the ideas went from islands built by floating on multiple 2 liter soda bottles to getting funding from someone in Vegas to build a floating offshore hotel/casino/brothel.
During that time, Patri and I have kept trying to push each other into being the one who actually would put the work in to get it started – there have been various job issues, houses bought, and issues about having kids on both of our parts that have kept each of us from pursuing the “actually doing something” part of the concept. I am quite relieved that I finally defeated him in this contest of laziness. :-)
Perhaps it was this part of GWYD that did the trick:
The Founding Fathers and Mothers of Seasteading might be known farther into the future than the Founding Fathers of any nation, as the political systems they create for pioneering the “Next Frontier” will be far more likely to fit the needs of the pioneering spacesteaders on that “Final Frontier” – certainly more so than the rules of any dirt-bound nation.
Some possible candidates for inclusion in the group of “Founding Fathers” of Seasteading are Wayne C. Gramlich, Patri Friedman, and Andrew House, (See their intellectual work in this area at www.seastead.org) but it remains to be seen what pioneering spirits will actually be the first to make the move to the high seas, and to set up the first systems for self government there. Anyone who wanted to throw a large chunk of money at this idea might well be buying immortality. (The kind where your reputation lives forever – we will talk about the much cooler kind of immortality, where you actually get to live forever, later in the book.)
Interestingly, Patri Friedman is David Friedman’s son, and Milton Friedman’s grandson. If a line of great libertarian thinkers can be, unhypocritically, called a “dynasty,” they have one going.
While having been involved in the evolution of the idea is cool, the getting it done part is what counts. I am very excited about this latest development. I look forward to seeing Patri and Wayne make this work, and will offer them any help I can give.