The Seasteading Institute - June 2009 newsletter
James Hogan
Welcome to the Seasteading Institute's June Newsletter!
June Highlights:
Ephemerisle webpage is up!
The website for Ephemerisle has been launched! Our upcoming aquatic festival now has its very own domain. Take a look and be sure to join the mailing listand follow us on Twitter.
TSI Grants Program
We have announced a new $20,000 grants program to support our community in their efforts to design and build structures to help advance the goals of seasteading. Note that the Ephemerisle-related grant proposals are due by July 15th, so apply now!
TSI is hiring: Director of Engineering
We have an ongoing search for a Director of Engineering at TSI. This person will provide vision and management for all of TSI's technology initiatives, such as seastead designs and prototypes, and have some involvement with hands-on execution. This is a paid, full-time position on TSI's Executive Staff, reporting to the Executive Director.
Awareness and Community
Membership Program
Since our Membership Program was launched on April 15th (our anniversary), 45 pioneers have signed up! Please consider joining themto support the long-term future of seasteading.
Website/Social Media
Stats
- 2114 registered users on seasteading.org
- 1063 mailing list members
- 638 members in our Facebook group
- 250 fans on our Facebook Page
- 289 followers on Twitter
- 43 subscribers on LiveJournal
Press/Awareness:
- 20,000 Nations Above the Sea: Is floating the last, best hope for liberty?, an in-depth article about TSI from Reason magazine.
- NYT Ideas Blog -- "The D.I.Y. Mini-Nation"
- We are airing a Seasteading Radio Ad on Free Talk Live. Give it a listen, it's great fun.
- Brad Taylor about AlterNet piece: http://bradtaylor.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/wheres-the-love-or-the-indifference/
Blogs:
Those of you interested in the political theory of competitive government and seasteading, remember that we've moved these discussions to the new blog Let A Thousand Nations Bloom RSS. If you're interested in this topic, please help us spread the word about the new blog. We also created a new Twitter feed for Let A Thousand Nations Bloom - you can follow us at @thousandnations. Last week, in our own unique celebration of Independence Day, A Thousand Nations hosted a Secession Week series, with daily posts from us and others on a variety of secession and independence-related topics.
Also, the TSI blog has split into two blogs: A main TSI blog, and an engineering TSI blog covering technical topics.
Some June posts to check out:
Main Blog
- A rude Anger, a response to the AlterNet anti-seasteading piece.
- Thinking Like A Dandelion - Shifting government from the mass-production to mass-customization paradigm.
- When Governments Compete For Doctors - Texas shows an example of competitive governments in action.
- Broadly Representative, Narrowly Captured - Explaining how voters get the policies they want, but with details that benefit special interests.
- Monday – Secession Goes Mainstream, Intro To Secession
- Tuesday – American Secession & Independence Movements
- Wednesday – Secession vs. Revolution
- Thursday – Federalism (Secession Lite!)
- Friday – Non-Territorial Government: Secede Without Leaving
- Saturday – Declaration of Independence & American Revolution
Events:
- TSI successfully exhibited at Maker Faire in June, with a build-your-own-seastead kiddie pool setup that was popular with the kiddies. We won an editor's choice award, and you can see our booth quite well in this time-lapse video.
- TSI will be exhibiting at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas in July. Patri will not be giving a talk, but we'll have a booth and more of our awesome new brochures that went so quickly at Maker Faire. This will be a huge, fabulous event (although expensive), so check it out!
- Michael Solana and Jennifer McGillan are organizing a New York City seasteading meetup group! They have a Facebook Groupyou can join. The first meeting will be Friday August 7, 7PM, at Gossip Bar (733 Ninth Avenue in Hell's Kitchen). Patri will be in attendance.
- Our San Francisco Bay Area June Social was a backyard barbecue, graciously hosted by TSI supporter Na'ama Moran. Keep an eye on the MeetUp group for details on the July SFBA social.
Conferences:
Second Annual Seasteading Conference - Planning continues. Mark your calendars for Sep. 28-30 (Monday evening, full day Tuesday, Wednesday through dinner, location TBD).
- David Friedman has been confirmed as a speaker, he will talk about Legal Systems Very Different From Ours (asreviewed here)
- Peter Thiel is also confirmed.
- Russ George, Founder of Planktos
First Ephemerisle Festival - Planning continues, we are building a website and researching the location. Mark your calendars for Fri Oct. 2 - Sun Oct 4 (in the Sacremento River Delta).
Communities:
There has been active discussion on the seasteading forums about the idea of starting a community of seasteaders someplace, where they can live together, develop seasteading technologies, businesses, and actual seasteads. Key links:
- General background on the idea of seasteading communities: DanB'sBaseStead Strategy, Patri's Seasteading Outposts
- Seastead Outpost: Belize - the leading location, discussion here.
- General discussion of best location, Cayman Islands, Panama
Book:
New intern Will Chamberlain is working with Patri on a new version of the book for publication. It will be written for a much broader audience, with less technical detail than the current edition. We are soliciting feedback, go here to vote on key sections for the new book.
Business & Engineering
As mentioned in last month's newsletter, we've recently re-organized our strategy around the initiatives below based on the results of last month's strategy survey. Expect to see more news about these on the website in July.
Ship-Based Venture
James & Patri had an opportunity to visit ResidenSea's The World, the world's only operating residential cruise ship. Since we're considering starting a residential cruise ship venture, it was great to see one first-hand. Patri wrote ablog post about the trip.
We've also come across another similar venture that is starting up -- a retirement-oriented cruise ship. It's promising to see other people pursuing the model of a residential ship, as it bodes well for the feasibility of the idea. Patri wrote a blog post discussing this in more detail.
If you are interested in keeping up to date on the residential ship project, pleasesubscribe to the mailing list for occasional announcements, which will be more detailed than what we include in this TSI newsletter.
Single-Family Seastead Construction
As a result of last month's strategy survey, we have announced a new $20,000 grant program to support our community in their efforts to design and build structures to help advance the goals of seasteading. We offer shorter-term grants for structures to be displayed at Ephemerisle (due by July 15!), and longer-term grants for structures which can be developed anywhere in the world (can be submitted any time, evaluated quarterly).
Wave Mitigation
We've generalized our "breakwater research" initiative to focus on the broader question of how to deal with waves. We are approaching this from two angles:
- Location-based: Finding areas in the ocean where waves are naturally less of an issue due to low wind, natural breakwaters, or other factors.
- Structure-based: Dealing with waves through artificial breakwaters, platform designs that are relatively stable in rough waters, etc.
We need more in-house technical expertise to make any substantial progress in these areas, so obtaining that expertise is our next priority.
Administrative
TSI is growing - in June we hired Greg Gioia as an Event Manager, Basia Montauk started as a Development Intern, and Will Chamberlain as an Editorial Intern. Will is helping Patri write and edit the upcoming seasteading book. Detailed descriptions for other open positions, and information on how to apply, are available on our website.