RE: FW: Sci Fi Cities.
Peter Thiel's response to urban development. Neat to think about, cool pictures anyway.
$1.25 million investment into this (sketchy) organization on his part is probably too small to even build one of these but at least he's trying!
What I think would be cool would be to try this in Africa. Even cancer cells stop multiplying when you confine their space.
Mission: To further the establishment and growth of permanent, autonomous ocean communities, enabling innovation with new political and social systems.
Floating cities: PayPal billionaire plans to build a whole new libertarian colony off the coast of San Francisco
• Ocean state would have no welfare, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons
• Platforms would house 270 people and hundreds could eventually join together
PayPal-founder Peter Thiel was so inspired by Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand's novel about free-market capitalism - that he's trying to make its title a reality.
The Silicon Valley billionaire has funneled $1.25million to the Seasteading Institute, an organisation that aspires to launch a floating colony into international waters, freeing them and like-minded thinkers to live by libertarian ideals.
Mr Thiel recently told Details magazine: 'The United States Constitution had things you could do at the beginning that you couldn't do later. So the question is, can you go back to the beginning of things? How do you start over?'
Life on the ocean wave: A design for one of the floating cities which Peter Thiel wants to start constructing next year off the coast of San Francisco
Mr Thiel, the venture capitalist who famously helped Facebook expand beyond the Harvard campus, called Seasteading an 'open frontier for experimenting with new ideas for government'.
After making his first investment in the project in 2008, Mr Thiel said: 'Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public sector models around the world.
'We're at a fascinating juncture: the nature of government is about to change at a very fundamental level.'
Light city: Peter Thiel called the project, Seasteading, an 'open frontier for experimenting with new ideas for government'
Mr Thiel said: 'the nature of government is about to change at a very fundamental level'
Desalination would be easier and smaller
Energy requirements would be about the same but necessarily renewable
Sanitation would totally change!
Health would matter since living in such tight quarters means communicable disease becomes real again (for everyone!)
I think it would be cool to offer this up to Somalia or somewhere desperate and see what happens
Rich people don't innovate as quickly!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva
Perhaps it would be better that Peter gives more to HIV!
We are still waiting for his reply re October dinner in NYC
Boris
Are there=enough stamp collectors in the world?
From: Jeffrey Epstein [mailto:jeevacation@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2011 8:11 AM
To:
Subject: Re: FW: Sci Fi Cities.
yes, stamp collectors will pay a fortune apiece to insure that they have each and every country.
On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 1:18 AM, wrote:
it turns out first great revenue is selling stamps, to collectors that require ALL nations.
On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 6:28 AM, wrote:
Just because Lowell mentioned you!
These things are super cool.
PS. Indeed, these dirt-poor people have innovated remarkably swiftly —and in a highly-effective manner! Why, they've even attracted significant quantities of international venture capital (of a non-too-savory flavor, to be sure!) to enable their building-out!
:):(]
If you deep-sea were really-&-truly drilling platforms, entrepreneurial, and deploy them you'll pull-together a line transecting a consortium a major marine-shipping that'd go out and lane lease in a the dozen deep ocean at a 24-mile pitch, i.e., just a shade less than twice the internationally-recognized "exclusive control of offshore seas" margins of sovereign nations.
After declaring themselves to constitute the Sovereign Archipelago of Francis Drake (or perhaps 'Jeffrey Epstein')
These tolls would naturally be priced at just a shade less than the total costs (fuel, time,...) of navigating around the Archipelago's territory. Correspondingly, I'd recommend emplacement of the initial Archipelago across either the east-or-west entryway of the Straits of Malacca... titanic 'regrets' are involved in avoiding the Straits in making the transit between the Persian Gulf and East Asia!
Of course, the income derived from licensing fishing, etc. in the "exclusive economic zones" of 200 mile radius around each such island would be additional...but these could be employed to offset the substantial lawyers' bills, "Washington representation" fees, etc., etc. that would be involved in operating such an "instant sovereign!" :) ***** ** ** ***** **** ******* ** *********** **** ** *** ************* *** *** ****** ************* **** ******* *** *********************** *** **** ** *** ************************************** ******************
Not sure this is about autonomy?
I'm certain this would be better than life in Mogadishu. And probably cheaper...