Re: FW: Sci Fi Cities.
This image is not a chart. It is a grayscale rendering of a design for a floating city.
Key Information:
- Concept: Floating cities.
- Proponent: Peter Thiel.
- Proposed Location: Off the coast of San Francisco.
- Timeline: Construction to begin next year.
Life on the ocean wave: A design for one of the floatingcities which Peter Thiel wants to start constructing next year off the coast of San Francisco
But while some Ayn Rand acolytes may think the idea is brilliant, it's not without its critics.
Margaret Crawford, an expert on urban planning and a professor ofarchitecture at Berkeley, told Details: 'it's a silly idea without any urban-planning implications whatsoever.'
Mr Thiel told an audience at the Seasteading Institute Conference in 2009 that: 'There are quite a lot ofpeople who think it's not possible.
'That's a good thing. We don't need to really worry about those people very much, because since they don't think it's possible they won't take us very seriously. And they will not actually try to stop us until it's too late.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024761/Atlas-Shrugged-Silicon-Valley- billionaire-reveals-plan-launch-floating-start-country-coast-San- Francisco.html#ixzz1WMuYqS7n
The image appears to be a completely black rectangle and does not contain any discernible chart, data, or key information.
The image displays a grey rectangular area with two diagonal lines intersecting in the center. A small text label in the bottom right corner reads "Green land: A". This does not appear to be a chart, and the key information is the visual representation of a divided space and the label "Green land: A".
reen land: An
aerial view of the city, complete with landcaped gardens. Mr Thiel believes many of the islands could eventually be joined together
The image is not a chart. It depicts a conceptual design for a city constructed on oil-rig-like terminals, forming islands. Key elements include:
- Concept: Floating cities or islands.
- Construction: Built on oil-rig-like terminals.
- Features: Landscaped gardens, a high-level helicopter pad.
- Developer/Proponent: Mr. Thiel.
- Vision: Potential to join islands together.
Design for living: This island even has a high-level helicopter pad. The cities would be constructed on oil-rig like terminals
The floating sovereign nations that Mr Thiel imagines would be built on oil-rig-like platforms anchored in areas free of regulation, laws, and moral conventions.
The Seasteading Institute says it will 'give people the freedom to choose the government they want instead of being stuck with the government they get'.
Mr Then, 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'
The image is a background pattern with two intersecting diagonal lines. It appears to be a stylized representation rather than a data chart. The text provided describes "Light city," a project called "Seasteading," championed by Peter Thiel as an "open a frontier for experimenting with new ideas for government." This suggests the image might be a conceptual representation related to this project or the idea of changing the nature of government.
Light city: Peter Thiel called the project, Seasteading, an 'open a frontier for experimenting with new ideas for government'
Mr Thiel said: 'the nature of government is about to change at a very fundamental level'
Mr Thiel and his colleagues say their ocean state would have no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons.
Aiming to have tens of millions of residents by 2050, the Seasteading Institute says architectural plans for a prototype involve a movable, diesel-powered structure with room for 270 residents.
The long-term plan would be to have dozens and eventually hundreds of the platforms linked together.
Patri Friedman, a former Google engineer who is working on the project told Details that they hope to launch a flotilla of offices off the San Francisco coast next year.
'Big ideas start as weird ideas,' Mr Friedman said.
He predicted that full-time settlement will follow in about seven years.
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
free-market PayPal-founder capitalism Peter - that Thiel he's was trying so inspired to make by its Atlas title a Shrugged reality. - Ayn Rand's novel about
The Silicon Valley billionaire has funnelled $1.25million to the Seasteading Institute, an organisation that aspires to launch a floatingcolony 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?
Some Libertarians tried to create these new community (with autonomous structure, no taxation and even own currency) — Since islands can, under international law, only be claimed if they are at least 30 cm above the high tide point, some have even attempted to build sovereign islands, like real-estate millionaire Michael Oliver's attempt at building a libertarian city-state called the Republic of Minerva in the southern Pacific Ocean. Not sure how anyone could get significant autonomy.
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
You're a practical guy after my own heart Boris —"Everyone's allowed to dream about what they'll eventually do with their dollars, as long as they contribute their pennies to our Good Causes in the here-&-now!" S
Lowell
PS. It's admittedly interesting to contemplate from a technical perspective how such 'establishments' might gain Lebensraum in a genuinely-feasible manner, i.e., how both area and volume could be accumulated' at a feasible cost per hectare, per cubic meter, etc., so that indefinite expansion of a seedling' might be `self-executing'....
Not sure this is about autonomy?
I'm certain this would be better than life in Mogadishu. And probably cheaper...
Think of all the cool innovations that would follow —
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!!
Actually, as it turns out, the Somalis have pioneered really quite vigorously in recent years in forming highly-active communities-at-sea, ones that support extensive entrepreneurial activities great distances from the nearest shore, moreover over prolonged time-intervals.
They've even made such communities pay -- sometimes remarkably handsomely' -- so that they've naturally' proliferated both quickly and widely!
With another hat on, I've been peripherally involved in detecting the existence-&-location of — and then `interacting' with -- such communities, which as-as-class have had utterly remarkable impacts on marine insurance rates in the western Indian Ocean!
Lowell
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!
In the abstract-&-from a great remove, I do admire aspects of their derring-do! [But then I was able to find a number of features of the Soviet system-of-doing-things to likewise admire-out-loud — to the continuing fury-&-despair of the far-too-many USG security officers assigned to my case... S
PPS. If you were really-&-truly entrepreneurial, you'll pull-together a consortium that'd go out and lease a dozen war-surplus deep-sea drilling platforms, and deploy them in a line transecting a major marine-shipping lane in the 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'?), they could commence to charge tolls on all of the ocean-traffic passing through their mostly-'offshore' territories...which fees would likely accumulate quickly to a tidy sum (e.g., one supporting the oh-so-swiftly build-out of ever-more 'islands' of the Archipelago, their proliferation across other major sea-lanes, etc.).
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!" [And, to be sure, "The essence of sovereignty lies in its enforcement" — but the famous international arms bazaars can instantly outfit-&-staff the navy of any newbie-among-nations that has a reasonable line-of-credit...]
yes , stamp colletcors will pay a fortune apiece to insure that they have each and every country.
On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 5:07 PM,
wrote:
STAMPS?
From: Jeffrey Epstein [mailto:jeevacation@gmail.com] Sent: Monday August 29, 2011 1:18 AM
To:
Subject: Re: FW: Sci Fi Cities.
it turns out first great reveneu is selling stamps, to collectors that require ALL nations.