RE: FW: Sci Fi Cities.
Peter=Thiel's response to urban development. Neat to think about, cool pic=ures anyway.
$1.25 million investment int= this (sketchy) organization on his part is probably too small to even bui=d 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.1
Mission: To furt=er the establishment and growth of permanent, autonomous ocean communities= enabling innovation with new political and social systems.
Floating cities: PayPal billionaire =tans to build a whole new libertarian colony off the coast of San Francisc=
• Ocean state would have no w=lfare, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons </=:p>
• Platforms would house 270 people and hundreds could eventuall= join together
PayPal-founder Peter Thiel was so inspired by Atlas Shru=ged - Ayn Rand's novel about free-market capitalism - that he's trying to =ake its title a reality.
The Silicon Valley billionaire has funnelled $1.25millio= to the Seasteading Institute, an organisation that aspires to launch a fl=ating colony into international waters, freeing them and like-minded think=rs to live by libertarian ideals.
Mr Thiel recently told Details magazine: 'The U=ited 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 Fra=cisco
Gr=en land: An aerial view of the city, complete with landcaped gardens. Mr T=iel believes many of the islands could eventually be joined together
Design for living: This island even has a high-level helicopter pa=. 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 an=hored in areas free of regulation, laws, and moral conventions.
The Seasteading Ins=itute says it will 'give people the freedom to choose the government they =ant instead of being stuck with the government they get'.
Mr Theil, the venture cap=talist who famously helped Facebook expand beyond the Harvard campus, call=d Seasteading an 'open frontier for experimenting with new ideas for gover=ment'.
A=ter making his first investment in the project in 2008, Mr Thiel said: 'De=ades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will underst=nd that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the developmen= of more efficient, practical public sector models around the world.
'We're a= a fascinating juncture: the nature of government is about to change at a =ery fundamental level.'
'Big ideas start as weird ideas,' Mr Friedman said.
He predicted t=at full-time settlement will follow in about seven years.
But while some Ayn Rand a=olytes may think the idea is brilliant, it's not without its critics.
Margaret Cra=ford, an expert on urban planning and a professor of architecture at Berke=ey, told Details: 'it's a silly idea without any urban-planning implicatio=s whatsoever.'
Mr Thiel told an audience at the Seasteading Institute C=nference in 2009 that: 'There are quite a lot of people who think it's not=possible.
Some Libertarians tried to create these new community (=ith 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 soverei=n islands, like real-estate millionaire Michael Oliver's attempt at buildi=g a libertarian city-state called the Republic of Minerva in the southern =acific Ocean. Not sure how anyone could get significant autonomy.
http://en.wikipedia=.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva http://en.w=ikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva
We are still waiting for his reply=re October dinner in NYC
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.
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...:):0
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 east-or-west Archipelago's entryway territory. Correspondingly, I'd recommend 'regrets' are involved in avoiding the initial Archipelago 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...
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!
it turns out first great revenue is selling stamps, to collectors that require ALL nations.
STAMPS?