[ISL] "'Seasteaders' gather in San Francisco to develop ocean cities"

[rfmcdonald]

Seasteading is a concept developed by libertarians who detest the monopolization of the Earth's habitable land space by states, so preventing the formation of libertarian stateless societies. Going to the ocean, the theory holds, and building artificial islands free of any terrestrial sovereignty is the solution necessary for libertarianism's realization. Matt O'Brien's Mercury News article provides his readers with a look at a recent conference held by the movement in San Francisco.

Colonizing the oceans to free human progress from the choking grasp of regulation has drawn a wealthy group of futurists, engineers, maritime lawyers and libertarians to San Francisco this weekend.

"We've run out of frontier. All land is claimed. And our revolutions have become superficial," said Patri Friedman, who cofounded The Seasteading Institute four years ago with billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel.

They envision a floating city movement whose most immediate step is to launch a "visa-free" ship by 2014 to house and employ high-tech workers in international waters 12 miles off the Peninsula.

Next might be a medical tourism ship in a refurbished, $8 million casino ship recently donated to the institute, said Friedman, a Berkeley resident and grandson of the late libertarian economist Milton Friedman.

But those are just pioneer projects for "seasteaders" who want to populate the high seas with autonomous city-states that compete for the world's residents by creating the best governments.

"We could let a thousand experiments like Hong Kong bloom," Friedman said. "Politics can be like shopping for a country."