Seasteading & Crashing the Government Monopoly

Asking the majority of people the question of what is the world's biggest industry leads to pretty generic answers. Most will guess energy, the Internet or healthcare as the number-one industry. Yet the number-one industry is government. An industry that has control over all other industries, it can force customers to pay and also has the least competition in the world. This industry's lead player -- the Microsoft of governments, if you will -- is the United States. They bring in a massive 2.5 trillion dollars every year. Yet they've also managed to lose about 1 trillion dollars every year. The lesser players in this industry manage to kill their own customers. This leads to a new idea, which is to challenge this industry known as seasteading.

Seasteading is the idea of building free cities on the ocean not part of the control of any other government. Every piece of land has been claimed, but international waters have not. Simply go out 200 miles with a floating city, cruise ship boat or even plank of wood and you're free from law by government. And what emerges is something passed politics. Innovations technologically and socially can develop and the world can be changed. What emerges could be the world's first trillion-dollar company.

The cost of building seasteads are small and the ability to unlock human potential is worth billions. Reasoning for this claim would be what the U.S. has done. They have never been called the perfect nation, but have always been viewed on as the shining city on a hill. That shining city can be seen in people coming from horrible countries and becoming billionaires in under 10 years. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Paypal and many more were all companies that had founders from other countries and grew in the U.S. This is clear evidence of what kind of growth can occur when people are given the best government for them.

With trillions of dollars created by the US a demand for better government is still needed. Polls have indicated that the congress that runs the US has an 86% dissaproval rating. Than things such as healthcare, finance and education that government has arguably damaged or has not done the best to improve them. Also even if the US government was perfect, that's still only 300 million people in a world approaching 7 billion. So if 300 million people are free to reach their maximum potential, that's still only 5% of the world. So 95% of the world getting a less satisfying product from government could be denying the world cures for cancer, a city on mars or free energy.

Seasteading has an obvious need with hundreds of millions of people trapped in third world nations. The US also has a very closed immigration policy. So it's tough for people to be innovators if they're in a country that's it hard to produce in. So even though one third of engineers in California have come from foreign countries and many large fortune 500 companies in the US had foreign founders, they still make it extremely difficult. So a market emerges for trying to attract the innovators and entrepreneurs and seasteading is the perfect platform for this.

Blueseed, founded by Max Marty seeks to meet this demand by opening a tech incubator 12 miles out of San Francisco for those who can't get visa's. Trying to raise 10 million dollars and with seed funding already covered. Blueseed can house over 1,000 people and have had hundreds of companies apply to come on deck. One downside of Blueseed is it only being 12 miles out of the US and has the limit of having to follow US law. Yet even with that, the chance for people from oppressed nations or just not very developed nations to be in the heart of technology is limitless. Also Blueseed is considering asking for a small percentage of equity in companies coming on ship along with rent. So it's very possible that the next Facebook or Google can be born on the sea and that one company can make Blueseed worth billions. One 10 million dollar investment having such high returns will lead to the age of the ocean and the rise of seasteading.

With one successful seastead other industries in this field will emerge. One field the government has played a key role in has been healthcare. In the tech industry there has been extreme growth and almost no regulation. Simply code and put it online for consumers to tell what's good or bad and sales reflex it. The healthcare industry doesn't have this luxury with intense amounts of regulation. From being denied drugs, having to wait 10 years to get access to a new drug or having licenses to become a doctor be very hard, they all lead to higher cost and less innovation. Medicine is in pain now and people with cancer, aids and more are in more pain. The opportunity to challenge medicine and allow people to take higher risk procedures for certain benefits could be huge. Best part is the impact will not even be limited to those going to the seasteads. If someone is taking a boat and having their cancer cured others will follow them. People will eventually want reforms in their nations medical regulation structure to allow those drugs. The outcome is the true benefit of seasteading. Changing governments for the other 7 billion people even if only a few thousand ever step foot on a floating platform.

Another idea is bringing economic incentive to forming seasteads. This has sparked the idea of algae farming and using robots to handle it. BEAR Oceanics a company is building a generation of robots to life where they can grow and farm algae to produce energy easily and cheaply. Realizing the potential of this the Seasteading Institute has begun to take notice. In May of 2012 they brought an engineering student at Tufts University, Baoguang Zhai, to the team in order for him to research this idea. They hope now to make this another industry seasteading can move into within the next few years.

For the Seasteading Institute, founded by Patri Friedman in 2008, they have witnessed tremendous growth over the last four years. Being mentioned in nearly every major media over the last four years. Although opinions have been mixed, they've never been told the idea wasn't interesting. Interesting enough that they now lead an army of volunteers and have many donors including Paypal founder Peter Thiel. In the libertarian movement it's a hot topic called one of the coolest ideas ever. Having people pack up the room in former Seasteading Institute president Michael Keenan's speech on seasteading, at the 2012 student's for liberty convention in Washington DC.

Questions exist about the political leanings of the seasteading movement. One unique quality about it is that it's a movement without a philosophy. Although most followers of seasteading are libertarians no one opposes the idea of a seastead that is socialist. As long as it's voluntary it's fine. The attitude is if it's profitable, than it's doing a good job. Also most libertarians would believe that a socialist seastead would go under. So worst case scenario is that socialist seasteading company goes under and a libertarian or conservative could buy it out. This all would summarize seasteading as a debate free movement where the only thing needed is pleasing people enough live and prosper there.

Some question the possibility of seasteads going bad. Why couldn't they join the monopoly and not innovate? The reason is that unlike an ordinary country, they can sink in things aside from debt. So they offer people a low quality product and a new seastead can open replacing it. The previous one sinks and another can fill that space. The spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation is created which doesn't exist in government. The idea you can fail and have new competition emerge is huge and will lead to growth over failures. Every year phones get smaller and smarter, but it seems governments only witness approval ratings get smaller and debt go up. For that reason seasteading can be a success.

The opportunity to crash the monopoly of government is huge. The Seasteading Institute, Blueseed and others have no intention to end government, force views on others or challenge other governments. They seek to simply end poverty, create technological innovation and end oppression. Starting with boats such as Blueseed and moving to giant platforms for hundreds of thousands that can potentially benefit billions.