I worry about a regression to the historical mean (Malthusian conditions, many people starving at the margins) and existential risk. I think extinction or return to Malthusian conditions (including Robin Hanson’s hardscrabble emulation future) are the default result and I’m pessimistic about the potential of groups like MIRI.
What are your practical issues about the Seasteading Institute?
As I see it, the main problem with SI is their over-commitment to small-size seastead designs because of their commitment to the principle of “dynamic geography.” The cost of small-seastead designs (in complexity, coordination problems, additional infrastructure) will be huge.
I don’t think dynamic geography is what makes seasteading valuable as a concept. The ability to create new country projects by itself is the most important aspect. I think large seastead designs (or even land-building) would be more cost-effective and a better overall direction.
My major issue is that even if everything else works, governments are unlikely to tolerate real challenges to their authority.
I’ve always thought the risk from existing governments isn’t that big. I don’t think governments will consider seasteading to be a challenge until/unless governments are losing significant revenues from people defecting to seasteads. By default, governments don’t seem to care very much about things that take place outside of their borders. Governments aren’t very agent-y about considering things that are good for the long term interests of the government.
Seasteads would likely cost existing governments mainly by people attracting revenue-producing citizens away from them and into seasteads, and it will take a long time before that becomes a noticeable problem. Most people who move to seasteads will still retain the citizenship of their home country (at least in the beginning), and for the US that means you must keep paying some taxes. Other than the US, there aren’t a lot of countries that have the ability to shut down a sea colony in blue water. By the time the loss of revenue becomes institutionally noticeable, the seasteads are likely to be too big to easily shut down (i.e. it would require a long term deployment and would involve a lot of news footage of crying families being forced onto transport ships).
What political theories, if any, do you find plausible?
I like the overall meta-political ethos of seasteading. I think any good political philosophy should start with accepting that there are different kinds of people and they prefer different types of governments/social arrangements.You could call this “meta-libertarianism” or “political pluralism.”
I worry about a regression to the historical mean (Malthusian conditions, many people starving at the margins) and existential risk. I think extinction or return to Malthusian conditions (including Robin Hanson’s hardscrabble emulation future) are the default result and I’m pessimistic about the potential of groups like MIRI.
As I see it, the main problem with SI is their over-commitment to small-size seastead designs because of their commitment to the principle of “dynamic geography.” The cost of small-seastead designs (in complexity, coordination problems, additional infrastructure) will be huge.
I don’t think dynamic geography is what makes seasteading valuable as a concept. The ability to create new country projects by itself is the most important aspect. I think large seastead designs (or even land-building) would be more cost-effective and a better overall direction.
I’ve always thought the risk from existing governments isn’t that big. I don’t think governments will consider seasteading to be a challenge until/unless governments are losing significant revenues from people defecting to seasteads. By default, governments don’t seem to care very much about things that take place outside of their borders. Governments aren’t very agent-y about considering things that are good for the long term interests of the government.
Seasteads would likely cost existing governments mainly by people attracting revenue-producing citizens away from them and into seasteads, and it will take a long time before that becomes a noticeable problem. Most people who move to seasteads will still retain the citizenship of their home country (at least in the beginning), and for the US that means you must keep paying some taxes. Other than the US, there aren’t a lot of countries that have the ability to shut down a sea colony in blue water. By the time the loss of revenue becomes institutionally noticeable, the seasteads are likely to be too big to easily shut down (i.e. it would require a long term deployment and would involve a lot of news footage of crying families being forced onto transport ships).
I like the overall meta-political ethos of seasteading. I think any good political philosophy should start with accepting that there are different kinds of people and they prefer different types of governments/social arrangements.You could call this “meta-libertarianism” or “political pluralism.”