I became interested in Seasteading in 2018. I don’t remember how I came across the concept, but at the time I was doing extensive online research about alternative modes of large-scale societal organization. What really got me excited was the idea of self-organizing bands of people experimenting with novel forms of governance and small-scale economics. “Don’t argue; build!” was the rallying cry for some time (which, non-coincidentally, is pretty much the same as the web3 movement). New forms of governance and economics will be required to get humanity through the end of the century intact, and what better place to experiment than floating structures unencumbered with existing rules and regulations.

In 2020 I started putting quite a bit of my free time into web3 projects, and during that time Seasteading suffered from one blow after another. They raised a bunch of money and spawned a for-profit arm, Blue Frontiers, to accelerate development of “the first seastead” in the warm waters of French Polynesia as part of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ). That project had cold water doused on it (effectively torpedoing the entire venture) in a matter of months when the then-President caved to electoral political pressure from an opposing candidate. Caught in the crossfire? Idea too soon? Who knows.. Then, in 2020, as the cruise ship industry was badly floundering due to COVID travel restrictions, a group of Seasteading-aligned Bitcoin maximalists purchased their own cruise ship for a pittance with the dream of retrofitting it into a crypto-loving libertarian enclave.

The narratives for both Bitcoin and seasteading have always been too small for me — Freedom from banks! Freedom from oppressive governments! And the mainstream media pigeonholed it similarly. I suppose that will happen when the movement’s founders are two of the most visible poster children for libertarianism. It’s just too easy. But the opportunities for both crypto AND seasteading are potentially nothing short of the future of humanity! Crypto, in Ethereum, as a mercurial testbed for digital identity and eventual subsumption of the nation-state, and seasteading, as the physical substrate for thousands of experiments in novel self-governance. Combined, with the potential to build societies so much better than the most livable current nation-states that they become irresistible.

Back to 2018. I bought Joe Quirk’s (the long-time executive director of the Seasteading Institute) book soon afterwards and read it rapidly. I loved it. Several chapters told the stories of local entrepreneurs building not just sustainable, but regenerative, methods of aquaculture and kelp forests. Underwater concrete that could be grown from the latent minerals in ocean water, a marvelous example of biomimicry. From a materials perspective, the endgame for a truly sustainable materials economy is obviously one where every physical object on Earth grows and decays in harmony with the natural world around it. These materials would require innovations in chemistry that we can only dream of now. A complete reimagining of construction at the level of atoms, not wood or steel.

Perhaps seasteading has finally developed through its adolescence and landed upon a more pragmatic path to realization. It seems to be headed that way. Unfortunately, the term itself is probably doomed. It was long ago cancelled by the mainstream media, branded as an ambitious land grab to set up tax havens for rich libertarians. I predict an analogous movement to evolve out of the web3 community (if it hasn’t already) in the next few years as people grow weary of operating solely in the virtual world. I eagerly await this rebranding and will be excited to participate in its natural evolution, at land OR at sea!