Seasteading as Symbolism
If a Man on the Moon is a Symbol of Technocracy, Seasteading is Self-organization.
More decadences, more burgeonings have followed one another in Clarice. Populations and customs have changed several times; the name, the site, and the objects hardest to break remain. Each new Clarice, compact as a living body with its smells and its breath, shows off, like a gem, what remains of the ancient Clarices, fragmentary and dead.
- Italo Calvino, from Invisible Cities
In a 1961 speech, President John F. Kennedy captured the imagination of a people. He asked the world to see a man on the moon. But back then, such could only be a feat of technocracy—the idea that officials can work wonders if they have enough experts and largesse. And they did it.
Still, the moon landing was peak technocracy—pushing the limits of what can be achieved in terms of complication, not of complexity. Prior to that, though, Kennedy had put a symbol in people’s minds. The image of Neal Armstrong making lunar footprints merely reinforced it. All of this had of course been carried out right in the middle of an international pissing contest with the Soviets.
Americans were primed.
But in the twenty-first century, it became clear we needed a new symbol. Technocracy had peaked in 1969, despite the protestations of academic philosopher-kings, “experts,” and bureaucrats with nostalgia for NASA. Indeed, in 2008-09, expertise and dirigisme failed. And it continues to fail. So, if the moon landing had been the symbol of what’s possible through technocracy, human freedom and self-organization needed a symbol of their own.
Enter Seasteading
Consider this lengthy excerpt from After Collapse:
Whitecaps and seafoam greet us in the foreground. As we approach, silver shafts rise over blue-green waters creating an impossible cityscape. Skyscrapers cast a distorted mirror image of themselves on the water. Their spires glint in the sun but appear to terminate in great hexagonal platforms down around their bases. It's as if Poseidon plucked structures from Dubai or Singapore and set them down upon the platforms arranged in logical, interlocking patterns.
These configurations reveal the city's contingent nature, as each great hexagon can float away or be broken down into smaller units. The power of exit is built into the city. What holds the floating city together, then, are network effects. Value is drawn to value. If not? Here today, gone tomorrow. All one has to do is vote with his boat. This city is an evolving ecosystem, morphing under continuous revisions. As with any city, that which is profitable persists, only now agreements tie everything together.
On the outer rim, glassy fullerenes, clustered like barnacles, collect light for the greenhouses, fish farms, and algae processing facilities they contain. From afar, they float together to mimic the ridge of some coral reef or perhaps fungi and lichen in a primeval forest. People of all races team and bustle in the waterways between structures. One can see grass and trees planted among staggered architectural shelves. These are designed to offer some of what those denizens miss about wherever they came from. And if you look close enough, you can see temples, shrines, and areas of contemplation.
This above doesn’t describe anything in the world. Yet. For me, it’s a means of harnessing symbols to serve a Decentralist’s dream.
Unleash Markets in Governance
The description above is now only a possible world. But the vision of seasteading, that is of floating cities, persists in our imagination. If a man on the moon is the ultimate technocratic vision, a city on the sea is a vision of free, peaceful, self-organizing peoples. Seasteading is an idealized form not merely because it will take technical feats to build a modularized city upon the sea but also because it captures our intuitions about markets in governance.
But markets in governance can happen in a New America, too—from sea to shining sea. Imagine what had been 50 states becoming a new set of jurisdictions. Maybe these jurisdictions are held together by some compact, such as that of the Hanseatic League. Or better: a Constitution of Consent. This compact would be designed to prevent federal power growing like a cancer on our backs. Perhaps something to instantiate after the coming collapse.
We would establish such a framework to facilitate interstate trade, passage, and dispute resolution. Otherwise, each of the fifty states would have its own peculiar laws and norms. Within each state, each county would have its own laws and norms, too, much as they do now, only fully self-determined and secure.
Now, you might not like what each of these jurisdictions chooses regarding its rules and norms. But at least you would not have a monolithic blur of preferences determined arbitrarily by political winds and special interests bidding on the attentions of the powerful. You would have a menu of governance options. Seasteading symbolizes just this kind of pluralism, competition, and relative freedom. It’s about voting with your boat.
Note: We’re delighted to have The Seasteading Institute as part of our Constitution of Consent Consortium. Our appreciation goes to Joe Quirk and Carly Rose Jackson for their support and for working doggedly to make seasteading more than a symbol.