Seasteading: Future Law and Sea Martyrs
Seasteading: Future Law and Sea Martyrs
I was talking to seasteading enthusiasts about legal innovations on ocean platforms when something terrible happened.
The Seasteading Institute (TSI) and I go way back. Indeed, I’m proud to know its brilliant president, Joe Quirk, who has been unrelenting in keeping the vision alive—that is, of building cities upon the sea.
TSI helped us promote the Constitution of Consent contest and was keenly interested in the outcome. So, they invited me to share our purpose and experience with the contest.
Here, you’ll find my talk with TSI’s development director, Carly Rose Jackson.
Hey Joe
But as we spoke, I wondered: Where is Joe?
Joe Quirk had planned to tag team this episode with Carly Rose, but he wrote to say he had to deal with an emergency.
Turns out the emergency had been this:
Samuele Landi lived in international waters for over a year. A storm ended his seastead experiment and caused three deaths. What does this mean for seasteading?
The man who had been living on a secret seastead for 13 months died in a storm off the coast of Dubai along with two employees on February 2, 2024, exactly five years to the day after XLII, the first seastead, was established off the coast of Thailand.
We’re still waiting for DNA analysis to confirm who is among the dead.
What does this mean for the future of seasteading?
Read Joe Quirk’s important message, which is not only an incredible story but also an object lesson of the need for safety on the sea.
A Harsh Master
I have written elsewhere that seasteading functions as an important symbol.
Seasteading as Symbolism
But for the men and women who are working on making this a reality, the sea can be a harsh master.
The future of seasteading, therefore, will not be created by intellectuals happy to wile away the hours in Abstractionland. We can only provide some inspiration. It will be created by real people willing to dream big, take chances, and risk succumbing to real dangers, as Samuele Landi, Abdul Khan, and Javed Khan apparently did.
RIP
A team is making a documentary that tells the story of Landi’s adventures up to the point of his death. You can support it here.