Floating Cities Could Be A Reality Within Decades (VIDEO)

It's hard to imagine, but it's not just a pipe dream. In fact, a think-tank out of California believes we could have thriving floating societies on the world's oceans within a few decades.

The nonprofit Seasteading Institute hopes these "seasteads," or independent, floating cities, are the key to creating havens of social happiness by experimenting with innovative forms of government.

Naturally, the idea appeals to those who embrace the libertarian philosophy. The unclaimed, ungoverned territory would serve as an opportunity to test out the 'free state' vision of low taxes, low regulation and a free market. PayPal Founder Peter Thiel, a prominent libertarian and billionaire entreprenuer, has donated millions to the institute to help them chase the abitious goal.

It's not hard to understand the temptation to open up our oceans, which make up 70 percent of the Earth's surface, for the chance to create a fresh start for society. But can it even work?

If you ask anyone at Seasteading, the answer is yes. In some ways, we're already doing it; head engineer George Petrie explains the design for the proposed floating cities is largely based on technology that already exists. The cities are modeled after offshore oil platforms, which can accommodate hundreds of people and are built to stay stable in rough seas. Petrie says that even in a storm, the platform would be steady enough that "one would hardly know that they are on a floating body." The cities would be powered by solar and wind energy, available in abundance out at sea.

Another model is to design the cities' functionality similar to a gigantic cruise ship or ocean liner. About 12 miles off the California coast, Thiel is helping to fund a test-run of a seastead in this style, called Blueseed. Blueseed is essentially a floating startup incubator, just a 30 minute boat ride from Silicon Valley. Set in international waters, the city would by able to bypass U.S. immigration laws, and by not requiring a Visa, attract top engineers from around the world to help boost the economy through innovation. This type of business incentive may be the first step to making the futuristic vision a reality, even within our lifetime.

Comments

[carloarnone]

03:48 PM on 02/08/2012

Why not just build cities on the two giant trash continents in the Pacific?

[Protocolor]

08:24 PM on 02/08/2012

As nasty and horrifying as they are, you can't actually walk on them!

[johnmorgan]

03:19 PM on 02/08/2012

How would they handle tsunamis? What about pirates? Life would get very boring in a small city on the ocean.

[Protocolor]

08:32 PM on 02/08/2012

Tsunamis in mid-ocean are benign and sometimes even hard to detect for floating structures like boats or... whatever.

Pirates? That's what treaties with places that like to spend lots of money on navies are for. Furthermore, being positioned mid-ocean puts you out of the reach of most traditional pirates.

Life is pretty boring in any small city. You need transportation infrastructure to link you to other small cities to keep things spiced up.

These are all non-issues. This could work if they can build these cities affordably enough.

[monicaevolving]

08:51 AM on 02/08/2012

It would be too boring for people with extreme ideologies. I'm sure certain of these island societies wouldn't be content living peacefully among island societies with differing ideologies. Then...island warfare.

[Protocolor]

08:49 PM on 02/08/2012

Lol! Only if those ideologies are centered on telling other people how to live their lives! Radical conservative ideologies would have problems because they would be all worked up over other cities allowing abortion or gay marriage or group marriage or kitty porn or drugs. Let's not even try to imagine how radical conservatives would react to the existence of atheist cities. Radical liberal cities, with their radical live and let live ideologies, would have to stay vigilant against surprise attacks from radical conservative cities trying to "Protect the sanctity of marriage!" or "Defend the unborn!"

The only thing I can imagine a radical liberal city going on the warpath over would be if a neighboring radical conservative city were dumping nasty pollutants into the water that were influencing the environment at the radical liberal city. I'd agree with that being a nukable offense, though.

[David LS]

01:17 AM on 02/08/2012

It might end up as a "Tidal Wave of failure!

[Dr MedChem]

09:18 PM on 02/07/2012

Will never be successful.. One word: Pirates.

[JScott]

10:24 PM on 02/07/2012

And storm swells

[Protocolor]

08:51 PM on 02/08/2012

It takes one heck of a storm to budge an oil platform, and these will be an order of magnitude bigger.

[Protocolor]

08:50 PM on 02/08/2012

Treaties.

[captainindustry]

04:32 PM on 02/07/2012

it's a simple solution. eliminate 75% of the world's population.

[captainindustry]

04:29 PM on 02/07/2012

A floating city?

What could possibly go wrong.

Maybe we should put our nuclear reactors on floating cities.

[DXM]

01:31 PM on 02/07/2012

"Seasteading presdient Michael Keenan predicts the floating societies could be fully functional within just a few decades."

Really? Well, I'm still waiting for the flying car, the mini-nuclear reactor to power my house, my vacation on the Moon, a robot to do all my chores around the house, a fusion reactor that only needed sea water and so on that we were promised 50 years ago. While a floating city is thought to be possible, so were all these other things (and many more) that never came to be.

[johnmorgan]

03:20 PM on 02/08/2012

Yeah, where's my jetpack?

[jonoruf]

11:36 AM on 02/07/2012

I visited a man named Richard Sowa in Isla Mujeres Mexico, who had built his home floating on water. He built it all from recycled/reused materials, and it was really interesting. His dream was to have floating cities or communities that could harness energy from the waves of the ocean....

[JScott]

10:25 PM on 02/07/2012

Yup and there's folks living on houseboats as well, not so radical tho.

[MrOnePercent2012]

11:27 AM on 02/07/2012

Could I live in a place that is free of progressives?
I'd be interested in that.

[Arthur P]

02:39 PM on 02/07/2012

Could I live in a world where all the closed minded people live on floating islands in the middle of the ocean so the rest of us can make the necessary changes? I'd be interested in that. It sounds like we might be able to work something out that would make everyone happy.

[Jim NLN]

04:48 PM on 02/07/2012

Have you checked out Somalia yet?

[MrOnePercent2012]

10:36 AM on 02/08/2012

Too many progressives there already.

[djekizian]

10:20 AM on 02/07/2012

This seasteads idea reminds me of the pipe dreams in the 1950's like by the turn of the century, we would be flying airplanes instead of driving cars to work.

[Jim Milks]

09:17 AM on 02/07/2012

I can see how such cities would be appealing to libertarians. Don't like government? Just float the city out of the territorial boundaries of any country and let the city become a law unto itself. Like libertarians, I'd be very interested in seeing how a society with extremely limited government functioned. Would any libertarians here like to expound on how such a society would function?

[MrOnePercent2012]

11:30 AM on 02/07/2012

You do your own thing and you pay your own way. Government keeps the peace and coordinates getting food,etc to the floating cities. It could work. I want to live in a city that has certain IQ standards for its citizens. We know what happens when the dummies get involved.

[DXM]

01:36 PM on 02/07/2012

Half of all children born have below average IQs (by definition). What would happen to these "sub-standard" children born on this floating utopia? What person in this limited-government Eden will make the determination of who stays and who goes?

[JScott]

10:27 PM on 02/07/2012

Yup would the be very selective of visitors, 'yeah we can let anyone aboard that might have slightly different ideas can we'.

[flossophy]

08:56 AM on 02/07/2012

As America continues to decline... who's going to provide security for the seaways?

[MrOnePercent2012]

11:30 AM on 02/07/2012

Private companies.

[vierge99]

12:41 PM on 02/07/2012

Individuals.

[j mart90]

08:28 AM on 02/07/2012

Peak Oil has already hit. This is imposable without cheap energy.

[flossophy]

08:57 AM on 02/07/2012

Peak Government has already h!t. A growing economy is impossible without rolling it back.

[Hal May]

05:47 PM on 02/07/2012

You obviously forgot about mid twentieth century American history and politics during a period in which we thrived economically.

[Protocolor]

09:00 PM on 02/08/2012

Wow. That's stupid.

[Protocolor]

09:02 PM on 02/08/2012

Oceans are big solar collectors. There is plenty of energy stored in oceans. These sorts of cities could easily be completely petroleum-independent, save for what they would need for industrial chemical feed-stocks.

[willowtree3]

07:30 AM on 02/07/2012

If (and it's a big if) they figure out how to turn sea water into drinking water in a cost
effective manner-maybe.
Water is the number one issue of the future. Without it, life won't continue.

[Protocolor]

09:09 PM on 02/08/2012

Expensive way: Solar Power Satellite fires a laser at a boiler floating nearby, distilling sea water using otherwise traditional methods. Note that a single large SPS could power dozens of such boilers in widely dispersed locations.

Cheap way: Conventional reverse-osmosis filters powered by wave action, with wind, solar, and ocean thermal backup... If these island cities can afford to buy transuranics, they can even use atomic power plants to provide the go juice.

[Protocolor]

09:16 PM on 02/08/2012

Another point: If these floating cities can afford to build molten salt reactors, they can offer a "service" to traditional countries of disposing of their nuclear waste, while generating all the energy that they need from it.

Just an idea...