Seasteading musings, reposted with correct date :P

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” --Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Yesterday, the First Annual Seasteading Conference took place (ILTC). I couldn't quite convince myself not to harbour some scepticism, but it turned out to be remarkably civilized and sensible.

I was ecstatic[0] when I first heard, some months back, that TSI had secured real financing for developing the idea, but increasingly nonplussed as the plan to focus on developing a spar-buoy naval design emerged. I've long hewed to the view that floating is largely a solved problem, and the interesting parts of this project are social and economic.

There is, however, a case to be made (although I don't know that TSI would choose to make it) that you need symbols to build belief, and the amount of press that this garnered that focussed to a large extent on the planned physical structure was impressive. I like to imagine that there's some impressionable teenagers out there taking all of this in with wide eyes, and that they'll have matured into useful human beings while retaining a kernel of idealism by the time I'm ready to put them to work.

Also, if Ephemerisle goes ahead, I will be there. This is, after all, why I took sailing school. The discussion of it at the conference, however, was diametrically opposed to the quote opening this post, so I'm not too optimistic just yet (not that I helped matters by getting engrossed in how to lay out a stable 2d lattice of ships tethered to each other, tensioned by a small number of them running their engines continually).

[0] Possibly a slight overstatement, but not as much as you might think.