Pirate Utopias and New Definitions of Nationhood

[C.C. O'Hanlon]

From an upcoming essay in the Cities On The Edge issue of the Australian journal, Griffith Review

An element of the nascent seasteading movement is the idea of reconfiguring the autonomous island state as an anarchic or, at least, extra-national social, political and economic experiment, somewhat akin to the ‘pirate utopias’ described by American political writer, Peter Lamborn Wilson (alias Hakim Bey), in his 1995 book, Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes: “remote hideouts where ships could be watered and provisioned… some of these islands supported ‘intentional communities’, whole mini-societies living consciously outside the law and determined to keep it up, even if only for a short but merry life”.

In an article, Seasteading: The Second to Last Frontier, published three years ago in The Yale Free Press, Ben Darrington wrote, “Seasteading would provide an easier way for people who do not like their governments to set up new countries at sea where they could make new rules. Mobile ocean settlements would allow these new states to locate in more useful or less contested waters. This means more experimentation and innovation with different social, political, and economic systems and more competition to create efficient government. Certain businesses are perfectly suited to platforms: material industries such as oil and aquaculture can be self-governed and tax-free, and service industries such as casinos, offshore banking, and data havens avoid some of the existing domestic problems with vice laws, copyright restrictions, and government intrusion or revenue-seeking. Just as pariah individuals and groups seek the freedom of the frontier, pariah industries can ply their trade there, taking the benefits as well as the consequences upon themselves.”

[Gary F. Moraco]

If that idea goes as well as urban sprawl did I'll bid the ocean's a farewell now.

[C.C. O'Hanlon]

I totally agree. If you read the piece, you'll find that there are two streams to sea-steading: the traditional, independent seafarers and the sea-settlers, who propose exactly the sort of 'urban sprawl' on the ocean's surface that we should be VERY wary of – all in the pursuit of a 'micro-nationhood' that offers few real benefits.

[Gary F. Moraco]

There's to this very day humans that throw crap out the window.Imagine what the oceans will look like.Everything is a landfill to some people.Maybe totally related...or not,earlier tonight I'm listening to a discussion on the ethics of Nano technology.One person I could listen to.Then I started calling them names.Yes I yell at the television.These brainiacs cant figure out what their doing wrong yet.Just yesterday I'm listening to NPR aka NATIONAL PROPAGANDA RADIO and some "educated"Phd'd individual"says he did a experiment with fruit flies and "discovered"that the smart ones die earlier.So his conclusion is we should all stay stupid essentially.Like I said somewhere around here the movie Idiocracy says it all.At some point I should stop talking in paradoxes but until alcoholics anonymous tells me otherwise I have to live in fear of reprisals from the masters of the booze hounds.Just kiddin.It seems to be one extreme or the other with new technology.If someone doesent come to there senses sooner better than later we will have all our favorite sci-fi dystopian nightmares on our door step.Like the Indigenous Peoples of Planet earth.If you think this is redundant try listening to "the candidates' Let me get my space together tonight so I'm not just jumping all the time.You could follow me if your updated on all the latest slock the media is feeding the masses.So this one guy talking about Nano Technology ethics is playing paranoid games and decides to throw childish nonsense in the conversation by saying "we can discuss Russian novels at another time"or something like that.I'm thinkin another know nothing punkass is getting his way.I would love to debate these dumbasses and show them what thinking looks like.But Bill Maher has to eat so I'll let him make a joke of it and let the know nothings go free again.Is anyone gonna debate me?

[Kevin]

I'm in agreement with the trend of this discussion. I've checked out that group's newer website (seasteading.org), hoping to find there a dose of radical visionary idealism like Bucky Fuller's or that of Bruce Eisner's Island group (island.org), but was sorely disappointed. As currently conceived by these enthusiasts, I think seasteading will turn out to be a form of territorial conquest resulting in the creation of uptight bourgeois floating suburbs essentially no different socially from those on land, accompanied by claims of private property involving large swathes of oceanic territory which currently is open and free to all who care to sail there. That doesn't seem to me like a movement in the direction of freedom.

Given the burgeoning global population, I think people will eventually move onto the ocean. But I'm not in a hurry for that to happen, as it will tend to encourage a heavier population load on earth's carrying capacity, and especially not if that's the model. I'd like to see a desirable alternative to global corporatism, not just another kind of real estate operation that replaces land grabs with sea grabs.